Hello, and welcome to FlashCast 48 - prepare yourself for owls, murder, a secret lover in the attic, Christmas, and Thomas Blackhall.
Read the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC48 - Sherlock
(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to Flashcast 48. Prepare yourself for Owls, Murder, A Secret Lover in the Attic, Christmas, and Thomas Blackhole. (upbeat music) - Tonight we have myself, oh, Pope and X. In notation, Jessica May. - Hello. - Fabrication. - Okay. - And JRD. - Hello. - Agribation. - No doubt. - You can't see, but I'm shaking my fist. - Have you guys ever heard of Dolly and I'm gonna mispronounce this? Ostrich. - Ostrich? - Osterich. - Goodbye. - I caught this story on Gimcrack Hospital, which is fantastic little blog run by Nurse Mira. - What did you say of this? - Gimcrack Hospital. - Gimcrack? - I believe so. - Huh, alright. - NurseMira.wordpress.com and I'll definitely link to it in the show notes. - Okay. - But this is actually straight from the Wikipedia. This is her quoting from the Wikipedia, essentially. - Wait, so is this true or not? - Is this true as anything else on Wikipedia, I suppose. Dolly Osterich first became friendly with 17-year-old Otto Sandhuber. - I don't like this already. - Around 1913. - How old was Dolly? - And described him as her vagabond half-brother. The two quickly became lovers and met secretly at Sandhuber's boarding room or at a nearby hotel. They also rinsed Trist at Dolly's home, but when neighbors began noting Otto's increasingly frequent comings and goings and alerted her husband, Dolly suggested to Otto that he quit his job, secretly move into the Osterich's upstairs panic to a lay and he further suspicions. He readily agreed to the arrangement. Now, the reason I mention this, this actually gave him the opportunity to pursue his dream of writing a pulp fiction story. - Oh my God, that's awesome. - They actually moved at one point to Los Angeles in 1918 and he moved with them. - So she was like his muse. Did husband never find out? - She was like his teenage boy toy who didn't want to get a job and wanted to sit around writing stories all day. And the truth is he never went anywhere with his writing career, so. - What's the, she was his patron. There you go. It was more of a matron, I guess, 'cause it was a woman. - Yeah. - You know, patron to the arts. You know, yeah, to the arts. - In August 22nd, 1922, Otto hears a loud argument between the Osterichs, or so he says, and believing Dolly is in danger, he springs from his attic hideout, runs downstairs, two 25 caliber pistols in his hands. - Oh my God. - And shoots Fred four times. No, sorry, three times. - Wait, didn't we just see this on Law and Order last night? - So then the two lovers make it look like it's a burglary. - This is totally Law and Order last night. You've seen the similarities here, right? - Well, crime never, crime never changes. Where's the kid with the crack pipe? - So he locks her in the closet, and then he takes off, and the police show up, and because they can't explain how she managed to lock herself in the closet, she essentially walks. And then-- - Why did he lock her in the closet? - To look like it was a burglar. - Oh yeah, that's right. - So what ends up happening, however, is San Huber Otto. He takes off to Canada, and then she hooks up with this other fellow, Herman Shapiro, a attorney, a easy lawyer, as it were. And she ends up breaking up with Herman, who then takes the information that he's learned from her to the police. - Oh boy. - But the thing is-- - He's accessory to the crime, no? - Not this new guy, not Herman. Herman's years later. In fact, so far later that the statute of limitations had run out, so she walked. - On Order? - Oh, sorry, Otto walked. Well, there was no trial even, because he was past being able to be picked up. She was arrested too, but her trial ended in a Hungary. - Wow. - And the indictment was just dropped in the end. She lived in Los Angeles till '61, and Otto San Huber disappeared back into obscurity. - In Canada. - Oh, wait, he did get some jail time. Hold on a second here. - Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. - Oh, sorry. - He, my apologies, I hadn't read closely enough. He was arrested, and convicted of manslaughter, but he was released because the statute had run out. - Oh. - So I guess they were trying to ignore it, 'cause it was so blatantly obvious that he had done it, but. - You know, they should've had Ben Stone on the case. - Yeah, yeah, we're watching some old school on Order. - Yeah. (upbeat music) ♪ Power of prayer ♪ - So not to just keep us on this true crime bent, but did you guys hear that story about the woman in New York? - Just any particular woman in New York? - The lady who was burned to death in an elevator. - What? - Okay, so this woman is coming home, 60 year old woman, and this is from my race, so if I mess up any details, my apologies. She's coming home, she's getting into the elevator with her groceries, essentially. There's a guy in there dressed as an exterminator. She doesn't think anything about it. She steps into the elevator. He douses her down with his extermination gear, and then he sets her on fire. - How old did you say she was? Like, eight? - Sixty? - And he's in there with her? - Yeah, yeah, he was waiting for her by the looks of it. - Oh my God. - Her specific-- - Where was this? - In New York. - In New York. - I said it was in New York. Oh my God. That's so crazy. - So I'm wondering, of course, my mind immediately starts wondering what the circumstances are behind this. Like, was he molested by her at some earlier stage? Was he, were they lovers at one point? - Was he just some crazy person waiting for a random lady? - He wanted her to suffer. - Yeah, it's just such a-- - He wanted someone to suffer. - This is almost a supervillain crime. Like, this is ridiculous, it is. - Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, weird. I mean, you know, that's not a crime of passion. That's not-- - Yeah, you have to plan that stuff. - Okay. - To get dressed like an exterminator. - No, maybe he was an exterminator. - On the flip side of this, I have an even better, weird, true news story. - That's pretty horrible. - As the last of them. - And when I say that, I don't mean it's pretty horrible that thing that happened to the lady, although it is, but it's horrible that you have something worse. - No, it's actually, this is actually better. - Oh, okay. - So there was this murder case. It was actually the subject of a lifetime kind of made for TV movie at one point. It was a pretty standard husband throws wife down the staircase situation and he had some weird defense. He wasn't there or something at the time, but no one believed him. He looks like the shifty husband until Smithsonian experts and a wildlife guy step up and say that she had attacks. What they thought were domestic abuse attacks look very much like an owl flew in the window. - What? - A taxor got in her hair and then she fell down in the staircase and it flew away. - Oh my God. - So the trial is either going back to court or is having to reanalyze this new testimony. - Okay, so how long ago did this occur? - I believe it was like in the '90s or early 2000s. It's one of those court cases that's been dragging on forever. - You know what? - How many were how he's doing in there? - You know what I wonder? Who's the guy at the Smithsonian that's like, wait, you know what? I know what happened 10 years ago. - You know? - Yeah, well, I believe they probably were like, hey, that looks like, I suspect it wasn't just him looking at the news one night and suddenly realizing, I recognize those claw mugs. - But like, how did the dude at the Smithsonian like-- - That's Hootie Wilkinson and he's drunk all the time. He's always bad math in the other owls. He's probably looking for money for his crack at it. Just, I'm a dad who's a comic co-creator with Jack Kirby. Made Captain America, co-created Captain America. Maybe you've heard of him. Outside of America known as Arroyal with America. More interestingly, he also created the boy commandos and the news boy legion. And I would argue that there's a lot of connection between the news boy legion and the collector's detective. I hadn't actually heard of the boy commandos though until I went into researching him. I guess him and Joe Kirby did a bunch of work after they made Captain America and he exploded. They were basically able to write their own meal so I could at DC like they moved from Marvel to DC or the company that was DC at the time. And they started making these weird boy gangs. And I find the boy commandos fascinating 'cause although I'm more familiar with the news boy legion, the boy commandos were sort of the flip side of that. They were the scrappy, young international team of boy commandos fighting the nazis overseas. - That's awesome. - And there was Andrei Shavard from France, Alfie, Twidget from England, Jan Hasen from the Netherlands and Brooklyn from the States. - Great, that sounds awesome. For all those kids who wish that they could go and kick some Nazi ass. - Yeah, and you leave commando squad of orphaned children led by grown-up Captain Rip Carter. So that's pretty hilarious. - I'm sure that's get needed. - Yeah, well, you always had to have some sort of guardians that they weren't getting