The Skinner Co. Network
FC51 - Short People
Prepare yourself for Randy Newman, renting Hitler's castle, poor gang name choices, chess boxing, and Walmart Mike.
Read the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Flashcast 51, brought to you by David.BlueWent. Prepare yourself for Randy Newman, renting Hitler's Castle, poor gang name choices, chest boxing and Walmart mic. (upbeat music) Tonight we have myself, Oopopadex, visuals and vocals, Jessica May, - Hello. - Production and Polish, and JRD. - Hello. - Words and woe. - Okay, so Kodo's was mentioning the story on Twitter, which I thought was too hilarious. It's exactly the sort of thing I grind up to make Mulligan Burgers out of. Have you guys heard about the wave gang and the hood stars? - No. - Sorry, that is hood stars with the Z to all one word. - That sounds like it would be like guest starring on Jim or something, or a gang. - Okay, it's a Calgary Herald Peace, but it's out of New York. Police are investigating three murders and have arrested 43 feuding New York gang members. Now that's a lot of gang members, right? 43 people, how do you get that sort of case together? You get some extensive research, get guys in vans with listening devices, right? All that kind of business, no. They've been investigating the gang members Twitter and Facebook accounts. And they've been watching the bragging status updates that the gang's have been making. - Well, if you're gonna be that dumb about it. - 25 accused members of the wave gang, 18 accused members of the rival hood stars, have been terrorizing streets in Brooklyn with shootouts that led to the killing of three people and winning of several others. The gang members ages 15 to 21 bragged about the shootings on the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. - Who does that? - Oh, those guys. - By linking their postings and postings to act in places and other crimes, these officers are able to build their case. - Geez. - Well, good for them. - Yeah, well, yeah, there you go. I mean, if you're gonna be stupid, you don't have to put it on Facebook or something. Not too they are though, right? - Right. - Well, I guess. I guess why else do it, right? - Apparently the wave gang, okay, now these are ridiculous gang names. These are just terrible hood stars and wave gang. - That's what I'm telling you. It sounds like a gem band name or something. - Oh, geez. - Yeah. - Or the backup singers. - These guys would get-- - And they're gonna get you. - They're gonna ask us hand it to them by the misfits anyway. - For real. - And they're gonna get ya. - The wave gang members often robbed 13 and 14 year old boys by threatening to steal their bikes and electronics, and then they'd use that to intimidate them into joining the gang. - Hard core. - Yeah, that's real hard core. - Mm-hmm. - I worked to get them in there. - I guess that opens up the show for... (upbeat music) ♪ Open my breath ♪ - So, friend of the show, Scott Roche, is running a giveaway of other people's e-books. - I think this week's is the beginner by Blake M. Petit. I don't know, I don't know if you American folk, if you always-- - If you say it like the French do. - The Colbert rapport. - Filmmaker, Curtis Dupree, seems to have everything he could want on the set of his second film, but people begin to vanish from the set and from the memories of everybody except Curtis. A strange visitor is eliminating those close to the undirector, and there's no telling who is next. Curtis Dupree will have to look into himself and discover what it means to be the beginner. - Dun-dun. - So, you can find out about it over at scottroash.com. Scott with 2T's rosh-r-o-c-h-e.com. And I'll also, of course, have a link in the show notes. - Go check it out. - Oh wait, what's that Randy Newman? You wanna sing us a song? - I believe he does. - Is it about learning and friendship and caring? - Oh, I love Randy Newman's songs. (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ Short people got no reason ♪ ♪ Short people got no reason ♪ ♪ Short people got no reason to hear ♪ ♪ They got little hands, little eyes ♪ ♪ They walk around to make me laugh ♪ ♪ They got little noses, tiny blue teeth ♪ ♪ They wear black foam shoes on the master feet ♪ ♪ Well, I don't want no sort of people ♪ ♪ Don't want no sort of people ♪ ♪ Don't want no sort of people around you ♪ - Look at the nice, friendly part coming up here. - Whoa, there, Randy Newman. Let's simmer down on the short people, I mean. - That's not very nice to a short people. - We're trying to do something nice for folks and you're hating on Peter Dinklage over here. - Yeah, he just won a Golden Globe, dude. - Oh, well speaking of book giveaways, we are also doing a book giveaway. We've got one left to give. Our chief pitchfork officer, David-- - So, yeah. - Who we love deeply, but cannot pronounce his name. He knows that, that's fine. He won the Hunger Games. - Who's in Collins? One of two, hurrah. - Hopefully when he's done he won't be so hungry anymore. - So we are not going to give away the answer here. If you can name the episode that Jeffrey Lynch, our own Jeffrey Lynch appeared in as obviously not himself, he's sort of a veiled representation of himself. Then you can win a copy of the Hunger Games. There's actually a very easy way of winning this competition and I felt a little odd. I wasn't sure who would figure it out, but it is feasible that if you type Jeff into the search at flashpulp.com, that this may be a very easy competition to win. (laughter) - So the first to do so? - Yeah, we'll see who reaches the inbox next. - Speaking of the mob and suggestions of literature, Rich mentioned last time he called in. - Rich the Time Traveler? - Yes, about the book series, My Sister the Vampire, right? - He's a vampire, my sister, he's a vampire. - My sister is a vampire. - Yeah. - And after we recorded the episode and listened to Rich's segment, I went in to see Miss Nine and she was reading the very book series. She said that she had a few from the same series and a few others, but yeah. So it was really actually quite exciting. I told her the whole story about what happened during the show and everything, so. - And she thought that was fantastic. - Yeah, yeah, she was thrilled that people were suggesting the book and she already had it. She felt pretty hardcore, actually. - It's fun that there's an outlet for nine year olds who are interested in vampires now, 'cause when I was a kid that wasn't really the case. Like I was into horror movies and I would, I think I mentioned before that my school library had a sort of set of almost like encyclopedias about the universal monster movies. - Mm-hmm, do you remember the show The Lillows Vampire? - Oh yeah, even when I was nine, though the monsters and items like that felt a little hokey. Actually, I almost loved the monsters now more, more now that I'm older than I did when I was a kid, but yeah, there were little things. There was like Duckula and. - I loved Duckula. - But it wasn't. - This sort of flavor really. - Yeah, and it wasn't also, it was not so much in book form. Like you might find a cartoon that was like spoofing on that sort of thing, but not really approaching it. - Mm-hmm, like seriously? - Yeah, it's kind of hard to explain. It's not like these books are uber into vampire culture or anything. It's not really how the books are presented, but at least with some seriousness, grab a pass to it. - And so. - Thanks, Rich. - Yeah, thanks, that was really cool. - She's apparently already on that. - Maybe he delivered it without us being aware. - Yeah, yeah, he is from the viewed. - Boo. - Actually, not only the future, but also Beaufort, or Beaufort, I'm sure he'd correct me. - Beaufort. - Beaufort. - Beaufort. - I don't know. - Andy, Beaufort. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Beaufort. - He was mentioning that they have a pirate invasion at hand every summer. - Oh, cool. - It's in a recreation of pirates coming ashore. - That is awesome. - Yeah, I thought it sounded-- - I was gonna be all like, so does Somalia. - It'd be so cool. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, anyways. - It's too soon. - That would be awesome, 'cause if everybody did the event every single year and they're like, oh, you're a jerko, what I got this time. - They're just a part of their garb, yeah. - I feel like there's probably some sort of division at the pirate invasion where there's the people who've been doing it for a long time and they're very accurate about their costumes and then there's the people who came after the-- - Like, how dare they? That's totally not a good time. - Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Yeah, as soon as that film came out, they're like, aw. - Hangers on, yeah. Joining the bandwagon. - Yeah. - This is brewing, man. - Yep. - It's not how it was. In my day, it was all about accuracy. It was about history. - Look at those pants. Those were obviously early 1920s. - And they didn't even have that kind of parrot in the Caribbean. - Yeah. - And half of them are like, drunk, like Jack Sparrow. - Yeah. - Well, I bet you they have fun too, though. - I bet you there's one really annoying guy who just won't give up on his poor imitation and-- - Or the drunkard who just came. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - He's just like that all year, though. - Yeah. He just goes around to pirate events so he can be drunk and slushy like Jack Sparrow. - Good times. Good times. - Yeah. - Well, I was gonna say, remember the random pirate in our town parade? It was like, was it the fall parade or was it the same? It wasn't the Santa Claus parade. - Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of odd. It was very standard parade road and then also-- - And they say he's always there. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Either ship on wheels. - Listen, he is a fellow who wants to make it down to the pirate invasion, but he can't do so. He's a closet pirate. - And he's just doing what he can. - And he had a ship. He had a ship. - Into balloons. - Yeah. - I'm glad to see that sort of open pirating in the community. - Yeah. - I thought it was really cool. - And then there was a picture. It was from like 2007. It was Amies and she was just standing there randomly and then behind her. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved that picture. - I'm offing a door. - If you're into a much more awkward sort of recreation, I have a new story here that Adolf Hitler is Wolflayer. - Okay. - And Poland, his massive castle vacation retreat thing is actually now up for rent. - Oh, weird. - So if you were to-- - I want to see it. I bet you if it is up for rent, somebody might be a little more open to showing it off. - You can find a lot of pictures online. It is interesting. It is certainly everything you think of when you think of like a Nazi castle stronghold. - Yeah, well. - It is, I assume it's where Castle Wolfenstein is based about, right? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, that seems to make sense, yeah. Yeah, I totally have to Google it later 'cause it would be really interesting to see. I can't help but think of the castle scene in Germany in Indiana Jones in the last crusade. - Oh, yeah. - I loved that part. - Yeah. - Oh, Nazis. - I think part of what makes Crystal Skull not work that well is that the Nazis are unambiguously evil whereas the communists are definitely not likable but I don't know that we live in an age, people can still be convinced that Nazis are totally horrible but they can't necessarily be convinced that Russians who are at this point just, you know, relatively poor folks trying to make it along in the world. - Yeah. - We don't have that sort of hate on anymore. There's no, you know, Holocaust really to shore up the hate of communism. - Yeah, and they try to be all like, oh, it was of the times and everything but. - Well, I think we just don't have that same sentiment. - I think because you don't have, there's a real simplicity in being able to just go, all Nazis are evil. Whereas with communism, it's a little bit more complex and you almost need a more complex character to reflect it and Indiana Jones isn't that character. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? Like I love Indy, no offense to Indy but he's not. - He has his place. - Yeah. Anyway, that was an odd little sidetrack. So I was reading in this, I do a lot of research for the various threads and one of the ones that brings me to the most interesting stories is often Mulligan. I've been reading this private investigator blog slash magazine and they posted up an article recently. I don't actually know how long it's been up. Apparently there's some software out now that can duplicate keys from photographs. - Oh, that doesn't sound very good. - No, you know what's even better yet? What I've discovered while doing this research is that people can really experts I should say. I shouldn't just say some guy. Experts can see pictures of keys and actually like hand tool keys to open the locks. And what all these scientists are doing at this point is automating the process because apparently it's a fairly simple quote unquote simple thing to be able to do. - Well, when it's your craft, when it's just metal, etched metal going in a hole, right? - And the article actually makes a really good point that a lot, not a lot, but if you go on Flickr you can find people's keys 'cause they don't realize that it's something that they shouldn't be displaying. So you can find like photos of keys and if you're an expert at this sort of thing, be a great grifting job to just wander Flickr going, okay, who in my city has a picture of their key on the-- - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Yikes. Have you ever made keys before? - No. - It's a fairly simple process. - Oh, I guess is your rental agent job? - Yeah, I used to have to make keys in the back whenever we'd need an extra or something. And it's easy, it's just a piece of metal that you grind on something. - Yeah. - And if you can figure out the pattern, there's no reason why, like a key machine just follows the key, like it-- - Just follows the ridges or whatever. - Yeah, exactly. So if you can make a mock up of it, and you can make a key. - Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder if that's the next thing we're gonna see a big like move forward in away from analog locking systems and into some sort of universal digital-- - Yeah. - Cards? I don't know, I'm betting you end up with a pin for your house. Something like that. - Yeah, well don't they have that on cars now? - Here's the thing, the nice thing about a key is that except for the fact that you can apparently hand tool them from a photo, you can control how many people can enter your house, right? Like if you have four keys and you know where all four keys are, then you know only four people can enter your home. But if you have a pin, then that's a little weird, right? 'Cause anybody who has the pin can enter. - Retina scanning, that's the only answer. - I've heard retina scanning isn't all that reliable. - What about a code, if you had like a code to get in your house? - Well that's what I'm saying-- - And then you could program what codes could get in. - Well that's what I'm saying about the pin, right? - Yeah. - Like it would just be. But the thing is if little Billy accidentally gives the pin to his you know, chum Tommy because he wants him to run over and grab his Yu-Gi-Oh cards. - And then Tommy mentions it to his big brother, Tony, and you know, Tony's got to have it if he-- - And then Tony comes just doing your TVs. - Yeah, well, Tommy should know better. Tommy's parents should teach him better. - Yeah, but I'm saying-- - Tommy's parents are gonna have their house broken, too. - Anyway, yeah. - Be the same as if you were like, "Hey, here's my keys, go to the house for me, ain't it?" - I usually turn to like what's more available to quote unquote the industry standard and business or whatever 'cause that's usually how this trickle down works right and people can afford it, get it first. But I don't know if they've got that system. Like is it keys? Keys seem very like 1970s hotel. I guess maybe a little later than '70s, but-- - Finger scanning, hand scans. - Vocal recognition, however reliable is that? - Yeah. - It'll probably be some combination. - Body scanning. - Facial recognition vocal. - I didn't understand that with the Kinect when it shows, I didn't realize that you'd actually see yourself on the Kinect when you were-- - Really? - When it's after you? - Yeah, and I was about like, I was doing the workout or whatever, but I was like, I was wearing like floppy pants and my giant true blood shirt. I looked horrific and I'm like, "Oh my God." - Is this an embarrassment? - Yes, I don't know what is. It was horrific, tomorrow I'm dressing way better for the Kinect. (laughing) So body scans, not so much about it. - Yeah. - That's like saying, I'm gonna dress nice in the mirror. (laughing) So you know what, I'm gonna know that now when I use it. - Yeah, I'm gonna dress nice. - Just classy. Stay classy. - Speaking of staying classy, actually, I just caught this article today, but it's been up since the 12th. Apparently here in the Canadian, in Manitoba specifically, they're going to be opening some movie theaters that are licensed for the liquor. - Ooh. - Now I know in some places in the world, this is a very standard practice, but here in the Canada and I believe in the States. It's a very, unless you're out like the Alamo draft house. - Can you wear it, can you not buy alcohol on the States at like a convenience store? - Yeah, but they're serving it in the movie theater. Like go in, get a beer, sit down, watch your film in a cinema format. - Yeah, I was just wondering if we, the same regulation. - Oh yeah, in the States, in the States, you can just go into a convenience store and buy some liquor. - Our government sells us liquor. - Just like that. - Yeah, we have special liquor stores. - Yup. - Liquor depots. - And the government gets a huge portion of tax for it. - Mm-hmm. - Anyways, yes, okay, so in Canada, we're gonna have license in Manitoba. - Any Manitoba license movie theaters? - Huh, that's interesting. - The longer movie double features, you can have drunks at the end of it. - Yeah. - Hopefully everyone behaves like they generally do. - I don't know, I'm actually a big fan of allowing people to behave like adults in public interest. - Yeah, no, I'm completely, I think I don't ruin it for us Manitoba. - Yeah, don't screw this up, we've gotta get it to Ontario. - Like there's always gonna be some guy to ruin it, but that doesn't mean like the average joke. - He's got greater prey everybody. - Exactly. - Yeah. - Don't talk bad about Joe. - Oh, yeah, no Joe's not the average Joe. He's an above average Joe. - Yeah. - He's the best Joe from Colorado. - Ka-ka-ka-ha, wow. Those are my Colorado's ends. - Yeah, no, I like 'em, thanks. - I'm keeping 'em. - Speaking of George Lucas, did you guys hear his news about his retirement? - What is that even mean? - Or his sort of semi-retirement. He's not gonna make any more commercial films, he's going into the art house, apparently. He's going back to his THX days. - Huh, those were long ago. - Yeah, I'm interested to see what's gonna happen because frankly, if there's anyone fault in the Star Wars prequels and red tails, if there is one, I haven't actually seen red tails yet, is that it almost feels too commercial. Well, certainly the prequels felt too commercial. Like they were trying to achieve this sweet spot of kitty love. They weren't really aiming to just be quality films. - Yeah. - Yeah. So it'd be interesting, what does George Lucas go do in art film about? The one window he left himself was Indy V though. So he's comfortable trashing that series a little further and then-- - Really, I thought he had said he was done with the Indies. - My. - After such a terrible, terrible Indy. - Well, maybe that's why. - Word on the street is that he's going for it. So we'll see. - Wow. Good luck to you. I wonder where that'll go. - Oh. - Yeah, I don't even-- - In the shit, right? - Down, down, down, down, down, down. Sure luck out of third season. Excellent. - Oh, yeah, I'm really excited about that. - Yeah, apparently it was commissioned when the second season was, but they wanted to leave some suspense in the air zone, whatever. - Wait, can I just ask you one question about Indy? - Yeah. - Is Harrison Ford on board for that? - I think so, yeah. - I assume he's willing to take the paycheck, yeah? - Okay, all right. - I mean, he did-- - I was a little worried. - You know, he did go-- - Imagine being stuck with Sheila Booth. - Oh, goodness. - Seriously. - Yeah, I hope not. - There, sure. - Oh, they're making a Lone Ranger film. - Ooh. - With Johnny Depp. - Oh, yeah, he's playing Tonto. - Yeah. - I remember that. - I'm not sure how comfortable that was. - That's been planned for a long time. - Yep, I finally, finally began filming. - Oh, wow. - So we'll see what comes with that. - Yeah, I wonder, hmm, Johnny Depp is Tonto. That should be interesting. - I try not to remember. What was the name of that black and white film he did "Dead Men" something? It was a Western as well. And it worked really well. It was one of his really, one of the first films I saw him in where it was more artsy than commercial. - Yeah, I don't know that. - Hmm. It was a 90s film. - 21 Jump Street? - When you finally get enough money in Hollywood to start messing around, it was read about that period for him. Anyway, yeah, it was called 21 Jump Street, but it was a Western. - Yeah. - Speaking of gunfights, you guys hear this story about Fox and Rupert Murdoch. And I've decided that comic books are evil. - What? - They're going back to the 1930s style, they're corrupting our children and... - Oh, give me a break. - Yeah, Rupert Murdoch's mad that there's a sex and then cussing. And then he's showing the car chase in Fox News. - He runs Fox. That dude just has to drop at some point. - Despite the sort of disruptive attitude that Simpson's brought to the television, if they're making money, they don't pull it, you know? But they've got no cash in the comic game, I guess. Or maybe they're mad that other companies that they're rivaled to do. - Wasn't there just like a big hoopla in the news a little while ago involving Rupert Murdoch? And it has due-- - One isn't there. - Yeah, okay, so-- - Why you're tapping? Wait, are you accusing Rupert Murdoch of being like Sluther? - He had to pay out a huge amount of money to a bunch of different people. One, including Jude Law for tapping phones. - So, I mean, why does the guy not just get respectfully bowed out into retirement? Like, he's an embarrassing-- - Because it's a family ring company and he's the head of it. - Jesus. - Yeah, I don't think anyone under him would make that suggestion. - Now, I'm not, you know, I'm not, honestly, and I'm not much a fan, but, and I'm not a fan of the idea of a remake of Citizen Kane, but if you were ever to do such a thing, or even a spirit remake, Citizen Kane, doesn't he seem like the perfect-- - Yeah, who it would be about? - Yeah, maybe he's young and he's still got some love in his heart before he's the Grinch, and I think it's a little older and cranking. - I've never seen Citizen Kane, but I know the-- - Take a spring at Batman. - I know the context of the movie, so yeah, I completely agree. So, I don't know if anybody remembers, last week, we were talking about our Law and Order marathon, and-- - And us continued. - Yeah, and, and Jame, like, totally, totally ruined it for me. - I know, I totally did. - It wasn't really ruined or whatever, but the, I think it was like the very next episode that we watched. It was like, dude, die, oh my gosh. - Max Greavy. - Yes. - And I was, I think it was actually in the process of responding to a comment that Nadi had made on the mom. - Mm-hmm. - And then, J.R.D. was like, "Hey, are you paying attention?" And then, it happened, I was just, "Oh my gosh!" - Yeah, seconds later, he was shocked. - And then we, then I instantly Googled why he left the show, 'cause you, J.R.D., he always told me that he was fired. - Well, I don't, I didn't assume he was fired, I just assumed there was some sort of contract dispute. - So, really, what happened with the actor was-- - He was the dirt. - He, okay, so the show people say that maybe it was a little too rigorous for him. And he said that the show was going in a direction, a more dragnet sort of direction, that he didn't feel like he wanted to go. And he's like, "Oh, I knew it was gonna be a hit, though. "I just, you know, I didn't wanna be a part of it. "I had other things to do, you know. "I had other stuff going on." And he prides himself in the fact that nobody knows who he is. He's like, "Well, that's a good character actor. "Nobody knows your name, but they just." - Yeah, yeah, sure. - But I was doing it. But it was pretty funny, 'cause the opening of the second season, right? He was shot, you never see his face. He declined 'cause they offered if he wanted to come and finish it up, you know, how you're dying scene on the pavement, but he didn't want to, so it was just a guy who fell down and he's still unaccredited. But it was sort of like, "Hey, what's going on?" In like the first few minutes of the episode and then-- - Do-do-do. - He shot. - Dun-dun-dun. - Yeah. - So, yeah. - I think the producers thought he was getting too large and I think he wanted more money or wanted more attention. I think when he originally went, I think when he originally signed up for the show, he thought it was basically gonna be a shitboat him. - I know, that