Prepare yourself for Bimbos of the Death Sun, Richard Pryor's Star Wars, gold plated Iguana guns, Christopher Walken, and Mulligan Smith.
Read the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC44 - Bimbos of the Death Sun
[music] Hello and welcome to Flashcast44. Prepare yourself for Bimbos of the Death Sun, Richard Pryor's Star Wars, Gold plated iguana guns, Christopher Walken, and Mulligan Smith. [music] Tonight we have myself Pope Anax, vocalization. Just give me. Hello. Audio-ministeration. Mm-hmm. And J.R.D. Hello. Word-rubber. Rub-out-a-word. Are you familiar with the film Night of the Iguana? No. All right, it's John Houston film directed by the same guy who directed the multi-spoken. Oh, okay. Star is Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Debra Kerr. Most of the budget was taken up and hiring those people. Ooh, ooh, I think I have heard of this movie in relation to Debra Kerr. Okay, so it's in a remote location that they're shooting. It's very warm, it's very swampy. John Houston, who has sort of a history of being a bit of an eccentric, decides he's going to buy everybody gold plated pistols, which he hands out to the cast at the start of shooting. And each one is provided with just enough bullets to kill the other main stars. And the bullets he provides are engraved with their names. Oh, wow, so they would know. Oh my God, that's totally Vincent Price. Yeah, that's a fun one. And I guess Richard Burton, right, this is right around the time he's having a lot of tension with Liz. And so she's hanging around as well because she doesn't want-- She doesn't trust him? Yeah, exactly. So tensions are high, guns are loaded, but nothing happened. For reals, Liz. That's so cool, though. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC PLAYING] Pop and wire press. So we're going to run through popular press pretty quickly this week. We have the book club. It's going to come up. It's going to be the majority of the mailbag section. But we want to leave plenty of time. But we do have a few items that we wanted to mention. Ever since we've received the stickers, the long-awaited stickers, we've been having caption contests. Our latest winner is Dana from the mob. Congrats from the mob, please. That's the caption contest. Yeah, that's where the contest is. A Pope says, well, it could be Dana, but I've never heard of Dana before. I heard of Dana. If she's Dana, she should be Dana. No, I'm just kidding. So new contests up in the mob already? Yes, it's very popular. I think you picked quite a loaded picture, sir. Yes. It was not intentional. Oh, come on. I know what that file was named that you hope the mob would never see. Remember, we had that discussion. You're like, sometimes I name things in a way that I never want the mob to see. Yeah, and Peter basically went there. Yeah. So in other personal mob news, I am mid-November. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this previously. Actually, during the end, I've only got 10 days to go or something. Yeah, for real. You've got a nice little chunk of change for it. Yeah, much appreciated to everyone who's donated. I'm mentioning it now because if you've got a last moment donation you want to throw in, much appreciated, you can find the page in the show notes, or it's really at mowbro.co/jarityskinner, so-- Give me some money. Yeah, well-- I'm really enjoying your mustache. It's kind of funny, because as it goes down your face towards your chin, it gets darker. You know what's interesting? I shaved earlier, but I didn't mention it to you. Have you noticed that-- Yeah. Oh, you got in the middle of the soul patch. Indeed. That's right. You're soul patchless. You're full on Hogan, dude. Yeah, I know. I wanted-- I figured if we're going for the last run, we might as well auger this baby in. Yeah, the whole way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It makes your chin look very broad. I love the Movember pictures you've been taking. Thanks. I'm getting very sick of taking pictures of myself. Oh, yeah, you always are. At least you have some for your Facebook page, because everyone complains how they can never actually see your face. There is a high likelihood that at the end of this little stint I'm going to delete every photo of myself that I've posted, and simply replace it all with that foggy-- He saw my flash pulp sticker on the van. He's like, hm, I don't know about this. I'm like, why? Because we're trying to be incognito. If people see this, they'll know where we live. So paranoid. We got to represent. Fair enough. You know what I learned? What did you learn? This is sort of an odd, tangential pulp thread, but-- I'll accept it. This is just an odd sort of sidetrack of pulp history that I hadn't known previously. Did you know that before there was the Duke's of Hazard, there was a film called Moon Runners, which was largely the exact same thing? And Duke's of Hazard isn't a knockoff. A lot of the cast that were in the original film were in the sequel. And Whalen Jennings-- or in the TV show, I should say-- should say. And Whalen Jennings was also the narrator of both. He did the whole-- It was right about that time. It was all Duke boys. He's gotten a whole heap of trouble. I don't know. That sounds pretty regurgitated to me, you know. Well, there was a lot of that sort of thing going on at the time, like smoking in the bandit. But the thing is, this was-- they were moonshiners in a souped-up car who used bows with dynamite because they had been restricted from using firearms due to the terms of their probation. Which, frankly, I'm not sure that using bows with dynamite is really within probation. Yeah, like the judge would be like, where all is it near? [INTERPOSING VOICES] Dang, another technicality. Yeah, there was-- Boss Hog wasn't named Boss Hog, but something sort of similar. And anyway. There, Pog. But it was the exact same character. It was sort of the rich man with the white suit. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. So Vincent-- what was that other fellow's name? Vincent Coi, Vincent-- the cousins. They weren't even the first impostors, because the original moonshiners weren't the fellows from the show. There you go. While we're doing a little historical look back, Robert and the mob brought up a really neat little piece. We were discussing Last Flashgast, I believe, about the hitchhiking ghost tale. And he posted an item called Resurrection Mary, which was a clip from Unsolved Mysteries, which is a show that totally formed my youth. There are so many Unsolved Mysteries moments that I can recall that-- I loved that show. Being alone in the dark and the basement and being like, oh. Jessica Mayk. Jessica Mayk, can you hit us with just 10, 20 seconds of the theme? Oh, show. [MUSIC PLAYING] Memories, memories. I used to watch that show with my whole family. We'd sit around and then discuss it afterwards. Or yell at the TV while stupid things were happening or something. Don't-- no, of course that's wrong, because whatever. Mm-hm. Yeah, it was almost great fun. And Robert. Robert's posting Resurrection Mary. So it was relating to this ghost that was often picked up beside a graveyard, not known to be a ghost at first, usually brought by a cabbie. And then it was a cabbie who had lost their way. That was always, apparently, the recurring thread. So they would look for directions. This lady would lead them back to town for a ride. And then disappear, I suppose. It's odd how these ghost stories get around. I wonder how many of these items they-- And the variations. Like whether they've-- I wonder if they've heard them and changed them, or just kind of come up with the same creepy concept. Yeah. Like without influence of the other stories. It would be interesting to do some sort of study between In Search of and Unsolved Mysteries and see which one was more impartial. I think Unsolved Mysteries reached a little more than In Search of did. Maybe. Not that In Search of was a bastion of knowledge and understanding. I loved those shows, though. Childhood. Speaking of childhood, have you guys seen this clip that I passed around earlier with Richard Pryor? I don't know. Have I? Somehow, immediately after the first Star Wars film, Richard Pryor managed to get a hold of a large number of the props, possibly from a-- might have been from the Christmas special, I'm not sure. Anyhow, he did a sketch in which he's the bartender at the cantina. [CHEERING] I don't even know if there's no light in here. [CHEERING] Oh, oh, I see. I want you all to go upstairs and get a room. [CHEERING] Oh, I'm sure I'm up there. That's your turn. All right. [CHEERING] You've got a lot of fun. [CHEERING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, hey, hey, why don't you watch where you're going? You got your biggest eyes in the place. [CHEERING] That was funny. You know, I do have to say, though, I think part of-- it seemed more realistic in the cantina in Star Wars when they were kind of background characters and nobody had to talk or anything. It was just sort of like, yeah, you're just kind of looking. Because these guys had no mouth openings or anything. It was sort of like the same facial expression the whole time because it's like a rubber mask. Well, they're only intended for quick shots. Yeah, nothing. It's good to see the credos doing all right. But it's a great joke, you know? Yeah, well, it's a fun gag. And I wonder where he got a hold of the suits. I should have done a little more research into it. It looks almost centering it live-ish or something, but those are obviously the cantina suits. What I also found interesting was the dating, not just in the sort of Star Wars aspect, but the surrounding bar that they decided to present. That was a lot of fun. What do you mean? Well, it was just so old school and ridiculous, but totally out of time with the cantina. Like, it didn't have that-- Yeah, yeah, that's right. Like, all of these things that were so out of control, but they were still putting them in, like, in cheers. Yeah, it was a bouncer. It was full of aliens, and yet they were in an old schooly bar. And he can handle them. And he can handle them. Using a corded phone. Yeah, I loved that. But then they've still got this ridiculous pinball-esque-- Pong. Yeah, whatever that was. Anyway, that was fun. I'll have that in the show notes. If you want to check out the full clip, rolling right along. Phantom, heard about this film? No. Haunted Sub movie, which, frankly-- That sounds awesome. --Haunting, I'm on. Sub, I'm in. The cast sounds great, too. Who's in it? Ed Harris, Lance Henriksen, David de Colvine. That's interesting. William Fitchner? Now, William Fitchner is that wackany-looking guy. He was in equilibrium. He was in virtuosity. I can't think of him. He