in too much trouble, right? And to have some adult to show up if they really got into a scrape. Anyway, just sad and I wanted to know the passing of Joe Simon. He was definitely a name that came up a lot in the old. Marvel used to do these bull pen news updates, bull pen updates in the middle of the comics. I don't know if you ever read those. - Yeah, yeah, I remember those. - It would always be spotlighting the different people and DC had the same thing and you would always come across Joe Simon's name where people were referring to him. Anyway, so they've announced the new Sherlock episodes. - Yeah, the names of the second and third ones, right? - Yeah, that should be awesome. My favorite, actually, of the Sherlock stories is the hand of the basketballs. That's gonna be the next one. I don't even know what number they're gonna be. - No, I think that's the second episode of the second season and they're doing another three-season runs or three-episode runs. So it's just going to be the three. That's very interesting. - Just three, really? - Well, the next one is the Reichenbach fall. - Oh. - I don't know anything about that one. - Well, see, the Reichenbach falls were the falls from the final solution. - What's that? - Which was the episode, not the episode, the story in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off. - Oh, yeah, he fell off a waterfall or something. - Yeah, which is, yeah, the human more you're already are struggling and they both fall, which is very interesting because he did end up bringing him back due to popular demand. But if they're just using it as sort of a seasonal cliffhanger at the end of the thing, that's kind of funny in a way. - Yeah, that is kind of funny. Oh, that's a little nasty. (laughing) - It's funny you bring that up, though, because I was reading another piece of Holmes news. Apparently his estate has recently commissioned Anthony Horowitz, who frankly, I'm not familiar, to write a new Sherlock story. And now I know new Sherlock stories are written all the time, but I guess if the estate commissions it, it's considered more canonish. - Okay, that's cool. - It's called The House of Silk. And it's interesting because the article I was reading about it, which again, I'll include in the show notes, says that Horowitz plans on sticking to 10 rules. He is prohibiting himself from writing over-the-top action scenes. He doesn't want any romantic interludes. He's not going to have any hints of a gay relationship between Holmes and Watson. No historical figures will be appearing as walk-ons, and there will be no drug use. Instead, he wants to get the focus on using the right language and getting the Victorian material correct. - Wow, that sounds like fun. - Yeah, well, listen, I know that the original Holmes stories didn't necessarily have the punch-ups of a modern pulp tale, but at the same time, they weren't necessarily boring either. - Yeah. - There were some shenanigans. - But they're taking like all the controversy out of Sherlock Holmes. - Yeah, it is definitely a very good little approach. - It's all vanilla now. - Well, I'd be more comfortable with leaving in a little bit of drug use at least, or maybe making the story semi-revalve around a historical figure. No, no. - Just to be so specifically anti-controversy like that, it just seems a little contrived. - Well, I think part of the problem is that he's probably saying that in reaction to all of the sort of almost fan fiction that's been put out, 'cause all of the modern stories that are told are invariably like Sherlock Holmes versus the vampires, or like Sherlock Holmes meets a werewolf, Sherlock Holmes meets Abbot Castello, or Sherlock Holmes fights Abraham Lincoln, no, it's okay. - Okay, let's just say. And the thing is, those are fun, absolutely. But at the same time, if you're looking for something that's more in the vein of the original, it can be a difficult proposition. No one's trying to write just an extension of those original stories, or at least it doesn't feel like it. - Anyway, I'm still pretty excited to see them. - Oh yeah, the show is for sure. - I didn't know they, is it they're coming out with, or they've already come out with? They must have already come out with another Sherlock maybe? - Oh yeah, the second Robert Downey Jr. - Yeah, the second Robert Downey Jr. - What the heck rock of I went under? I just heard about that today. - Speaking of these weird sort of crossovers actually, I just really wanted to quickly mention Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter. - Yeah, I heard that. - Have you guys seen the poster? - Yeah, that's pretty exciting. - There's, yes, the poster Jessica's referring to, there's a shot of him sitting in a fairly rustic version of the presidential office, but he's holding an axe. Sort of has his sides and he can't really see his face. - That's so awesome. - It's very well done, so I'm actually quite excited to see that one, even though I have problems with these sort of historical shenanigans. - Wait, that's a movie, is it? - Yeah. - Really? - Absolutely. - I thought I was just a book. - No, no, they've, like sense and sensibilities and sea monsters. - No, they've turned it, I believe it was originally a book, but they've turned it into a film, although I could be wrong about that. - Oh, that's so great. - Also, you know what I'm really excited about while we're talking about exciting movie news? - What? - One year from now, we will be enjoying a new Hobbit film, which I really think of as just another-- - They've been working a long time. - But remember that brief window we had a few years ago where you just go every season and watch a new Lord of the Rings film? - Oh my gosh, that was cool, a little bit. - It was a great time. - Yeah. - And I'm really excited 'cause they're doing that again, right, and like, it'll be Hobbit next year and then the year after that Hobbit 2. - Does it give you a Hobbit 2? - Well, it's more like Hobbit, more Hobbit. - Oh, so you don't think they're gonna finish the whole tale of the Hobbit in one movie? - No, they seem to be breaking it off possibly at the riddle scene. - Yeah, where, yeah, that's right after Bilbo has been separated from the rest of the group and-- - Yeah, so it does make it-- - And he discovers the brain. - No, I'm not entirely sure about that, but that's what I've heard. - Yeah, I can believe that, because then there's the whole thing with him getting back to them and meeting the dragon and the whole attack on the town. - Right, yeah, so that'll be exciting. I'm looking forward to that. Jeff sent me a fantastic link to an album that I've been listening to in regular writing rotation. It's called Crazy Clown Time by David Lynch, the director. And it's an odd little album. - Everything about David Lynch's odd. - Jessica May, can you give us a 30-second sample? (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Real forensics, real forensics. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) And then the drums come in and then the guitar comes in. And then you just, it's like one more texture of the tip. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Wow, that's pretty crazy cool. - Yeah, there's a lot of atmosphere. I mean, the lyrics aren't terribly in depth. They're usually a bit of text repeated over and over again, but it's definitely interesting. - That aren't all the lyrics. - Well, I mean, most of the songs are one line repeated over and over again. - Oh, wow. - But I mean, it works and the songs are intensely short and they tend to be heavy in guitar and drums, although in an old school sort of style, which I really enjoyed. There's just a lot of atmosphere. - Your comment that they, a lot of the songs are like one line repeated over and over. I would love to see like a list of the one lines in the album. - Yeah, I'm sure they would have thought a long time on that single line. - Yeah, well, they're interesting. They're obviously chosen relatively carefully, but big thanks, Jeff, for pointing me in that direction. I have been enjoying it. Just a couple more quick movie items. There's a official fight club soap bar. - Of course. - $20 a bar, 20 bucks a bar. - Wow, what's that? - I was surprised. - Electrolytes, caffeine. - And lady fat. - And punching is what they say. And I was really sad that there's not human body fat in it. I think that would make it worth 20 bucks. But without it, have you guys seen? - No, I didn't want to use it though. You want people to buy it for using it for a purpose. And that's just novelty, right? - Oh, you know what that reminds me of? - Human body fat soap is the new oyster shell soap that you put in your mom's bathroom that never gets used. - No, you know, that totally reminds me of that, what was it, the nice guys or something like that? That documentary that we saw? - The Yes Men. - The Yes Men, that's it. And they had this one conference that they had gone to where they were pretending to be an oil company, was that it? But they were like taking the victims of like oil disasters and rendering them into like candles. (laughing) It was like the willy candle. - Yeah, they had a testimony of the guy before he died. And he's like, "You know, they asked me what I'd want to do." And I just thought, "You know, candle will be cool." Like it was just so ridiculous. But they didn't-- - And they did a big deal of it. - And they didn't tell anybody what the candles were until they were already holding them for like 10 minutes. They were burning and then they're watching this video and they're slowly becoming like disgusted. Plus, they put like, this scent was like rotting flesh or burning flesh. - Very nice way. - So people would like blow it out and just watch and disgust. It was so much fun. - And they were shaped like little dudes. - And then at the end-- - They were like, this is the first guy that, you know, he's offered to give his life for a cat. Or to give his body for a kanda. 