Hello, and welcome to FlashCast episode thirty-one – Prepare yourself for mouthless horrors, talking fish, vacation, Black Terror, urban legends and the Parsec Awards.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC31 - Gone Fishin'
[Music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast 31. Prepare yourself for mouthless horrors, talking fish, vacation, black terror, urban legends, and the Parsec Awards. [Music] Tonight we have my self, oh, Pope and X. Birthday woman, yay! Jessica May, hello, Wonder Woman. Indeed. And J-R-D. Hello. Mook. That guy. That mook. That guy over there. I feel like a gangster saying that. Guess what time it is? Ah, what time is it? Poplar press. We got the new intro thing going on now. Indeed, we don't have music to it yet. Certainly. We just had some time working with our voice actor, but it took a while. And so yes, we're still in the process. But thank you very much to Barry, who thought of the name for us, our segment title. That's right, we had a poll. Barry's just my favorite. Barry's just my favorite. Mm-hmm. But I won, ultimately, as I do. Speaking of winning, I have, well, I guess she's not really my aunt. She's my father's cousin, and she married a Polish guy. It'd be your second cousin. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, she married a Polish guy. Your second cousin by marriage. No? Do you think that's how it would work? I don't know. I want to know how you're connected to this Polish man. They're divorced now. Oh. Then your cousin by marriage once removed. Whenever they would tell a story of how they got together, he would always say that she always believed that nobody liked her. So one day she decided to ask a bunch of people and take a poll, and she did. Uh-huh. She just used a poll. [laughter] And they told everybody that. That was like their big, their big story. That was the joke. That was the joke on how they got together. She took a poll, so she did. Speaking of winning. Winning. Well, not really winning, I guess, but we're finalists for the Parsec Awards. Yay! Yay! Uh, actually, we have a few friends also who managed to make it to the final round. Um, Neil Kahullin, who we've run ads for on the Flashpult before. Uh, he's best speculative fiction story for the, actually what we ran ads for, his, his novella Frank. Oh, yes, yes. And mainframe. Yeah. I think I was mainframe. Best speculative fiction fan or news podcast. Congratulations. It is indeed an honor just to be nominated. And, uh, also I guess I should mention Red Line Theatre, who we would have been actually up against a new speculative fiction podcaster/team. But, uh, we actually got nominated. We were in two categories. Both categories had about 15 people in them. We did not get second rounded for, uh, new speculative fiction podcaster/team. But we did make it through to, uh, best speculative fiction magazine or anthology podcast. Which is cool. Yeah. So we're not just new, we're best. Which is a little, um, daunting. Yeah, that's kind of fun. Yeah, I feel, I feel best. Pretty best right now. This is best. Some of the, some of the people who got, uh, booted. Clark's World. I really did not think that we would be surpassing, so. Dude, dude. That's our own horn. I'm going to assume that either did not get their submission in for, uh, the next round. Or that there is some sort of technical error, but for whatever reason we have defeated. Well, we personally snapped the next and the next. Banquished. I have crushed Craig's World. Nice. Otherwise it was a bit of a vacation week, really. We ran some special episodes, which we'll discuss in a bit. And, uh, I'd actually decided due to an odd thematic coincidence through the, uh, different segments we got for the show today that the show would be called Gone Fishing. Which is sort of odd because we don't have a fresh fish today, it seems. Yeah, we don't know if he's swam away. If he had to go with his school. Hey, I understand it's summer, it's tough. It's tough. He's young. He's got things to do. Anyway, it was kind of nice to see the numbers stay up on their own while we were out and about. And, uh, things have been moving along fairly well. It was nice to have the legends sort of pre-hand and ready to go. Didn't require a lot of work on our part to put them out, so. I know it was daunting. So hard. I found, um, having to edit, well, I edited all three at once. And that was kind of silly because I stayed pretty disorganized. I kept thinking, well, I'll get to this point with each of them. But by the time I got to that point, I did a little bit more on one, a little bit more on the other. And then I forgot a few things on the third. And then I just got really confused and I should have done it the right way the first time. Anyways, I ended up having to listen through them like three times more just to make sure that I wasn't getting confused. 