seems like a lot of assumptions, but I didn't know the whole hat and the cigar. - It did get kind of silly, the longer it got in. It was like, what's his name? - Oh, David Cruza. - David Cruza, very Esquir. He would take off a hat or add one or sunglasses or remove it or say something very dramatic, and then it would cut away to some other scene. - But my problem was that with all of these characteristics, he decided his, you know, portrayal was gonna have. He never maintained any of them. Like, one episode, he would have a cigar, and the next episode, he'd be constantly fussing with his fedora, and then the next episode, he's with his sunglasses. - It was the first season, dude, and probably none of that was up to him. I know, I think every decision there was probably up to him. - Really? - Yeah, I doubt they-- - There's a proper-- - I doubt one, the long order script says anything more about the character than the dialogue they deliver on that scene. I don't think there's any sort of-- - I don't think dude decides anything to do with his wardrobe. I totally disagree. - Everyone who agrees with me. Tell Jared you he's wrong. - But we did meet Polly from Goodfellas, Paul Savino. - Mm-hmm, yep. - As the replacement cop. - Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was great. Very gentle way of entering in on the scene. And yeah, he's not pretentious or like Mr. Tough Guy. I find him to be sort of like well-rounded, family guy. He's been around the block. - Yeah, I enjoy it. - Are you saying he gets around? Are you saying he's just-- - You know what, whatever he does in his off hour is a post. It has nothing to do with me. - Polly doesn't go anywhere, people come to Polly. - Yeah, that's right. - Before we head into Swata Bother, I just wanted to mention that Jeff has started doing regular-- - Bothers and bits. - Yeah, yeah, and he's posting it up on iTunes and over at his site, follow us on things.com. - You guys should definitely check it out. He's gonna keep the regular spot here and just put out some bonus content. It's fantastic as always. - Mm-hmm, please subscribe. - Okay, well, let's see what he's got to disturb us with this week. (upbeat music) - Swata Bother. - Hi, mobsters. While recording this segment, I'm wearing a pair of Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones. This helps me to regulate the volume of my voice while recording. As I go about my normal day, however, I usually opt for a pair of small earbuds, you know, the ones that come from Apple, in fact. I like them because they're loose fitting, have adequate sound and leak. About 40% of the sound they're emitting. Why is this leakage a good thing, you may ask? Well, it's because of their inefficiency. I can still hear some of the ambient sounds in the world around me, such as someone approaching conversations and more importantly, street sounds if I'm walking around in town. As it turns out, I should probably be more careful while strolling around in busy city centers. Here's a bit of disturbing news from CNN Health. The number of serious injuries and deaths occurring to pedestrians who were walking with headphones has tripled in seven years in the United States, according to a report published in Injury Prevention. Dr. Richard Lichtenstein and co-authors from the University of Maryland School of Medicine reported 116 crashes involving pedestrians who were wearing headphones between 2004 and 2011. 81 of them resulted in deaths. It started with 16 cases between 2004 and 2005 and rose to 47 by 2010 and 2011. Half of the victims were struck by trains. The other half by cars, buses, trucks, tractor trailers or bicycles. Using headphones while walking isn't really a new phenomena. Considering people used to walk around with portable audio cassette players and compact disc players, the difference is that our electronic gadgets are more prevalent and much more portable than they were in the age of the Walkman said Lichtenstein. A Pew study found that about 75% of teens reported using an MP3 player in 2008. Lichtenstein and the group gathered the injury and death data from National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google News Archives and West Law Campus Research databases. They used a grading system to assess whether the evidence that the victim had been wearing headphones at the time of the incident was strong. The median age of the victims was 21 years old and the majority, 68%, were male. The idea for this study came because Lichtenstein, who chairs the state's child fatality review team, had heard of several incidents in the Baltimore area of serious injuries and even deaths of people wearing headphones. The injuries and deaths of distracted pedestrians have caught the attention of lawmakers around the country. One Chicago lawmaker proposed banning all cell phone use for cyclists. A New York bill was proposed last year that would have banned cell phone or MP3 usage while crossing the street, according to the New York Times. "That's not the most efficient or wisest regulation we should have," said Lichtenstein. "We want people to be thoughtful and conscious. Everyone loves their tunes and enjoying themselves. When you're walking, talking or listening to music, at least be cognizant of the fact that it's a big world out there. You may not be paying attention and people may not be paying attention to you. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's "This Week's Spot." (all laughing) - Nicely done, Jeff, nicely. - Very nice, great, yeah. Be careful out there. - Don't get hit, yes. - Yeah. - We need years more of bothersome stories. So keep listening to your earphones. - You know, I always do tell JRD that he needs to turn his earphones down 'cause you can hear them wherever he is in the house and he has earphones on. I'm like, seriously, seriously, I worry about you and he just smiles at me and slowly puts his earphones back on. Sometimes he does turn it down. - It's 'cause you can't actually hear what you're saying, that's why. - Anyways, yes, don't die out there, people. Not for your fitness, you know? You wanna do your fitness to stay alive longer. That's right. - And if you're listening to fiction, there's lots of dramatic pauses that you can use to identify cars around you. Anyway, thanks a lot, Jeff, really to always. - Yes, very nice. Solid work, sir. - And now I believe we have the return of the New York Minute. (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Barry, and this is your New York Minute. I don't know where you're listening to this, but it's cold in New York. We haven't had any snow this winter, and that's a shame, since the city looks great with a thin coating of snow. Of course, now that I've jinxed it, I'm sure a major snowstorm is hitting the city right now. Sorry, New York, my bad. New York is a long history with the winter, and before you ask yourself what kind of a stupid statement that is, bear in mind that New York is where the last ice age ended. Yeah, the last glacier died here. Various glaciers have covered the area of Central Park in the past, with the most recent being the Wisconsin glacier, which receded about 12,000 years ago. I will now quote liberally from the New York Times. Hmm, New York Times and liberal in the same sentence. Never heard that before. Anyway, man, I quote, "The New York region was once covered by a vast crystalline shield of frozen water, known as the Laurentide Ice Sheet. It carved the terrain of the metropolitan area, and as it melted, dumped so much transported rock, gravel, sand, and sediment that it created parts of Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey, including the barrier islands at the coast. It also deposited such notable landforms as Battle Hill in the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. You might remember Battle Hill from my recent gangsters, good fellas, and parakeets in New York Minute. Now back to the Times. The rocks of New York City are a climate archive, Dr. Schaeffer of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University said, "Most New Yorkers are unaware that they are living in the middle of a glacial event park," he said, adding, "All they need to do is open their eyes. By looking into the past, we can learn about the sensitivity of glaciers as climate indicators." In Central Park, for example, much of the visible bedrock was shaped by ice and unmodified glacial features abound. One of the most impressive glacial remnants in South Park is umpire rock, so-called thanks with proximity south of the Hexure Ballfields to the east of West 62nd Street by the Potank Court. The feature is a rarity in that its deep grooves reveal a carved channel and glacial fissures that suggest possible evidence of subglacial streams, Dr. Schaeffer said. As you see the deep grooves, you can almost imagine these big boulders gouging out the bedrock, said Neil Calvin East, vice president for operations of Central Park Conservatory, which was one of the most central park conservatory, which manages the park under contract with the city. Central Park really is an amazing place to spend time. This is me again, not the times, by the way. One of my favorite movie depictions of the park is from the out-of-towners, the hysterical Jack of Lemon's Shelley Duvall movie from 1970. In one park, the couple, having nowhere else to go, spend the night in the park where they are menaced by a man in a cape, and Jack of Lemon nearly gets killed by some baseball players, who misinterpreted it when he took a young boy behind a bush so he could look in his pants. Trust me, it's not what you think. This all begs the question, does anyone live in Central Park? Yes, they do. Again, back to the New York Times. New York City census tract number 143, better known as Central Park, was officially home to 25 residents in 2010. Not only were there enough of them the stage of football game, but their ranks had also apparently increased, a stunning 39 percent, in fact, over the previous decade, dwarfing the 2.1 percent growth in the city's overall population. Turns out Central Park is not the city's only open space with a purported population. According to the census data, 56 people claimed flushing Meadows, Corona Park is their home, and five, apparently alive enough to do so, said they lived in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. For historical perspective, Central Park listed a whopping 63 people in the 1990 census, then dropped to 18 and 2,000 before climbing to 25, defying all demographic trends. Of the Central Park phenomenon, Lester A. Farthing, an official in the Census Bureau's New York Regional Office, wrote in an email, "We are not certain, but this could either be one of two possibilities." The self-described Park residents were homeless, or they were Park's department employees living in some sort of caretaker facility. The latter was flatly rejected by Vicki Karp, a Park's apartment spokeswoman. There were no workers, not a single one living in the parks she insisted, and the former, as it happens, is trickier to sort out than it sounds. A few homeless people, Mr. Farthing said, could have picked up census forms at "be-counted" sites the Bureau set up at businesses and community centers around the city, then mailed them in as an honest act of some sort of residential pride. It was also possible, he noted, that some of the 25 have been counted by census enumerators on their occasional four race to sites in the park where the homeless are known to stay. Hmm, and that's your New York Minute. ♪ Let's hear it now, you, you, you, you, you, you, you ♪ I believe it's the aging blues brothers. No longer able to live in Chicago and call Wrigley Field their home. They've just moved to New York, and whenever asked, they just call whatever address a central park is at. I think what he's just trying to say is don't walk through central park at night. Actually, what I'm saying is, Dan Aykroyd is homeless. That's very sad, and he's brought all of his family. It's like a commune. Actually, not to get sidetracked, but Dan Aykroyd is kind of sadly crazy these days. Why, what is he saying? Oh, I don't know. He just really got into, listen, I don't believe in UFOs, but I'm a UFO sympathizer. I would be pleased to discover UFOs. But Dan Aykroyd has wandered into crazy UFO town. Really? Yeah, he-- Like, he's been up there? Yeah. I don't know what his personal experiences are, but I know that he believes heavily. And he goes on at length about it. Wow. Well, maybe next time we're in central park, we'll go say hi. Yeah. We'll ask him about his personal UFO beliefs and the blues. I looked up a picture of umpire rock, quite interesting. Yeah, yes, I've seen one as well. Does it look like an umpire? No, not at all. It looks incredibly flat and smooth. Yeah, it's an interesting bit of area. I find it really interesting to hear that it was the last place to have a glacier in this area. You can touch my glaciers. Yeah, I really like that line, a glacier died here. Yeah, yeah. It's great. It's where things come to die. New York, New York. Now that's Florida. Yeah. To tan and die. Thanks a lot, Barry. You can find everything Barry does over at BMJ2K.com. You can also find them on Twitter at BMJ2K. So the unfortunate truth is this is the time of year when generally studios will dump the properties that maybe they're not so enthusiastic about. Things that they were hoping were maybe going to be summer blockbusters, but for various reasons, they're not going to pan out that way. So I'm quite interested to see what fish has to say today, because not only does he have one review, he has two. Ooh, double feature. Double feature. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening, three-day fish. Hey, Flash guys. Three-day fish here with something I haven't done in a while. And that's a three-day fish, double feature. This week, I'm going to review both Underworld Awakening and Red Tales. Woohoo. I'm going to save the best for last, so we will start with Underworld. So this is what I have to say. If you just want to see Kate back in sale, run around and be hot, and there'll be a lot of action, then yeah, go see this movie. Otherwise, this is what I think. The first five minutes of this movie is explaining what happened in all the other movies. The next 15 is a little prologue of how she got captured, and then thrust into the human world. And this movie's only an hour and 22 minutes long. So really, there's only an hour of actual plot to this movie. The thing that really bothered me about this movie were the transitions, how they went from scene to scene. It was so like a van would pull up, and then as a van drove away, boom, new scene. That kind of predictable TV movie kind of transition. So I guess it's really just a red light. I mean, like I said, you're only going to watch this movie because you want to see an action movie. No offense to anyone who likes the Underworld movies. But it's not very good. So yeah. Now on to the next review. Red Tails. Now I've been kind of excited for this movie. And it has its-- it has its good and its bad. The action sequences are excellent. All the air fighting and whatnot, it's really fun to watch. The only thing that kind of bothered me about this movie was the scenes in the dialogue in like the beginning, a very 1950s-ish. But then all of a sudden they break away from that and everything seems like more modern movie dialogue and scenes. It's kind of hard to explain, and you can only really understand it if you watch the movie, I guess. The other thing is the acting does seem kind of cheesy at some point, especially when it tries to address the racism of the time. Because there's a few scenes where it's like, OK, is this guy going to be racist? Oh, thank god he wasn't. That was close one, gang. All right. And the scenes where people are racist, I feel like, weren't that powerful? Yeah, I mean, if you're going to bring it up, I feel that you ought to at least make it significant. But I feel like some of those scenes are kind of lacking in power. But that's me. Despite all this, though, I would still give this a green light. It's very much worth watching. Thankfully, there's no dubstep in this movie, so there's no distracting soundtrack. Yeah, if you like a war movie, you're going to enjoy this movie. If you just want to see a decent movie, it's still a pretty good watch. So that's all. Always listening. I'm sure you guys have heard about the George Lucas versus the studio story that's going around right now. I believe you talked about it on The Daily Show in a few other places where he got a lot of disinterest when he said that the cast is going to be essentially all black. Really? Wow. Yeah, George Lucas tried to shop it around, and they didn't see there being an audience for a-- I don't know what you would call it-- a straight film, like a non-media, whatever. Anyway, so I was up in the air about how this film was going to play out. And the thing is, I think fish is right. Either you've got to take on the racism thing as a larger theme and address it as a major part of the story. You can't ignore it, I guess. But you can't-- otherwise, you can't really ignore it. But you've got to find some way to address it without it just feeling like it's creeping in every now and then. It's a belly, you've got to ding. Yeah, but it's cohesive, and there's a reason. It would be nice. I guess what I'm saying is it would be nice if historically inaccurate to just see a film with that sort of cast that doesn't necessarily have to play to those tropes and can just be like, hey, it's a World War II airplane movie. Yeah, and you're focusing on the parts of the story that are relevant, right? Like, you don't have to delve into every issue of the time. Yeah, yeah, I have to agree. Like, the thing is the Tuskegee Airmen, that's-- you can't even-- to me, it's really tough to address that without, in some way, addressing racism. So to just kind of come at it from these weird angles seems like a weakness. I don't think we're at a point now where we can quite-- you know how we end up screwing up history eventually? All pop culture just pooch his history. No one has any real idea when Gigas Kahn's actual time was. People don't have that really a good understanding who or where the Mongols were in North America. Or at least that's the impression I get from a lot of people. Once you get far enough away from a point, it just becomes almost caricatry, you know what I mean? And then you can goof around with it, but we're not far enough from racism where we can just ignore it in a film. There's an unfortunate fact, but at the same time, they should address it and not just dance around with it. No surprise there with Underworld. Yeah, yeah. You know, the next step in my thinking is that we're eventually going to get to a point where these films go straight to online. What do you think that's going to be? It's going to be straight to Netflix or something. The old equivalent of straight to DVD. Well, it's interesting that if you don't have a wide box of office audience that if you had an online one that you could keep a, you know. Keep the films going. Yeah, I mean, they used to have drive-ins and stuff. I mean, we've discussed this before. The ubiquitous, but cheap technology, it's maybe not an optimal viewing experience on Netflix just yet. You can't get every movie, you can't get every whatever, but it's an easy place to flood cheap content, like say, Underworld 7. I think if there's going to get to a point where if you were to release one of the Friday, the 13th movies, it would be straight to online. We're not there yet, but it's coming. Especially with Netflix producing its own content now. If they can get a couple of good, solid shows out, it's going to be a game changer. Anyway, we'll see. Soon, soon, even. Anyway, thanks a lot, Fish. Mm-hmm, thank you. Thank you. Double feature. Double feature and two interesting selections. I was going to save this for the mailbag section, but I figure we'll tack it up here 'cause it's a really good observation on Fish's part. He mailed in to say that after listening to you, I believe it was Flashcast 49 or 50. While I enjoyed the Muppets, especially the new movie, I am wary of a new show since Disney owns it. I can only imagine the celebrity guests. This week, Joe Jonas, this week Selena Gomez, this week, Nick Jonas, this week, Baff Fuck It, the third Jonas, brother. I know that it may be more varied than Disney's own manufactured celebrities, but I certainly see them being favored. Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic on how that would actually turn out. Always listening, three-day Fish. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, what's beautiful about the film, in my opinion, is that they went into that with a vision that wasn't necessarily the corporate vision. It was one do you really feeling he should make this movie a certain way. It was a, not to be cliche about it, but it was a labor of love, right? And if somebody with that kind of gusto was to step up and do the Muppets show in the classic style of having a celebrity on and the backstage hijinks and the whole thing, Disney is the company to have the pull to be able to pull in the stars that you want to be able to put on that sort of thing. But you got some really big stars on that show, you know? Back in the day, yeah. It's interesting to see, like, Lou Campbell doing a Star Wars bit on those and it was like that. But it wasn't, I guess the point is, it wasn't just, like, kids' stars. Yeah, no, the beauty of the Muppets was that it was as close as you're ever going to get to actual family entertainment in that whole family could actually enjoy it. I think I Carly is trying to do that. Yeah, you seem to be a proponent of the I Carly lately. I honestly haven't sat down and watched enough of it. It's kind of fun and funny and a little less about the romantical escapades of its characters. That and like Michelle Obama, another kind of noteworthy people have come on. Yeah. And I notice you're getting a lot of that out of, like, Carly Biasmosis out of Miss Nene. Yes, indeed, yes. And Mr. Nene, to be fair, I mean, he'll adversely deny watching, but he's right there watching it. He knows what's going on. He'll be like, "Oh, what are you watching?" And he'll be like, "Oh, it's like Carly. It's the one where I'm near, near, near, near." You know? He knows it. I just like that they're doing podcasting on television. I believe that's it. That's great. Anyway. Yeah, that's how we learned. Yep. But I do think Fish has a great point about the possibility of ruining that sort of thing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So that screwed up Disney. So thanks, Fish. You should go seek out Fish on Facebook. Three-day Fish. Give 'em a like, give 'em a thumb. Okay, well, for our final stop, I believe we're going to take a quick visit to Vienna, where Ingrid's going to tell us a curious, curious tale. [MUSIC] The curious tales of Vienna. The devil in the mirror. In 1510, lived a pretty young lady in Vienna. Her name was Clara. She led a free and unbridled life. For hours, she made up her face and couldn't stop admiring herself in the mirror. One day, the girl became very sick. And when she felt that bad, that she was close to die, she promised in her prayers to change her desolate life if only she would recover. The prayers helped, and after a short time, she was completely healthy again. But the good resolutions were forgotten quickly, and soon she was back in front of her mirror and looked at herself full of pride. She powered at her face wide, dyed her eyebrows to black and painted her mouth red. One day, engrossed in painting her face, Clara heard a soft crackling of glass. She held her ear close to the mirror surface. Clearly, she could hear a faint crackling. She looked for cracks in the glass, but what she saw now scared her a lot. She noticed that her face was no longer visible. The surface was completely empty. Surprised, she wiped her hand over the mirror. Suddenly, she felt held by an overpowering force detaining her. At the same moment, at this start, it set Tony grinning devil's face, stared at Clara out of the mirror. Anciently and desperately, she cried, "I will not be vain anymore, and I promise to live more deathly and piersly." But it was too late for promises. The devil jumped out of the mirror, crept Clara by her hair, turned her head around till her face was black as coal, and took her down to hell. - So that's a might deal worse than Bloody Mary. - Mm, indeed. - I mean, Bloody Mary just throws blood a bit. - Yeah, I'm not gonna buy any Austrian-made mirrors anytime soon. - Mm-hmm. - Twisted to her head around by her braid until her face was black. - As coal. - Yeah. - Yeah, and then dragged her down to hell. Yeah, that's pretty rough. That totally happened to me once, and it was really hard to get over it. I know, my hair was so tangled. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - Thanks, and great. - Yeah, that one was really awesome. - You can find more excellent work by Ingrid at dancingla.blogspot.com and vneaslegens.blogspot.com. - Thanks a lot, Ingrid. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, hope all is well in Vienna. - So we got a comment from Graham on the Facebook page. He says, "Thanks, guys, for Flashcast 49. "I was just cooking the family supper while listening. "The last thing you want to hear about while cooking "is eating drugs from a guy's butt." - Your brother's butt. - But now I'm reminded of the good fella scene. I'm stirring the sauce. Why, didn't call him the babysit it. - I would like to say also that David Prouse was not Scottish, but I think he was from the midlands in England. I will check. - Who was my dad? - He did actually check. He got back to us and he was correct. He has a very thick country accent, as he said. - "Glad to hear you all back. "I've missed you all." - Aw, thank you. - "Zachman," who also recently joined the mob, sent over a list of British shows remade in America, and it's actually quite extensive. - Yes. - Oh yeah. It's very interesting to see how far that goes back all the family in the stutch. Now, there is, I went back even further at his suggestion, I believe, to see if there were any radio shows that had made it over previous to television, but no. It seems like-- - It's a TV thing. - TV sitcom. Also, to be fair, there are a lot of quality American television shows. - "Deadwood." - We were talking about sitcoms, sir. - Oh, you have a point there, right? - Yeah. - Oh, full of points. - What about that sitcom that is funny notice? - See, can't do it. - No, do you think that is a problem with America, or do you think that's, well-- - That's not fair, is it? - The office is funny, but it's still wouldn't. - It is. - Can anyone answer this question? - I don't even know what the question is anymore. - What are, what is a funny American sitcom, and actually funny American sitcom? Those are originally American, I feel like we're fending a massive portion of the audience right now. - What about "30 Rock." - We really-- - Oh, nailed it. "30 Rock." - Woo, I've never even seen that show. I just hear it's good. - Anyway, great list, and good to see you in the mob section. - Mm-hmm, thanks. - You're from the nuddies as well. - And I'm from the nuddies as a friend of ours. - Mm-hmm. We also got an email from Savage Glenn. I love your name, sir. He says, "Greetings, Flashpulp crew. "I'm a relatively new listener, "and a reason inductee to the mob on Facebook. "I'm going to a gaming convention in a couple of weeks, "and wanted to spread the word about Flashpulp there." We're there, gamer geeks. There are pulp fans. Is there a visual promo, like a flyer that I can print out? - That's a very good question. The con is called Running Gag. I'll be running a steampunk fantasy scenario at the Savage Saturday night event. - That sounds fun. - On a Saturday. - On a Saturday. - Do I get in for free? 'Cause I'm Savage with OpenX? Yeah, I think that's how it rolls. I think so. - I believe it's, if you get a loincloth, if you're wearing a loincloth, Savage is getting in for free. - Would you let me out in the loincloth? - Yeah, I'll not, yeah, yeah. - On a side note, the RPG Savage Worlds features many adaptations of classic pulp settings, such as Solomon Kane and the Call of Cthulhu. It has a very pulpy feel in general, and it's worth checking out if you're into pen and paper RPGs. - Which we are, except we just come back. - I'll make you sandwiches. Thanks for the great episodes, and I look forward to more. Glenn S. or Savage Glenn. - Solomon Kane, RPG would be fantastic. I would definitely be on board with drawing, such a thing. Now, we have actually kind of put together some flyer ideas. - Yeah, we were discussing it this evening. - We had a team meeting. - And Skinner Co. board meeting, and we will have something on the way to you as soon as possible, and we'll post it up at the site as well for anybody else who happens to be going out and would like to spread the word. - Next couple days, we'll have something, so. - Yeah, we definitely appreciate you. - Yeah, anyone else that has any events that they would like to send things to. - And remember, Fan Expo 2012, Toronto. - We will have a jingle for that shortly, but there was many jingles to write this week. - And we have tentative confirmation, I believe, from one Jay Lynch. - Yeah, he has confirmed. - That is quite exciting. - I know, that is so ridiculously exciting. - So who else is gonna come see us? 'Cause now the pot is definitely sweetened with Mr. Lynch coming. - Yeah, if you think you're gonna make it, drop us a note through whatever method of communication you prefer. - Twice's bothersome, I hear, now that he's coming. - Okay, well, speaking of jingles. - Yes, we have a new one to debut that I finished today. (dramatic music) (horns honking) (horns honking) (dramatic music) (horns honking) - That is good, you guys. - Hey, Flashcast, it's Ray, slipping in under the wire. I have a work story. This was about a couple months after I'd been finished training and I was on my own. I was call taking this day. I get a call from police requesting an ambulance to go down to downtown to stage near an access point to the bike path. Apparently two young frightened ladies between the ages of 10 and 12 found a body down by the creek off the bike path. With a call to this nature, we had a whole bunch of protocols. We sent our fire. We sent police. We're already obviously on their way. Our ambulances were moving quickly. And then once our crew got there, everything got quiet. And we all waited because we're used to getting, you know, VSA's or dead patients, but usually at their home or somewhere like this. But for a body to be found out in the public and near a river, it kind of, you know, it'd maybe some hobo had a heart attack out in the middle of nowhere. This is a lot of details floating through everyone's heads. In the moment of truth, the ambulance came on the air and they said dispatch, it's just a bunch of rolled up blankets. We're out of here. So in this case, yeah, I don't think I'm really sipping on anybody's toes. I don't think anybody will object to me telling that story. I also just wanted to say looking forward to this week of flash bulbs. The coffin story was, it was excellent as always. When are we getting another Skinner co-ink? I'm waiting anxiously. And I don't know if you guys agree with this idea, but maybe slip more Jessica Maysongs at the end of your flash casts. I liked it last time, but I'm sure everybody else will agree, you know, it's a group affair. Throw all that stuff in. Anyway, I'm done labeling and imitating schatner apparently. So have a good one, guys. Bye. Thanks, Jake. And to where those are fantastic, creepy call. Mm-hmm. Nice work. Yeah, great job. Thanks a lot. You know, if I was going to report a body, I would want to actually see the body first. You're at that age and you see-- Yeah, young ladies. Yeah, that was adorable. Yeah. So-- Skinner coz, eh? You know, it's a lot more difficult to get it done when my laptop's busted, but-- And when she doesn't want to. I haven't been doing a lot more sketching in my sketchbook. Yeah, your blog is updating regularly. Poopingxfeathers.wordpress.com. So that's-- yeah. I mean, it's not Skinner co. I have been slowly working on the next Skinner co. So do you think Monday you'll be back on track? Yeah, I hope so. It's just been difficult losing my template and, you know, not having anything to work with anymore. I need to share laptops and stuff, but it's all good, and it's just slowly plonking out. Getting back on it. But if you guys want to see anything fancy and cool special, go check out my website. And I really like the idea of having one of my songs at the end of the show. I do, too. I think because there is a bunch of stuff on my website, but it's kind of old, that it would encourage me to make sure that there was something new to put or freshly recorded at the end of that. So that might encourage me to do more. But at the end of this episode, as opposed to doing that, because I already have the plon, is we have outtakes for his jingle, which he loved. He played it today. Did you like the intro guys? Yeah. Yeah, it was fantastic. OK. Thank you. Thank you, trying to get through. But for all they know, our public thinks that you're kind of cool about my intro. Oh, yeah. We're very aloof about the whole production system. Anyways, I'm pleased with the intro. Thought it sounded pretty badass. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. And I also think that the upcoming second unveiling is also fantastic. Yes, I have an additional new jingle. Mm-hmm. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, Flashpump Gang and fellow mobsters. Time Traveler Rich here with a few slightly less chronologically skewed comments for you. First off, I'm flattered beyond belief that you'd even contemplate a theme song for me. Unlike Barry, Jeff, Ingrid, Fish, and Joe who contribute their particular items each time, you tend to just get a lot of brain, floss them, and jets them for me. To quote Wayne and Garth, "I'm not worthy." Plus, I'd feel bad if thinking it took Jessica May's time and effort away from Flashpump itself and her other efforts. Well, let's say your conversation about it made me chuckle. The idea of a time traveling country song makes me smile for a couple of reasons. First, country is one of my least favorite genres, so it's sort of ironic on a couple levels, and I like that. Second, it makes me think of that old joke in more recently song, "What do you get when you play a country song backwards?" Now I have the odd desire to hear the Doctor Who theme song played on 20 country still guitar. Maybe I'll just fire up my copy at the jam's song, "Doctoring the TARDIS" instead. To get back to the meat of Flashpump, I really enjoy coffin after the jump. They tied up the previous story and blind nicely, and good to see that the kid will be taken care of properly. But is Will starting to show more of a dark side? He seemed a bit more edgy in this one, and maybe I've just been oblivious to that all along. Or was he bluffing? If so, he fooled me. I like hearing from Walmart, Mike again, and Mulligan's the value of history. I must say to a Pope that Mike's voice work is quickly joining Sarah Thistle and Bunny as one of my favorites. It's such a perfect pulp accent, and it makes me wonder what a Mulligan tale with both Walmart, Mike, and Billy Winnipeg might sound like. Interesting to hear you guys with time traveling through law and order. I watched that show from the beginning, and I just realized I was 19 when it premiered, holy. Anyway, I watched it pretty regularly through the years, including the spin-offs, SVU, and CI. Did not forget it was really underrated on CI, in my opinion. But a few years ago, my wife and I got law and ordered out. I think we dropped it in CSI, New York, which we should only watch because of Sinise at the same time. So I missed the last season or two. I do watch Law and Order UK on BBC America. I recognize most of the story since the rehash from the US run, but it's interesting to see the British legal system at work, and who doesn't like a good accent. Also, Peter Davison, AKA Doctor #5, is the current Crown prosecutor. I will confess that every time I'm really sick and can't sleep, I love to find a run of law and orders on a network like TBS or TNT late at night. It's sort of like comfort food. Speaking of television, I forgot to mention last time that I had also finished watching Bag of Bones on A&E. I was a bit underwhelmed. Translating Kings rather for both stories and the television or film always takes a major editing challenge. I'll give them that. However, in this case, it felt like they could have used a third part to actually do the materials and justice. They spent far too much time in the exposition before Noonan goes to Dark Score Lake and far too little building the suspense once he's there. They glossed over a few of the storylines so much that when they showed back up at the end, the only way I had any notion why they were connected was because I'd read the book. Now I'll give them props for handling the scares. They stayed away from any cheap gore and stayed true to the book on that sense. So all in all, I'd say if you haven't read the book and don't intend to, eh, there's worse out there, so give it a watch if there's nothing better on. If you've read the book or intend to, don't bother and don't ruin the twists by seeing this. I wanted to say I agree with Joe about Lovecraft. His stories often are a bit of a labor to read, which is why I'm looking forward to the HP podcast I've mentioned before. Plus the more I learn about the man personally, the more it turns me off on him. So I can only take his stuff in smaller doses. But I certainly do appreciate how his mythos has been mine for inspiration in games, literature, and TV film, and for that, I'm grateful for him. Well, after agreeing with Joe, I want to have to disagree some from my last set of thoughts. Fish's Review of the Fifth Element. What, the bunny bleeping? First, I have to admit, this is one of my wife and my favorite movies. We've owned it on every format from BHS to Blu-ray. My friends all love it, we quote it to each other. So there, my bias is out. But a yellow light, really? First, to pick on the effects of a movie that came out 15 years ago, it's sort of like picking on "Caxablanca" for being in black and white. It was a product of its time and still a pretty cutting edge for '97. The plot was supposed to be camping over the top and a bit silly, which I think it hits perfectly. Oldman is fabulous as a swarming evil villain. The scene in his office with him and Ian Holm is awesome. The Willis fight scene with Chris Tucker is awesome as well, and who can't forget aggressive negotiations? And I think I could plop the disc in and queue up the scene where the diva plavalo guna performs with, while Lilo fights with the man glorers any time. The choreography and editing between those two scenes and the way the music works is so well done. And of course, the overall visual and art direction along the costume is perfectly over the top. So I say, if you like pulp, if you like action, if you like camp, if you like over the top visuals, you should see this movie. Hope Fish doesn't take any offense to this counterpoint case review. But, to me, this movie is a big green light. 