'Cause one guy at the end of it, I believe it was that segment said how refreshing it was to say that, you know, the casualties of-- - The oil industry. - Yeah, it was refreshing to hear that, you know, it's okay if some people die. There's a calculated risk when there's money involved. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - I totally recommend that documentary to anybody who wants to watch it. It's great. It's kind of sad when you see like some of the executives and people kind of, you know, agreeing with them and being like, yeah, yeah, you know what? This is a good idea, like that-- - When they're not in your suit, yeah. - It's definitely like people agreeing with Tom Swift. - If there's money, it's horrific. - Okay, on to slightly more upbeat news. Have you guys seen the Jack the Giant Killer trailer? - Oh my gosh, yes. I only just saw it like one or two days ago, but I am totally in love and I've got to see this movie. I love this whole theme of fairy tale movies coming up. I don't know if anybody remembers the movie, "The Brothers Grimm." - Yeah. - I really wanted to like that movie. - Oh yeah, I wanted to. - I wanted to. - Like the serious, scary, funny. - Yeah, but it didn't work. - No, and I really love fairy tales and I love how fairy tales can be like really dark and stuff. So I had high hopes and I've had a lot of high hopes for a lot of these fairy tale movies coming out, but I'll be it, I haven't seen most of them. - Well, like where the wild things are, that was sort of-- - Yeah, it was fairy tale. It was whimsy, but it wasn't fairy tales, right? Like it was more like Sandecker, whatever it was. - The things like the Snow White movie that just came out and the husband, yeah. - Yeah, there was another one, wasn't there? What was the other one? - I don't know. - Red Riding Hood, oh yeah, yeah. - Yeah, there was a Red Riding Hood film, but there's also that television show that's out right now. - There's a couple of-- - Happily ever after something. - There's a couple of shows out like that. There's Grim 2, which is like a, supposed to be like a detective-y fairy tale one. And both of those, frankly, to me, I haven't seen them, but they look kind of-- - I really see, like when Twilight happened, there was kind of a boom, and-- - Yeah. - Well, I don't know if Twilight can be, maybe it was vampires that opened that up, but at the same time-- - I think they're maybe the linchpin. - And Rice and her vampire films. - Yeah, they've been around for a while. And that's even kind of what I was saying, when like Queen of the Dam came out a long time ago. - I would almost go the other way and say that Hollywood has gotten to the point in the remake cycle where they've remade everything that was made in the last 50 years. So they're gonna go with everything that was made in the last three hundred years. - Yeah, they're gonna start remaking, like, yeah. Well, whatever. - They're reaching back to the classics. - And coming back to Jack, the giant killer, I'm really, really excited about this. I think the CG in it looks good. It looks like it can be funny, but it's exciting. You know, I can probably watch it with the kids. - I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I think it's gonna be terrible. - No, I'm excited about it. - I think it's gonna be Van Helsing all over again. - I haven't seen it, so I'm gonna have an opinion. - I think Van Helsing was silly to the point of, like, unwatchable. - I think Rim tried to be Van Helsing, but without being silly, and it still was terrible and unwatchable. - I think Jack, the giant killer, will be silly, but watchable from the point of view of I'm watching it with my kids. It doesn't have to be an Oscar winner, you know? It's still gonna be good fun. Cut, like, what was it called, Starlight? Was it Stardust? That's the one with Claire Danes? - I feel like we've gotten to a point where we can generate so much computer scenery and characters, so many characters, now on screen at one time, after Lord of the Rings, it just exploded. And we're in this phase now where we're throwing this technology everywhere, unnecessarily, I would say. These scripts do not necessarily have plots that are supporting the effects that are going into these films. Someone's going, we need a big budget. Action, Blusten, blah, blah, blah, blah. - Jack and the Beanstalk. - Jack and the Beanstalk. - And... - But come on, can't you say you're a little bit excited about it? - Listen, there are scenes in Jack and the Beanstalk trailer that are directly lifted from Jurassic Park, and they're essentially treating the-- - Especially that part with the raptor and the door handle? - Yeah, they're essentially treating the giant, like, T-Rex. And frankly, I've seen Jurassic Park for. I know that if you make that movie without having a solid sort of background, it's not going to hold up. And I've heard Jack and the Beanstalk, I don't think that this is a film that's going to hook me in. Unless there's some magic, like, unless there's so much shows up for some magic beans. - And then hope to do these shows. (laughing) - Speaking of CGI ruining the magic, have you guys seen that there's a new Ghost Rider trailer out? - Oh, gosh. - It's not really worth mentioning at all, but the one thing is that now the franchise has been entirely ruined for me, because every time I see the new Nick Cage Ghost Rider stuff, I think that his entire body is covered in flaming urine, because there's no differentiation if it's all urine, it's all urine that's disgusting, man, you're covered in your own flaming urine. - We're going hell. - That is an STD I do not want to deal in. And if that wasn't bothersome enough, well, it's here from Jeff. (classical music) - Spotted by the... (classical music) - Nothing that lives in the imagination is more frightening than the terror that lives in Castle Rock, Maine. (classical music) - Koo-joo? (classical music) - Koo-joo? If you've never seen that old Stephen King horror flick from the 1980s, then shame on you. It's a classic. I mean, come on, what could be worse than a big scary beast slowly going crazy and terrorizing people in a remote part of New England? How about a small scary beast slowly going crazy and terrorizing people in South Carolina? That's just what happened this week in Sumter County. Here's the story from Reuters. A middle-aged woman in South Carolina has contracted the state's first case of human rabies in more than 50 years health officials said on Friday. "There are only about one to three cases of human rabies "each year in this country," said Dr. Eric Brenner, epidemiologist with the State Department of Health and Environmental Controls Bureau of Disease Control. "Tragically, rabies almost always end in death," he said in a statement. Brenner said health officials believe the woman likely was bitten by a bat that entered her home a few months ago. The rabies virus travels slowly through the body until it reaches the brain and central nervous system and produces serious initial symptoms, including headache, difficulty swallowing, swallowing, seizures, anxiety, agitation and confusion, he said. "Most patients die within a few weeks "after the onset of these symptoms." Federal medical privacy laws prevent the department from releasing any more information about the patient or her conditions, said health and environmental control spokesman Jim Beasley. The woman lives in Sumter County in the middle of the state official said, "Bites from rabies-infected bats "are one of the most common ways humans are exposed," Brenner said, raccoons, foxes, skunks and other wild animals, as well as unvaccinated dogs and cats can transmit rabies through their saliva into a bite wound. South Carolina law requires all dogs, cats and ferrets to be vaccinated against the rabies virus. The agency said it will investigate to determine if anyone else might have been exposed to the virus. Person-to-person transmission of rabies has not been documented with the exception of special circumstances in medical settings," Brenner said. The last cases of human rabies in South Carolina were in December, 1959, when an elderly Florence Countyman was bitten by a dog, and in March, 1958, when an elderly, Clarendon County woman was bitten by a fox. In closing, "I'm reminded of the little white postcard "that I received from my vet last month reminding me "to bring our wolf dog shade in for her rabies booster shot." "She's very big and has very sharp teeth." "I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's this week's Spot of Bother." I'm just hearing Shae telling. That used to be a bit of a third-chair incident on the "Bother Some Things" podcast back in the day. Kudo was definitely one of those early inappropriate exposures that me