was in Dark Knight, Black Hawk Down. If I'm remembering correctly and I may not be, I believe he was actually walking sun in maybe Batman Returns. Huh. How do you like that? Anyway, very recognizable face. He's one of those b-string actors who you really know when you see him. They've been around. It does sound a little bit like Red October with a ghost. We-- I love that movie. But at the same time, doesn't the idea of Red October with a ghost kind of sound fun? Yes. So, we'll see if it turns out more like that-- what was that Harrison Ford K9? Was that the right film? Where he dons a kind of shaky Russian accent and-- Audrey's is submarineed into the bottom of the ocean. Wow. Speaking of ocean, you guys noticed the-- Robert Wagner, eh? Well, the Natalie Wood news floating around lately. Yes, the case is very open. Oh, floating, floating around. That's bad. She drowned, by the way, 30 years ago. Jessica, maybe you remember the details of the case. Do you have the details of the case on tap? It was, indeed, 30 years ago. It was on a boat. I can't remember. Christopher Walken was there. Yes, isn't that fascinating that-- Yeah, and there was a captain of the boat. And there was other people and other yachts on the same water hearing her. The captain actually heard Robert Wagner saying, get the F off my boat. Yeah, they were fighting because Robert Wagner was suspicious of Christopher Walken-- Because they were coasting in a movie. Yes, so he's like, yeah, he said something nasty about it. How weird to be jealous of Christopher Walken. So people heard her screaming, and the person who was responsible in pulling her out of the water said that if they had actually reported it soon enough, they could have saved her. They were so close. But they didn't report it until a long time later. It's very interesting. And isn't it Natalie Wood's sister who's pushing the reopening? Yes, along with the captain. But am I wrong in believing? I believe I read on CNN that she doesn't actually think Robert Wagner killed her. Really? What does she think? I'm not sure. I'm wondering if she maybe thinks that Robert Wagner essentially ordered her off the boat and that she just died accidentally while rowing to shore, essentially. What? I don't know. I don't know. That is entirely my guess. Yeah, because she did say she didn't feel like he had murdered her whatever. Yes. But at the same time, he may be responsible. Yeah. But what would that be? Man slaughter? I don't know. I'm no lawyer. I'm just a simple country boy. I mean, he's not responsible if she was somehow to die on the way to shore. Like, he isn't responsible to take her to shore. Yeah, but-- Well, it was also the middle of the night, right? And I believe she hated boats. They were both drunk. She wasn't terribly like-- She could swim. Why would he just send her off in a little dinghy? Yeah. Well, he may have been angry enough, or she may have gotten angry and decided she was going to make a break for it, although you think that detail would have come up. Well, that's what he said. Well, yeah, I suppose-- Yeah, I suppose that is what came up, yeah. Anyway. We'll see how that shakes out. I just thought it was an interesting, poppy story. Anyway, yes. Yeah, they found the dinghy. And they found the dinghy about a mile away from the yacht. And they found her body a mile away from the dinghy. Oh, wow. Oh, that seems like it's not so open and close. Yeah. Open shut. In book news, just a quick item. Ronnie Biggs, one of the great train robbers, the fellow who actually escaped. And he lived down in Brazil for many years. Escaped what? Yeah. Well, he robbed a train. He was involved in a complicated robbery of a train. Then he made a break for it, moved to, I don't know, Argentina or Brazil. And then essentially lived there for the majority of the rest of his life. He recorded a few blue songs. I tried to locate some of them because I thought they'd be interesting, but you cannot find them on YouTube or anywhere. See here, I have a little proof-prepared text item. Odd Man Out Biggs was part of a gang that stole millions from a mail train in 1963. He was sentenced to 30 years, but escaped and fled to Brazil. Biggs returned to Britain and jail in 2001, but was released in 2009 because of his failing health. Now '82, and unable to speak after a series of strokes, Biggs answered reporters' questions while pointing at a letter board. He expressed regret about train driver Jack Mills, who was injured during the robbery, and died in 1970. How do you like that? Anyway, it's an interesting item that he's launching a book. And he's lived a very interesting life. In '81, they actually tried to kidnap-- OK, this was a detail that I felt was worth bringing up. In '81, he was actually kidnapped by a gang of ex-British soldiers. And they stowed him to Barbados. No kidding. Where they hoped that they could extradite him. But the thing is that Barbados also had no extradition treaty. I thought they were part of the British Empire or whatever. Apparently, no treaty. So yeah, it was ridiculous. And these guys were essentially hoping they were mercenaries pinning their hopes on the reward is what it comes down to. So it's all right. Because if they could return them to the British police, then they would be able to collect the money. So they basically got screwed. And Biggs just basically went back and presented. He went on a vacation to Barbados. Hey, yeah. Well, I'm sure it wasn't much of a right case. No, he was pretty terrified after that, I believe, for quite a while, so-- That's what you get from Robin Trains. Don't rob Trains. Also in book news, I just wanted to quickly mention that John Grisham has a new novel out. Of course he does. Now listen, I'm not John Grisham's biggest fan. He's been highly successful at turning his works into films. I think he really knows how to present a certain type of story. And there's definitely a nice summer daytime for a Grisham novel. Once I had that much money, though, I just-- I wouldn't work anymore. I would go travel and do stuff. Yeah. Well, there's also this to consider. The new novel by John Grisham called The Litigators. And it's four pages long. No, it's actually probably about 700 pages long. So he had some stuff to say. So The Litigators, now let me just briefly run down some of his previous titles. The Firm, The Client, The Chamber, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, The Summons. I like the King of Torts. The King of Torts, yeah. The Lastger, The Broker, The Appeal, The Associate, The Confession, Theodor Boone, The Abduction. And now The Litigators. I'm just saying he's got to shift it up a little bit. He's going to run out of common items in a courtroom, and he's not going to have anything to name his novels after. His movie scripts, I should say, but-- The Palma Granite, The Cheese Sauce on my lapel. The Lawyer's Brown Bag Lunch. And quickly, before we move into a spot of bother, I just wanted to remind folks that I a little shout out for guest-assowed episodes. Had a nice little response. We're definitely going to have a nice holiday queue for Christmas. I know a lot of you guys are on the road right now. I'm roaming to your families for Thanksgiving. So to our American friends, happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Yeah, and the Dolly Canadians. Wasn't that good last month? Yeah, that was really good. Don't you wish you were having turkey? And big ups to Nutty, who manages to work both sides of the border and probably eats plenty of turkey. Keep your guest-asosed rolling in. I definitely appreciate them. It's fun to read other people's takes on the Flash bulb universe. Of course, keep in mind it's not canon. It's very much like the Star Wars universe. Anything's canon until I say it's not. But yeah, thanks to everybody. Thanks, everybody. Spotty bother. One of the most awkward part-time jobs that I ever had as a young college student was being a model. No, no, not a sexy men's fashion model. I was way too much of a goofy dork for that. However, I did work for Tommy Hilfiger. I was one of those dapper young men in Preppy attire, standing at the top of the escalator in the men's department of the mall, offering you, dear shopper, the opportunity to sample the hottest and freshest new cologne on the market. I had the time it was called Tommy. You may think that a cologne model has an easy not so. One has to train for such a position. I went to Tommy School, where we had to learn all about the different notes and tones that went into the formula. It's actually quite complicated. I was also responsible for providing several mall stores with product promotional material and my smiling face on busy Saturday afternoons. Boy, am I glad those days are over. I bring all this up because of a little story that I ran across today over at NPR.org. There's a new kid on the fragrance block, and apparently, he smells a lot like old books and roast beef. Here's more. Would you wear a perfume that made you smell like a day at the beach? How about baby's butt? If so, scent inventor Christopher Broseus can help. His Brooklyn boutique is at the vanguard of the anti-perfume movement. As you might suspect by its name, I hate perfume. I'm not out to sell millions of bottles, Broseus says. My work is really about things that really do smell wonderful but don't have a lot of the properties that commercial perfumes do. Broseus has created perfumes independently since 1992 when he made his first scent for himself. It got many compliments like, why do you smell so good? But it took 135 variations to get it just right. Now he sells a much more refined, sophisticated version of that scent called CB93 after himself, of course. It was my first interpretation of what the very first original Oda Cologne was designed to do. He says, something that smelled very fresh, very clean, but was good for the skin and very calming and relaxing at the same time. Broseus's current collection of perfumes is diverse and eclectic. Memories of kindness, smells of tomato vines, and was inspired by a childhood memory. The celebrity-inspired second coming is, like all of Broseus's scents, unisex. I like people choose what they want, he says. A perfume that smells like roast beef gets some of the most comments. Food scents are incredibly tough, Broseus says. When it was finished, I thought, oh my god, this is exactly what I had in mind. But who in the right mind wants to smell this way? Very few people, as it turns out, only three so far. I'm the first to admit that it is not a scent for everybody, he says. In contrast, his most popular scent is called In the Library. It smells like old, dusty books. Oh wow, you smell terrific is really the best kind of compliment, Broseus says. If that comes from someone close to you, he says, my mission is done. As for me, I gave up cologne years ago. I much prefer my current scent of coffee, sweat, and tears. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's "This Week's Spot of Bother." I really love the smell of cooked meat. Yeah, I wouldn't mind if Jaredie smelled like roast beef. Maybe sometimes. I mean, I think. Around the holidays? Around the holidays. Yeah, when I'm really hungry, maybe that's when it's too dangerous. Maybe we'll take a bite by accident. Yeah. But I don't know, sounds like you put a lot of thought into a sense. And gravy. Yeah. And I'm really quite interested in smelling it. I do find the idea of a counter perfume movement that's very interesting. I was vaguely reminded of that terrible film perfume. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember trying to watch that. Oh, yeah. That was wow. The guy with the remarkable news. Wow. Yeah, if you guys have some time but don't expect to actually watch the whole movie, but you want to see something neat, you know, go to YouTube then. Yeah, it looks pretty. Right? Oh, just so tedious. Every aspect of that film was tedious. It was so ridiculous, but it's worth a look at. Yeah. Wow. It's worth an angry review for. That's right. Anyway, thanks a lot, Jeff. Yeah. Fantastic evil NPRP. Although that was more like-- I don't know. That was more like slightly weird. Yeah, it didn't really bother me too much. I don't know. I could see how it could bother. Either way, excellent story. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Fantastic story. I was talking to Jeff this week asking him what kind of equipment he uses, because clearly, once we go back and forth to the spot of bother, his mic sounds better than ours. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. I'm like, what are you doing to make it sound so good? So he gave me a list, and I'm going to the store. Frankly, I don't think he can buy Jeff's magic. Yeah, yeah, there is a part of it that's just natural talent. You can find all of his stuff over at bothersomethings.com. He has texts, versions of all of his posts, and he has texts version of all of his segments. And he occasionally posts extra notes when applicable. Go check it out. Or we'll hurt you with pitch borks. Fresh fish, a new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening, three-day fish. Hey, Flashcast, three-day fish here with a review this time. Woo-hoo! Now, I'm going to confess I haven't listened to the last Flashcast yet, so I don't know if there's a sticker up for grabs if you guys guess my movie, or if I'm just doing this, because I like to have fun. But on with the review. Since I missed last week and JRD openly said that even Twilight has a place in pulp history as a romantic pulp, I bit the bullet and watched Breaking Dawn part one. I will keep all snide comments to myself. I promise. So here's the rundown. This mainly is for people who might be on the fence or generally aren't so crazy that they go and see it on the midnight opening show, or have to see it the weekend. They maybe have to work around some things. If you read the books, it follows the book pretty closely. And I think it was a good idea for them to break it up into two parts, because if they hadn't, I feel like they would have had to have rushed the whole beginning. And they didn't. They actually took their time and covered things with a lot of detail, as much detail as they could. So I thought that was a good point of the movie. Also, I haven't seen the second of the series, but I've seen the first and the third. And I feel like the acting has gotten a little better. Emphasis on little, though. I mean, they're still weird, awkward, teensy. I don't know, acting. But that's been a weak point in all the movies, I think. So that's nothing to really be upset about. The big scene, everyone's probably going to be wondering about in this movie will be, of course, the scene where Bella gives birth. Whoo! In the book, it's a fantastic little scene. Bella vomits like a fountain of blood, and Edward has to rip the baby out. And she gets stabbed with a hypodermic needle and bit all over the place. And it was supposed to be the bloodiest thing you ever did see. Now, of course, this movie's PG-13, so they couldn't do that. But I felt like it was still pretty intense. They did a good job of making it seem like, OK, here's Edward Jacob. And then, oh my gosh, I'm trippin' because I'm in so much pain. And then, oh, it's all very flashy and sporadic. So it's a pretty intense scene. And about as good as they could do for a PG-13. It is another good thing I think they did in the movie. There's a scene in the book that almost made me just stop reading. It's a scene where Edward takes Jacob outside. And he's just like, hey, Jacob, so this baby's like killing my wife. And I want to kill the baby. But Bella really, really wants a baby. So here's my Grandmaster plan. Let's kill my wife's baby. And you get her pregnant. It's awful. God, I've never been so angry at a book in my life. But they skip that scene. And said, it's just Edward doing a much more sensible, why don't you try and talk to her, Jacob? So yeah. All in all, this is a very obvious yellow light. If you have any motivation to see this movie, it's because you've read the book, or you have a big group of friends who've read the book, or you're just going out to see a movie that might be kind of romantic. Definitely an improvement from the other movies, though. So yeah. And now for my next hint. This movie is in the sci-fi genre. Whoo! What could it be? That's all. Always listening. Remind me next year when we do a Halloween episode to get a fish to read it all in his ghost voice. Whoo! And then golf and went and do the house. And do the house. Great review, fish. I appreciate you biting the bullet. Thank you. I'm excited to see it. I didn't know anything about that movie. And now I'm kind of interested to see what's going to happen. Now, I understand that he feels the acting is the weak point of the film, but I am hard-pressed to think of a actress or actor around the right age that would be able to portray that material convincingly. Like, I'm just picturing now that we've got old Dakota Fanning. Now that she's not young Dakota Fanning anymore, would she be able to do a better Bella Swan? Like, would she be more convincing in that role? Um, no, not really. I'm not really hip with the age group. Yeah. Vampires or vampires, and I like to see them. Even when they sparkle. I am unfamiliar with the source material, but I have to tell you that seeing that fish described would also anger me to no end. Yeah, just on principle, really. Well, he was frenzied. It was a very short period of time between she, like, conceiving the child and giving birth, and there was all this death. And it was just like, oh, my god, what do we do? Yeah, but you don't just sell your wife off to another fellow. Why don't you go have a little go at her? Upsetting, bothersome even. Hopefully, Barry can cleanse our palate. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Barry, and this is your New York Minute. nostalgia is a funny thing. No matter how good your life is or what state the world is in, it was always better some other time. Believe it or not, some day in the future, someone will look back on his life. And with a wistful look in his eyes and the thin line of a tear drying on his cheek, say that he misses the good old days of 2011 when Occupy Wall Street violently clashed with the police, when the real housewives were on every channel. I wonder why they don't have great comedians, like Russell Brand anymore. Trust me, wait and see. And yeah, another podcast and another shot at Russell Brand. He's not funny. A lot of people today are nostalgic for the 1970s, but I'm not sure why. New York was dirty. Crime was way up. The subways were covered with graffiti. The city was broke. And every day, one union or another was going on strike. Even the 1970s didn't like the 1970s. It was nostalgic for the 1950s. Happy days. Laverne and Shirley, American graffiti, all were set in the 1950s. And so was the Lords of Flatbush. Released in 1974, it was the story of a gang of leather-jacketed teenagers from Flatbush, Brooklyn. The teens, paid by Perry King, age 26, Sylvester Stallone, age 28, and Henry Winkler, 29 years old, is a coming of age story starring three guys who came of age a long time ago. They steal cars, they shoot pool, hang out, fight, all the things you'd expect a Hollywood version of a 1950s gang to do. It's a good film, and some parts of it were actually shot in Brooklyn. The school scenes were filmed in Lincoln High School in Coney Island, and I know that school pretty well, but that's a New York minute for another time. The only problem with the movie is a totally misleading title. A bunch of greasers from the '50s? Sorry, no. Ask anyone over a certain age, and they'll tell you the real Lords of Flatbush were the Brooklyn Dodgers. In baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers have reached mythic proportions. Anyone who was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the '50s is a fan for life, despite the teams moving to Los Angeles in 1958. And no, Los Angeles Dodgers fans and Brooklyn Dodgers fans, they don't mix. Fans were passionate about the players, and even non-Baseball fans will recognize some of the names, like Jackie Robinson, Peewee Reese, and Gil Hodges. My mother and my uncle were Dodger fans growing up, and for some reason my grandfather was a New York Giants fan. I don't know what happened there, he was a great guy otherwise. It wasn't like the Met and Yankees rivalry is today. Baseball was more personal then. The Dodgers were underdogs. They were Brooklyn guys. They were us, and we were them. Not me, I wasn't born yet, but you know what I mean. The Yankees were in the mix too, and they had passionate fans, but the Dodgers had a blue collar working stiff image that people responded to. And they were local guys from Flatbush. So my mom, my uncle, my grandpa, they were a tight-knit family. But sitting around the table talking baseball, that was a different story. Dodgers fans and giant fans did not mix. I have no idea how my family survived. So the baseball debate raged in my family's first floor apartment on King's Highway, and into the mix, a real Brooklyn Dodger was handed. Sandy Kofax briefly lived in my family's building. Yes, my mom knew Sandy Kofax. 