'Cause they all had the same format, but anyways. I wouldn't recommend editing many things, multiple things at one time. That's a no-go. Words to live by. Yes, by one to a woman. Um, I also just wanted to take a chance before we went into our bit of historical pulp to address where our downloads are at these days. We've had a few record months in a row now. Um, it's very nice to see things growing steadily. Mm-hmm. And the projections for the future. Yeah, and although I don't really want to give out necessarily any hard numbers. Um, I would say our good days. Well, our bad days are what our good days used to be. And if we were to be, I don't know, a band working the garage circuit as it were, we'd probably be filling bars fairly handily at this point. I think it's a fair summation. Three times a week. Four times a week. I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, we're no Jim and Relic Radio. He was mentioning that, uh, over his six shows in the last, I think he said over the last 90 days he's had a million downloads. Oh my God! Yeah, I saw... Oh my God, Jim from Relic Radio. I saw something that Barry had put out on Twitter the other day. And I retweeted that just to get the word out about Jim and his million downloads. Yeah. Good job, Jim. Mm-hmm. So, great job, Jim. And anybody out there in the mob who wants to help us get to a million downloads. Yeah. Um, just spread the word. It really helps if you post things up on people's Facebook walls. Post them up on your own Facebook wall. Tweet 'em. Just show your phone the episodes. Don't be obnoxious. Oh, be obnoxious. Don't be obnoxious. Don't be obnoxious. Don't be that guy. Don't be obnoxious. Take hostages. Don't listen to him. Listen to Wonder Woman. She never tells you lies. Actually, why don't you listen to The Black Terror? Bum-bum-bum. Not to be confused with white flight. Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum. The Black Terror was once known as pharmacist Bob Benton. Ooh, pharmacist. Bad ass. Bob Benton was being harassed for protection money. After he convinced the goons to give him one more day, they stormed out, knocking down teenager Tim Rolland on the way. Feeling bad for Tim Benton hired him as his assistant. Which doesn't really seem very right 'cause he knows his- He is one day to get his superhero pharmacist thing. Yeah, they're coming back and hopefully it'll work out. But why don't you come work on my- Did he just push you? Let's become superhero. Not to mention, at this point he's a pharmacist. And he's like, "Why, sorry kid, you got knocked out here. Come be a pharmacist." That evening Benton and Tim were working on Bob's Secret Project. Trying to develop a formula to help "run down" people. As Bob puts it, "Tim accidentally adds formic acid which comes from red ants. The resulting formic ethers gave Benton super strength and invulnerability. He decided to use these powers to fight crime starting with the goons who were hounding him. He sent Tim to a costume shop and then became The Black Terror." Okay, now wait. When you say he develops this formula to help run down people? There are two ways I can take that. I can take that to help run down people. Poor people in the street or people in dire consequences. But the way I first hear it really is to help run down people. Yeah, I want to run these people down. I am going to take them out. Some DEXI so you can get your car up to high speeds and still control what you are getting into there. Get a good slide and take out a bunch of pedestrians at once. I understand what you mean but no, I don't think that's the black terror not to be confused with white flight. I love that he just went to the costume shop and then he was the black terror. The interesting thing, I should mention that I got this little blurb off of public-doho-main-superheroes.wikia.com. It's actually pdsh.wikia.com. They are a little group that have put together a series of wiki articles for people for various superheroes that have fallen into the public domain. I thought it was kind of neat. This actually happens to be one of them. Poor Bob Benton/The Black Terror. It was public domain. I could start doing the black terror comics and nobody could say boo about it. That's my understanding. You could be writing your own black terror and Tim comics. Here's the thing, although Tim has a costume and they look a bit like the ambiguously gay duo. My understanding is that the black terror has a name but Tim is just kind of Tim. It's like the black terror and Tim. They ran through 27 issues with this before they kind of ran out. Now, I thought it was neat that he was a pharmacist. Was it terror Tim or Tim terror? Tim terror. Tim the terrorist. Tim terror. Yeah, that sounds very Stan Lee, doesn't it? The black terrorist powers are very stock. They're very standard. He's very strong and he's invulnerable. Never