and Gigantor got into. What made it inappropriate? Well, to start age is the time of getting into it, yeah. Yeah. There are some, actually, frankly, that film has many scenes that I find more disturbing as an adult, usually relating to child in danger, parent locked away somewhere kind of scenarios. Yeah, I don't know how well I'd handle that movie now. I've seen parts of it. I don't think I've seen the whole movie all the way through. It is a great film, it's definitely worth watching. I knew it was a Stephen King film off the top, but I kind of got the, we all float down here, Georgie. Kind of out of that before I realized it was Koojo. Another great entry, Jeff. I actually had a dog that went rabid when I was a boy. When I was a boy, it was a pet we had had when I was especially young, and we had sort of given up the old out to the farm treatment when we moved to the larger city from our somewhat rural home. You actually sent it to a farm or you killed it? No. Because when you get to the farm means you killed it. Yeah, I suppose it does. No, we actually sent it to my grandparents' place, their actual farm, where he lived quite happily for quite a while until one day he was defending the farmstead from Fox and was bitten, rather badly. That's right. And then essentially he was left in the garage for some time to see if he would actually turn. And he did. And he did. Yes. Turn into a werewolf, it was horrible. Yeah, yeah. I use a great dog, but anyway. If you're interested in following up on some of the links for this story, you can find it all over at Jeff's site at bothersandthings.com. Does a great job of posting up background information on any clips he uses during his segment. Since we're talking about film, now's probably a good time to see what fish has to say. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening 3-day fish. Hey, Flashgast, 3-day fish here. Coming at you with a review of Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows. Now, I'll get off on the get-go here and say, you don't have to have seen the first one to like this movie. But if you have seen the first one, I'd say you'd like it as much or better than the first. It's still very much an action movie. And in fact, when I was watching it, it kind of reminded me of like a mix of James Bond and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Because it has this whole international aspect to it. And they take the time to show the scenery of those countries. That's a lot of fun. And then just like the time period kind of makes it League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-ish. Fun movie to watch, very action-y, a lot of humor. And it's just fun to see all these creative ways that Sherlock Holmes could have been a badass instead of just an old dotty in England being all English. So yeah, all in all, it's a green light. And now for my final clue. The final clue is H.J. What? What could it be? And after this Flashcast airs, I will post up a thread or a comment on the flash mob page. And you guys can take your guesses with all the hints. And whoever gets it gets a sticker. All right, that's all. Always listening. Ooh, that's a pretty big hint. I know what the film is now, and I think that's pretty borderline on giving it away. No? Was it H.J? H.J. H.J. There we go. Well, it's almost that time. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's coming down to the line. So I'll put up a link to the mob in the show notes section for fish. You can just do a quick search for a three day fish, and you'll find a-- well, I always post up the trailer for whatever the film is. I post up a little link to Jeff's site, and if he has his post up already to his post, relating to the topic of the week. I try to do the same for Barry and for Ingrid when possible. So you should always maybe check out the show notes, he says, because he invests so much time in it. [LAUGHTER] So yeah, you can find the mob from the notes. Join the mob, leave your guess. And next episode, which we will be discussing exactly when next episode is somewhere in background plots, we will-- or actually fish will-- announce a winner. So let's take a ride from London to New York and see what Barry has to say. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to your New York Minute. They say that you could find anyone, anywhere, at any time in New York. And that may be true, because this week on broadcasting from the intersection of Rex Harrison and Alan Ginsburg. Last week's Flashcast featured a small-- a very small mention of actor Rex Harrison. He may be best known as Dr. Do Little in the 1967 film, you guessed it, Dr. Do Little. It's incredible. It's impossible, but it's true. Yeah, that's the stuff. He was a wonderful actor. Noel Coward said he was, and I'm quoting, the best light comedy actor in the world, except for me. Noel Coward was talking about himself, not yours truly. Rex Harrison died in 1986, leaving behind six wives, five of them exes, two sons, and three step sons. One of his sons, born to actress Lily Palmer, was a bright lad named Carrie. Carrie Harrison is the celebrated author of 35 stage plays and 16 novels. He has written for radio and television. Masterpiece Theater has dedicated 17 hours to his work. Among many other things, he is a book reviewer and a columnist. He has won numerous awards and is currently writing an opera. And he was my English professor back in Brooklyn College. Now I have to be honest. When I was his student, I knew nothing about any of that. I knew his father was a famous actor, but that was as far as it went. Professor Harrison was, and presumably still is, a very nice man and a scholarly gentleman. I enjoyed his class, which was planned around the novel, The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I recall coming up with an insight about some of the minor character names, which I realized were the names of lesser knights of the round table. Despite probably having heard the same insight hundreds of times from hundreds of students, he made me feel as though I had really accomplished something, which I much later in my own career realized was one of the hallmarks of a good teacher. The class was small, only about a dozen of us gathered around a large conference table in his office, which he used instead of a classroom. It was intimate. One thing I admired about him was his passion, not for writing, but for curiosity. At one point in the novel, a character drinks, I believe a slow-gen fizz, though it might have been a mint julep, and if you big Ford Maddox Ford nuts in the audience, write it and tell me which one it was. Professor Harrison stopped us to ask about the drink. None of us had ever had one. We knew it was an alcoholic beverage, and some of us knew what was in it, but that wasn't good enough for him. He chastised us, in a kind way, for not knowing more. What did the drink taste like? How was it made? I suspect it was that level of passion and attention to detail that makes him such a successful man. I took the class in the winter, and he invited all of us to a holiday party at his home, and one of my regrets is that I just didn't go. I was never much of a joiner, especially then, and the prospect of spending the night in the company of what were virtually strangers and my English teacher didn't seem very inviting. But as I said, I had no idea who my professor was. Looking back, all the questions I could have asked, all the stories I could have heard, the potential valuable professional contact. Professor Harrison, if you listen to Flashcast, and I know you do, please invite me back. And if any of his current students are listening, yo, hook me up dudes. But I did say that I was broadcasting from the intersection of Harrison and Ginsburg. Alan Ginsburg, as I hope most of you know, was one of the leading beat poets of the 1950s. If you know nothing else of him, get out of the house and look up his poem Howl. He was a poet, a hippie, and a post-modernist. He was a Buddhist, a protester, and a professor. Yes, he too taught English at Brooklyn College. Now, I didn't get to meet Professor Ginsburg, though I understand no one called him Professor. I took Professor Harrison's class not long after Alan Ginsburg died. Professor Harrison brought us into the small and dingy English department office they shared. It was nothing special. It was functional, painted with neutral faded gray paint, and stock was slightly beat up in worn furniture like you'd find in a cheap walk-in clinic. From the surroundings, you'd never guessed two such distinguished men work there, yet they did. Professor Harrison reverently pointed to Alan Ginsburg's chair, which he never allowed anyone to sit in, and showed us Ginsburg's plants, which Professor Harrison continued to water. And if you Ginsburg fans are wondering, the plants are ordinary ferns, not marijuana. I can't say that I appreciated any of that tale at the time, but now several years later and reading it back as I write, that's a pretty good story. And where else could it happen, but Brooklyn, New York? ♪ Let's hear it, do you, do you, do you, do you ♪ - What a fascinating convergence. I would have never thought there was any connection between Ginsburg and Harrison. Very, very neat, and only a New York fan. - Yeah, we'll need New York, exactly. - I must say that throughout my college career, I never entered a teacher's office that wasn't pretty shabby. - Really? - I mean, not necessarily shabby in that it was unkempt, but just always very cramped. Never as much room as it seemed like they might like. It always seemed like-- - Disheveled. - Somewhat makeshift affair, anyhow. - Thank you very much Barry for sending it in. - Yeah, absolutely fascinating. So I'm glad that just a weird sidetrack in a Rex Harrison sparked that whole thing. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - And it is a good story, absolutely. - Absolutely, thanks for sharing. You can find all of Barry's good stories over at bmj2k.com. - Should we talk about our mugs? The awesome mugs that we got from Barry? - Oh yeah, I meant to mention that up front in the news. - 'Cause I totally love my mug, and it is the perfect size for my coffee. - So sick, like the mug itself, and there's so much room inside of it, but it's not too big. - It is a quality mug, absolutely. - Yeah, everything about it. And each one of them suited one of us. - Like totally claimed the Saturday morning comic one. - So if your job at the CIA doesn't work out, Barry, you can go into business as a mug reseller. - Yeah, absolutely, dude. Those are nice. - Okay. - We gotta hand wash those guys. - Yeah. (laughing) - Well, while we're busy with our international travel, we may as well head all the way back to Vienna. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - The curious tales of Vienna. Since Christmas is coming soon, I thought I'd take you out of Vienna this time, and we'd travel to the countryside to over and off in Salzburg, about 300 kilometers west of Vienna. And I will tell you a legend about the origin of a carol. The carol silent night. The ride the year 1818. Or one dove, which is located by the sides of the river, was a small and insignificant village that time, and home of shipbuilders and skippers. It was the day of Christmas Eve in a cold winter. The village and the hills around were deeply covered with snow. The local teacher from Scover closed the schoolhouse. Slowly he trudged through the snow to meet his friend and priest of the village, father, user for more at the church, St. Nicholas. The two young men had to make the final preparations for the Christmas miss. After warm welcome, Father Martold, the teacher from Scover, who also served as organized, and as the church's core master, which hymns he had selected as part of the celebration. Then the organist climbed up the stairs to the gallery where the organ was placed. But there he made an nasty discovery. Mice had chewed through the palace of the old organ. The instrument kept silent, not even as sound was possible. A Christmas mess without music would be a very poor one. They both went to the rectories, sat down in the warm parlor and considered what to do. Suddenly the priest remembered that he had written a poem two years ago, a poem about the Christmas tale. He stood and went to his desk. He rummaged through the drawers of his writing table. Finally he grabbed a piece of paper and showed it to his friend Franz. Excited but in a low voice, the priest asked Franz to set the sixth son's long poem to music. They removed that ounce that the words were in German and not in usual liturgical Latin. And soon it was clear. It would be a song for two voices, tinar and bass, and a companion instrument would be the priest's guitar. Hylines bired by the Christmas poem and influenced by the local folk music, Franz Krüber wrote down a simple melody in a sprightly dense-like rhythm within the following few hours. Already in the late afternoon, he was able to practice the choral with the children's choral. So it came that on Christmas Eve in 1818, the carol silent night was sung the first time at midnight mess. Father, use of more, sang the tinar voice and played the guitar. Franz Krüber sang the bass line and directed the core. The two young men saved the Christmas celebration for the people of Ojondorf, not knowing that this carol would be known all over the world one day. That's such a sweet story, and I love that carol too. Mm-hmm. Now, that's interesting, though. Does that mean that because they had to make it up on the fly and it was sort of using the folksy guitar, does that make this Jesus-filck? That's right, eh? I want to hear Nutty's opinion on it. (laughs) - Anyway-- - 'Cause if anyone would know. - Yes. - It's Nutty's. She would know. - Yeah, fantastic tailing grid. Thank you very much for sharing. - Thank you very much. - It puts me in the Christmas mood. - Thank you very much. Certainly. You can find all of Ingrid's tales at vinny'slegions.blockspot.com or at dancingylland.blockspot.com. It's always fantastic when we have her. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. Guess what? - What? Mailbag. - So I heard that we may have finally integrated the time continuum's-- - Oh my gosh. - I heard. Are we crossing the streams? Yeah, that's what-- - That's exactly what Rich said when he sent me the email, yeah. - That's so funny. - We're crossing the streams. - I actually, so many times, I'm like, eh, maybe I'll just take a listen. But I keep thinking, you know, I should wait until you guys hear, but-- - Wow, this is exciting. I can't wait to hear what he has to say. - Okay, well, I want some more, so let's see if we can fight off Stay Puff for those cross the streams. - Hello, Flashpulp gang. I've stolen a crystal from the sleestat cave to record this on, so I hope that technology in the future is sufficiently advanced to decode it. I've officially crossed the time streams, and I'm overtaking my own comments. I believe I've passed three Flashcast episodes with my comments so far, and I've survived. Like Jessica May, I have an aversion to hearing myself recorded, although mine is purely not liking to hear my own voice. I'm a bit overwhelmed by how well the questions and comments have been received by you, and by how many of them I've forgotten or thought were in the first batch of comments, I said I only have not heard them yet. Truly a little disorienting. So far as the name, you guys can call me time traveler rich, but what will I be when I catch up? Maybe I'll always have to lag a month behind. I'm about 14 episodes behind you guys at this point, may make my year in goal, may not. I wanted to start by saying I've fretted all week that a poke might have taken my comments or make best voice the wrong way. I hope it didn't come off as harsh or too critical, but I did want to say I really, really am enjoying the work on sour thistle. I hope to hear more of her in future stories. I love the Cough and Tail mediator. All I can say is go bunny. I had a huge smile on my face, despite the tragic fate of the family, pitching her ramming the mediator with the car. It was nice to finally hear the answers to my questions about her in their previous flashcast as well. You asked for further thoughts on Mother Graham and how you changed her to more of a storyteller. I did like those. Maybe you can strike a balance for her, a few tales of her life and a few tales retold by her. She does make a very good narrator. I've been meaning to hypothesize in the murder plague Ruby Connection. It's been on my mind for ages, but didn't make it into my notes until recently. We discussed someone from the mob's theory about the paranoia making people think the others were zombies. Personally, I'm wondering if the infection from the murder plague either naturally mutates into the zombie virus, or perhaps mankind's attempt to wipe it out causes it to change. Anyway, that's my guess. A couple of belated superstitions for you guys. Around here, it is common to eat black eyed peas and collards or other greens on New Year's Day, though not with a knife. The belief is they represent prosperity in the New Year, the peas stand for coins and the greens for paper money. The more you eat, the more prosperous you'll be in the coming year. Also, the more likely your family is to leave you alone later in the day. Coming from the coast, another common one was, Red Sky at night, sailors delight, Red Sky at morning, sailors take warning. Speaking of the coast, an odd segue here bear with me. I've had my share of odd foods. I've eaten many a bivalve fresh and raw from the water, which is funny because my parents would eat that, but would be stupefied at the notion of sushi. Being in the south, I've had my share of liver puddings in south slough, also known as head cheese. So the notion of black pudding never bothered me, and indeed the times that I've had it, it was quite good. I drew down all the lines at chitlings, or chitterlings, if you prefer, and I've avoided trying haggis. However, if Jeff has ever in Raleigh, he shall look me up and I'll take him to the Hibernian for a nice Irish breakfast, complete with rashers of bacon and both black and white puddings. A quick shout out to Ingrid. The tales are fantastic, but her readings are so great. I put her squarely on my list of people I could listen to reading the phone book. Joe touched on one of my favorite books, Darwin's Radio by Greg Baer. I read both that and Darwin's Children, the sequel. They are fantastic and definitely put the hard and hard science fiction. If you like the idea of that storyline and want more, I'd also recommend Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress. There are sequels, but