165 wins, only 87 losses, an ERA of 2.76, and almost 2,400 strikeouts. Inducted in 1972, Sandy Kofax is a true baseball Hall of Famer. He threw four no-hitters, he won three Cy Young Awards, and he was the league's MVP in 1963. Now those of you who follow my blog at bmj2k.com-- don't worry, I'll wait while you surf over there-- know that I am a former teacher, and I recently finished a nine-week series about my former life. I taught for 10 years in a particular school, and it happens to be the same school attended by Sandy Kofax when he was a rising high school baseball star. And even decades later, when I was working there, it was still a big deal. So my family has a six-degree sort of connection to Sandy Kofax. And yes, he is a legend of the sport. And yes, he famously refused to pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on a Jewish holiday. And yes, he is revered in baseball circles. But again, nostalgia rears its ugly head. Great athletes do not great people make, sometimes. And while I'm not saying that Sandy Kofax is in any way a bad man, the facts are that when he was young and living in my mother's apartment building, he was-- I don't want to say rude, but he never spoke to any of the neighbors. I don't mean he turned down autograph requests. I don't mean he refused to give free tickets to the games. I mean, he never said hi when you pass him in the halls. And decades later, when I sent him a personal appeal on behalf of my high school's yearbook, he never replied. But to be fair, neither did Larry King, who also attended that school. And if any of them are listening, you know how to reach me, guys. And while I'm name-dropping, over the years the school I taught in was also attended by artist Peter Max, Soprano's actor Steven Sharipa, singer-victimone, sitcom creator Gary David Goldberg, Paul Servino, Rhea Perlman, and my father, among many other famous alumni. Fred Wilpond, owner of the New York Mets attended that school. Now, say what you will about him and his team, and I know you can say a lot. But when we sent him a letter asking for a donation for the yearbook, he actually sent us a donation. Most people never got back to us. Today, the legend of the Brooklyn Dodgers is carried on by the New York Mets. The blue in their uniforms is taken from Dodger Blue, and their new stadium is a replica of the Dodger's old stadium Ebbets Field. Too bad there's such a lousy team. Before you complain, yes, I am a long-suffering Mets fan, and no Mets fan knows nostalgia like we do. Say 1986 to any Mets fan, and you'll get a reaction. I'm Barry, and in a few years, you may even be nostalgic for this New York minute. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Another fantastic New York minute. Interesting, it's hard to think of another city that has shoulders broad enough to be able to carry two professional teams in any sport. - Yeah, for real. I can't think of any. - Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine the sort of fan rivalry given New York's notoriety as a fan haven. I believe they were the first city. I may be wrong, I may be quoting Barry wrong, but I believe they were the first city with fan talk radio. - Really? - Yeah, I could be wrong, Barry can correct me. Barry also sent along with trailer for The Lords of Flatbush, and it's about a minute long. I think Jessica May should play the entirety of it right now. ♪ Dodo Dodo, the laws of Flatbush is a movie ♪ ♪ Dodo Dodo, about how life was in the 50s ♪ ♪ A black leather jacket, a rumble or two ♪ ♪ And a girl, cotton school, playing pool ♪ ♪ Stealing a car, record hops, barbie socks ♪ ♪ A pet at rock, the laws of Flatbush ♪ ♪ Oh, it's something to see ♪ ♪ Dodo Dodo, it's full of memories for you and for me ♪ ♪ I don't mean to boast, but you'll dig it the most ♪ ♪ The laws of Flatbush, Flatbush, Flatbush ♪ - Brilliant. - That is the worst thing I've ever heard in my whole life. - I think that's how we should deliver every Flashcast from here on out. Everything we narrate should be done and that ridiculously over-forced singing. ♪ Stealing a car ♪ (laughing) - That was great. - Fantastic submission, Barry. - Very nice, thank you. Yes, very educational too. - It's interesting because although we say that there's no other city we can think of that could maintain two sports teams, at the same time, it seems like you can't swing a cabbie without hitting some sort of point of historical interest or Hollywood notoriety in New York. - Mm-hmm, yeah, it's thick with it, layers, like lice, yeah. - That's part of it too. I think because it kind of acts as a sort of beacon in New York, especially has a history of nostalgia. I think you'll always find people looking back at the opportunities that were available and sort of forgetting about the crime that was related. - Yeah, all the good stuff. People forgive the bad things after time. - Yeah, although on the flip side of that, I would also argue that it takes a certain amount of that contention to be able to produce something really interesting, otherwise you're just kind of lazy. - Yeah. - So I would suspect we're gonna get something very culturally interesting out of Mexico in the next few years in sort of backlash reaction to the drug war that's going on there right now. If you look at, well, look at the history of hip hop following out of poverty, rock and roll, blues music, essentially everything good comes out of something awful, including apparently Sandy Kofaks. (phone ringing) Let's just do some quick responses before we get to the book club. - Mm-hmm. - Yep, Nick mentioned in the mob. - Nick mentioned in the mob after weaving home from an open mic. Had to add my own early inappropriateness exposures. Age 10 found and read the bumper book of NSN. What's a bumper book? - Read the full comment and then I'll get back to you. - I also found my dad's weird 70s porn stash. Yeah, I've been there. First film I recall was being inappropriate was Robocop. Does it hurt? Does it hurt? - I also recall being terrified by aliens. I was banned from total recall by my dad because of my grandpa who made me laugh when the guy's arms are ripped off on the elevator with, "Look, no hands." (laughing) Thanks, gramps. Yeah, I think that's great. - I believe that does it hurt, does it hurt, quote, comes from the Robocop scene in which they're shooting off all of Murphy's limbs? - Oh, geez, does that sense? - Dissecting him with a shotgun. - Is that why he becomes a Robocop? - Yeah, yeah, he's eventually, I'm giving away the blood of the film here, but yes. - I don't think there's anybody else that hasn't seen it. - Spoilers to this 1985 classic. - Exactly. - He becomes a robot and a cop. In fact, you might say he's Parked Man, Parked Machine. - Oh, Bobo. - All pop. (laughing) - Great. (laughing) Total recall, I loved that movie when I was a kid. I mean, I don't remember arms being ripped off. - There was graphic death, really? - Yeah. - That line by Gramps, that's classic. - I know, I want your gramps. - One of the only things I remember about seeing that movie early on was thinking, oh my God, three boobies. (laughing) But that's about it. - Before we get to Rich the Time Travelers call, he just, he sent me a couple items. I meant to mention them last time around, and I want to bring them up now very quickly. Two Kickstarter projects, I'll put them both in the show notes. One is called Miskatonic School for Girls. - I love anything having to do with Miskatonic University. - It's a deck building game, inspired by Lovecraft, and I know there's a lot of Lovecraft fans out there, so you may want to look into it. The other one is a steampunk game called... - Which also sounds great. - Kings of Air and Steam, and it's a board game, which also sounded fantastic. So if these things I know we've been looking for donations for various items lately, but if you have a little extra change in this holiday season, might be a good place to spend it. He was actually also sending some Thanksgiving wishes along, but he said he'd send a pie, but he was afraid he'd run a foul of the US-Canadian pie and custard tariff of 1873. - Uh-oh. - Which frankly, people up here take very seriously, so that's probably... - That's custard's second last stand, right? - Yeah. - Hello, flash pulp crew. This is Rich again, calling in from the past to report on the army of the 12 monkeys and more ramblings from my in-time travel-rattled brain. First thing of note, I know you've mentioned HP Lovecraft a few times, and also had praise for the movie From Beyond, which I have not seen. I just wanted to warn you away from the Lovecraft-inspired The Dunwich Horror. This stinker of a movie wouldn't even be good fodder for the guys at Filmzac. The only real horror here is how badly they wasted Dean Stockwell. To switch to another author who inspires many movies, I'm getting quite excited for the upcoming release of the movie Bag of Bones based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. It's premiering on A&E on December 11th here in the States. I'm not sure if it's a different first air day for Canada or if you guys get A&E feed that we do, but it's been close to two decades since I spent any time up there, and I'm just not quite sure the differences between the two systems. The trailer for this is quite spine tingling, and though I like King's books, most of them don't scare me. I remember this one frightened up a Jesus out of me when I was reading it. The only thing I'm apprehensive about is the lead is being played by Pierce Brosnan. He really isn't the look I picture for Mike Noonan. As long as I'm rambling about movies, I just wanted to say that during the murder plague buggy episodes, I couldn't help but picture the scene from North by Northwest with Cary Grant being chased by the biplane. Nice work on the fully for that. Now for a few random questions for you guys. First, I was thinking about my recommendation last time of the series Primeval. It's not even wondering if that was really pulp or camp. And then I started thinking about what is the difference between pulp and camp? Are they two separate genres? Subsets of one another? Or are they sort of a VIN diagram at the region of overlap? After pondering it, I think I view camp as a subset of pulp that is defined by not taking it self seriously. What are your guys' thoughts? And a question for a pope on narration. Though you can all chime in, you do a lot of male characters and you do them quite well. I was wondering if you think it's easier for a woman to do male voices than for a man to do women's. What brings it to mind is of all the audiobooks I used to listen to when I had a commute from hell, I noticed that I never seemed to hear a male narrator try to do a woman's voice or generally even do a voice. But it seems that many of the women that did narration did do voices, including men's. I know if I try to do a woman's voice, it just comes out silly. Thoughts? I have never mentioned where I'm from, partly because the first several flash casts were ripe with discussions of accents that I was curious to see if you'd speculate and what you'd guess. I'm going