'Til car crisis, this is rich. So I have to say again, this is one of my favorite movies, and I totally agree with you, Rich. You've just reaffirmed my faith in this movie. I love this movie. She was silently cheering, as you were saying. Yeah, both my fists were up in the air in a-- - Waving back reports. - No, in a salute to the triumph of this movie. - I find it interesting, and of course it makes sense, that Fish can only look at it from the perspective of our current time, whereas-- - That's true. - This Fish is-- - He has so much experience in various coronal situations that he can look at it for once. - Plus, I'm sure a very own coronal. - Yeah, but I feel like this is a throwdown, so here's the promise I'm gonna make. - Okay. - Sometime between now and the next Flashcast, I'm actually gonna re-watch the Fifth Element. - I wanna do it with you, and I'm there, Kay. - So let's see how this pans out. Let's see if this film actually holds up. - Let's see how wrong you are, buddy. - I don't pick on Fish, Fish. - I'm just playing. - I'm playing Fish, has a very valid viewpoint. I'm interested to see other Shakespeare. - For real. - 'Cause I agree, this is at the time, this is one of my favorite films, but at the time. - I know something about a bald lady in an orange jumpsuit. - Bald lady orange jumpsuit? - Short hair, or was it Bruce Willis with bald? - Yes. - He was bald, he had an orange shirt. - And he had a jumper. - But she was in a white outfit with orange hair. Oh, that's what it is. - Oh, obviously it may be time for real. - There's a straight downer shirt or something. - Yeah, that's right. - Yeah, yeah. - Bright hair. - Great movie. - Yeah, so I basically know the plot and who did it. - Yeah. - It was the evil entity that did it. - I-- - The fifth element. (laughing) - No. (laughing) - I don't know, I didn't see that movie. (laughing) What the hell do I know? (laughing) - There's a hobbit in it. - I absolutely know what you mean about Lovecraft. - Mm-hmm. - That he was a terrible person. - No, don't tell me something terrible. - No, don't tell me something terrible. - There's some good writing there. There's some really quality writing there, but there are a lot of problems with his personality and his, you know, racism. - Oh yeah. - But I mean, I'm not, I don't know. I'm not an apologist, but he was of the time. - It was easier at a time. - Not, I haven't read his stuff and I really want to. So I don't really want to know anything about him, but it's gonna come out in his writing anyway. - See, I think so. I'm a little apprehensive. - Here's what happens. There's a lot of people who just know of Lovecraft and they really enjoy sort of the image of Cthulhu. - Mm-hmm. - And they're not really that into reading the pieces. And then there's sort of the next level up where you actually read some of the stories and you enjoy it, but you realize that maybe not all of it's terribly quality. And then you get to the sort of notch above that, which is learning more about who Lovecraft was himself. And then you kind of start hitting the level one people. You know what I mean? - Mm-hmm, yeah. - But you were level one. I was a level one. I definitely intend on reading bag of bones at some point. Have I ever told you? Okay, so I consider there's a break. We may have discussed this before, before the, what is it, the Insomniac? - The Insomniac. - Is that the book? Insomniac? - Insomniac, okay. - Insomniac. There you go, Insomniac. Where I feel like King's writing style took a major turn. - Yeah, I remember discussing this. - And anything before that, I think of sort of his older books. I believe the book before that is "Needful Things" where he kind of said he was going to retire. And I think maybe something about his process changed or maybe he stopped doing drugs or something between those two books? - Drinking. - Drinking, whatever the problem was. - It's all about all that listerine. - Yeah, but the truth is I didn't, I still enjoy the books, but not quite as much. And so of that older catalog, I've always maintained Christine as the one book that I haven't read yet. - Yeah, me still won't. - Because of that vintage that I know that I used to just, as a 16 year old boy, I would just suck that up in a summer day, you know what I mean? It was a beautiful little. - But what are you saving it for? - I don't know. - Death. - Yeah, you make a good point. At some point I will, you know, choose a sufficient-- - It'll be the first book you read when you retire. - Yeah, or maybe, you know, some summer where I finally get to relax. Maybe when the podcast money starts rolling in, the big podcast books are coming in and we can just do this full time. The first vacation I take will have cash money. - We'll have a JRD Reads Christine fund. - Yeah, yeah, my retirement fund. - Yeah, I was thinking even, you know, even a couple of good weekends, but what's a weekend? We don't have weekends, it's actually busier. We have more going on, mind you, we're together. - Yeah. - But it's just nice, but-- - Yes, it's very nice, but we're constantly busy. If we could, we're driving by this really low rent travel agency the last couple of days and we just go, Oh, Ruba 799, all inclusive. - I think that includes airfare, not probably not. It's like doing the math in our head to see if we can get out of here. - But it's all just theoretical 'cause who would take four children? - Oh God, I'm, you know, I'm already setting up our babysitting for Fan Expo in August. - Yeah. - And I'm hearing some crickets people, so. (laughing) Anyways, it's gonna happen. (laughing) - So, yeah, to look back. I will read Bag of Bones at some point, but-- - When he has a summer. - When he's, yeah. - I move much slower on these newer books. I honestly like the Dark Tower, he's writing the new book. It doesn't really terribly excite me. - Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna have to read it. - Yeah. - But-- - What is this talk of a sequel to "The Shining", what's that? - Really? - That's what I heard. - Mm-hmm, yes. I heard it was a go. - Oh, how do you like that? - Anyway. - Chitching. - I haven't read his JFK assassination book yet. - You know what? Flag did it. - Yeah, I absolutely agree about "Law and Order" being almost comfort food. And I think that's exactly why we're going through so much of it so quickly, because it's not a show you have to sit down and try to remember what were the characters doing last episode, what was going on, it's just I can throw this on, as long as you catch the first. (laughing) So long as you catch the first three minutes of the show, you can leave at any point and come back and you'll basically be able to watch the rest of the show. As long as you watch that bumper where the crime kind of happens or is like located. - Yeah, it always sucked when it came in like 11 minutes too late. - Yeah, yeah, you just missed the crime and you have no idea what's going on. - Yeah, that one. - Well, you don't want to watch it, you know, you got to start it off, right? (laughing) - Just like I said. - We did watch the other iterations of "Law and Order." Right? - Yeah, we tasted some of those other ones. I wasn't such a big fan of SVU. - No, no, no. - I felt those, the actors in it were kind of sad, mopey, yeah, angry. Like I just, it was too much for me. It was like, they were constantly making duck lips. Like, and then the CSI's, we did try the New York first and east. We were so excited, but it just- - We were willing to fell asleep anywhere, but it just kind of fell off. - Yeah, I didn't like CSI New York. I didn't dig it at all. - And when, what's his name? (laughing) - When they were gruesome, like, it just made me angry. Like, I can't watch this anymore. - Yeah. - It made me angry. - David Caruso is one of those tastes that you can either handle or not. - He's just so dramatic. He's always adding or subtracting sunglasses. And I love, I love, like, there's an episode where, 'cause he always kind of steps out of the scene, you know, he can't just stay in the scene, 'cause he's always got to be on the move, you know? And he's walking out of the scene, but you saw he was in, like, an effing robo. So, like, there was no where to go. He just, like, he dives into the water, 'cause he can't, you know, he can't stay. - CSI Miami was actually the first CSI that I saw, and I remember being like, "Oh, it's a good show." And then, my cousin being like, you know, there's another CSI that's better, and being like, "Shh, CSI, it's better." And then I saw it and I never watched CSI Miami again. - What I find interesting is, a lot of what makes those shows is the procedural aspect, which supposedly, yeah, you know, it's terrible. We were discussing Max Grevey's death. I can't even remember the actor's name, but I don't think you mentioned it. It's like George Sense or something. - Yeah, well, he prides himself on not being new. - I'm not being new. - I guess he's a great character actor. - Blah, blah. - It was the thing Max Grevey hated, right? Was that it was turning into sort of a procedural and not so much about the characters. And, but that's the thing. The less it seems like in the CSI is the less of the people you show, as long as you can maintain that cast, you need to get used to the cast and then not change too much. - Yeah. - Otherwise, people start falling off. - They didn't have much personal life. - I had such an issue with how they went about their job. Like, it's such bullshit. You know, it's not how the world works. It's not-- - Yeah. - You don't have a lab who's, you know, the cop and the investigator and the detective and everybody in between, and the guy who, like, who does the tests and analyzes the data and shoots guns into, you know, machines to see the signature. Like, it's not everybody does all of that. I don't think that's, I don't think there's a guy. I mean, there's, I think, evidence takers, but I think there's just a lot more separation in between all those pieces. - I think television is working through the problem as well as it can to figure out how to display what modern crime scene investigation actually looks like. - And everything is backlit and clean. - 'Cause you can complain about how CSI goes about things and I understand what you mean, but at the same time, you can flip over to castle and be like, so they're just letting this writer walk around the crime scene, huh? I guess that's okay. - Yep, you play as a good cop. She plays the bad cop or the grumpy one or the hard to get money. - I think you're a pink cop. - Yeah. - Oh, it's like criminal lines. I know some people, even in our family, like it's criminal lines, but that drives me nuts. Everyone's so stereotypical. That blonde lady, the geek with the giant glasses. Oh my God. - Is there a show called Criminal Minds? - Yeah, and there's a guy on-- - It's a Canadian. - He just soaps and he just like makes love to the camera every episode. It's a hairy guy with a lisp. Oh man, it goes on and on. - Okay, I retract my statement earlier about not caring about the characters 'cause you do kind of have to care about the characters a little bit, but-- - You do. You do. You have to not hate them. They can't constantly-- - It's hard to not hate you. - Duck lips at you. - Yeah. - You personally hate the duck lips though. - I think duck lips is an important forensic technique, technically. - Yeah. - You've got to catch the-- - Like the wind's blowing in your eyes too. You know, you're squinting just a little bit. - That's how you operate a microscope. - Yep. - Yeah. You got to do it sexy like-- - I wish everybody could see your face right now. - You tried to do the squinty duck lips. It's perfect. - I did. I was smizing too. Smizing, is that the word? - Tyra Banks. - Oh boy. - Look it up. - Totes. - Totes. - Yeah, one more mic, Billy Winnipeg. I was-- - Oh, that'll be exciting. - Yeah. - Get Sarah Thistle in there just for the fun of it. - He'll want to eat them. - Yeah. - You know