I've only read the first. It's another interesting story of what happens to society when humans undergo a rather rapid evolution. My only criticisms would be the science is a bit more rubbery and Kress is definitely influenced struggling by Ayn Rand in libertarianism, and it can come off a little bit heavy-handed at times. A few bullet-point thoughts and questions to finish up here. The Houston drone talk after Free Alaska keeps making me think back to the movie Blue Thunder. Where are you finding the NPR Star Wars recordings? I'm jealous. It's a bit pricey in the collector's edition they're selling at the NPR store. Is there a legal digital download source? My life does audiobooks with the kids when curpling the school. I think this would be great for that. Plus, I wanna listen too. He spoke of romance, pulp, and twilight, and it makes me chuckle. My life is a big fan of the latter, and her favorite genre, to put it politely, is supernatural romance. You asked why there was so much clamor about Satanist. I think it boils down to this. When bad things happen, it's easier for us to hang the blame on something like Satanist that's beyond our control than it is for us to admit there are just evil people in the world. And last, the question was asked, what was our first exposure to inappropriate material? My memory says that it was going to see the first Star Wars movie and encountering a trailer for Apocalypse Now. Though when I look at the release date, it was more likely that it was the Star Trek motion picture. I would have been about seven at the time. I also remember a church youth group meeting at one of the castor's homes when they showed us a movie. I'm being surprised 'cause I didn't realize we were watching a movie that night, and then the movie turned out to be Poltergeist, which I didn't know anything about. I don't think I slept well for a week. We haven't actually gotten to start powerless that I mentioned last time yet. Holiday madness, a daughter with strep, and general life has conspired against me. I'll keep you posted once we do. That's all for now. Tell Kara Grizes this is Rich. - Okay, well, I think that makes it official. Jessica May is overruled. It is now time traveler rich. - Apparently, time traveler rich, apparently. You know what? That movie Poltergeist terrifies me still. It was my favorite movie as a child. I watched it all the time. - When I was about five, six, oh, I can't handle it. - What kind of geek crit up bringing is that to have been an original run Star Wars and Star Trek, and not to be able to remember when exactly you saw the Apocalypse Now trailer. - Dude, that's pretty awesome. - That's pretty fantastic. And also, yeah, I could definitely see even the trailer for Apocalypse Now being pretty intense exposure. - That's a little much, you survived. - Yeah. - We're happy. - I think it's fairly well known about town that the ladies enjoy some supernatural romance when they can. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - If you can call true blood romantic. - It doesn't inform. - Yeah, it doesn't have to be supernatural. But I'm still waiting for my Mulligan story. - Yeah? - I'm a fan of romance. I'm not a huge fan of cheese. I like things to have a plot at least. - Yeah. - Well, listen, any genre has a gradient to it, right? Like there's good, bad in any. - Yeah. And generally too, if the writing is good, if the story is something, you know, like it's another version of, you know, Jane Eyre or whatever. You know, if the acting and the cinematography is good, then it's new and fresh and awesome. But I also like the supernatural, so to mix it together. First, my first touch with that was Vampires, was Bram Stoker's. - Oh, Dracula, yeah. - Yeah, and it just. - For me, it was Fright Night, which you hate. You can't get over the campiness of Fright Night. - Yeah, no, no, no, I think I think it matters. - I don't know that the romantic angle is, well, it's hard to say what exactly sells Fright Night, Rodney McDowell. - Well, that's a big, big part of it. - But he has nothing to do with the romance. Marcy Darcy is the romantic neighbor who's not. Anyway. - Why does he keep calling me a chicken? - You know what, thanks, Rich, for your comments on Sarah Thistle. I appreciate the kudos for that, I guess. - Yeah, 'cause you really, like, go all the way. So, I just need to have encouragement. She's not an easy character to read, but she's really fun. - Thanks as well for your comments on Mediator. It's interesting. I happen to have a minor inside scoop that one Mr. Pighart almost wrote some guest-asowed action involving the Mediator Monster. - Really? - And I think his, I've read some pieces by Nick that are not Pighart pieces, which are always brilliantly put together, but have a certain comedic smitchew. - Yes, yes. - Actually, I suppose most of the things I've read by him have all had a comedic feel to it, but certainly more dark material by him. And I think he could have done something really fun with such a horrible monster. - Or could continue at some point to try? - Yeah, maybe at some point, yeah. - Yeah. - Please? - I think you're right about finding a balance with Mother Gran, she has some fairly important flashpalpy universe business to complete before her tale is done. But at the same time, she's so great to just pass a story through, so. - Mother Gran sieve. - And speaking of fantastic storytellers, absolutely agree about Ingrid. - Yes. - Absolutely. She is definitely a very welcome contributor to the show. - The one side venture I've considered now and again would be writing a flashpulp for kids' venture, almost bedtime story style. - Yeah, that would be so cool. - And asking Ingrid to do some of the readings, 'cause her voice is so soothing, but. - Oh, yeah. Plus it's got this sort of magical quality too, you know? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Speaking of magical quality, the Star Wars radio shows, unfortunately no, I just had to take the dive and invest. I couldn't find a legal source otherwise. - Yeah, but this particular NPR series or whatever is well worth it. Yeah, for Mr. Nine. - Geez, yeah, for Mr. Nine, it is definitely worth it. It's just pricey, man. I understand, I understand not wanting to, it came very highly recommended and I'm definitely glad we did, but. - You know, you're not the only person who's mentioned the Black Eyed Pease thing for superstitions. - Yes. - Who was the other person that. - It might have been Amy. - Maybe. - But at the same time, I don't think they provided the coins and cash. - No, no, it was just a thing that she did or he did or whatever it was. - I've never had colored greens or Black Eyed Pease. - No, me neither. - I've had both. I don't necessarily get what the thing is about them. - Yeah. - But. - Chitlins never gonna try, never, never, never none. - I would absolutely try Haggis. - I would gladly try Haggis with Jeff and Rich. Maybe at some future flush pulp meetup. We'll go to a Haggis. We'll go to the International House of Haggis. - I don't think they have that. - Oh, I think they do. - Haggis and Spain sounds interesting. I'll definitely look that up and link in the show notes for folks also wanting to follow up on it. I know that sometimes I get a little frustrated listening to other people's podcasts when there's this great mention of something that sounds really interesting, but I don't have a pen or anything on hand. I'm walking from place to place where I'm chasing babies and listening to a podcast at the same time. - Yeah. - Great. Well, I'm really looking forward to catching up after Christmas, which is No Worries, a very tough season. - Unless he doesn't want to catch up 'cause then he wouldn't be time traveler rich. - Well, he would certainly still be a time traveler. You don't know what he's doing in between listening to episodes. - Yeah, man. He could be all over the past. - Travel. He could have listened to all of our future catalog and just not be telling us about it 'cause he doesn't want to mess with it. Just like, man, episode 457, that's just wrong, dude. That's just disgusting. And I don't respect you any longer. And then you'll be-- - 'Cause that's gonna go. - That's how it's gonna go. - Have you guys ever read the Toynbee convector? Ray Bradbury? - No. - It's this, not to give away a Bradbury story, but I mean, he's got so many, I'll give away one. He, it's this fellow who builds a time machine and goes to the future and comes back and everything's fantastic. And then he takes a bunch of pictures and then he shows everybody. Like, hey, look at the future, it's so fantastic. And everyone goes, great, the future's fantastic. Let's build that. And they essentially build the future that he went to. And then I'm not sure if he reveals publicly or if he just reveals it kind of personally, but he never actually went to the future. All he did was build a bunch of scale models and just really like invested himself in building what a proper future would look like. - That's so cool. So, if Rich was to mention that episode 457 or whatever was horrible, I'd probably spend the entirety of my time from now to then trying to develop. - Yeah, we're learning 457. - Yeah, just this horrible. - So don't do that, Rich. - Projectile vomiting-inducing episode. - Don't tell us anything about our futures, okay? We don't wanna know. It's