to let go of that conceit because I wanted to address something you mentioned previously about my state. I am the mirror Jeff apparently. While he grew up in western North Carolina in the 70s based on his comments, I grew up in eastern North Carolina, specifically the coast in the 70s as well. Though I now reside in Raleigh, you mentioned being in North Carolina and recall seeing bulk fireworks for sale across from places to purchase alcohol. While that may be true, I just wanted to point out that until relatively recently, pretty much all fireworks beyond sparklers were banned in North Carolina. Even now, only fairly tame ones are available for sale. It is a longstanding North Carolina tradition to drive to the tacky and wonderful south of the border in South Carolina to smuggle in our supply of illegal fireworks. If you aren't familiar with South of the border, may I suggest the wonderful documentary, "SOB" and "The Legend of Alan Shafer." It's a good watch. Before I close, I wanted to inform you that you are all responsible for giving me existential anxiety. As I listened through the timeline, I never know if I'm a flasher, a Skinner Co-employee, a mobster, or just a person calling the wrong number looking for the sex addiction hotline. I've decided that I am neither, none of these. I am a member of the cult of Karwick. Keeps things simpler. And nothing helps you overcome your fear of creepy crawlers more than worshiping a world-ending spider-god. And now I need to go. It's the next the last day before I'm off for Thanksgiving week. I know you guys have already celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. Care to share some of your traditions? For me, it's the time to spend time with the family. And since I'm the primary cook, some therapeutic time in the kitchen. Aside from the turkey and all of the usual suspects, each year I make a massive number of pecan and sweet potato pies with the family. Last year was just over 20. Then we distribute them to the neighbors and I bring a few into the work for the folks who didn't take the whole week off. This year I'm hoping to get enough time in to read Neil Gaiman's Coraline to the kids and maybe start the graveyard book. On the downside, without a commute, it means you slip a little further ahead of me in the timeline as it won't have much of an opportunity to listen to podcasts next week. I'll see you on the flip side. Tell Carrick Rises, this is Rich and Raleigh. - Wow, there is just so much to go there. - Yeah, fantastic colors always Rich. - Of course. - I can only assume your commute from hell was fixed in the same way that you make all those pies in which you have a TARDIS. - Yeah. Good call on the Dunwich Horror. I think we were accused at one point on the mob of actually having recommended the film. Again, I'm down with the beyond, it is also camp. Please do not be mistaken in that. But at the same time, it's an enjoyable film for what it is. The Dunwich Horror, as I remember it, which is only vaguely maybe through an Avira mistress of the dark airing, it was just horrible. Dean Stockwell made a series of these terrible, low budget horror films for a while. Werewolf from Washington or whatever that film was. He made a number of things before he started time-dravelling as well. Glad you enjoyed buggy. - Yeah, and I'm glad it was reminiscent of Cary Grant as well, that makes me very happy, thank you. - Yeah, even getting a little vaguely close to Hitchcock is a fantastic compliment, so thank you. I would absolutely agree with your assessment of camp as a subset of pulp. I think Evil Dead, an army of darkness, falls into a perfect example of knowingly winking and nudging at the camera, but at the same time, carrying a very pulp storyline. I think sometimes budgetary concerns, especially when you're making films and television, you're aware that you're not going to be able to pull off the effects to a level in which you would like to, so it's easier to smirk about it and carry on. - Yeah, yeah, no, I understand that. - Rather than just abandoning the ideal together, it would be very difficult to do a planet full of dinosaurs on primetime television without it devolving a little bit into over-the-topness. - Yeah, there'd be a lot of like, retellings like, whoa, I was just out there and this crazy thing really happened. - Yeah, constantly reusing the same shot that they finally paid for. - Now, I must confess about the North Carolina, South Carolina situation. - We were in Charlotte, right by Carowinds, and it was a bit of a confusing situation because my understanding was that sometimes we were in North Carolina and sometimes we were in South Carolina, so you may be correct. We may have crossed some odd street that I was unaware of and suddenly wandered into booze and explosives town. - It was an amusement park, right? Carowinds and half of the park was in North Carolina and half of it was in South Carolina. - Yeah, very much a sister park to our own, Canada's Wonderland. - Yeah, it's owned by Paramount, I believe. - No, I believe it was owned by Paramount, I don't know that it is anymore. - That's so strange. - Well, since you have a fantastic holiday plan, Rich, I hope you've said a few extra plates 'cause I think we're coming over. - Mm-hmm, yeah, I want some pecan pie. - Oh man, man, I cook for my neighbors like sometimes, but nothing remotely close to that. That is so impressive. - We need to figure out some way that mobsters can send each other things, not 'cause I want to eat your pie, though I want to eat your pie. Like, we should be really nice. - A secret Santa, oh, I think you're asking a little much. - I was gonna say it'd be really cool to find a way that we could like send each other baked goods. - A baked good exchange. Although, baked goods in the mail, that's a tough call. - I know, does anybody send baked goods in the mail? - I suspect that there may be some border issues. - We may get accused of selling weed brownies. - Only if there's weed in them. - Another man who I can only assume is ramping up for his holiday traditions, especially given the significance of Thanksgiving, Mr. Colorado Joe. ♪ Use a cup of Joe for mobsters at home ♪ ♪ It's Colorado Joe ♪ ♪ It's Colorado Joe ♪ - Hello, flash gas crew and fellow mobsters. We'll start today by mentioning the side projects of Jay May and a Pope. As I noted before, I love the Colorado Joe theme. If any other listeners enjoy it, I urge them to go check out Jay May's website. She has a beautiful voice and it shows in the work she shares there. A Pope, I'm so excited for your Scanner Co. project. The first one looks great. Also, thanks for the doodle that came with our stickers. Really love the personal touch. The actor Terry Cruz has been in many shows and movies. Personally, I remember him as the penny pitching father on the Chris Rock TV project, Everybody Hates Chris. He could estimate the cost of any wasted food, which was probably my favorite part of the show. That milk you just spilled costs 23 cents. He was also in the Wayans brothers flick, White Chicks. His ability to move from action to comedies impressive. Happy belated birthday to now Mr. Two and now Miss Nine. I picture their transformations as something akin to Doctor Who's Regeneration appearing miraculously a year older in the blink of an eye. I know that's how it seems to work in our house. I would have no problems moving into a murder house and as you suggested, would use it as a bargaining tool. I thought Linda would say NFW, but when asked, she agreed. She still finds ways to surprise after 28 years together. When you mentioned World War II movies, I immediately thought of Neil Stevenson's Kryptonomicon, which juxtaposes two storylines, one said in World War II and one in the present. Would be hard to do this story justice, but if done right could be a killer movie. Also want to mention a new series on the science channel, at least in the US, Profits of Science Fiction, hosted by Ridley Scott. It takes a look at sci-fi authors and how well they predicted the progress of science and technology and the impact it would have on culture. So far have watched Mary Shelley and Philip K. Dick, very interesting and fun to watch. I'm behind on my flashpulps, we'll be up to date next week. Time to come clean. When I got on my soapbox last week, I didn't know the full story. I had responded to a tweet from one mobster, not realizing there was an attack on several mobsters taking place on Amy's blog. I figured this out after the fact on the mob's Facebook page. Upon visiting the blog, I see that everyone was already on the offensive, which both made me proud and also a little chagrind at myself for thinking there was any need to spur this August group into action. So paraphrasing Harold Remus' character in the movie Stripes. If things get tough, you all know I'm right behind you. Take care. - I appreciate you saying such nice things about our projects. Yeah, thank you. Hopefully Wendy will show them to you. - It's, oh, well, I meant your, the Skinner coke, stay. - Skinner coke and Jessica May's Tunes. - Which scares me because all the songs are practically like not finished and they're old and every time I listen to them, I wanna die. So it scares me, but I appreciate you doing so. - I think to a certain extent, it would be fair to call your blog a musical sketch blog. You work at a song for a while. Not even a while, not long. I get bored of it really fast. - Don't understand yourself, you do a good job. Anyhow, maytunes.com, opoponexfeathers.blogspot.com. - I haven't updated it over a year. - Opoponexfeathers.wordpress.com. If she ever gets around to it. Oh, you can check out all the Skinner co ink stuff at Flash Help. - Yeah, you'd be better at the Skinner co. - Flash Help. - Actually, this might be a good time to just briefly bring up the new scheduling system. We're gonna get back to constantly having the schedule up and it's going to include the Skinner co-ink to the far left. Just so that there's always a link available. - That's exciting too, having another box. - Yeah, I think-- - A deadline is good for me. - Opop's been doing a great job. - I've been trying. - It's lovely. - Interesting poll with the Terry Crew's Chris Rock Show connection. I hadn't thought of it, but that's actually where I would probably know him best as well. I actually really enjoyed that show. I think that Louis CK came out of the Chris Rock rating stable and there's a lot of connection in that comedy that was also in that show. - I didn't understand the connection between Louis CK and Chris Rock. - Yeah, Louis CK used to write for Chris's old, what was it, just the Chris Rock Show or something to that effect? It was essentially a sketch show. - Yeah, the Chris Rock Show. - Mm-hmm. - I think