The Skinner Co. Network
FC47 - Spielbergian Whimsy
Hello, and welcome to FlashCast 47 - prepare yourself for flying dragons, the unfortunate Ms. Marvel, poorly timed noises, a salty Christmas tale, axe murder, and Mulligan Smith.
Read the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
[music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast 47. Prepare yourself for flying dragons, the unfortunate Ms. Marvel, poorly timed noises, a salty Christmas tale, Gigantor's Axe murder, and Mulligan Smith. [music] Two night, we have myself, oh, Popon Axe, vocal and visual architectonics. Jessica May, hello. Production conductor, and Jaredie. Hello. Letter proctor. Okay, so have you guys heard about this Draco lizard? The guy that was in Slytherin House in Harry Potter? Mm-hmm, no. The Draco lizard is a tiny little lizard that has a very interesting ability that's hinted at in its name. I came across it, I don't know, there was some CNN news article regarding a "recently uncovered species," although it just turned out to be one of these escaped from somebody's house or something. But it's a little lizard that can't really fly. You know what? Actually, Jessica May, please just play a short clip of an assuringly official sounding lady telling us about the species. The Draco, also known as a flying dragon, flicks open specially extended ribs covered with a tight membrane to create a collapsible wing, leaving the snake for dust. This is blighting, rather than true flight, used by the very first vertebrates to take to the air long before birds even existed. The thing basically flattens itself out entirely so that it can sort of reduce... Like drag? Yeah, it increases its drag so it can glide to the ground. That's awesome. It can actually move 5 feet forward for everyone down, so since the trees it's hanging out in are incredibly tall, it can get up to 100 feet or so, you know, glide. That's quite a neat little thing, and then as soon as it lands, it just snaps back to being a normal looking lizard, which is quite odd. It's so appropriate that you should have something with funny ribs like right after close or was it close? Yeah, close. Yeah, close. That's what he called it. Yeah. After assuring, lady, I feel a little too assured. Can you actually unsettle me a little, Jessica May? All right, let's take a look. All right, look at everybody. There we go. There we go. Yeah, that's right. Oh, that's good. It was 20 years ago today, the Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play and they've been going in and out of style. But they guaranteed to raise a smile, so may I introduce to you, like you've known for all these years, Sergeant Pepper's lonely heart club band. What do you mean unsettling? Excellent. I'm sufficiently perturbed. Yeah. Can you explain that? Well, especially his, okay, obviously it's Bill Cosby doing Sergeant Pepper's. Where did you come across this? The internet. Wow. I found it on the internet. I believe it was a suggestion from YouTube. Yeah, fantastic. What I really enjoy about it is the fact that he's essentially singing by using the Cosby father voice, like the, I'm shouting at Russell voice. I don't know if you'd know a bunch of his stand up work, but yeah, he is hitting, you know, decipherable, like really, like he's hitting the notes strongly. It's just, yeah, it is rather, rather talking aggressively. Who's that guy who sings in musicals, but he does the same. Rex Harrison. It's Harrison, right? I don't know. Describe. Oh, I love him. Did he talk to you? Do little. That was the best. Oh, the first five minutes of that, I'm like, he's going to sing at some point. All right, right. No, that's just how he is. And he's fantastic. He was in my friend lady. He remembered. He was filthy in T.F. Jack. You're singing a musical. Ugh. Actually, it's interesting that music comes up. I did have a little conundrum solved over the last week. If anybody recalls, I believe all the way back to one of the first flash casts, we almost immediately started getting inundated with mail from, not inundated. That overstates it. We almost immediately started getting a tiny trickle of mail from various music labels that were trying to get us to play music. And I didn't really understand. I thought they were just sending it to me as general spam. I have realized, thanks to Jessica over at Bender, that they actually think that because we own Skinner.fm, we're fronting some sort of actual radio operation. Oh, well. Or at least musically related. You know, in a sense, we are. Yeah. Sort of. Well, it is worth mentioning. We've got Jessica made. Yeah, we don't care about yours. Oh, that's rough. I... I'm just kidding. It's a joke. I disagree. If it was... If it was a mobster who came to us and said, you know, I do music stuff, we're very willing to pimp people's work. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But if it's some outside source just dropping me an email saying, you're going to love this. What I find really exciting is when I think at some point, the email lists have been sold to or just accidentally released to smaller and smaller labels over time. So occasionally, I get these emails from a guy who's obviously just fronting his MySpace page and he's really trying to get some airplay out of us. But it's a mass mail, like it's not just us. Yeah. But... They're not singling us out in any way. Yeah. And at the same time, he's really just trying to push his music. You really just got to check this out. Just check it. Check it. Hell and cool. Oh, that's a rough poke. Did you guys see that God's elixir's mystery in Aqua City, Odaiba shopping mall in Tokyo? No. Here, I'll show you because I put it in the show. Oh, that was awesome. Oh, that was awesome. Can we do that for Christmas? Rose. Seriously. I'm serious. Uh, brief description. Most of it looks like a Christmas tree. They've got white lighting all around it. No, it looks like a topiary. Yeah, but it's a topiary of Godzilla. Yeah. He's leaning forward and there's some sort of steam jet coming out of his mouth and red lights for his eyes. And he's got a Santa hat. It's pretty brilliantly done. And claws. Oh, wow. He's so fantastic. I think that's awesome. That is awesome. Way to go, Tokyo. You impress me daily. Endlessly. I kind of put that upbeat story in because the next one's a sad one. Oh, damn. Jerry Robinson died. I realize you guys are probably wondering who that is. I'm sorry. Whoever loves Jerry Robinson. Unless this person was a monster in which case. It's interesting because Jerry Robinson came out of the old DC Comics studio system. Okay, comics. I can get behind comics. And the thing is that although what he's best known for is sort of crusading to give more rights to artists about owning their materials. His big claim to fame is that he may or may not have had a major input into creating the Joker. Oh, really? The Joker is like the epitome of villain, especially a bad man, I mean. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would absolutely agree. Well, he's one of the top villains of all time, I would just hope. Exactly. The thing is that there's some contention about it because Kane and his artist at the time, I don't recall his name at the moment, claimed that they kind of worked it out. Between them? Or no. I believe Kane said it. The other guy may have died before this even came up. And the other thing that Robinson claims is that he named although had nothing much else to do with the character of Robin. Hmm. So on one hand you've got, he maybe created the Joker or helped create the Joker. And on the other hand, he named Robin. Yeah. So that kind of balances him out for me now. Yeah. But anyway, sad passing. Yep. I mean, that's what happens when you're in an industry that's as old as comics now. Mm-hmm. You die. Everything dies. Wha-wha-wha. Well, we have discussed previously my theory that as we've gained more celebrities via easy access and television and such, the rate of deaths is going to increase. Mm-hmm. If you go back and sort of do the math for accessibility to televisions. I guess so. Well, I think stars were more beloved at a time too because there's so few of them. Mm-hmm. I believe the first in any genre tends to be the largest, in a sense. You know, Elvis made that sort of era of rock and roll and everything that came after was just sort of sub-elvis. The Beatles were, you know. The Beatles and then sub-theadles? Yeah. Mm-hmm. It would be nice if people could spread out their love for different kinds of folks. Like if bands weren't as popular then they could be more accessible and, you know, not be like they could leave their house without being like taking photographs and crazy things like that. I would argue that to a certain extent the internet is evening up some of that distribution. Absolutely. Yeah. People can like make a living off of their stuff without having to give up their privacy. Yeah. And to loop it back to Jerry Robinson actually, what he was arguing for was more rights for the owners, right? Mm-hmm. And he's seeing in modern times his web cartoonists just retaining the property right from the ground up so that they're the ones doing the selling and they're the ones doing the business, but at the same time they're the ones retaining the profit. Mm-hmm. And we're benefiting from their own work. Yeah. Hooray. But you know, there's some sadness because I'm not sure that you'll ever see a Batman come out of online. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's great to see. We might in the future. Yeah. There's some pretty great web comics out there, you know. There are a lot of great web comics, but they tend to be gag based comics. That's true. There's not a huge number of adventurer dramatic comics that can really retain a readership that I've noticed anyway. Yeah. Maybe I'll give it some time. Yeah. Actually, this would be a good one to throw to the mob. Prove me wrong. If you've got a good adventurer ongoing story comic, just throw it my way, I'd love to check it out. Any more homework you want to dole out? Actually speaking of comics, while we're on the comic bent, did you guys see those videos about the history of Ms. Marvel from the escapist? Yes. Oh my gosh, I was so cool. Sending that around. So apparently there was a period when Ms. Marvel was everything but Ms. Marvel. She was kind of raped. Yeah. Uncomfortable and ongoing. And everyone just kind of was like, "Wow, what a horrible story you're a baby." Yeah. I didn't even pay any attention to that. Should I get over it? There's so many different like, it's so wrong in so many ways. There's so many different reincarnations of her character and I felt like there's in the 90s they finally like made her back who she was and then like five seconds later she was an alcoholic. Yeah. And she's got some trust issues for survival. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's a larger problem with comics right? Because they don't have any sort of narrative ending, yeah there's no ending. You can't just be like, "All right, that's it, we've played out the character, they've done everything they should do." I shouldn't, you know, people who are taking the story seriously who are writing it should worry about what's happened before, you know, and kind of like honor the story. I would like to see a creative universe in which heroes get older and retire. Mm-hmm. Well you do kind of see that in the watchman, right? Yeah. But at the same time the watchman is a one off. That's true. It would be cool if you knew that some of it was happening and then they could bring a younger person in and then if people didn't like that you can just get rid of that character until you find some. Yeah. To be fair that's what ends up happening with like the spare robins and everything. Mm-hmm. You just chuck something at the wall until it sticks and- Maybe in carnations of robin, yes. You recall, well you probably actually don't recall. Back in the 90s they killed, well they didn't kill Batman, they paralyzed him and they had another Batman come in. On Saturday everything happened to her. Yeah. She died and then came back as her true self, I guess because somebody I took over her, I don't know, but her situation has always been very unfortunate. Yes. And the reincarnations have never been as good as the original one. Yeah, binary and warbird. Warbird? Like what's over there? What's over there? Writing that was like, you know what, this one's gonna stick. This one will be really cool. This is the one. Yeah. Well, on to more happy news, New Sherlock's season starts. Oh, that's good. January 1st. We're very close. We're very close. Watching we are so spoiled because after this season, doesn't it take like a year and a half for another three episodes? Yeah. To be fair, we watched the first episode and then fell away from it. Yeah, it's taken us a year and a half to watch all the episodes. I think we should honestly go back and watch those three episodes a little closer together. Yeah. I really liked the first one a lot. It is so good. Mm-hmm. Speaking of the BBC, our Heron mentioned that two of the old, I don't know if you guys know this. The early Doctor Who episodes as happened to a lot of television shows in the era were essentially dumped after they were recorded. They may have been recorded over and the film was just burnt. The thing is every now and then you get this weird side story where somebody will come up with a collector or just somebody who was working there at the time. We'll be like, "Hey, I have like a copy of X episode." So two new episodes actually just came out or haven't just come out, have just recently been discovered. Yeah, yeah. From the '60s era, which is sort of the golden age of no one has, you know, a lot of those episodes are missing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's a big deal. Yeah. What have we discovered? Interesting to have this hugely influential, hugely well-known character and to have so much of the back history of missing. Yeah. Or in somebody's basement in a box. Yeah. Yeah. Or having to be pieced together by these amateurs who just decided to keep it for whatever reason. Amateurs. Well, not amateurs, not the right word, but just these... No. Tell us how you really feel. Collectors or just archivists, but not necessarily people who are going out there and just consuming Doctor Who because they would know what they had. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. It's these people who were like, "My Doctor Who." Yeah, I remember that show. Yeah. John Donahue and the mob mentioned that this pulp obscura project is a neat idea in my mind. It's two presses working together. So there's Altus Press, which tends to work with old school pulp characters, probably mostly public domain, but they write new stories with the classic characters. What will happen is pros say this other pulp distributor bring them together to do a book of short stories around that same character to sort of give them a hook into the new stuff and the old stuff. I think it's a really neat idea. So definitely be keeping an eye on that. And I'd love to see some of the older pulp characters come back and see if a new treatment. All right, we got a lot in the back end, so we better wrap this up and get into mailbag, but I just wanted to say we had a tie this week for the caption contest. Both Ami and Jim won. Mm-hmm. That's pretty fantastic. I believe that means Jim gets double stickers now, because we owed him stickers for another item. Mm-hmm. All right. But new caption contest will be "Gid Monday." Get in there, really. Lots of people showing up. It's pretty fun. Mm-hmm. It's a good way to meet the mob. I think Jeff may have some apologizing coming up. Spot of botter. Hi, mobsters. Before I start, I would like to apologize in advance, both for the content of this piece and for my voice. I have a cold, but I wanted to get this out. Okay. We're going to have fun today. What's the difference between a dumb blonde and a supermarket trolley? The supermarket trolley has a mind of its own. What's the guaranteed method to totally confuse a blonde man? Ask him to alphabetize a king-sized bag of M&Ms. What do you see when you look directly into a blonde's eyes? The back of her head. We've all heard blonde jokes before, right? Well, those are a few of my personal favorites. Wait. I have one more. What do you call a blonde who walks directly into a moving airplane propeller? Lauren Scruggs. I know. I know. Those of you who saw this story earlier in the week are probably thinking I'm an awful, awful person for making this correlation, but come on. This is a beautiful woman who happens to be blonde, who walked directly into a spinning airplane propeller. Here's more from ABC News. While investigators struggle to piece together what happened when model and fashion editor Lauren Scruggs was severely injured after accidentally walking into the propeller of a small plane, one focus will be on the pilot of the aircraft who has been identified as a friend of her and her family. Kurt Richmond of Frisco, Texas was the pilot who flew Scruggs above Dallas to view Christmas lights on Saturday night prior to the accident. While the Richmond has not answered repeated questions and requested for an interview, ABC News has learned that the Scruggs family does not blame Richmond for the accident that severed Lauren's hand and sliced the left side of her face and shoulder. At this point, it is still unclear whether she will lose her left eye. While investigators look into the events leading to the tragic accident, many are speculating as to why the propeller was left running in the first place. ABC News aviation consultant John Nance says that most of the time pilots would never let a passenger in or out with the engine and the propeller running. The pilot of a bird like an aviat husky is going to in almost all cases shut the engine down completely and have the propellers stop, which happens almost immediately as soon as you shut it down, Nance said, because we know the danger of having a human being anywhere close to a whirling prop. Nance agrees that she may not have known that she was in the vicinity of a spinning propeller when she was struck, adding that the engine on a small airplane makes far more noise than the propeller does and she would need to be acutely aware of the physiology of the airplane to be able to detect it. Lauren underwent several surgeries after the weekend and is now in stable condition at Dallas Parkland Hospital, which incidentally took care of John Fitzgerald Kennedy after his incident. The extent of her brain injury is still not known. Family spokesperson James Harrell told ABC News.com. She is once again communicating when asked her name, she said, Lauren, and when she saw her parents, she said, I love you. We're just praying that her left eye will regain its sight. It's going to be a long journey, a long recovery, scrubs told ABC News. In closing, I feel that I should apologize in advance if I've offended anyone of the blonde persuasion. I myself am dirty blonde and do my share of foolish things. Does hair color really matter in this tragic story? Of course not. But sometimes, if you're twisted like me, you just have to go there. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's this week's Spot of Horse Croaky Bother. What I love about Jeff is that although he's not concerned about telling us a story about a daughter repeatedly phoning her mother while being eaten alive, he feels really bad about using cliched jokes. Yeah, that's great. But man, losing a hand like that, and hitting your head, like was the propeller going so fast that she couldn't even see it moving and then she just walked into it? That's my guess. That's horrific. And if they were checking out Christmas lights, I assume it was at night too. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is horrible. And that's your job, you know? Yeah. Yeah. If some, you know, if you had your hands cut off by a propeller. In a weird way, it almost sounds like the opening of a, you could at least tell stories. You could get it down somehow. Yeah. It's your livelihood. I feel a bit like she should go see Vincent Price as a surgeon who then gives her a hook or something and she goes on a murdering spree. That are like somehow she sucks the life out of other people in order to make her return way beautiful. Mmm. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. She should do that totally. So she has a vacuum for a hit with that reason? But also with a hook. Yep. Yeah. But it's a soul vacuum. Like in Ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. Just like Ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. Don't cross the streams. Many thanks, Jeff. Yeah. Especially in your condition as well. Yeah. Yeah. I very much appreciate that. You are a trooper, sir. Yes. Always the professional. Mmm. Mmm. You can find all of Jeff's articles up at BothertonThings.com. He provides links to all of his original notes and his sounds, et cetera. And now the return of the fish. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening, three-day fish. Hey, flashgassed, a very tired fish here with a review for the sitter. Now, you may hear this and furl your brow and say, "Fish, what blasphemy is this?" Well, I believe that it's time to recognize a new offshoot of pulp. Ever since the hangover, we've been getting the string of movies where crazy things happen in an urban environment, but things tend to work out in the end. I'm talking in the hangover, the hangover too, obviously, date night with Steve Correll and the latest in this long line, the sitter. Now, it's not just the shock value or the adventurous spirit of these movies that I think make them pulpy. It is that core, core piece to being pulp that is the ending, and that is the ending where you are reassured that things will always work out. And that's how these movies always end. Now, I don't think they're true blue, thoroughbred pulp, but I believe it is pulpy enough for me to do a review to make up for my recent track record. So here it goes. The movie's funny. I'm going to give it that. It's a funny movie, especially if you like movies that are just ridiculous in their grossness and whatnot, which I was in the mood for. I do partake of dirty humor sometimes. But the thing that bothered me about this movie were the kids. They seemed utterly pointless throughout the whole movie. There's three kids and each have their own weird problem, and Jonah Hill gives them a talking to and shows them how to be better people. And every time he does one of these things, it seems so pointless and out of place, and it really took me out of the movie. And they drop all these bombs, and it's like, "Whoa, this is happening." And whenever the kids drop it, it's never a big deal. It's like, "Well, this has nothing to do with the plot." So that really bothered me. That's the only weak point to this movie. Like, I say, like the only weak point, but it's a repetitive one. And that's what I think bothers me about this movie. So this is a borderline yellow light. If you just want to laugh, go see this movie. If you're expecting anything more, don't. So that's it from a very tired fish. Always listening. Nicely done, fish. Thanks. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Take your ad to the pulp continuum into consideration. I'm trying to think of some sort of precursor. There are a lot of comedic sort of cop duos. There was a lot of comedy, and some of the takes on Boston Blackie and stuff. The Thin Man, I would say, falls under pulp laurels. Mm-hmm. And there was definitely humor there, and it was definitely, yeah. I wouldn't say the hangover is the Thin Man. But at the same time, there's a lot going on in the plot. A lot of weird turns are taken, a lot of drinking. I guess. Or allusion to drinking. That's a good point. Anyhow, thanks, fish. Speaking of returning segments, we welcome back Barry tonight. And it's his birthday today, the day that we're recording. Oh, happy birthday, Barry. Happy Barry Day. Yeah. Woo. Barry. Woo. Welcome to your New York Minute. I've got progress on my mind this week, and in New York, progress can be agonizingly slow. Take the second Avenue subway. It was first proposed in 1929, but only since 2006 as there have been any progress. But progress may not be all that it is cracked up to be. Here are some short quotes from a New York Times article from just a few years back. The native sounds of a summer evening on the Upper East Side. Hooting owls, honking cabs, chattering crickets, and occasionally, the banshee-like shrieks of an air horn followed by rumbling explosions that call the mind a Messerschmitt raid. Nope, it's not World War II, just the second Avenue subway. Residents along this cheerless East Side stretch have a long wondered whether these late night blasts are necessary for the construction of the new underground line, a 1.7 mile route that has been planned since the Great Depression. And while the explosions may be deafening, the Metropolitan Transit Authority now says it hears the public outcry loud and clear. Starting on Monday, the underground blasting will be banned after 7 p.m. along the second Avenue corridor, Transit Officials said. The moratorium, according to the Transit Authority, was hashed out after discussions with local politicians and community leaders. People don't want to have a romantic dinner with the sound of pavement being obliterated in the background, said the project's construction chief. The project's contract originally allowed for the blast to continue until midnight, although they noted that the explosions usually stopped after 9 p.m. That's right, everyone. In the heart of one of the most populous parts of the most populous borough, the city was blasting the street apart with dynamite until midnight. You can imagine the disasters affect the work had on the neighborhood. Hundreds of small businesses in the construction zone have closed, and that wasn't even due to the blasting. It was due to the massive street closures and traffic destructions, which dropped foot traffic to near zero. But the story gets worse. Here are some excerpts from a New York Daily News article from earlier this week. Blasting on the second Avenue subway project was temporarily halted Tuesday amid a storm of complaints from Upper East Siders about dust. Ground-suffering residents living with the constant tuddling are up in arms over the clouds of dust that appear during the underground explosions carving out what will be the 72nd Street Station. Community Board 8 Second Avenue Subway Task Force Committee got an earful Tuesday night from 60 locals griping about pollution, noise, and the 2nd Avenue cough. Pressman said she went to her doctor after getting sick recently and was told, "You've got this 2nd Avenue cough." John Schonenberger of East 70th Street agreed that it's become hard to breathe in her neighborhood. "There's a big smoke cloud," Schonberger said, "it's very pervasive around the area." The audience packing the meeting at the New York Blood Center on 67th Street broke into applause when they were told blasting has been temporarily suspended until December 5th. As I record this, by the way, it is currently December 4th. We'll see what happens. We did that because we heard loud and clear from the community and elected officials, though it's an impact in the construction schedule and to the workers, said Bill Goodrich, the MTA's Senior Vice President of Capital Construction. Goodrich said the MTA will work on modifications to reduce dust, including revamping exhaust systems over the next two weeks. He wouldn't say how many workers would be laid off, but he expects them all to be rehired when blasting resumes. William and Mika Kellner lamented the lay-offs, but said, "We just can't live with second avenue being blanketed by dust every time they blast. The MTA needs to ensure our air quality." Tunneling for the first phase of the subway was finished in September. It will take five more years to build stations and lay tracks before the subway can open. That's right, everyone. Five more years. For a project that was considered a necessity, even in 1929, completion in 2016 is ridiculous. All of this put me in mind of the original subway construction early in the last century. The following information was found online. Ground was broken for the subway in March 1900 in Manhattan. The construction company chose shallow cut and cover as the excavation method to avoid having to tunnel deep under New York's infrastructure. Wooden planking and bridges covered the construction so that traffic could continue over the tunneling that would go on for years. The construction that was typical from the majority of the project was a flat roof iBeam construction with a concrete bottom. The sidewalls had iBeam columns five feet apart with vertical concrete arches between the columns. The iBeam supported the masonry, allowing the walls to be built thinner than they would have made if concrete alone was used. The tops of the wall columns are connected by roof beams supported by rows of steel columns between the tracks. They were built on concrete and cut stone bases, because the tunnels were susceptible to water damage from the ground, several inches of felt washed with hot asphalt were laid behind the walls, over the rock and under the floor. In some places, this method of waterproofing was reinforced with one or two courses of brick. Terracotted ducts for electric cables were placed between the steel columns and waterproofing. Bear with me for a second, this may sound boring and technical, but I'm going somewhere. The station on 42nd Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue required a special method of construction. Five subway tracks passed to this area, and the excavation reached a depth of 35 feet and extended 15 feet into the rock. In order to construct this segment of the subway, a 30 foot wide trench had to be sunk on the south side of the street, in which the subway was built for the width of two tracks. At 50 foot intervals, tunnels had to be driven toward the north side of the street, with tops four feet above the roof of the subway and bottoms on the roof. The ends of the tunnels were connected by a parallel tunnel just beyond the line of the fourth track. Workers were then able to excavate the rock to the bottom of the tunnels to their final death. A bed of concrete was then placed in the parallel tunnel, and a third row of steel columns was erected in order to support the concrete and steel roof. OK, end of engineering seminar. 