like the dead zone. - Does time traveler Rich know when we're gonna die? Ah, spooky stuff, okay. - You're spooky time traveler Rich. - Who is that? I hear in the distance, just come here. - Co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co. I think it's an eagle. (squeaking) - That was a wolf. Now I'm-- - It's a zoo. We've got a new time of zoo just over the horizon. And you know the man who should be in charge of that zoo. (laughing) Call the roader Joe's cousin 'cause he knows a guy. (laughing) ♪ He's a cup of Joe ♪ ♪ Four mobsters at home ♪ ♪ It's Colorado Joe ♪ ♪ C'mon of Joe ♪ - Hello, Flashcast crew and fellow mobsters. I'll start with some Peter Weller trivia. Not only an actor and a couple of cult classics, Weller is also a scholar. He has a master's in Italian and Renaissance art and is working on a PhD in Italian Renaissance art history. He hosted the History Channel series Engineering and Empire, which I enjoy immensely. Regarding your budding radio network, my son is a bit of a wannabe musician. I'm attaching some of his work in hopes that you will-- No, I'm just kidding. I do understand both sides of the issue though. I doubt cold calls or emails really help much. Seems like community involvement might be a better approach. Twitter can help with this if used appropriately. There's a fine line to walk there. Self-promotion is fine, but once it gets too noisy, it becomes a distraction. I would hold up Flashpulp, dancing Ella and BMJ2K as examples of how to do it right. Regarding stories about superheroes and how they would handle retirement, Jeffrey R. Gerigos Union Do's series has addressed this topic a few times. Great stuff. They play a lot of his work on a skate pod. As for suicide by acts, you can fall on your sword. Would that work with an X? Great black hull two-parter. I grabbed the first part and listened without relasing it was a two-parter. Got to the end and thought, that was an odd ending. I soon realized my mistake. I love the conclusion. Interesting to think that luck might be balanced in the world and tipping the scale to favor one might hurt others. Regardless, the dude totally had it coming. So, what's up with KAV? I'm just asking. Though I've mentioned it in other venues, I want to throw props to Jay Mae for awesome unusual arrangement of New York and do a poke for her skin or company artwork. I get to laugh all over again. And I hope I speak for the mob when I say, we love you too. Hope everyone has a merry Christmas if you celebrate it and a great holiday season if you don't. Or as I like to put it, happy Chris Kwanzakadon. Take care. You know what, Chris Kwanzakadon is one of the reasons why we love you, Joe. Fascinating information about Peter Weller. It's always bizarre to discover these stars have a much broader background. And I mean, the ones that you can really respect often do have something to fall back on like that. Sort of, I think we've discussed previously the background to Vincent Price and sort of the side projects he got into, his love of fine art and his cooking and-- With traveling. Pretty awesome. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we're not against promoting others. I mean, we do run a lot of other people's promos and bring people's projects to the forefront if they have them in the mob. Yeah, we're always open to seeing new things from new people and spreading the word. We've occasionally run into a few folks even in the mob who are maybe a little too pushy. Yeah, but I mean, I think there's a line and people know when they're crossing the line, I think. And we generally, I don't know, it's generally helpful if it's related to something about pulpy business. Yes, and I should mention that I don't actually mind that all of these labels, not that many, I suppose. It's just a few indie labels seem to think that we're actually a radio station, but it's more in a personal sense that I hear them send me music and I give it a listen and personally either enjoy it or don't and follow up on it, but I don't play it on the show because, I don't know, that's wandering into a weird legal territory that I'm not necessarily comfortable with. What do you mean? I'm not sure I understand. If they assume that we have some sort of proper play contract for distributing music, that is not the truth. Yeah. And if they think we're actually licensed as a radio station, that is not the truth. They're wrong, yeah. We're not quite pirate radio in the old school sense, but we're just doing it ourselves. And we're doing it as we go along. Like, we started with flashpump with no intention of doing the flashcast, with no intention of doing these tweets to do the comics, to do any of it. So we're kind of... Building organically. Yeah. So who knows? We're a grassroots movement. (both laughing) No, actually, we're a complex social, complex corporate viral marketing campaign. Sometimes we go by buildings, we're like, holy crap. That's SkinnerCo, the R&D department. Yeah. I'm definitely gonna look into union news. I hadn't heard of it before, but it does remind me that, what was the name of that Batman book? Nuts, it's something to the effect of Tales of the Batman or Tales of Gotham. Ooh, I'll look it up and I'll definitely put in the show notes. But many of the stories within are relating to Batman when he's a much older man and he's tired and dealing with dead enemies or... - Really? - Yeah, yeah, it was a very interesting book. I have it on the shelf just over there, actually. I haven't lost track of CAV. It's just sort of gone back into gestation. I haven't had a lot of time to write extra words lately. And it's... The way my brain process works. A lot of the times I'm just catching ideas from the ether and I jot them down on my notebook and I know that they're going to go into a larger structure. And CAV is an ever widening snowball of ideas. I have the intro worked out. I have the chapter structure in place and meat keeps being added to those bones in the sense that I'm layering on these little extra items. But at the same time, I haven't been able to just sit down and pound the flesh into something that resembles proper meat. - You used a lot of meat metaphor there. - Yeah, I wanted it to be a little bit juicy. - Yeah, it became juicy. It was bones and then it got meatier. That was nice. - Thanks. The thing is I don't want to slow down on a flash pulp. I don't want to have to reduce the schedule to be getting CAV completed. There are rarely breaks where I can do that sort of thing. This weekend past we released the last night legend and I think that I might get back more into writing short, short pieces, 350s. - You know what really creeped me out about that one? Is that at the end, it was left up to the reader whether it was like, oh, is it sound like paranormal? Like, it was a ghost that was whatever or was it like a killer posing the other person's body? - I will. - It's just really creepy. - I will say this. I am reading "Turn of the Screw" right now and that may have informed that story a little bit. Anyhow, we'll figure it out. If I have to get to the end of flash pulp and then write CAV, so be it. I'm happy with the word counts I'm hitting lately. They aren't what I want them to be but I feel like after the Christmas holidays, I'm gonna be back on track and maybe I'll be able to get a little bit of head and actually be able to work on the novel. - No, would it be totally uncalled for it to do two flashpulps and a cast during the week? - Yeah. - Yeah, it's too much to ask. - Yeah. - Okay, I was kind of more putting it to the audience but it's good to know your opinion too. - All right, Jessica, may I have a question for you but I believe we should probably move into... - Are you a dassy? Of hope? - I think Barry's gotten pretty good play out of your New York, New York bit by now. What do you think of maybe attaching it to the end of this episode? - It frightens me but I'll do it. I have yet to put it on my website but I have noticed that I have a few comments to moderate but they're all related to like sneakers. - Yeah, that'll happen, that'll happen. - I always get excited when it's like, there's a comment on your website but it's generally about shoes. - No, I don't mean to be critical but you may get more comments on your website if you've ever updated your website. - Updating it means that I have to actually have time to like play and write stuff to put it on my website but I don't. - But things are getting better, right? Children are getting a little older. A little more manageable. - Especially after Christmas I'm hoping for. - One less child since we're giving one away as a present. - Yep. - Absolutely understood. Well, we're all doing our best. So you guys listen for that at the end of the episode. It's a fantastic song, you did a great job Jessica May. ♪ Thank you ♪ ♪ I am a ratio ♪ - So I have sent out a bunch of mailings for the mom, sent out the next batch of stickers. I really enjoyed doing this round of envelopes. I don't, I don't know how to tell Doc Blue this but I couldn't think of anything to draw for you. So instead you got to choose your own adventure novel that I wrote myself and that was pretty exciting to do. - I think not in any way to reduce the achievement that you had at hand. I think novel might be overstating it just a bit. - Yeah, it was eight pages. Yeah. - But it was