heard that one before. That's almost like the power you get before you have other powers. Most people with other powers just come with that one, you know. It's a stock power, yes. I agree. Anyway, some of his enemies, Lady Serpent, Caleb Ketchum, Puzzler, Torch, and my favorite, Dr. Google. You should check out pdsh.wikia.com. They got a bunch of different fun public domain superheroes. And yeah, start your own comics, start your own pulp press. Yeah, I'd love to see what kind of black terror and Tim Carchines people could come up with. If anybody wants to send them in, I'd be happy to post them somewhere for you so everybody could see. In lieu of our missing fish, well, actually, as it turns out, we have quite a bit of news info, even with fish missing. The fish that got away? Due to the vacation, we've seen quite a few things recently. True Grit, the new True Grit. Yeah, that was good. So very good. I believe everyone would call that fairly pulpy. Did you know that there's a sequel to True Grit? No, no. Tell us more. The original True Grit, I mean, with John Wayne. There's no modern sequel. I doubt they will remake the sequel. It was just called Rooster Cogburn. It did not feature The Little Girl. It was about John Wayne as Mr. Cogburn, teaming up with her name escapes me. It was played by Katherine Hepburn. And she's sort of a country marm. And he's Rooster Cogburn. And they go on a wacky adventure together. Very nice. And I remember it being very sort of genericy and not terribly interesting. I believe both actors were getting up there in age at the time of filming, and no one wanted to put any real stresses on them. So, yeah, despite the fact that it's these two film braids, there's not really anything interesting going on on screen here. That's too bad. We also saw The Sentinel from the '70s, '77. Oh, I really liked that. Yeah, it was a good one. I have a big love for a lot of Christian mythos horror movies, like The Exorcist, and people who'd kill me for saying it, but Stigmata and, you know, those kind of... I think Stigmata has its place. I don't think it's a brilliant film, but I think it has a fun little... Yeah, but, I mean, I loved it. Yeah, that, well, I mean, Constantine's kind of a thief. But that kind of film, I really dig that kind of film. Like the first Prophecy movie, that was pretty good, too. Right. But I really enjoyed that. The moment. Yeah, yeah. That kind of film. And so I really enjoyed that about this one. It was really well done. And I loved that it had the penguin in it. Yeah, there was fun. That's the penguin. It was awesome. No. The film was just rife with Cameo. It was great, eh? Yeah, that's right. Christopher Walken. I have to believe that whoever made it knew a bunch of people, and they were, they just convinced, like, a number of their old Hollywood friends to do walk-ons. Yeah. Anyway, so the Sentinel, you can check that out on Canadian Netflix. I assume it's probably on American Netflix since American Netflix is considerably more expansive than Canadian. Yeah, and it was a good one. I also watched in the considerably more pulpy vein, Mega Python versus Gatoroid, with Tiffany versus Debbie Gibson, not to spoil anything, but they both died by the end of the film. Yeah. Which I was actually pretty pleased with. That was, they're the executive producers for the film, and I thought it was pretty ballsy of them to go forward and just kill themselves off. I'm not gonna have a sequel in that little premise, are ya? And the scene in which they lose it, in the end, it's just fantastic. They're manners of death. Epic. Yeah. Each one represents, like, they sort of have their "total" madamal. Debbie Gibson represents the alligators, or the crocodiles, or whatever, and Tiffany represents the pythons throughout the film. So they each sort of die by... Or rather, it's responsible for... Well, yes, but they're obviously, they are rooting for throughout the film. They have their own, they pick sides. Yes. I thought that was a fun one. Yup. Ladyhawk. Finally, yeah, we watched Ladyhawk. Yeah, we saw that with the kids. I could not stay in that soundtrack, I have to tell you. If you enjoyed the film, the cinematics were beautiful. I felt like the story was longer than it needed to be, but maybe half an hour. But, the music just killed me. Oh, it didn't fail. Okay, it totally took me out of it, but the kids and I danced quite a bit. That was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I'm not particularly even against the Ellen Parsons Project or whatever. It just did not seem suitable for me. It did not seem at all. It was distracting. Yeah. And the instruments. There was a heavy bass through it, and it was kind of 80s funky. It was weird, but it had its charm, and you could really tell every time I heard it. It was its own. I will always think of Ladyhawk when I hear that. Yeah. If I