100 years ago, the work was done without building rattling midnight explosions in toxic dust clouds. Yes, it was hard work and manpower intensive, but it took great pains to minimize disruption to the city at large. For a project that even its biggest critics agree is a necessity, but is still nowhere near completion, I have to wonder if the people in charge of the second Avenue subway have any idea of what they're doing. Stores going out of business, nightly blasting, and the air making people sick. This is progress. This has been your New York Minute. Very interesting insights, Barry. Geez. Yeah. Wow, congratulations New York. George Matesky was from New York, right? Mad Bummer, the guy that called the Mad Bummer. It seems like even construction 100 years ago for the subways, it seemed really elaborate. There were so many different layers, and they're still using it, so it's obvious that they did a really awesome job. Yeah, solid work. Who needs to blast for that long to get this done, honestly? Anyways. Somebody who has a cousin who sells explosives. Yeah, I suppose, so it makes the world go around. Thanks a lot, Barry. Happy birthday again. Mm-hmm. Thanks so much. And if you want to send Barry some birthday wishes, I wish he'd prefer if you did so. So at BMJ2K.com. And do it in a Marilyn Monroe voice. He likes it that way. Yeah. And I did, can I also say, I really did notice your mic difference, I believe you got a new one. Oh yeah, it sounded very clear, very solid. Good job. Maybe the addition of a pop filter I might suggest, but it sounds mint, dude. It sounds really good. It's really clear. They come through much louder. It was very nice. Very nice. Good work. Thanks. Now, I believe we have a little treat from Vienna. The curious tales of Vienna. The devil's sleigh ride. On January the 26th, in 1667, it was proclaimed in Vienna that it was strictly forbidden to drive a sleigh after ten o'clock at night. This should keep the town saved into the shore that the inhabitants weren't disturbed in their sleeping hours. But still, their moved a sleigh with loud ringing and rattling through the streets, between eleven and twelve o'clock every night. That sleigh made as much noise as a hundred sleighs would have made. And soon people knew that coachman of that sleigh was the devil himself. People who had seen it reported that the devil in his bodily shape had a big head of a ball, and that he spit out fire as if he had twelve storm lamps inside. They also told that he had a woman at his side. On her head she wore a diadem, which glowed red, and was covered with golden lights and fleas. Instead of curly hair rims and feather on a man's, snakes and lizards crawled on the head of the devil's companion. An ugly toad sat on her chest where a medallion is usually placed, and two big snakes gnawed on the upper part of her body. Once a beautiful night watchman dared to stop that sleigh and asked the devil to obey the law. There's a tannic figure answered with a devilish laughter, then the bogey blew at the poor man, killed a one, dropped dead. I find it interesting the connection between this one and the New York minute, how they both had something to do with the time. Oh yeah, restriction in a certain hour, loud annoying noises at night. Yeah, exactly. Good job, this one felt a little bit like a warning to police officers. You better not pull me over for driving drunk at night because I may be the devil. Hey yeah sure. Thanks so much Ingrid, it's always fantastic to hear from you. Lovely work once again. You can find all of Ingrid's work at dancingla.blogspot.com or at vne's legends.blogspot.com. All of the items she records here eventually end up on YouTube and posted there. This is fantastic sight. This is a very interesting way to approach learning about Vienna. We've been very lucky to have her. Now I believe what we have to share here is a previously published pig heart story but freshly recorded. Quite excited about it and it should hopefully get us a little bit in the holiday mood. It better. Ahoy flashcasters. It is a tiny tale for you now. A tale of Christmas, one to ring cheer to ye heart and possibly run to your belly. This is my little Christmas tale. Yeah, to the night before Christmas and all were peaceful, quieter than a mouse. Of course you've not seen the size of the mice on the lollipop, ah, they'd be dwarfing you cat. It is no wonder we eat 'em, else they'd be the death of us. Mind you, what with their remarkable plague-bearing skills, you might consider it a kind of cannibalizing on money with viewboe's part. Yeah, we'd moored off the island of Streptococcus for the festive season. To wear an odd sort of place, renowned for its twin industries of whoring and the sooth in the sore neck holes. The lads had disembarked almost before we ceased our sailing, so keen were they to wet in their whistling gobbles. And so it was left to me and no hands Mick to tie off and weigh anchor. To that purpose, I'd help Mick strap on his big wooden grip in mitts, the ones with the big spikes for grabbing fishies in the enemy. Ahoy. To celebrate a successful year, we turned the cannons out to sea and blasted away with good cheer. The balls parted the Christmas he missed with a satisfying bang. The bang was followed by a whaling, what grew louder the longer it went on, until finally it were punctuated by a thwack and the sound of wood and iron grinding over me deck. There were some splinter and dust, but through it we saw a most peculiar vision. There was a heap of horses with sticks on their heads, surrounded a portly fella, dressed in red with a fine, if conspicuous furry trim, he was fairly bellowing his furiators. Now I'm not a fan of being shouted upon my own ship, so I took the lad by the beard and bounced his noggin off the mast until he were quietened. Meanwhile Mick were inspecting the beasts and the cart they pulled. He was pleased to report on the high likelihood that it'd be most tasty, probably even finer than giant rat in all-and-day sauce. Now this seemed to upset the tubby chap further, and he protested most vigorously against both our culinary divisons and our blasting from the sky. We both had a bit of a chuckle about that, to wear a grand shot, and we'd be needful of a trophy to brag about. And then the fat lad sat us down with a finely milled bottle of wine, and filled us with Christmas cheer. We're easier then to believe his raven about sailing through the skies, tethered to fly and deer. Ah, there were something of a fly in his ointment, though, we'd treat his landing-wood's landing, this is but a metaphorical describing of his woes, seen as the reindeer'd been slain, either by the cannon blast, or from the sleigh bin slid at some speed through them, and becoming grounded. In our newly excitable state Mick and me were keen to offer our aid, and so we set to work a fixing up the sled. Mr. Christmas, for that so he'd turned out to be, occupied himself with the gathering of the children's gifts, what had been scattered over the lollipop. The sleigh was looking finer and ever, freshly reloaded with presents, with its rider slightly bandaged. Mick had been inspired by the reindeer problem, but through his alcoholic haze he'd latched onto the notion that it was the amplers that made the bees able to soar through the skies. And if that be so, we needed some similarly-horned creatures. Being stuck on port on Christmas Eve is not conducive to the managing of livestock, but thankfully on a recent treasure hunt we'd become lost once more on run aground. A rocky little spot were home to a breed of giant tortoise, what we'd found delicious and versatile. Most of the time they'd spend their own time waiting down the ship as ballast in the hold. But come am I a hunger for a special occasion, and we'd hook 'em out and roost 'em in their shells. Ahhh! It just so happened that Mick had been brewing a new batch of tar for the hull repairs, and so we saw it off the antlers and glued 'em to the reptiles. That warranted a few more drinks on our own, and we were a giggle as we popped the horned tortoises in harness. The Christmas were not so impressed, as lumpen things simply laid on deck due to the cold and retreated into their shells. It was a great disappointment to Mick, and I had to stop him from throwing himself overboard. It struck me that what we needed was merely a source of propelling the beasts into the sky, once up there they'd probably get the hang of it. And so it came to pass that we arranged the cannons on deck, and chained each of the tortoises to a cannon ball. We stood back and lit the fuses. While the little buggers flew straight up into the night air, dragging the sleigh behind, and with a "Oh, oh, God, we're going to!" The whole thing exploded high up in the sky. It was awful, pretty. Presence rained down on the chimney parts far across the island, bringing joy to them as what I'd not expected it. Of course, there were a fair quaternary of body bits falling to, and the odd tortoise, but all in all to a jolly Christmas for the locals. You see, it seems Santa had been somewhat indiscriminate in his picking of objects left on deck, like the two barrels of gunpowder had wrapped up for Billy. Ah, we'd have to go out shopping now, and