what? I was going to actually save this for-- I was going to mention it in art of narration, but I actually really enjoy doing Mike's voice. It's really fun. - Yeah, we were discussing how it's sort of a archetypal pulp voice. - Yeah, I think of Joe Pesci when I do it. (laughing) Only, I try to not be like-- Just like Harm Carter is not Cary Grant. Mike is not Joe Pesci. - Sorry, not interrupt, but did you hear that? Just a second ago when my phone banged, everyone-- Well, half the audience just checked their phone to see if they got married, which you did not, sorry. But yeah, yeah, there's a little Joe Pesci in there for sure. - I really, man, when we started this show, a pope was constantly wiggling when she spoke. She'd always be like kind of gyrating or whatever. And I figure, I'm like, I wonder if she has certain mannerisms to all these different characters, but I could never see it 'cause you're in the closet. - And I do, too. - Do you? - I do. - Like, when I talk my hands move-- - Yeah. - And I'm like, I'll shake my fists if I'm angry. - I bet you there's a lot of fist shaking when you're bunny, when you're doing bunny. - And then there's sometimes some finger pointing. - Yeah. - You'd hear the middle clothes hangers clank-a-clang 'cause there's a whole bunch of clothes above her head. - Yeah, I look forward to the day when we can have a proper sound booth. - Yeah, we're professionals. Sorry, what did you say? - I was just saying I look forward to the day when we have a professional sound booth. - Yeah, we're professional, so professional now. - I don't know, I like to see all the different expressions. - Yes, all the different brands. Once we were under a blanket, another in a screen. - Yeah, the TV. - No, thanks for the kind words about after the jump. - Mm-hmm. - You're definitely catching on to something there about the coffin thing. I don't want to give too much away, but his attitude and without saying too much, the chain has not ended. We are still following the links, if you will. - Yes, I find, well, there were a few things that I found very interesting about that episode. The first tip off for me when I was reading the script, and I remember turning to you and being like, oh yeah, he knows who coffin is. He recognizes that name. He just said, wait, did you say coffin? Meaning, he knows who he is. So, if he knows who he is, where did he get his information? So it seems like coffin's kind of just fishing for the bigger fish, right? And I think maybe part of him to address what Rich was saying is he getting a little bit more hardcore. I think part of him is bluffing, but there is also a part of him that knows he has to get to the bigger fish. And I don't know if Rich will recall why Dorset is around. - You put a lot together here, that's pretty impressive. - Actually, again, to go back to something I was gonna mention a little later. I've been doing a lot of work in the wiki, and if anybody wants to go check out, and yes, John Donahue, there is a wiki. If anybody wants to go check out, there is an entry for Dorset, and they can go see why Dorset follows coffin around, but I think maybe part of the reason why coffin's getting a little bit more hardcore is because maybe he knows something that we don't. - He generally does. - Yes. - I can't help but notice that Rich's theme wasn't a country, sorry. - I have a love/hate relationship with country music. - Do you love to hate it? - When I was a child, it was around. Then when I went to, I did a little vocal school, they really wanted me to do the country, so then I got really countryed out. And we had discussed this jingle about having that sort of country ask, but it would just so naturally went the way it went, that it was just sort of like, you know. - I'm so happy with it too. - Exactly, you know. - I ask you specifically for David Bowie, and you actually listened to space oddity before you listened to it. - I was listening to you. - Yeah. - It was so flattered. - Yeah, I think the country thing died pretty early, now that I think of it. But yeah, once I decided to go with the piano, I don't know if I could ever write country on a piano, or at least not yet. - Oh, good don't? - Yeah, seems more like a guitar thing. - It's interesting to see what you're learning as time goes on, but I guess we'll get to more of that in a minute. - Yes, we will. - Okay, before we get to Colorado Joe, just a couple more quick little emailed and twitterized items. John Donahue, as mentioned, was saying that dynamite entertainment we mentioned previously, believed that they were going to be putting up some shadow comics. And he sent along the notice that Garth Enes, or Enes, I believe it's Enes, will be writing those comics. Now I have to admit, like I think a lot of comic geeks, or people who grew up with comics, I fall in and out of love with them. I mean, I move away from the medium for a while and then sort of build up a backlog of books that I really need to read, and then I'll step back in for a little bit and usually while Mr. Eights, or now Mr. Nine, is reading them, you know, I'll pick up my collection of punishers or whatever. What Enes did with Punisher, and with his previous series Preacher, and with a lot of his World War Two books actually, he had an adult comedy to a pretty serious, you know, sort of material. I believe he was doing HBO. The best way to describe it, maybe is that he was doing HBO comics before HBO was HBO. - Okay. - You know what I mean? It sort of cast driven often, adult sort of black humor, a lot of action, some titillations, some gore. Anyway, I really enjoyed his, I basically enjoyed everything that he's written. So I'm really excited to see him doing the Shadow. He says it's like the last American property. He has any interest in trying to work on. - Wow. - So, yeah, I'm very excited to see how that turns out, and thanks, John, and you, you're helping. - Yes, thanks. - Gentlemen R. Heron of the Twitter, and of the mob mentioned that the sort of crossover between, a possible crossover between gore and the WWF. He did mention that apparently for a while there was a kiss demon. - Awesome. - Like a demon who was a non-band member who would fight. Who looked so. - Were the kiss members supposed to be demons? Or this guy was just also very evil? - I think one of them was. Each kiss member had his own facial makeup, and this was. - You know that meant that they were demons. I didn't know they categorized themselves. - No, it was one of them that called themselves. - There was like a cat, and there was an old child, and one was a demon, yeah. - He was the one that had the ponytail on the top. - Okay. - So, and there was some sort of wrestling entity, although again, I don't think he was any of the band members. - Yeah, he just had a red tongue and some makeup. - Yeah. - Yeah, and he includes an article about where he, where is he now? It's pretty fun. And he also mentioned chest boxing, which is fantastic. Have you guys read about chest boxing? - No, it sounds dangerous, though. - A match consists of up to 11 alternating rounds of boxing and chest. The match begins with a four-minute chest round. This is followed by three minutes of boxing with rounds of chest unboxing alternating until the end. - That's awesome. - There's a one-minute break between rounds. Speed chest is used, a form of which each player has a total of only 12 minutes for the whole game. Competitor is made when by knockout, achieving a checkmate by the judge's decision or if their opponent's 12 minutes of chest time is exceeded. If a competitor fails to make a move during the chest round, he's issued a warning and he must move within the next 10 seconds. Repeated warnings may result in a disqualification. - I want to see-- - I want to see punch to the head. I want to see this. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of boxing, so anything that can improve it, you know, plus chest. Okay, that's better. - I like the idea of a mental competition. - And then a little fight. - Yeah. - Punches to the head and then a mental competition. Then more punches to the head. - 'Cause it's got to be so much tougher. Jiggle in your gray mind. - Shake off that concussion. - Yeah. - You have a minute to do it, it's enough time. - Yeah. - So thanks, that was greatly appreciated. - Mm-hmm. Thanks, neighbor. - Wait, who has the advantage? The big guy who's really good at boxing, or the little guy who's really good at chest, that's faster. - Well, since the match begins with a four-minute chest round, I believe if you can beat the guy before you get to the boxing, you may be okay, but-- - Yeah, any more minutes per minute. - Yeah, frankly, at the end of the match, you probably rather be the large guy who may be lost at chest than the small guy who got beat at boxing. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - You know who I suspect would excel at both competitions? - Who's that, Charity? - Colorado Joe. ♪ Use a cup of Joe ♪ ♪ For mobsters at home ♪ ♪ It's Colorado Joe ♪ ♪ Colorado Joe ♪ - Hello, Flashcast crew and fellow mobsters. Regarding the insensitivity of the buttocks, I submit my own anecdotal evidence of the same. I'll save the mob time by noting this is, admittedly, TMI. Linda and I had been married for a mere three weeks and were living in a microscopic loft apartment in Laramie, Wyoming, where we were going to school. We had both risen and were attempting to get ready for the day in the dinky bathroom. I leaned over the sink, still half asleep brushing my teeth, when I felt something sharp bite into my butt. At first it wasn't that painful, and I sat there wondering if a nail I hadn't noticed was protruding from the wall. Slowly, very slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn't being poked. I was being burned. Linda had left a curling iron hanging on the wall behind me warming up. And that is how Linda branded my ass. I really loved Carnaval and was sad when it was canceled. In general, I'm disappointed in Hollywood's lack of willingness to not only experiment, but to stick with the project. Because of this, I have taken to not starting many new shows, but rather waiting to see if they make it, then catching them on DVD. We do make some exceptions. Linda and I are loving once upon a time. Personally, I love how the character of Rumpelstiltskin serves as an agent of chaos at most of the story arcs. I really have high hopes for this show. We also took a chance on Grimm. I'm still on the fence on this one. Kind of a slow start, but it does have potential. It is cool that the Grimm World contains non-mainstream creatures, such as Bowershwine and Bloop button. You mentioned the use of knives and shields in Dune. This follows a somewhat common sci-fi trope in which advanced societies devise cultural rules making it illegal to harm someone else, unless you put yourself into danger at the same time. This rules out the use of things like blasters. And as an added bonus, makes debates such as whether Hans shot first, FYI, he did, moot. As usual, love the past week's flash pulp installments. In one story, justice was served, while a more nefarious party is quasi-introduced. Mulligan provides a humorous interlude. With a bit of nidiness on the part of the flash pulp trio. Yeah, I caught it. And the world comes to an end. Another great week in the flash pulp universe. Because I know you are wondering where I stand on the issue. As a software dev, it's always tempting to go back and update past work. But if it works, they're seldom a payoff for doing so. So I say, don't waste time updating old episodes. Focus on new content. This should not be construed as a question about episode 200. As John Hodgman would say, you're welcome. Take care. Always a pleasure to hear from you, Joe. It was so funny to hear that Linda had your ass branded within three weeks. Yes. That was great. No, are you still branded? Have you been able to repair your ass over the last 20 or so years? It's interesting how much response the ass situations have gotten. Yeah, we've had a lot of button use. Yeah. I mean, there's lots to talk about. As long as it's pulpy, keep coming, I guess. I believe you are absolutely correct, sir, about the lack of quality television, basically meaning that people have gotten to a point where they wait to find out if it's good enough and then just go to the DVD. Mm-hmm. I find people will mention television shows to me that I will have not have even heard of because if it's not good enough to have risen up, I just don't notice it. And they'll mention it'll be some sort of mainstream NBC. This is supposed to be grabbing your prime time show. Plus, I usually like seeing something with a few more seasons. You know, like if something has a two-season run and it's sort of... To be fair, however, yeah, yeah, I hope a few seasons are going to go. Then why do it? To be fair, something like