that's what it's called. - Then I believe Louis CK struck out a little bit on his own and he went to make Pooty Tang, which was also, obviously Chris Rock related. - Yeah, really. - But unfortunately, that film exploded in his face, although it definitely has a cult following now it exploded when it first came out. - They did her a bad way. - No, she's a lot of added interviews, yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, it's an interesting film to watch. I'm not, I wouldn't necessarily say it's a good film. I think Louis has said since then that there was a lot of studio interference that they didn't necessarily really understand what they were getting and that they got a little off track, but it would be interesting to see what he had originally intended for the film. - Yeah, if he went all the way. - Cryptonomic comment would also make an interesting film. I have to admit, I really feel like the end of that book was a little off the rails. It didn't necessarily feel like it came together quite as well as it should and I stand by my accusations that Stefanson can really use with a stronger editor in times. A great writer and I love his stuff and everything that he puts down is fascinating, but he does tend to feel like he's drifting from topic to topic a little bit. Definitely gonna look into profits of SF. - Yeah, that sounded really, really cool. I'm sure we could get it on the internet even if we don't have the science channel. - Yeah, we didn't address that for Rich, but generally the stork brings us television on the internet. If we don't, if it's in one of those specialty cable channels, either we get it at the same time or we don't get it until in Canada. Like we can pay for HBO, fine, but AMC, we can't get on a cable package, but that said, I'm sure that utilizing TARDIS technology, we can locate profits of SF. - 'Cause it sounds worth it. - Yeah, absolutely. Really, it's nice for the recommendation. - Always nice to hear a word from Linda. It feels like a little recommendation. - Yeah, like what would Linda say about this? - Yeah. - What would Linda do? We get her two cents on it, I like it. And I like that she would be down with being in a murder house. Good on you, Linda. - Okay, well, I know that we actually have another little bit from Joe coming up now that we're going to open up the book club. - Bimbo's at the death sun. Whose pick was bimbo's of the death sun? - Ami, Ami and the mob picked bimbo's. - Very nice. How did we go through that process? We should just like, "Hey, book club, this one, go." - I think that's kind of how it went. - Cool. - You know what? We didn't even have a book club at the time. I don't think I believe she essentially mentioned it. And I said, "We should do a book club." And Ami mentioned this book one time. - And I believe we arbitrarily decided the next one, but let's, or who is picking the next one, but I'm sure we'll get to that later. - We've got some audio commentaries, and I want to get to those in a minute, 'cause I suspect that they're going to touch on a lot of the issues that we had. But first, I'd like to open with Captain Pickhart's take, Nick, who managed to get the item in via the mail from his remote outpost. - Ha, what a fun book. Also pleasantly short. I really enjoyed the early days excitement/horror of computers against the RPG-giggery. I guess this was around the time I was playing Elite on my dad's BBC Electron Micro. I don't even know what that is. - Elite was a fantastic little video game about space trade, and one of my favorite mechanisms from that game, and Nick will probably recall this. When you're attempting to dock your ship, you have to find an angle of approach that's directly onto the angle, onto the axis of rotation, so that you're essentially aiming at this constantly rotating little slit, and you need to make sure that your ship kind of matches rotation as you're flying in, otherwise you crash. Essentially, the greatest danger in Elite to my memory-- - Is docking. - Was attempting to dock. Now, I do believe eventually you got a docking module, but that was for was this. - Yeah, yeah, by then you were pretty good at it, and you wanted to keep your skill a little eye. - Yeah, so apparently that was after the acorn head finally died. Bless its little tape player. (laughing) I've never been to a proper costume convention, just to the nearby alt-fiction literary festival of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, so I've never experienced the madness myself. It definitely confirmed my continuing preference for sci-fi over fantasy, and I found myself very sympathetic to poor J Omega. Yes, weren't we all? It also had intriguing feminist undertones, which made more sense once I'd looked up the rest of Sharon McCrum's bibliography. An odd little book, it had a great callback to the mob discussion of Smarties, and we do have yellow Smarties, too. For a parody type of novel, I enjoyed it, especially as a palette freshener after Anne Rans the fountainhead, yes. Anything after Anne Rans the fountainhead is good. Good choice, what's next? Thanks for the comment, Nick. So, yeah, I think that's a pretty great recap, actually. I also fell into the science fiction camp over the fantasy camp. Yeah. I mean, I won't deny dabbling my toes in some D&D now and then, but most of the novel I was rooting for the sci-fi geeks. Yeah, now, I can say I came from the other side and was mostly fantasy as opposed to sci-fi when I was younger, but at the same time, I can recognize that kind of ridiculous behavior in people. Now, let's talk about that ridiculous behavior 'cause my biggest fault with this story, and I believe it's just going to come up, yeah, it was a little extreme, especially considering, there was a certain feeling that, I have to say, it felt a little bit like Marion was Sharon's avatar throughout the story, and it might, I don't know, but I kind of feel like maybe this would have been a female lead character if it hadn't been for the fact that that wouldn't sell to the sort of audience that this book was aimed at. Yeah, I know, I can understand. Like, I liked Joe Megha, and he was just a big empathy bubble, like he was just a big empathy sponge, but at the same time, he was sort of a one note character to a certain extent. Yeah, yeah. And the geeks surrounding the surrounding cast also felt a little bit harshly treated. There weren't, the only likable character seemed to be Deaf and Baker to me. Which, I must say, I loved that he was from Ontario. Yeah, very nice touch. Yeah, Deaf and Baker, very nice, very nice. Interesting that he mentions it's a parody type of novel. It actually reminded me a bit of Larry Niven's "Footfall" or a Spider Robinson wrote a series of books called "Cal-Hands" which all revolve around a bar in which a number of patrons come to tell short stories. They're from all over the galaxy. If you've never read the books, it's really, I really recommend at least the first few. But the problem is that by the, I don't know, seventh or eighth novel, they're devolving a bit into fan service and it does feel like there's one book especially whose name escapes me at the moment where it feels like everyone he's ever met at a con appears within the story. And the novel essentially climaxes with them all drinking and singing together as I recall. So it definitely had a lot of these, although I've never been to the classic, and I think of this more of the classic '70s and '80s kind of conventions. I'm not sure how much of this stands true with today's. Well, think of like, you know, DragonCon. I'm just pretty intense people there. Are there still a lot of filch singers out there? 'Cause it seemed to, that kind of thing seemed to figure very heavily into that era of con, but I'm not sure that that still is. I don't know enough about the con scene to really stay one way or another. And I'd love to hear what Nettie would have to say about this book, or if she has read this book, then I'd love to hear how her idea of a con stands up to the cons in the book. Another thing I loved particularly about this book, it's description of technology, especially when it was going over the jailmakers talking about that one script where 2,000 years in the future, they're still mailing. Yeah, you're using the postal service, and he talks about, well, we have this new system at the university where we just put an e-lectronic mail. We put an electronic mail on the mainframe and it arrives instantaneously. They just have to check their file on the mainframe once a day. Yeah, actually a lot of those sections reminded me of, as I think I mentioned at the time, we were reading it, called Northside777, where they go through this really almost excruciating process of explaining polygraph technology. And it just felt like if this novel had been written two or three years later than it was, maybe a lot of that explanation would have been skipped. There are 40 tracks on the disc, and each one of them will be copied exactly. Oh, yeah, they're talking about disc drives and stuff, and, oh, that's great. You know who else had an opinion about this book? Joe. Colorado Joe's critique of "Bimbos of the Death Sun," because I know everyone is waiting with baited breath. No, since I listened to the audio version of the book, I can't directly quote passages, so I'll be paraphrasing a bit. My synopsis, an okay story that suffered a bit from too much stereotype, bordering at times on cruel, and an ending that was a bit too easy to figure out. Mitigating the weakness was some decent humor and a really great job of dropping some geeky references without going into detailed explanations. Okay, first the stereotypes. I was really surprised at the author's opinion that engineers don't read sci-fi and fantasy. In my experience, many electrical engineers, myself included, got excited about the field by reading Heinlein Clark, Hasimov, and others, and many, although a definitely smaller group, have an equally good grasp of the fantasy realm. So the whole premise that Meghan did not understand many of the genre tropes he was exposed to was a bit jarring. Worse, however, was Marion's commentary about the con's attendees. Referring to them as losers and dropouts from reality goes beyond harsh to flat out cruel. As I've noted before, I'm a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I really don't like singling out someone for their differences and making that a bad thing. But beyond that, I will argue that it's just not true. How is a group of people who congregate to celebrate a love of sci-fi and fantasy any different than a group of people who live for their football team or the opera or insert your favorite pastime here? It turns out I probably self-identified best with the folks in this book. I've