ever hear it again, honestly. It was fun to watch with the kids. Yeah, it was cheesy and silly, but pretty awesome. Yeah. It's unfortunate that we don't have fish here, but I did notice something on his wall earlier in the week. I should tell anyone in the mob interested that they can head out to Facebook and look up three-day fish, all one word, and he's got himself a little page now. Go along and like it. I think he'd really enjoy that. But anyway, he had mentioned that Ghost Rider's spirit of vengeance because we'd been discussing it last episode. He was mentioning the film is up on IMDB, and the synopsis runs like this. As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil who is trying to take human form. Now, that seems pretty standard for your Ghost Rider type of film, but at the same time doesn't it seem like maybe he's hiding in Eastern Europe because it's a little cheaper to film there? Tax evasion? What is he doing out there in Eastern Europe? Anyhow, I just thought that was sort of interesting. But speaking of fish, I think it's time for a bit of a spot of bother. So out of bother. Hi mobsters. As you guys know from last week's Flashcast, the whole staff of SkinnerCo are out on vacation frolicking somewhere this week, so I decided to play things a little fast and loose. Well I was on the 13th floor of the SkinnerCo building last night, snooping around a bit, and on the waiting room table, I discovered a newspaper, an actual piece of real pulp. Now why JRD would be subscribing to the Dubuque County Telegraph Herald is beyond me? But I did happen to notice the story that I thought would be of interest for this week's spot of bother. Let's see. Bachmann stopped playing out, I don't know, I'm all set to turn, but no, let's see. Ah! Here we go. The story is called Their Back. And this is about an invasion of fish flies of all things. Tri-state area residents didn't have to live by the Mississippi River to experience successive nights of Mayfly hatchings. The summer visitors travelled as far as Asbury, asbury, Iowa. Here are six things to know about the insects known locally as fish-fish flies. Thank you. Normally Dubuque will get only two or three fishfly infestations per summer. Multiple hatchings represent multiple species living in an area of the river. Number two, the insect's specific name ephemeroptera is based on the word ephemeral meaning temporary. Number three, fish fly nymphs live in the water for anywhere from three to four weeks to two and a half years depending on the species. Fish fly adults emerge from the freshwater, fly, produce, and die often within a 24 hour period. Number four, fish flies generally emerge after several days of consistently warm water temperatures in the mid 70s or higher. The river temperature at pool number 11 was 83 degrees at noon, noon, noon Monday. Number five, mating often occurs during flight. Females typically fly upstream before laying as many as 8,000 eggs each. The eggs drop to the river bottom. Number six, the short-lived adults have no mouths. They do not need to eat. However, I do, and so do you, and so I wanted to share a little something else considering we're on this topic of flies today. And it's one of my very own favorite recipes growing up in the south, and it's also something that you'll find in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and that's the shoefly pie. Now I'm going to post not only this story, but a delicious recipe for shoefly pie, and you can find a link to spot of bother on the flashpulp website, flashpulp.com. So until next week, when everybody's back and things are back to normal, I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's this week's spot of bother. Wow, I loved that one. That was great. And I should look up the recipe because my family at one time was hungry. Pennsylvania Dutch. Yes, they were very, very hungry, while they're dead too, I guess. Why would we have a Dubuque County, Harold and Choir, a newspaper on the 13th floor in the genetics division? And where would these terrible mouthless monstrosities come from? And how did he get on our 13th floor? Well, to be fair, I left him the keys. Okay. Somebody's got to look over the 13th floor while we're gone. Yeah, I wouldn't want that stuff getting it. Yes, seriously. Nice job, Jeff. That was great. Damn flies. Thanks for covering us while we go to the office there, handling the phones. I suspect we'll be going on another vacation three, four years from now. Now for an entirely different kind of fish. We have a fantastic tail by Ingrid slash Ella, another curious tail of Vienna. The curious tails of Vienna. The talking fish. The oldest preserved graveyard in Vienna is a Jewish cemetery located in the 9th district. It was created in the 16th century and between 1540 and 1783, the main burial site for members of Vienna's Jewish community. On that