on Christmas Eve to boot! Have ye self a merry merry Christmas. Body parts haven't ruined a Christmas yet. Oh, pig heart. It was so fantastic. That was great. That was awesome. Highly enjoyable. Mm-hmm. We do actually have another one in store for next week already on tap, so... Awesome. ...you can look forward to that as well. I get so excited. Mm-hmm. And it's nice to lead us into the Christmas season a little bit. Pig heart has a long history of tales, all available at CaptainPigHeart.com. Nick does some fantastic work with the Miss Improv group, but unfortunately that's limited to folks in the Nottingham area, I believe. Speaking of folks abroad, let's do some mailbag. You can send your comments, questions, or suggestions to comments@flatflop.com. Or call us at 206-338-2792. Jessica May is laboring through this recording with a cold. It's trying to breathe. So Nettie gave us a quick little item on Facebook. Um, apparently she did not read Bimbos of the death sign. It's okay, we still love you. But she's listening to Flashcast44 right now, Ashley Tarpe's. But she said, and I quote, "I can tell you that Filk, F-I-L-K, F-I-L-K." Yes, it's Filk music adjusted to be fan-based, as we encountered in Bimbos. Okay, that's right. Filk is still a big thing at cons, and most cons, not the huge expos on Comic Cons, have a lot of the old school cons scene. That's pretty cool. That's a really good count on Nettie for Nettie about coning. She says, "People who can boast con T-shirts that are older than me, and one for every year, tend to show up to the older cons. It's pretty neat to see that the old hardcore geeks are still going strong." That is awesome. At a con, look for the guy with all the buttons, and he can tell you some stories of the cons of old. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's great. And how many cons will you garner buttons from now, too? Are buttons a thing in the past? Yeah, and if there's the button of the future, what do people do now? What's the replacement for buttons? Yeah, is it T-shirts, because maybe it is T-shirts? Hover buttons. Hologram buttons, they're not even there, man. I think Nettie needs to be our official con correspondent. She needs to come with us when we go to Van Expo. Yeah, she needs to have some kind of title. Yeah, well, it is worth noting that she does run-- Consul-- It is worth noting that she runs her own podcast over at Nimlast.org, and she's involved with a few others as well. I do believe a lot of her con reporting goes into Nettie Bytes, and such. Yeah, so thanks. Thanks, Nettie. Now, I'm not sure how disturbing this is going to be. I haven't listened to this yet, but we do have a little work story from Gigantor. Our friend Gigantor. And we all remember where he works. For those of you who don't, he's a telephone operator at the 911 there, right? The 911. And the 911-y. It's not 911 for them, is it? Or maybe it is. I don't even know. Is it? He's an emergency dispatcher. Yeah. That's what we call-- The 911-y. I don't know why this one, suddenly, is not confidential, but-- I think that he has to-- my understanding from his email was that he had to do a certain amount of jumping through hoops to make this one able to be shareable. And that's why he can't do it too often, I believe. I haven't heard it, like I said, but maybe people he knows are involved somehow, or maybe this is related to him having some sort of situation. You know what? Maybe we can discuss it after we hear it. Hey, guys. I finally have a work story I can share with everybody. Most of my work stories have a lack less branding or a depressing one. And unfortunately, this story falls on the side of the depression. I also want to mention that, though I was present for the first half of this story, my involvement was minimal, and I was not present at all for the second part of the story, which was passed along to me by word of mouth from other coworkers that were on the shift. So here goes. It was in the middle of the night where we receive a call from some cabins in a small out of the way town, a ways north from where I spent much of my childhood. The owner of the cabins called, saying he could see a man through a window in a cabin, laying in a pool of blood with an axe beside him. When our call taker repeated those words out loud, the rest of us working were immediately stunned. The caller refused to go into the cabin to check on the patient, and none of us could really blame him. The details were few, but suicide was easily ruled out. My other partner on the shift got the appropriate ambiance rolling while I contacted the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police. Even they weren't ready for what I had to tell them. Everyone was thinking axe murder. I took it one step further and thought Jason Voorhees of the north. When the details finally came back to us, it was indeed an axe murder. The murderer, as it turned out, was the victim's father-in-law. Apparently, they worked together from time to time, and they both came from a town or city further northwest from where they were working, which is a bit hard to believe since they were pretty far north to begin with. Other details about the situation began to surface. The victim, while still alive, had a history of beating his wife. The father-in-law had finally heard about it, I guess, and had enough, and solved the problem with the downward swing with an axe. He was arrested that night. This is the second part of the story coming out. Again, I had no involvement in this, my other co-workers, they put in all the work and passed the information on to me. The father-in-law was brought to jail where I currently reside. It was a couple days later, and the people at work received a call for a VSA patient at the jail. VSA means vital signs absent. An acronym we're never fond of seeing appear in our calls, lots and lots of paperwork. Not to mention the fact that someone's passed away, it's never fun. The police informed us that the patient managed to commit suicide in his jail cell. The details of how were never released. There was the father-in-law, I'm not sure if he was unable to handle the guilt from what he did, or if he just wanted to avoid going to prison for defending his daughter. Unfortunately those are details we are never able to discover in our call-taking process. So that's my axe murder story. Never thought I'd have one of those. Now I do. What's that being said? Thank you very much for listening. See you guys later. Oh, I imagine being the guy to call that in. I also spent a bit of time while he was talking, trying to work out the details of suicide by axe. Yeah. Not the most... Well, I was thinking, you know how people will lift it up super high over the head and come down to split wood, but just the opposite way. I just try to hope that you catch an artery on your neck. That's so gross. I was thinking about it. That's terrible, terrible. The best you could probably manage with that would be to essentially stick yourself in the back with the axe. Yeah, and bleed out. And then you would just be wandering around with an axe in your kidney for a little while. Oh my God. Anyhow, it sounds like the father was probably just trying to do the right thing, but not. Well, when you say do the right thing, you mean murder somebody too. Well, he was in a rage, I can understand that sort of, that mitigating circumstance. And it's unfortunate too, because I'm sure, you know, he's an older gentleman, and if he had no prior history, this situation doesn't really count. Come around very often when you've had people, like he would need another daughter who has another long term abuser, you know, like, yeah, it's not like he's a guy going around murdering people. It was a specific circumstance that probably won't come around again. Yeah, rough all around, but also probably pretty tough to live with the memory of having planted an axe in somebody's skull. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like that would be terrible for it to go that far and for, you know, and you never know how the wife's going to fall, because sometimes even when it's an abuse case. Yeah. Well, and now this woman, you know, doesn't have her abusive husband or whatever, and her father. Yeah. But it's pretty bad ass to think that he would go that far knowing that, you know, he may not be able to handle Joe, like he may not be able to do those things if he still sacrificed it for that revenge, we're all animals at heart. Crazy. Thanks for your axe murder story, Ray. Yeah. Yeah, thanks a lot, Jackie. You're getting really good at telling the story, dude. Hopefully, uh, time traveler Rich, I mean, Rich, the time traveler has some more uplifting news from the past. Hopefully something good just happened to us before that we're not yet aware of. Yeah. Hello, flashpulp crew. I'm still slowly catching up to you from the past. And right now I'm in the midst of flashcast 40. I'm hoping I don't arrive from the future to find you all eaten by more locks. I'll keep this message in a quantum bottle a bit tighter this time with less rambling if I can. First, I think I have to make it clear I love me some American smarties. But to me, the crack of faux fruit, sweet and sour candy has to be spree. Not the regular ones, but the chewy kind. I'm glad to see the return of Joe Monk. I must confess, as you described the battle sequence, I was picturing it as a very different version of the death blossom sequence from the last starfighter. Great work. I was a little put off by Macbeth's voice. Was it always quite so odd? Did I regret it? Or was the Pope trying something new? I liked the differences, but it was a little hard to understand. I'm sure I'll be fine-tuning the upcoming Monk stories. Hint hint. Love the direction Ruby is taking right now. To follow up on the talk from a previous flashcast about different zombies, the fast zombies in 28 days later really scare me more than the slow ones. Or the slow ones can