role-played with them, debated plot lines, even tried my hand at some really bad costumes. I have relatives that take costuming to amazing extremes. The interesting thing is that while some of my family and friends, but not all, may struggle in some social situations, in their element, they're pretty normal folks. Yes, Marion is just a character in the book, but she seems to best represent the voice of the author. And there's never a moment when the stereotype is dropped and the con attendees are allowed to be three-dimensional humans. As I noted, I felt the identity of the killer was a bit easy to figure out, but the way in which Mega got Morgan to confess was interesting. So overall, the entertainment factor wasn't diminished by knowing who the killer was. My favorite humorous line of the book has to be at the wedding when Mega asks if the groom is going to go where no man has gone before. And a bit of trivia, while listening to the book, I could not help but picture Dunganon as looking like Peter Dinklage, who has the ability to show utter contempt befitting the character. So, a decent story with some interesting twists that could have been improved by not following into the stereotype trap. Using the Netflix rating system, it would get three out of five stars. Take care. - Well said. - A lot of good observation there. - Yeah, I absolutely agree about engineers. Well, I wouldn't say every engineer I've ever met, but many, many of them know a good paperback sci-fi novel. I did take Omega to be a bit of a Tweety fellow and I could see him maybe being out of the loop. I was willing to buy that, but I absolutely agree about your stereotyping. - Yeah. - I do think that to a certain extent, unfortunately, in that sense, the novel suffers from the era it was published in. If you definitely, if you look at the time, geeks were much further out of the mainstream than they are these days. I think actually geek culture has been largely co-opted. Cosplay is almost natural now. - But even so, it seems kind of silly to alienate your audience like that, you know? Even if it wasn't like a big thing back then, that was her audience of the time. Like it seems sort of critical and... - What I found interesting was Marianne's confession that she grew up in the same situation. And I wondered if there was a little bit of, I wouldn't go so far as to say self-loathing, but willingness to beat up her fellows because she felt like she was beating up herself a little bit. There is something to be said for the fact that she arrives immediately in costume. You know, she maintains her mappeal costume throughout the story. So I agree that it was harsh to the geek characters but at the same time, a little bit of the times. We're gonna have to accept racism from a certain era of books and we're gonna have to accept geek cake from a certain era of books. - Yep. - Hmm. - Great call on Dinklage though. - Yeah, for real. - A short, angry little man that pretty much describes Appen Dunganon and Peter Dinklage. - I actually have something to mention about Dunganon in a second, but first, let's hear what Barry had to say. - Hi, Barry, and this is your New York, oh wait, scratch that, it's not. I'm here to talk about Bimbos of the Death Sun, which was this month's book club pick in the flash mob. Gotta give some kudos to Anne-Marie Madden Erwin. This was a really nice pick. Kudos, it's an interesting book and I really enjoyed it and I wanna make it clear up front that I like this book because it's not gonna sound like I did when I get through with it, but I really did like this book and I enjoyed it and I would definitely recommend that people read it. It's a good, it's a fun book. Problem is I was reading this book and I can't give you page numbers 'cause I read it on my Kindle so I can only go by percents. I'm reading the book and it's about a science fiction convention. It's got all the stereotypes and I'm sure you'll recognize a lot of people in there. If not yourself in that book. It was a lot of fun and I'm reading it and I'm reading it and I get to 51% in the book and I realize nothing's happening. There is no plot in this book and that's my big problem. To call this book a murder mystery is a real disservice to mysteries. Murder mysteries, murders, it's a disservice period. Now, while it's a fun book, as I said, nothing really happens. The author paints a great picture of the goings on at this comic book sci-fi convention and it pretty much just happens chronologically going from one event to another, one event to another but a plot is a little more than a series of events. It's supposed to lead somewhere. It's supposed to build a little bit and this builds to nothing. So as I said, I'm around the 50% mark and nothing's happened and finally something happens at 54%. A man gets murdered. Whoa, something's happening here but it only felt like something happened because it was time for something to happen. So the author realized maybe this book should go somewhere. The murder is just kind of there. It's not set up. You can't call it a mystery because there is no plot, no reason rather for it to happen. Nothing has been developed. It just happens. There are no real plausible suspects unless you consider the fact that the author got killed, just pissed off everybody, said everybody hates him but that just turns out to be a red herring anyway because the murder has nothing to do with that. So there's really no suspects and no way to follow this mystery along, try to guess. You can't. It's impossible. Everyone is a suspect. No one has any less motive. There's no one more suspicious than anyone else. Now speaking of red herrings, even the title is a red herring. The book is called "Bimbos of the Death Sun." Do not expect Bimbos or a Death Sun. There's none of it in this book. The title refers to the title of a fictional book within this book that a character wrote. The character called it something totally different and the company that published it named it "Bimbos of the Death Sun" has nothing to do with what's in the book. So I guess it's a nice little ironic commentary that the title of this book is "Bimbos of the Death Sun" which is apparently just there to get attention and I'm sure that it got your attention, "Bimbos of the Death Sun." But it's just there. So you've got another red herring, after another red herring and nothing really happens. Characters are in this book merely to paint a picture of what goes on at the convention. The characters are all interesting, they're all entertaining. Most of them don't interact with each other. There's a Scottish folk singer who wants nothing to do with the convention. He's just sort of there to be the outsider's point of view. You've got a woman who's there just to pick up a guy. Neither one of them is very socially adept and they just sort of end up linking with each other as they have to. Nothing really goes on in this book. You've got one character who, I guess he's the nominal protagonist. I'm talking about J. Megha or Omega, the author of "Bimbos of the Death Sun" with a horribly contrived name, Omega. You don't even realize he's nominally the hero until the end when he actually does something. He's really there though to be the readers on train to this world. He's your eyes, he's your uninformed opinion. If you've never been to a convention, he's the guy that you're gonna relate to. But again, nothing really happens to this book. Series of entertaining events and entertaining characters. This book is really strong in characterization and that's where you're gonna enjoy it because the characters are fun and the events are interesting. So the murder happens. It's not really much of a mystery. A police detective does arrive. He's basically just another outsider character just there to comment and give another point of view of all these weird characters. Nothing much happens with him. And the resolution to this comes out in a role-playing game that on the one hand is totally ridiculous and it's also totally cliched. Don't even bother trying to guess who the murderer is. You won't, you can't. There's no setup for it. There's no foreshadowing. It all hinges on one little event that only the murderer would know that's never revealed to you until after the fact. It's not even worth mentioning. Like I said, it's a fun book. As long as you realize what you're reading, don't be fooled by murder mystery, it's not. Sure there's a murder in it, it's not a murder mystery. It is a wonderful portrait of the people and the events in this kind of convention. And I've been to a couple of them so I recognize some of these people and I kind of see myself in some of these also. So that's the strength of this book. I like it, I enjoy it. I definitely recommend it. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this got an Edgar Award. All I could figure out is that the Edgar Award was given at a convention and the people must have thought the author was writing about them. This is not an Edgar Award winning book, but it's definitely fun, definitely a great pick. If you haven't read it yet, go out and read it. I know it might sound like I'm criticizing this book and I am, but it is a fun book. There you go everybody, go out and joy and read 'cause literacy is fun too. - Very brings up a great point about how long it takes to get around to the actual murder. - Yeah. - And he left out the fact that just previous to the murder, there's a fake murder because at that point the author knew that you would be waiting for something to happen. And so they have essentially a role-playing murder. - Yeah, yeah. As another red herring. - As another nominal motive that doesn't really make any sense. - Yep. - I just kept thinking, why are they gonna kill the annoying author? - Yeah, 'cause you knew like, oh, he's gonna be the one that gets it. Everybody hates him. Now in the same way that every, although they spent a lot of time explaining the technology, Joe was right that she throws out a lot of SF references very casually. And if you weren't fairly deeply immersed in the literature, you wouldn't know who they were. It was obvious that Dunganon was supposed to be modeled after someone. And through the story, I kept thinking it was Harlan Ellison because he is the most annoying loudmouth dwarf of them all as far as I'm told. - Really? What's he do? - He's an SF writer. Now here's the thing, that's the one item I couldn't really connect up. To my mind, there's no trait in ruin when that Ellison writes, but everything else seemed to link up. They brought 'em up a couple of times in relation to delivering a eulogy, which I kind of felt was a little bit of a confirmation. I agree that the novel spends a lot of time noodling around. I think that one of the best things that can be