graveyard, you find a secluded fish sculpture made of limestone. And of course, there exists a legend about the sculpture. One day the Jewish Simeon caught a big fat fish and was looking forward to the meal. But at the kitchen table, the fish lifted its head and cried out, "Shema Israel." Those words one should say in the moment of death. But it was too late, the head had been cut off and the fish died. That surprised Simeon asked the rabbi what to do. The rabbi said, "It was probably a debook, a malicious, possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person, and so the fish should be buried." So did Simeon and placed a gravestone in the form of a fish. Huh, so it's like a fish headstone, that's pretty cool. I'd love to see a picture of that. Actually, you're in luck because Ingrid included one and if you go to the website flashbulb.com, you can check the show notes for this episode and it'll be right there. Oh, well thank you Ingrid. And thank you for setting me up to mention that. I did find it interesting that I should say I didn't know that Jewish people had a choice set of words for when they perish. To me, that seems like a brilliant idea because I actually spent quite a bit of time concerned that in that last moment I'm just going to come up with something absolutely ridiculous or get halfway through the sentence and die before I get to the clever part. Or just not know what to say. And how do you know? But one really does. And when you're around a person who's about to die, you really do know when they're about to go. It's weird. I've never considered my last words. And we all, apparently JRD does, apparently so do the Jews. Because of Oscar Wilde, I really, there are very few things that Oscar Wilde has influenced me in, but his last words, these drapes go where I do. Oh yeah. Or this wallpaper goes where I do depending on the story telling. That's awesome. Anyway, thank you very much Ingrid. That was a fantastic short little tale. I love that one. And not at St. Stevens. Yeah. But I think... I won't judge. It's a curious tale of Vienna, and it's St. Stevens. Yeah. I want to hear from all over. Mm hmm. Yeah. Guess what? What? Oh my god. What? Hi, I'm Barry, and this is your New York Minute. It's number three in the series, Collect Them All. We're going to continue our River Tour of New York by going up the East River, which separates Manhattan and Brooklyn, and anchor right under the Brooklyn Bridge. Today, I'll give you a few of the lesser known, but more interesting facts about what may be America's most famous bridge. The opening of the bridge was officiated by not one, but two incumbent New York mayors. Brooklyn was an independent city in the bridge, which was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883. And Brooklyn wouldn't consolidate with New York until 1898. The mayors of both Brooklyn and New York, as well as President Chester A. Arthur, met in the center of the span. The Brooklyn Bridge took 13 years to build, but it only took one week to inspire a panic. The bridge was designed with a long pedestrian path above the roadway, and one day, as hundreds of people were walking across a rumor, which was totally unfounded, spread that the bridge was about to collapse. People panicked, a stampede started, and when all was said and done, at least a dozen people were crushed and killed. Now compare that to the Great Blackout of 2003, and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. On both occasions, thousands upon thousands of people flooded across the bridge jammed almost shoulder to shoulder, but there were no panics and no deaths on the bridge. I was lucky enough to be close to home, but my brother made that journey both times. Back in 1883, people were afraid to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. P.T. Barnum, showman, circus owner, and utterly shameless self-promoter, paraded 21 of his elephants across the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge was shown to be safe, and Barnum got a ton of free publicity. Leading the parade of elephants was Jumbo, and when he died, his skeleton went back to New York as property of the American Museum of Natural History. And yes, that elephant's name, which was a variation on a Swahili word, is where our modern word Jumbo began. The expression "taking a Brody," meaning a suicide jump, also began on the Brooklyn Bridge. Steve Brody, in 1886, may or may not have jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. He wasn't trying to kill himself, he just wanted to be famous, and he bragged about his upcoming jump. He even practiced by jumping from some smaller bridges. It's open to doubt if he ever actually jumped at all. The New York Times, which covered the event, claimed that he did. But other sources say, that even in 1886, it was a pretty open secret that an accomplice tossed a dummy off the bridge, and