be a problem on mass. But I figure with them, if I keep my calm and think, I can probably get out of the situation. The fast ones, I'm toast. But 28 days later also makes me wonder, is Ruby's new sanctuary hiding a secret like the military outpost in that movie? I think not, since you already had a similar storyline before with a cryogenic bunker. So you wouldn't do that again. Or would you? You guys also mentioned Colombo-esque TV detective. So I'd like to suggest checking out Quincy Mee, starring Jack Klugman, or Klugman. I remember watching them growing up and it looks like they were Netflix, but in disc only. You also talked about a sequel to The Shining, awesome. I've read that book several times and seen both movie versions. I really like the mini-series if just because it gives the material more room to be explored. So I always thought Jack Sawyer from the Talisman Black House books was the spiritual, if not actual, sequel for the Danny Torrance character. And another movie version of the stand? Like you, I love my post-apocalyptic story, so this has me exciting. Sited. Speaking of upcoming movies, the trailer for Joss Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods looks quite good. It has a vibe that reminds me of the cube series a little, but not in the torture saw-esque aspects. Watch the trailers and I think you'll understand. I think I mentioned a JRD email that I was reading Neil Gaiman's Coraline to the Kids. We just finished it a few nights ago and we're going to move on to our next pick, Powerless by Matthew Cody. This was picked by my seven-year-old son in a recent school book fair. The back cover reads, "As Daniel and his family drive to their new home, he spots the sign. Welcome to Noble's Green, the safest town on earth." It couldn't sound lame-er. But Daniel's new friends, who are nice, but odd, with a tendency towards mysterious disappearances, are far from lame. In fact, he comes to learn that they each have a power, a super power. One can fly, another can turn invisible, yet another controls electricity, incredible. Another, this secret group of six super kids watches over Noble's Green while its residents enjoy their safest town on earth, oblivious. But not for long. The young superheroes are fading away one by one the moment they turn thirteen. Their special abilities disappear. Is a supervillain sapping their powers? The answer lies in a long-ago meteor strike. The Green-flamed Witchfire, a World War II era comic book, a hidden shroud cave, and, possibly, unbelievably, powerless, regular old Daniel himself. So if we work our way through this, and it may take us a little while, I'll let you know what the kids think of it, and if it's a good pulpy superhero story for kids. That's all for now. Carl Greisz, this is Rich and Riley. We're going to get into this weird double-meared room situation where we're responding to responses to responses. I believe we're going to have to look out for this now. It seems the one thing that really unites all mobsters beyond Flashpulp is in Sweet Two. Just a quick shout out for the last starfighter on a Love That Movie. So ridiculous, but so brilliant in a way. Actually, that reminds me. We didn't mention it at the top of the show, but we watched Super 8, not to sidetrack, doesn't we? That was so good. Yeah. It was totally not what I had expected. See, last starfighter in a way reminds me of that because it has that mid-80s feel of whimsy and anything can happen, ridiculousness. Like the Teenage Hero. Yeah. Yeah. But in the end, you can always be saved. You can always go home. You're always going back to your bed. Mm-hmm. Very E.T. Mm-hmm. And you can always go in. Goonies. Yeah. Except now the cool girl thinks you're cool too. Yeah. I thought the two sort of leads the boy and the girl. And the girl? And the girl. Yeah, that sounds horrible. Yes. But I know one of them was a fanning, right? Jessica may have. Yes, Elle Fanning. Elle Fanning. And the main boy. Why? I thought he was great. Oh, the makeup artist. Yes. That's why. Yeah. They did wonderful jobs. Everyone did. I wonder. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, though, this film plays on a certain sort of sentimentality. And it's interesting that Spielberg's involved, because I believe Spielberg, in a way, almost invented that sentimentality. Mm-hmm. But. Again, with the E.T. thing. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if we were to sit Mr. Ate Down and have him watch through the film. Maybe when he's a slightly older, because there are some pretty intense scenes. If he would get the same out of it that we did. Yeah. Like, do you feel bad for the alien? Well, it's not even just that. It's just so much of that film seems to trade on that sort of soft focus shot and feeling very of that time that we've already gone through. Like, it really touches on those older films. Would he get that, or would he just? I think it's not a matter of, you know, our generation. It's just a feeling that's in the movie. I think he could totally get that. Yeah. I would love to see a return to that sort of film making. Mm-hmm. I thought it was feeling really productive. Yeah, it was so refreshing. I was not expecting that at all. And when they went kind of pulp-tastic on me, it was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it was a fun film. Anyhow, as was the last Starfighter, I'm glad you enjoyed the Joe Monk. I definitely hope to have some more in the near future. As we kind of discussed just recently, Joe Monk's definitely a idea before I sit down to write the story kind of situation. Mm-hmm. Indeed. At the same time, part of the problem with Joe is that I have to dull him out at a fairly slow pace because of what happens, I don't know, episode 400 on. And maybe we'll revisit this then. But to answer his question about Macbeth, sometimes you have to go back a pope and listen to characters. Yeah. If it's been a long time, you don't remember their voice. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. It would be interesting. I would be interested to go back and play the two side by side and see how you play a couple back, see how your voice is changing. I know you sometimes feel a little bit shifty on your harm carter. Oh, dear. Dear, dear, dear. Anyway. That's right. Mm-hmm. Quincy, have you guys watched Quincy at all? I did with my super religious ex-boyfriend's family where the mom made doilies from scratch and Dad was a RCMP officer who paid all the bills and we watched Quincy in the basement. So part of me wants to be like, I don't want to watch Quincy. But it's just sort of like because of- I don't want to be a part of that spirit when I watched it. Yeah. Yeah. I have to admit it falls into that A&E block of programming for me with Banachak and Colombo and- Mm-hmm. Dr. Quinn, medicine woman. Yeah. I was at the time. No, no. Dr. Quinn. Dr. Quinn. What are you talking about? But yeah, it was what people wanted back in the day, right? Yeah. Well, I believe it was what was cheap to pick up the rights for and would actually pull in a fairly sizable audience. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was easy. I have an easy money. No one was running Colombo episodes and re-run back then. There was no TV land. Anything like that. The shame. So, Pope, I know you're a big fan of the talisman in Black House. I know. He mentioned Jack Sawyer and I loves me Jack Sawyer. How do you feel about Danny Torrance being a precursor to Jack Sawyer, sort of a- I don't know who Danny Torrance is. Oh, yeah. You haven't really read the Shining, eh? It's a very interesting idea. Oh, is he the boy? Yeah, he's the boy in the Shining. Yeah, okay. I can believe that then. Especially in the book, you definitely get more of the idea that he has building psychic power. Actually- You know what though? I would say- I don't know Stephen King's timeline well enough to be able to say, but I would say that there's a lot of similarities between Jake and Jack. Oh, yeah, from the Gunslinger series too. Yeah. That's an interesting point, and I wonder, I'd have to go back, but I bet you that same style of character can be attributed to the voice from Eyes of the Dragon. Yeah, well, same sort of storyline almost. Yeah, Eyes of the Dragon is a fantastic book. Anyway, we're getting a little sidetracked, but interesting thought about Jack Sawyer though. I do find that very interesting. Yeah, he's one of my favorite characters, and it's actually the book Black House that the name of Pope and Acts comes from, which, um, if anybody wants to go take a look at the comment section in Barry's blog. You had to clarify? Yeah, I had a little rundown of it from Matt Cow in the other day, so... Oh, yeah, Matt. Fantastic. Here you go. I am quite excited about Cabin in the Woods. It's been a long time coming, and I'm really interested to see what the result is. Even if it's terrible, it's going to be fantastic, I think. What if the result is an axmurder? Mm-hmm. They have an instal in the story for me. Yeah, correct. No, you guys should see the trailer. I definitely recommend seeing the trailer, it is not just an axmurder. Mm-hmm. You wish it were just an axmurder. You wish it were just an axmurder. Yeah. It's 50 axmurderies. Oh, it wins. It's interesting the effect that school book fairs have, because we end up buying a lot of our literature for the nines from school book fairs, and this powerless book sounds right up Mr. Nines Alley. Yeah. This sounds exactly like something he would later own too. But I do find it interesting because they're always relatively wholesome books. They never go over the line, but I do find now, especially for Miss Nines market, they're starting to sell like very, well not very young, but aimed at nine, ten aged girls, but they're vampire books. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they're talking about their boyfriends and stuff like that, and their secret crushes. It's interesting, though. It's trickled down vampirism. Yeah. She doesn't like boys yet. But she likes vampirs. And she likes dressing up, but it's kind of more for her than anybody else. Yeah. It'll happen. No. It's not true. So definitely keep us updated, Rich, from the future when you're no longer in the past. And now, for a man firmly grounded in his own time, Colorado Joe. He's a cup of Joe, more mobsters at home. It's Colorado Joe. Hello, Flashcast crew and fellow mobsters. Alas, our daughter had a last-minute cross-country flight scheduled with a student who needed to finish before the holidays. So our trip has been postponed until next month. Thought I would check in. I'll start out with a discussion of cougars. No, not the kind you're all thinking of. I'm talking mountain lions here. While these animals are fairly common in Colorado, Linda and I saw our first mountain lion outside of a zoo two weeks ago. We were driving out of the mountains late at night, and a very large cat stood in the road in front of us. It stared at us momentarily, then sauntered back into the woods. Was very cool. Really wish we had a camera ready. I probably mentioned my take on Enterprise before, but to recap, I agree with you that their tangent on temporal wars and going into the expanse were not great story arcs. I thought the best season was the last, in which they gave up on these epic stories and started to explore the beginnings of the Federation. Unfortunately, too little, too late. Also, I really, really hope you're wrong about del Toro being con. For what it's worth, IMDB had enlisted as associated with the project earlier in the week, but has removed him as of this writing. In his place, Peter Weller and Q Borg Robocop crossover jokes now. A little Joe Linda trivia. We actually met at a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had seen the show many times. Linda attended for the first time with a mutual friend. While Rocky Horror is not classical pulp, it definitely pays homage to many pulp classics and has a pulpy vibe. At the time, I love the audience's participation and even dressed as Frankenfurter a couple of times. Nowadays, I can watch the show for itself and don't need the extra trappings to enjoy. Had to chime in on bands besides Zeppelin who have fantasy and sci-fi songs. I really loved Loyster Cult's Black Blade, which refers to Elric of Melnimity's Rune Sword Stormbringer. The synthesizer of Driven Voice of the Sword is downright chilling. And of course, I'm going to mention Rush. The 21-12 Overture dealt with Earth's dystopian future and subsequent salvation from the stars. Cygnus X1 was a flight through a black hole. More recently, I saw a local Salt Lake City Band, I can't remember their name, who did it a song inspired by Magic the Gathering. It was good stuff. And speaking of more Cocks Elric sagas, how have these not been made into movies? An albino-sorcerer wielding a soul-drinking rune sword battling gods and men. What's not to love here? Great job on the angler. Totally grossed out of the thought of hiding in a rotten deer carcass. That said, classic black hole, now with dynamite. And good on Mulligan's patience. Sorry to hear the plague is descended upon your household again. Hope everyone is healthy for the holidays. Happy Birthday to Squire Nine. Look like a fun way to celebrate his birthday. Oh yeah, Linda says, hockey stick, hockey stick, puk puk. Take care. When I was looking at the audio just now, I was thinking, what is that at the end there where it has like these? Triple taps. Yeah. It was hockey stick, hockey stick, puk puk puk. I love it. Hello to you, too, Linda, and the trivia, I thought that was so sweet. If we ever have to go to war, that'll be our battle cry. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone will know and it'll be our secret handshake. That's right. It's interesting. I did hear confirmation that Del Toro is not going to be con. Oh, there you go. Everyone aggressively, although I'm under the impression and I could be wrong that he's still involved with the project, he's not going to be playing con. He's going to be Kirk. Peter, Peter Weller, Peter Weller. That would be fascinating. He has an interesting acting style that can really work well when used properly in a film. Which one's here again? It's not for everybody. He was Robocop as Joe mentioned. Oh, yes, yes. He was also. You have to see that movie. Buck Rubanzai. And he's also an actor. I don't know if this stands true, but consider the bravery of an actor who's willing to throw himself in a largely face concealing mask for the majority of his film. That's the one… Wait. I recognize that. Most. Apparently they had to argue with Jack Nicholson aggressively about the Noah's bandage situation in Chinatown. Really? That's what I've read anyway. Maybe I'm wrong about that too. But… That he wanted it? No, that he didn't want it because it obscures his face for a good chunk of the film. Yeah. And he's an actor. He trades on his face. Yeah. But you can't heal, you know, remark… well, they do that now, you know. Oh, yeah. They publicly clean you up. Each shot you look over there. You get a… You can get a gunshot wound now in two scenes later, you're trucking around, but I suppose that's actually always been true and the whole point of Chinatown was that they tried to make it a little more realistic in that sense. And that's exactly why the bandage worked so well. Anyway, we're getting a bit sidetracked. Forget Jake. It's Chinatown. Yeah. Interesting about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yeah. Very interesting. I was going to ask which one of you wore the corset, but I think if you went as Frankfurter a few times… You know what? I actually have a little story to tell. I think I didn't think of this when we were speaking about it before, but Rocky Horror is probably my first introduction to something kind of inappropriate. Oh, yeah. I was showing Rocky Horror at least the beginning of it at a very young age. The Time Warp was a tradition at family weddings, so I was aware of what that was. It was a training video. Yeah. It's just a jump to the left. Anyway. Very nice. Very interesting. I think there's definitely always been a balance between pulp and camp. I think there's a lot of love for pulp in Rocky Horror. I actually have Rocky Horror songs on my iPod at the moment. Very nice. Yeah. Thanks for the kind words about the angler. Mm-hmm. That was a fun one. It was… Messy? I kept expecting Sarah Thistle to show up. I don't know why. The cave situation. And the rotting meat? Yeah, I suppose. Evil Times was fantastic. We posted some Instagram photos. Yeah. Mr. Two initially was like, "What the hell?" Yeah. Because they were snapping these whips, and the first scene was really scary, and it's scaring music. We were like, "No, just a little bit of bit." And everything after it was very happy and upbeat, but he just wouldn't even look, and sometimes his head would shake. Yeah. Yeah. They actually have a room built specifically for those freakouts. And… Still had a fantastic view. Yeah. Yeah. And he did eventually come down, and everything was fine, and you know. I did have one problem with the medieval times. Right. So, for those who have gone, you know that there are no utensils at medieval times. And they feed you so much food. So, you go through a series of courses building up increasingly meaty courses, I might add. Yeah. And they're so encouraging with the bar, like they just want to fill you with food and beer. Yeah. But the problem was… The last course. You get to dessert. And they double up on your dessert, right, because they're really pushing to just fill you right to the brim. Yeah. So, you get this sort of apple… Turnover. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which was fantastic. Mm-hmm. But, the cake comes with a plastic fork, and that just totally ruined the whole situation for me. Because if they're willing to concede a plastic fork for the final course, why couldn't I have had a plastic fork when it was chicken juice all over my hands? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And it was half a chicken. Everybody got half of a chicken. The babies got half of a chicken. So, they, like, thankfully, they had doggy bags, and it just, like, filled it. Yeah. Yeah. And it was so good, and the kids were so excited. Mm-hmm. Mr. 3 was ridiculous, though, because he got a scepter instead of a sword, like Mr. 9. And then so, there was, like, this is an exchange, but the scepter, you pressed a button, and it stayed on, whereas the sword you had to actually hold the button down, and that made him so angry that it's all he talked about. Yeah. He's like, "I don't like all this perks. I don't like that." He got over there. He got over there. Oh, with, like, people and horses. The focus of a 3-year-old is not the focus of an adult. Yes. It was a lot of work just to, like, we couldn't just release it there and enjoy it, but I enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. I kept pretending I was in Westeros. But, yeah. Yeah. And it did kind of throw me off that the main dude, like, the prince, was a terrible actor. Everyone else was really great, except for, you know, the one guy who gets to talk except for the king. Yeah. But, Mr. Nine was knighted and everything. You know the problem with royalty? Indeed. All the nepotism. I bet you the prince is probably like the manager's son. Yeah. He had a manager's son mustache, kind of, scraggly. Yeah, he did. A little ponytail in the back. Yeah. Didn't have a flowing mane like you do. Yeah. You could work there. Yeah. I kept saying, Jared, you could totally be one of these knights. We just need to get a horse. Because you need to bring your own horse, apparently. Yeah. Get you a little training. You don't need your driver's license. You can ride a horse. A horse. A horse. Oh, and then Ms. Nine, who was so not in the mood to smile, and she kind of does this now, or, well, for a while, she does it, generally she's better now, where you ask her to smile. And she's like, "Oh, God. Like, really? Are you seriously asking me?" It's like the most exasperated look on her nose. So this time, I'm like, "Dude, I'm not taking this. It's Mr. and I's birthday. You need to come. And you need to smile. And if you have to pretend, then you need to pretend." So we get the picture at the end of the night, and her face is just like her. You could see every single tooth in her mouth. And like the whites of her eyes were just so big, like bug-eyed legs. She looks like she's in shell. We're like, "Oh, dude. Dude." We need to practice lying a little bit. Dude. Yeah. Yeah. You're clearly not very good at this lying step. So. But overall, it was really good. It really was. I'm so glad we did it. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. It was great. Thanks for calling in, Joe. Thanks for checking in. Yeah. I hope your do-over vacation situation works out quite well. Mulligan. And a big hello and goodbye to Linda as well. Yeah. Hannah. Are you a dassy? Hope. So I finally did it after the last flashcast, not fair to say. So I recorded the song, "New York, New York for Barry." Very nice. And it was great. Because when we were doing the last flashcast, I can't believe you liked it, that's like a dash, dash, dash. I realized I was getting a sore throat, and then I was going to be sick. So I'm like, "Dude, I need to do this now." And since then, I've had like trouble breathing, and that's really not awesome. But I did it. I got it done. It sounded the way I wanted it to, like sort of like somebody singing about the bright lights, but they're never getting there. And what would that sound like? So I tried to have a fresh look on the old sign. It was an interesting, almost like somebody incidentally running into the music while outside. Yeah. Yeah. And just like, "Oh, hey, look what I can do, but I'm never doing anything with it." Aww. It's a sad tale. It is. It is a sad tale. I like it to be sort of flash-popy and melodic. I think I did it. You did a great job. Yeah. I just, "Oh, I made me feel so bad," because I'm like, "You're totally good, you're the thing, dude." And then it just wouldn't pan out, so. Hooray. The art. Oh. Never raised it. I don't really have very much. Oh, that's just sad. Because you've been... Yeah, I've been working on the Skinner Coast. And you've made a huge revelation about drawing. Oh, did I? Yeah. Oh, yes. You look at me. It's funny. I realized that I draw much better when I don't have pants on. Like with a belt, you know? No, no, no. Just pants in general. Restricted, right? I need to take my pants off when I draw. Yeah. And then I was talking about like the future of when like, we'll be at cons maybe, and we'll be like drawing for people, but she'll just be sitting there and we'll be bopping, she'll be cross-legged, but she'll have no pants on. I'll be in a onesie, you know, a rumpa. Yeah, like Lady Gaga circa 2009. Yeah, only with less shoulder pad. Yes, exactly. Because that hinges as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've got to have a free arm. See, but since the legs, yeah, we're going for something simple here, okay? We want a revelation. So yeah, revelation. We don't want to add, we want to subtract. And you today have finished all of your work for the Lady's Skinner Go. That's right. And I've got the bones down for the next one too, which is pretty cool. Mm-hmm. I've got myself a template. It's nice to know where you're going. Yeah. I've got sections that I can cut and paste, and I've got like my layers all set up, so I know what needs to go where, where my color goes, where my lines go. And the one that's coming up on Monday, I find so hilarious. And it's almost adorable looking, even though the subject, like even though, like, if you are in that situation, you'd be terrified of your mind, but you almost want to giggle a little bit when you see it. You want to giggle when you see all of Skinner Go though, and that's the aim. Yeah, but it has to be slightly disturbing. Mm-hmm. Whee! Backroom plots. So we released two tails this last week, which is a bit of a mark of shame, but at the same time, well, it's holiday season, it's a little tough. Kids are very busy and everyone is very sick, most of the time. Yeah, well, I was pretty sick, so everyone was busy taking care of me and getting up for me and doing everything. But we did get out to the late call with Mr. Mulligan Smith. Mm-hmm. And that was an idea that I had had on the rack for a little bit. I had considered turning it into a collective detective tale, and I just couldn't make the logistics work properly. Yeah, I actually left a note for him at the end of the script when I was editing, that it would have made a great collective detective tale, and I demand that he now make a Mulligan collective crossover. Stamped it. I could definitely see that happening. No, okay, backstage. Mm-hmm. And the other one we put up, close. Really enjoyed that one. Yeah. That was so good. Your voices were so good, a Pope. Thank you. Like, I believed that that was happening. Thank you. And what the hell are they going to do? And you don't resolve it. You resolve nothing. Mm-hmm. I'm like, what the heck is-- eh, but yeah. I guess, in a good story, you don't necessarily-- like, if it's intentional, it's not necessary that you have all of the information. I hope that I resolve the enough, and at the same time, the nice thing about having the larger flashpelp universe is that I can plug something like this in, and I don't have to provide every detail. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you will see them again, and maybe just, like, you'll understand maybe more about the character. Footnote later on. Yeah. Yeah. I do have to admit, to a certain extent, this episode was me-- listen, when I was a lad, I would stay up well past the time regulated by my parents. Hiding out in our basement rec room, hoping for quality television to come on, and one of my favorites was the rerun of Tales from the Crypt that they would play from 1230 to 130 from, I believe, Newfoundland on New Feast Station. And that was a solid show for my age group at the time. It had a fantastic mix of horror and comedy. You don't really see that kind of business on television anymore, just a vignette show, like, one-shot stories, no recurring characters. Yeah, horror and comedy, you don't see very much of Mary. Mm-hmm. So this, to me, was almost my writing A Tales from the Crypt episode. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I can completely, completely see that. Yeah, everything I want to say would completely spoil it, and it's so fresh to it. Mm. Yeah. I think I've actually mentioned in the past that I did write a couple of stories that almost got submitted to the revival of The Tales from the Crypt comic. Oh, I remember that. But unfortunately, just before they got submitted the comic tanked and they re-closed shop. Yeah, a little boo. Yeah, it was quite unfortunate. I was enjoying that little run. I mean, they were aiming at more at children than the original comics were, perhaps, but at the same time... It had the same spirit? Yeah, they were taking a stab at it, which was nice to see. Mm-hmm. An effort. That's for the effort. I do believe I've recycled some of that material into actual episodes, but I'd have to go back and look at the catalog to figure out which was which. Mm. Okay, well, just before we close out, we got a floating coffin story coming up. But when Bunny met Sandy, this one's been on the docket for the last two weeks, actually, and hasn't gotten closed yet. I'm really excited about this one coming up. We have another black call tale. Nice. And Friday, I believe we have the return of Ruby. Oh, how do you like that? Hopefully Friday. She's still kicking around. Hopefully Friday and possibly Saturday, at the latest Monday. Okay. We love you. Yeah. We try very hard for you. And also, big thanks to Jim. Thanks, Jim. From relicradio.com. Mm-hmm. And for all your wonderful updates. Yeah. He works hard for us, and I really appreciate it. He works hard for the money that we don't give him. He won't let him. That we ought to give him. We're gonna see half of his face this week. I know. I got so excited about that. I've been excited about a lot of things this episode, but that was really cool. Mm-hmm. I love how he described the other half as a fistash. He's actually sort of the anti-robo cop. He's willing to go with the upper half, but damn below, he's all robot. That sounds naughty. I don't mean that far, but, though, anyway. All right. All right, then. Let's not go there. Yeah. If you have guesses about what Jim might be hiding, you can-- Email Jim, not us, please. You can leave your comments, questions, or suggestions at flashbulb.com or call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792 or email us, text her, and be through to comments@lifebulb.com. Jessica May's Vocal Downs and Musicals Downs can be found at maytunes.com. Sometimes, yeah. Are you going to be posting the New York, New York, uh, item there? Oh, well, it's just a present for Barry. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Okay. How about this, then? Can you at least-- Hey, Barry. Can I share it? No. Can--well, what I was going to say is-- No. Screw you. Can you at least promise to post a link to Barry's site so that people can go to-- Oh! Well, that's a compromise. Never, boy. The entire run of flashbulb can be found at flashbulb.com or via the search bar on iTunes. Flash guest is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. This is the last month and then I am ending here. The moon will be canceled and trails at us at our north. Why should they cry when they know that I'm glad to go? If they're dead dreams, then I'll dream I'm threatening you. On the long journey I know I'll be blessed to you. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. Happy birthday, Barry. [MUSIC PLAYING]