great. - Yeah. - It was fantastic. - Well, that's novel length for me. And funny enough, there weren't any pictures in it but there you have it. I really enjoyed sending out these last mailings though. I sent one out to Jim because we're always thankful of Jim and I like to think of him as our Charlie and we're like his angels. So I put the Charlie's Angels logo on it except you know, instead of carrying guns we were all like carrying microphones. - Good enough. - Oh, it's carrying microphones. - Yeah. And you know what? Of all the envelopes that I did that was actually the hardest one for me to do because I wanted it to look like the logo. You know, I wanted it to be good. - It was. - I didn't say I didn't want the rest of them to be good. The other ones just came from my mind. They weren't trying to copy something so I didn't have a standard to make except my own standard, which I have. But I actually came across something really interesting while I was looking up the Charlie's Angels logo because you know, I'm sorry to say I'm just not that old. I wouldn't know what the actual logo looked like without looking it up. But I came across this one website that was just totally devoted to Charlie's Angels. It had like a whole section on all the different logos that they've had, which apparently they've had a couple. But they had this one section on people who had been special guests on the show. So I thought just for the heck of it, I'd take a look. And as it turns out, one of my favorite actresses was on that show. Can anybody guess who it is? - Barbara Stanwick. - Oh, you know, yes. Barbara Stanwick. Actually, sometime during season four, they ran with a story that was intended to be a spin-off show. And it was supposed to be like a sort of back door pilot. - Oh, really? - And it was the episode "Tony's Boys." And apparently there's this lady, Antonia, who had, she had been a friend of Charlie's. And the Angels were in trouble because somebody was out to kill them. So Charlie called up his friend Antonia, who was this wealthy widow. And her husband had run his own detective agency. And she was basically like running Charlie's Angels with a bunch of pretty boys. You know, there was one guy that was really good at disguises. And there was one guy who was like, he was an ex-allympic athlete. And then the other one was like a rodeo star slash, I don't know, something fantastic or something. Astronaut or something, I don't know. It was ridiculous and they were all very pretty men, but the show was unfortunately never picked up. But Barbara Stanwick played Antonia. And I thought that was really awesome. Like it was obviously really later in her life. I'm mostly familiar with her roles as a younger lady, but I thought she was great. I was so happy to see it. I watched the episode on YouTube. - Very nice. Definitely always an attempt to spin off a successful franchise. Was it still successful at season four? Was that when they were getting into the weird replacing of characters? - Yeah, I didn't see Farrah Fawcett there. But you know what? I would have watched Tony's boys just for Barbara Stanwick. - How great is she? Come on. - Really good. She's so good. - Yeah, that's right. - She's like me like she's gonna stab me in the eye. - I will. - For Barbara! (laughing) - It's all for you, Barbara. Backroom plots. - So, release Black Call of the Draw? - Indeed. - Was sort of intended originally to be a one-parter, but I realized that it's... Well, when I started plotting it out, I just felt more like two pieces. I wanted it to feel like a rise and then a descent. There are certain rhythms that I'm getting used to with writing these serial pieces, and I'm really gonna miss them when I get to a point where I'm releasing larger things like Cav or whatever. The three beats of a three-parter. - I really get to miss them when I get sick of this shit. - Yeah. - Well, plus, you know, you're cooking out one every couple of days, so you have this, you know, beginning, like, the thinking, the staring off in the space, and then the writing and the editing, and then the finished product. - Yeah. - Whereas when you're writing something long, you're doing the same thing day and day out for quite a while. - There's definitely something, though, that comes a little easier about living with the same characters. - Yeah, yes, right? 'Cause you're thinking... You can think on such finer points. - There's a reason I never get too far from a Mulligan story, because if I really need to, I know I can reach into my Mulligan bag, and he's familiar enough on every aspect that I don't have to... I have to loop back and listen to a little harm carder and sort of pick up the vibe before I can start writing those pieces again. And that's also why Ruby and harm come in spurts, because I tend to have little arcs that I want to carry through. And oddly, they're both at the start of arcs that I just haven't really picked up again. - Yeah, that's true, eh? They're both sort of starting out on other journeys again. - Yeah, yeah. - She's deciding to... No, she's just getting to the town, right? - No, she's on the little farm town thing. - Yeah. - Yeah. - But she only just recently arrived there in the grand scheme of things. - Yeah, they've had the one story. Remember there was the one story where they were telling stories, essentially. Anyway, the other item that came out this week was a little urban legend. The last night legend, who already discussed a bit, but there was some sort of brain goo left over from a recent Mulligan tale that just needed to be worked out and came out in that piece. - Can I just point out the other Mulligan urban legend connection here? - Absolutely. - I don't know if anybody remembers. I don't even remember specifically what episode it was. Maybe Jaredie could jog my memory there. But there was something, I think it was in the last Mulligan three-parter where he mentions, oh no, it was the mist call. He mentions the gas station just outside of mass acres. (laughing) And if anybody remembers, mass acres is a suburb that doesn't really exist. - Exist, does it? - Nope, nope. Although it's not really mass acres, the suburb that we know just yet, at the moment, it's more like mass acres, the unvelopped little town. But give it 10 years. - To grow. I found that a very interesting little connection. And I was like, "Mass acres, hey, Jaredie?" I reckon it is that. And he got this little grin in his face. - Yeah, actually, I believe it's a little more than 10 years. I have all of these things graphed out in secret documents. (laughing) But yes, there's definitely a relation there. And it may actually loop back a little bit to Time Traveler Rich's questions about how Ruby and-- - Yeah, Ruby and Carter. - Carter, how they relate. - Yep. - Now, the thing is there is a much more direct relation than I've made clear at this point. I'm just not sure how I'm going to handle certain presentations. I realized I'm getting a little out into the weeds here, but-- - You're playing a little inside baseball, yeah. - Yeah, I apologize. There's two or three threads, like I've mentioned, that have yet to be introduced. And one of them essentially sews together, the Ruby and Harm universe is very firmly. But that's for another day. For now, let's thank Jim. - Thanks again, Jim. - Thank you, Jim. I hope you enjoy your stickers. - Always fighting the good war over at wiki.flashpulp.com, sir. I salute you. I don't think people realize just how much effort Jim puts in over there. If you want to hop on the wiki and get some items in there, that would be fantastic. Your assistance is always appreciated. And thank you again, Jim, for hosting flashpulp.com as well. - Mm-hmm. - If you at home have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashpulp.com. We'll call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792, or email us text aroundv3s to comments@flashpulp.com. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylings can be found at maytunes.com. - Apparently. - The entire run of flashpulp can be found at flashpulp.com or via the Cirque Bar and I2. - Except for episode 200. - Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution at commercial 2.5 license. And now Jessica May. (singing in foreign language) (crickets chirping) (crickets chirping) (upbeat music) ♪ Star spreading the new ♪ ♪ I'm leaving today ♪ ♪ I want to be a part of it ♪ ♪ Now you're new, you're new ♪ ♪ It's back about true ♪ ♪ I'm long industry ♪ ♪ Right through the very heart of it ♪ ♪ You're new, you're new ♪ ♪ I want to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep ♪ ♪ And find the king of the hill ♪ ♪ The top of the hill ♪ ♪ These little towns ♪ ♪ I'm leaving today ♪ ♪ I'll make a brand new star again ♪ ♪ In only you ♪ ♪ If I do make it down ♪ ♪ I can make it anywhere ♪ ♪ It's up to you ♪ ♪ You are new ♪ ♪ You are new, you are new ♪ ♪ I want to wake up in a city that I'd never seen ♪ ♪ I'm fogging that pain on the road ♪ ♪ The top of the list ♪ ♪ Can't help you pain on the wild ♪ ♪ These little towns ♪ ♪ I'm melting white ♪ ♪ I'm gonna make a brand new star again ♪ ♪ But I'm not right ♪ ♪ If I can make it there, I'm gonna make it ♪ ♪ Anywhere it's up to you ♪ ♪ I'm new, you are new ♪ ♪ I'm new, you are new, you are new ♪ Your beard's prickling my shoulder. 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