Brody simply hopped into the water off a boat so the captain could claim to rescue him. True or not, it didn't stop him from opening a couple of successful saloons and starting a fairly successful vaudeville and movie career. Telling the Brooklyn Bridge has also come into popular culture, as in the saying, "If you don't believe that, I have a bridge to sell you." In the early part of the 20th century, George C. Parker did just that. In fact, he did it all the time, twice a week, every week, for years. He'd convinced a gullible tourist of the value of controlling the major link between the two burrows, and managed to make a nice living. Of course, he didn't just stop at the bridge. The Statue of Liberty and pretty much every other major landmark was sold at one point or another. He had a large office, impressive looking, but fake documents, and was so successful that from time to time, the police had to kick the new owners off the bridge and had to take down the toll-blues they had built. The Brooklyn Bridge undoubtedly still has some secrets left in her. In 2006, city workers discovered a forgotten Cold War era bunker built into the base of one of the Manhattan side supports. It contained supplies to survive a Soviet nuclear attack, including 352,000 cookies still sealed in their original tin cans. If you want to know more about Steve Brody and his jump, go to one of my favorite and one of the most reliable sources, Bugs Bunny. Surf over to YouTube and search for the 1949 cartoon Bowery Bugs. It's all about Steve Brody's jump and the part that Bugs Bunny played in it. But wait until Flashcast is over. Next week we'll be crossing over the bridge and heading into Manhattan. I'm Barry, and this has been your New York Minute. Wow, that was great. Good job, Barry. Mm-hmm. I'm going to have to get a Google map up and start pinning where he's doing these different episodes, so I'm going to put it in the notes, because that would definitely be interesting. Yeah, that'd be really cool. I'm excited about the Manhattan episode. Mm-hmm. That'd be lots of fun. Well, this was a great one, too, though. I was very interested. Yeah, a bomb shelter and a base. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Imagine being the guy to find that. I like the guy that was selling the bridge. Mm-hmm. Or all the other things that he did. Anyway, good job. Yeah. Nicely done, Barry. Thank you very much. Looking forward to next week's entry. Okay, well, I think now's a good opportunity to move into mail time. That being because Barry also sent along a little note from a few episodes ago. We have been discussing Doritos, and if the singular Dorito should apply, Barry wrote in saying, "I'm listening to the Dorito singular plural debate, and I have a good example. Freedos has used the Frito Bandito and it's advertising, so there's a single Frito, and it stands to reason there's also a singular Dorito." Every point. And now to prove it. The Frito Bandito. Hello, boys and girls. It's me, the Frito Bandito. You know what I heard about you? I heard you want to be a Frito Bandito like me. You do? Then you must sing the Bandito song. Let's sing together. You just follow the bunch in Frito's corn chips bag. I am the Frito Bandito, hey, I like Frito's corn chips, I love them, I do. I want Frito's corn chips, I'll get them from you. I am the Frito Bandito, give me Frito's corn chips, and I'll be your friend, the Frito Bandito. You must not offend. Now boys and girls, you are Frito Bandito's too, you sing the Frito Bandito song, and you look for crunchy Frito's corn chips. That's nice, munch, munch, munch, munch of crunchy Frito's corn chips, munch, munch, munch of crunchy Frito's. Now little known fact about the Frito Bandito, they had to abandon him about seven years after they originally made him. Really? Due to racism. Yeah. I'm not surprised. And they were, it was very pushy and suggestive with your wife. Tex Avery and Mel Blank were actually behind that. Mel Blank did the voice and Tex Avery, who's the guy who originally drew Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and I believe a few other Warner Brothers characters. They originally created the character, Blank did the voice, very kind of racist, Mexican voice. Yep. That's what we're thinking though. Blank is a pretty awesome pulp name, possibly for like an amnesiaic. Yeah. Trying to get his name. Mr. Blank. Mm hmm. That's pretty cool. And on top of that, Mr. 8 asked me the other day flat out, "Dad, have you ever had amnesia?" And I had to explain to him that it was possible that popular culture has misled him above how often people actually get amnesia. It's not really that common. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, "No, no." Yeah, never had the amnesia. Yeah. Neither will you, most likely. Yeah. Probably. I should hope not anyway. But listen, I got thinking as well. Have you guys seen the new battleship trailer? No. Battleship? Like... Somebody... Somebody... Rihanna's in that battleship? Yeah. Like the... It's based on the board game. Are you kidding me? Yeah, she's at a gun. I'm an automatic weapon, I believe. Are you talking about like a movie? Yeah. Based on... No, Rihanna, she sits in the box, like the box that you open to play battleship. She sits there and puts the peg on the board. You smart ass. Yeah. So it's... I mean, it's battleship, but it's also battleship versus aliens. I don't really... My point more being, though, that if we're willing to move forward with that sort of franchise at this point, like, essentially something that has nothing backing it, if we were essentially willing to say, "Yeah, let's put hungry, hungry hippos on the big screen." And put a story behind it. Well, do you know something versus aliens? I understand, but you may as well just say, "Navy versus aliens," and call it that. I don't know. Anyway. I don't think you should be like naysaying more pulp-tastic movies going around. But it's not pulp. It's just a board game. Yeah, I suppose, I meant this sort of crockosaurus versus gigantosaurus, Rex, Rex or whatever. I understand this. Versus aliens. Anything can be versus aliens. Ever since, Freddy versus Jason, everyone has gone crazy, but nothing can be Freddy versus Jason. What about AVP? Well that one was in the works for a long time. That was always one of the dream aliens just read it earlier. I think that's better than Jason versus Freddy. I believe. But it was post-Jason and Freddy. She's got a point there. But listen. It's the original, you're the one who doesn't like the sequel or the remake. Hmm? No? You're not? The witch. I was like, "Just generally." No, I loved Predator too. Yeah. And Jerdy hates that movie, but I loved it. Oh, too. Diddy clovers. That's like when they're in the city, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty terrible, but I love it. My point is this though. If we're willing to make a film based on essentially no backstory, are we going to reach a day where there may be a Frito Bandito film or we're still, I was thinking about McDonald Land and I made a joke on Twitter the other day, forget it, Grimace. It's McDonald Land. Are we going to see a hamburger intense action sequence? The bad guys are missing. It's not really all that different that if you consider the intent of 80s Saturday morning cartoons, if the whole idea behind those was just to sell Transformer to us, you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess. I guess the whole point was to put out those action figures. G.I. Joe was entirely to sell action figures. But that's like aimed at kids, right? This battleship movie doesn't sound like it's aimed. You don't think battleships move and we're going to- I can't picture anything with Rihanna in it aimed at kids, or at least I would hope not. Especially when she's not aiming a giant machine gun on a battleship. Yeah, exactly. That's not aimed. Like, I would not want my kids to see that and run out and be like, "We want to watch battleship. We want to play battleship." I wonder if she's going to sing a song on a battleship. That's not a battleship. Make them want to play battleship. Unless it's a really stupid movie. Unless it's like a really stupid concept that just like basically teaches you the rules of how to play battleship. Seeing a movie like that is not going to make them want to play that game. Maybe it's a ploy to get their parents to go. I feel a little bad sometimes because the artist mentioned in an email will throw us off into this entirely off-track discussion. Tandy. In effects or emotions. But at the same time, some people write in with a very solid email and then it's like a yes or no question and we're dying. I'm like, "Yes, next question." Yeah, I feel a little bad about this one now. And toothpicks. Hmm. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for the email, Mary. And speaking of solid communicators, I guess time to hear a little something from Joe. Hello Flashcast crew and fellow mobsters, Joe from Colorado. Just returned from the state of Utah. We traveled to Salt Lake City to attend the wedding of a niece. It was nice to see extended family. While there, Linda and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary, or as I like to put it, an extended running experiment in how long a warm, loving, beautiful woman can put up with a schmuck. No sign of the experiment ending. The girl is a saint. Our daughter and her fiance, as well as our son, his fiance and daughter, joined us for the trip. It was great having all the family together. Awesome reminder of what our 28 years together has accomplished. Hope your vacation and a Pope's birthday went as well. JRD's tweets this morning have conjured images of a boar's head on a stick. Which might