said about it, and this isn't necessarily meant as, this isn't meant as a criticism. It's in the same sense that a caper film shouldn't be any longer than 70 minutes. This is a short book, and it's good that it's a short book. - There's a reason why it's a short book. - And that's not a bad thing, some books are short. Flashbulb is five to 10 minutes, there's a reason. Now, we're going to totally spoil if I the murderer here, Clifford Morgan. I thought it was interesting that the lead female character's name was Marion, which is a very good girl, Robin Hood kind of name. - Yep. - And Morgan, or Morgana, or Morgan, is classically a villain. I'm not sure if that was the intention. It seemed to me a bit of a hand tip from the start. - In the same way that Chip Livingstone was, as well, as well. If you had really analyzed that, they even mentioned it in the story. His name was Chip Livingstone. Talk about a chip off the old block, you know? - Yeah. - And I liked the whole idea of the fake fan that no one really knows. - Of the little threads that were interesting, even if they didn't necessarily add up to a proper murder mystery. - Yeah. - So, but I have to agree, I enjoyed the novel. I do believe that it was harsh in a lot of ways, but at the same time, it was a fun ride for me keeping in mind what it was what it was. - Yeah, it was worth it. - Yeah, worth the read. - So I'll put it to you, you two, and then maybe to everyone else who sat through the book. Would you guys read zombies of the gene pool, which is the sequel to this novel, and also stars Marion and Jay Omega? But as far as I know, none of the rest of the cast of characters. - Yeah, I might, I might listen to it. I feel like I'd be putting more effort into it if I were to actually read it as opposed to listen to it, and I don't know if I'd actually read it. - Yeah, I don't know that you'd go out to it, use a bookstore and pick it up, but you would-- - Yeah, I'd listen to it in the car, you know? - What about you, Jessica? - Yeah, the same, like maybe, but there's other stuff I want to read first. - Yeah. - Yeah, I had a lot of fun revisiting an era, but I think I'm kind of done. I didn't really necessarily like the characters enough to necessarily follow them on to another adventure, especially since, like, it sounds like a lot of the other people who were involved in the book club. They identified a lot with geeks, even if they were kind of poorly characterized. - Yeah, well, you always want to when you are a geek, right? All for one. - We'll keep the mailbag open for further book club items. If anybody else has anything they want to send in. We actually have quite a bit more mailbag to get through. There's some really fascinating items from Nutty, but we've just got to close it up for now and we'll revisit this soon. - Barry was looking for submissions from mobsters for his own site. - Yeah, he's BMJ2K.com, has an upcoming mob week. - And I have something, or something I'm working on for Barry. Now that I'm doing it, I'm like, I don't know, is it kind of cliched? I don't know, but I'm kind of so far into it and I've been working pretty hard at it, but... - Sometimes, once you get that far into a project, you begin second guessing yourself though, right? - Yeah. - Like when you make a big meal. - But I must conquer it. But anyways, I have some solid ideas. It's all there. I keep recording it, but every time I listen back, I just delete it and hope for better the next day. So, I hope to get to you soon, Barry. - Yeah, I'm working very hard at it. It's just, it's not right yet for you. - The art of never race you. - So, you people will have noticed that there are a couple of Skinner goings up now. - At least you're better of. - Yeah, you jerks. No, it's something, well, it's been sort of a half in the works for a long time. Jay already asked me to do it a long time ago, but like with everything else, I procrastinate. Like an MF or I have the first one already sketched out, but it wasn't inked and it's been like that for months. So, I'm trying to keep a little bit more on it now. And we've got two of them out. There's a third one ready. And we'll see if we get to number four. - Well, she has deadlines. - Yeah, I got deadlines, so we'll see if that works. Also, in other news, I have sent out a couple more stickers recently to people. - I'd say more than a couple. - Well, you know, I'm being modest in the amount of stickers we have sent out, I suppose. But the people that have sent stickers out to recently, I've tried to give them a little doodle in a note or something. And I was actually just going to send some out to Ingrid the other day and I was thinking, what can I do for her doodle? So I thought, you know what? - I'll just do a little doodle of St. Stevens. Let me look up some pictures of St. Stevens. And I'll tell ya, just a little doodle of St. Stevens would probably take me hours. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's ridiculously fantabulous. But I was going over the wiki article and I found the coolest thing. And I don't think it was mentioned in any of the stories that we've heard from Ingrid, but they have this, the North Roman Tower and it has six bells in it. And five of them were cast in 1772. There was a fire and it destroyed a lot of St. Stevens. But the six bells are called Huron for Fire alarm. Forgive my accent 'cause it's terrible, whatever. And it's used to call the evening prayers now. And there's Kentnerin for calling the cantors to mass. There's Ferengren for high mass on Sundays. And this is my favorite, Bierringerin, Bierringer. The less call for taverns. Isn't that cool? - Very nice. - That's a public service I can get. - Yeah, yeah. There's also poor souls for the funeral bell and sure poach, I think, for the Maria poach icon. But I thought, how awesome, like your church goes and calls out your last call in town. That's pretty cool. Good, good, good on them. Yeah. Anyway, so no picture of St. Stevens, sorry Ingrid, but yeah. - I still think you've been doing very fine work. - Yes, very nice. - Backroom plot. - So we did a mulligan three-parter, which I think is why Joe didn't have much to say. He doesn't cover episodes until they're all out. And I believe when he sent in his comment, the third part was yet to be released. I think, oh, I hope also, he isn't. I got a lot of positive feedback about this last one. And I had a little bit of concern because I need to say right up front, this story has nothing to do with the events at Penn State. That is a just horrible situation. And I am certainly in no way commentating on it. I had the idea for the plot a while ago and it was kicking around and it just kind of came up at a bad time. Sometimes ideas develop meat at the worst of moments. - That sounds gross. - I've read that Ray Bradbury has a really interesting style. Apparently early in his writing career, what he would do is he would essentially haul a school desk out onto his front lawn every day and a notebook in a pen or a typewriter and he would just go to it. - That's funny. - And he didn't necessarily attempt to continue. This was pre him actually writing novels. So he wouldn't attempt to continue any one story. He would essentially just sit down and go, what's my story going to be for today? Camera at it till he was done. Pull the desk back in it, sunset or whatever and be done. And in some ways it would be fantastic to be that fellow but unfortunately, I'm not. - Who's gets bills. - Yeah, and so I need to plan ahead a little more and sometimes coincidence. - He's not happy coincidence. - Yeah. - As mentioned with the Skinner Co Inc stuff, we're attempting to fight Mondays a little more efficiently. We're kind of using this holiday period to get our schedule back in order. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to regularly be posting up the menu of what's coming up. But Mondays will hopefully be especially effectively overcome by sort of a trio action of flash casts coming out late on Sunday. Skinner Inc going up on Monday and also a flashpulp going up hopefully around lunchtime. We'll see how well this works out. - Yes, we have the best of intentions and we work hard for you. - Yeah. We work hard for the money, which is actually. - So you better treat us right. - Yeah. - Oh, actually speaking of, I got a couple of questions regarding how we occasionally have sponsors at the opening of the episode. - Indeed. - Often R. Heron or Juju Click. Also, frankly, we should be giving a lot more props to Joe. He does a lot of behind the scenes work that we don't necessarily mention on the air for various reasons, which I think Joe knows. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Joe. But at the same time, we really appreciate it and we certainly appreciate R. Heron and Juju Click's recurring support. - Thank you. - So if you want to sponsor one of these episodes, one of the flashguests, feel free to just moseyovertoflashpulp.com down the right side of the screen. Find a little donate button there. Don't feel like you gotta put a lot in the pot. Certainly, whatever you can afford, that'd be great. Or don't. We're here to please. - Or don't. Yeah, you don't have to. We'll still love you and just as much even. - Yeah, actually, this would also, this would also be a good moment to recall that if you can't donate, and we understand in these tight holiday times. - Yes, we do. - Tell a friend. - Yeah. - Pass along a hot cup of flashpulp and a good slap on the back. And another fellow I'd like to give a good pat on the back, Jim. - Thanks, Jim. Thank you, Jim. - From relicradio.com. Thanks, Jim, for hosting wiki.flashpulp.com and flashpulp.com. So travel safely this weekend, everyone. - Happy Thanksgiving. - American Thanksgiving. - If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashpulp.com, call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792, or email us, text or mp3s, to comments@flashpulp.com. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylants can be found at mansions.com. The entire run of flashpulp can be found at flashpulp.com or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial to the .5 license. (laughing) - You know what I read? - What? - Thanks, Jim. - Thanks, Jim. Apparently, one of the first murders in America was a fellow who killed his pregnant wife in an attempt to eat her. - Happy Thanksgiving, people. - Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving, child of brown. ♪ This fellow that is with a number left ♪ ♪ Never like flowers will never awake when you worry ♪ ♪ Not where the black folks of sorrow has taken you ♪ ♪ In truth, have no thought of ever returning you ♪ ♪ Would they be I'd be if I were joining you ♪ ♪ Through this unfair ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music)