True Blood, when those episodes are coming out, you need them immediately. They're like candy, yes. But going back, there definitely is something for not having to wait for a teeny, tiny, you know, glimpses. Yes, yes, but rather, you know, watching seasons through. I think it's a much more intense experience that way. I'm dying from a Game of Thrones fix in April. I can't believe I have to wait that long. I'm glad to hear that they're digging a little deeper into the grim fairy tales of back history, like introducing something that people aren't maybe necessarily as familiar with. I know Joe said that he and Linda are kind of on the fence about grim, but... It's production values. It's still very tough. You know, I don't mean to put words in a Joe's mouth, but my suspicion is it might be production values. It's very tough to have these fantasy shows unless you can really back it up with enough CGI work to make it sell. I'm hopeful though, because I really love like the fantasy fairy tale ideal. I don't know if anybody, I think I may have even mentioned it on Flashcast before, but there's a movie that I... Well, it wasn't a movie. It was like a little mini-series that I saw when I was younger, the 10th Kingdom. And it was kind of like based on a fairy tale. Fairy tale like world, whatever, and I really kind of dig that trope. So I would really like to enjoy these, you know, but I'm pessimistic. I don't want to get into it until it's got a little bit under its mouth. Until it's worthy. No, in a sort of weird corollary tale that fish was showing off some Bollywood work earlier in the mob. And there's been a recent trend in people posting clips from various Bollywood films in which they're like, "Oh my goodness, look at this amazingly ridiculous piece of cinema." But at the same time, we used to turn to our own movie theaters for ridiculous pieces of cinema. What happened to... It's like Duke's a hazard. Yeah, but... That's not like machine gun snake made of robots. Some of the Bollywood films are perfect, you know, pulpy sort of grindhouse films, even though they're not of that sort of seedier nature. You know, they're usually very clean, even though they have a lot of shooting and explosions. Or sometimes, too. I mean, even that is kind of cleaned up. But, you know, seeing a jeep take a jump and then have a little dance music story because the guy jumps out of the thing and then it smashes into a helicopter. Yeah, epic. Yeah, anyway, Hollywood better pick up its innovation, otherwise Bollywood's going to eat its lunch. Global market people. Thanks for the kind of words about the stories. Mm-hmm. Nice, very nice. And you make some good points about not going back and updating the catalog. Yeah, that's all. Oh, I did want to say about 200. Oh wait, no, Randy Newman, I don't, I don't. No. ♪ Short people in just the same ♪ ♪ Is you and I ♪ ♪ A fool such as I ♪ ♪ All men and brothers until the day they die ♪ ♪ There's a wonderful world ♪ ♪ Short people got nobody ♪ ♪ Short people got nobody ♪ ♪ Short people got nobody to know ♪ ♪ They got no baby legs ♪ ♪ You stand so low ♪ ♪ You got to pick 'em up ♪ ♪ Just to say hello ♪ ♪ They got little cars that go big, big, big ♪ ♪ They got little boys that's going big, big, big ♪ ♪ They got a lot of things ♪ ♪ And I'm out, you're gonna get you every time ♪ ♪ Well, I don't want those on me ♪ ♪ Don't want those on me ♪ ♪ Don't want those on me ♪ ♪ People around you ♪ (applause) - So I did some jingles this week. - Yeah, they're really fantastic. - I even wrote one while watching children. - It was pretty crazy. - Yeah, you've got some new tools. - Yeah, I got the Fruity Loops Studio 9, and I was messing a boot with it. Mind you, I do rely on Audacity still. Like, I've only had Fruity Loops for a couple days, but that's where I got most of Matrix for a raised song. And I'm really excited to have all those instruments at my arsenal, all those. And to integrate different files elsewhere that I want to incorporate is extremely easy. - It's pretty seamless. - Mind you, Fruity Loops is a huge, scary thing, but man, it's so much fun to use. It's crazy. - Awesome. - Yeah, so I've been watching some Google tutorials, and I'm also playing my guitar, and I'm going to be recording some things, but I'm trying not to cheat. Sometimes I do, like, I'll learn something on the guitar, but I can't. - Use editing tricks to that. - Yes, to make it a little better, but I really would like to do it and be able to do it as well as I'm telling you I can. - Yeah. - So, stay tuned for that, ladies and gents. - Backroom plots. - Actually, speaking of musical items, I got a recommendation from Fish. - Okay. - He's coming up a lot this episode, anyway. He suggested for writing music because I'm often looking for something to listen to that doesn't have any vocals. It's very difficult to write when there is vocals on something, which it makes movie soundtracks, that sort of thing, a great choice, but he suggested the Bastion, the video game, the soundtrack to that, it picks it up on iTunes. - Oh, yeah, it's actually pretty good. I played that game a bit. - Oh, yeah, the game, fantastic. And it was an excellent suggestion. - Does it have any voiceover? And then the boy went over here. - They do open with a little bit from-- - Really? - Yeah. - Oh, that's so fantastic. - But, of course, I don't want to listen to that part because I'm trying to focus on what I'm doing. - Yeah, I guess. - It's such a great voice. - It's a really great blend of different genres, almost. There's a little bit of country in there and there's some electronic influence and some Middle Eastern stuff. - Yeah, the different places. - You know, like your oldest running album or song for writing? That's stayed on your playlist the longest. - It's probably something about Bernard Herman. - Mm-hmm. - I draw a lot of inspiration out of his pieces. Actually, something like maybe the Cape Fear soundtrack, is something so pressing about it as soon as I hear it, I get focused on what I'm working on. - For months there, just every once in a while, you would just have it play for about five seconds or so. - It certainly changes the mood in a room, especially when one of the children asks a ridiculous question and suddenly I can go. It definitely changes the tenor of the conversation. - Mm-hmm. - Very much in the same sense that the "wah" inception does, man. - Yeah. - I'll tell you, that is a really fun way to wake up in the morning. That's Jared, he's alarm. So it's like, "Am I still dreaming?" - Hitting the snooze button is like going down on another level. - Yeah. - Speaking of sudden change apps, when I wrote 237, the getaway, it was really approaching it with the idea that I wanted to write a car chase. I was sort of in the premise behind it. I had this other thing in mind. I knew sort of how it was going to end. There was a brief time when it almost was a Mulligan story, but I moved it away from that pretty quickly. - I remember that was the first thing you asked me about the script right after I edited it. You said, "Is it a believable car chase? Is it?" - Yeah, well that's, it's very easily to visually show a car chase, but writing a car chase convincingly and having it last for any period of time is really difficult and to keep it compelling. - Mm-hmm, yeah. Keeping up the intensity. I liked it though. I thought it went over well. Fluid. - If I had any inspiration, it was actually that moment. There's bullet. You're familiar with bullets, Stephen Queen. - And another good soundtrack. - Yeah, absolutely. Although I wouldn't normally listen to that sort of freestyle jazz situation. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, but at the same time it works so beautifully for the movie. - Yeah. - But the other thing is that they know how to use it. A perfect example is the lead into the car chase. I actually got you a clip a little of that Jessica Miley. You play the moment that they lead into that. And listen, it's like they get to the moment where it starts and they pull that trigger and it's like they throw the milkshake out the window and they just floor it. And the brilliance is the way they use the music. [Music] [Music] [Music] The reason I think the bullet car chase will never be topped is because they just remove the soundtrack. There's nothing but the car sounds. There's no attempt to amplify this moment with some ridiculous guitar sound track. There's no power chords. There's nothing. It's just here are too ridiculously overpowered steel objects flying through the streets of San Francisco. Now, can you recreate that in every car chase film? No. But can it ever be topped? I think because it's already been done. Not really. Any car chase after bullet is just a pale shadow. Well, no. I mean, you got your comedic Blues Brothers car chase. And there's other items like the French Connection, brilliant car chases, but they're just in my opinion, they're never in their top bullet, which was a great part of the inspiration for the story. Even though it doesn't really come across. Snatch had a great chase scene. Everyone got poached at about the same time for different reasons. Yeah, but here's the interesting thing about Snatch's chase scene. It wasn't really a chase scene. It was just an interesting collision of vehicles all in one space. An intersection where the three plot lines met up. But you could see them for moments before, and it was all the same sort of like bodies jerking in different motions, funny faces, and then smush and splatter whatever sort of liquid was around. Mm-hmm. So I think I'm going to make it a point every week to talk about the musical selections I've been going through while writing. It's a good idea. The Mulligan Smith Tale, the first one of the week. It was an idea I'd had kicking around for quite a while. And not only did it give me an excuse to write a car chase, but it was nice to have the return of a certain spider god. Mm-hmm. Always is. Not to ruin it for anybody. I am a racer. Speaking of a certain spider god, I've got that file now that I was thinking of putting up on my website of the new Karwick picture. And again, I mentioned this a little earlier, but after a brief year-long hiatus. Hiatus. Yes. It was actually a little over a year. After a hiatus on my website, I've been posting every day for the last time. I don't know how many days. Enough days. Yeah. Yeah. You're not quite sure because you did it all. All in the same day, frankly. Yeah. I put up a month's worth of posts in one day, so give me some credit. I'm trying to get some stuff to put up after that. And, you know, I have come up with a couple of things that I still need to post. Yeah, there's a lot of art secrets going on at the moment that I'm quite excited about. Yeah, there's a lot of workings going on in the Skinner co-research and development. Yeah. The media production wing. Mm-hmm. And you've also been doing a lot of work in the wiki. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was the other thing I was going to get around to, which, you know, I'm not one for consistency. I think everybody knows that. Consistency is for losers. But, uh, JRD has been asking me to do more in the wiki, and I've been trying to get up at least one thing about one episode every day. You know, listen to an episode, make sure it gets logged on the wiki, and figure out if there's anything that really needs to be stated in there. Mm-hmm. Funny, just a couple of minor things that I've updated the wiki with, and where they have led me. You know, oh, I've got to put this piece in here. Oh, well, if I put that piece in, I've got to put something over here. Oh, well, if I've got that over there, then I've got to make this link here, because obviously there's connection there. And just coming up with whole new sections now, and it's a big job. There's a lot of puzzle pieces. Filling out the universe. Yeah, I mean, I got a little bit OCD in me, and, uh, there's definitely part of me that likes to think of it as a big jigsaw puzzle that I have to put together, so everybody can see the picture. Well, if anybody is interested in helping, certainly hop over to wiki.flashpulp.com and pick up the thread. Somebody who's been a big help over there is Jim. So, thanks a lot, Jim. Yeah, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Jim of the real at grudio.com empire. Mm-hmm. And gracious host of wiki.flashpulp.com and flashpulp.com. Always. Thanks for giving me a puzzle to do. And if you have questions, comments, or suggestions, you can find us at flashpulp.com. Call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792, or email us text or mp3s to comments@flashpulp.com. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylants can be found at maytunes.com, and the entire run of flashpulp can be found at flashpulp.com, or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