mean things are going great, hard to tell. What do you like in the mushroom suit thing? Prior to hearing about that, my idea of decaying was to have my corpse placed in an unstable orbit. Ok, time for a confession. I can't always tell if it's a Pope and Acts or Jessica May talking, so if I ever blow an attribution, I apologize. Anyway, I think it was a Pope who likened the modern day mummifiers to suppliers of game room collectibles. Well, definitely not what modern archaeologists do, that's a fair description of what went on in the early days of Egyptology. Many new discoveries are found in the private collections of estates. I'm really loving the urban legends this week, what a fun, well written idea. I have a comment on Ingrid's story from last week. I thought the ending was great, commentary on human nature. The woman had received a great gift, but instead of gratitude, her first reaction was to try and get more. We often fail to appreciate our good fortune. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but I'm trying to do better. We saw Captain America last week, props to fish for a great recommendation, fun story well done, looking forward to the Avengers for sure. Also, love the trailer for John Carter, really hope they don't screw that one up. Jaredie, I can totally relate to your attraction to a new novel project. I find myself starting software projects at home and not getting them done because other ideas pop up. Shiny objects are my nemesis, or as we say in my house, squirrel, take care. That was a great call, I loved that. Huge congratulations on 28 years. Yes. Well done. Super fantastic. I hope we sound as happy about each other as you guys do in that many years. Yeah, definitely. Congrats, Linda. Well played. Well done. Mm, nice job getting each other. And not to speak of the end of that union so abruptly, but I actually love the unstable orbit idea. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. What a great idea. I would be in the billiard room of an alien because aliens have billiard rooms, and I would go and display for them. Absolutely. And then maybe they can reanimate my body and then they'll reanimate anybody else and want because that's how it works. Sure. No. And I've read some of the stories surrounding the Victorian period of like Egyptology and just the craze that went on and people having mummies and houses and building temples on their estates. Yeah. Wow. Like exact replicas of pyramids. That's, I mean, I don't want to say that's weird and crazy because people do weird crazy things, but you know, it's probably not what I would do if I had a lot of money. But then again, I think I already mentioned I would want to be turned into a diamond so Jamie could wear me. Mm. I don't know that maybe if we encountered an alien culture that sort of craze would happen again, I find it hard pressed to think of what it must have been like to live in a time where you encounter this new culture or even a culture that you've had encounters with for a long time. But suddenly for some reason, they come to the forefront and just explode in your attention and you want to collect all of their stuff in just like Pokemon, I guess Japan a little bit actually. Now these you speak with there are definitely huge otaku Japanese lovers like just fetishists almost to love anything Japanese. It doesn't even have to be all that quality. I've realized recently that while there are certainly still anime series and movies that I enjoy, my bar for how quality anyone piece must be has gotten quite a bit higher. Anything with a whiny high school male lead is probably not going to hold my attention anymore. With swept hair over the one eye, he's so very angsty. Now I have to say, while I got a lot done, this vacation period. It wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. That novel may be a little more underway than it's supposed to be and I'll leave it at that. Thanks for calling in Joe. I really appreciate it. It was a great one. I know you're out about on the road and I really, yeah, in Utah, thank you for taking the time. Are you a dassy of hope? By vacation, you know, we still had so many things to do but recording was light and not to say light, not to besmirch it. I guess everyone was still here. Everyone who has day jobs was all in the major hub because we chose to do other things. I didn't do your jingle, Joe, and I'm sorry that Joe's jingle is not jinginated and yeah, me and Mr. Three and a pope was there. We recorded him saying pulpular press and it was really funny because he's like, "Pulp on his chin so he'd say it from the same angle. Anyways, it was fun and by the end he was really good at it and he was happy to help as long as we needed him to because he was actually supposed to be in bed which was such a special treat for him. Yeah. So that's all I really did. There's gonna be hopefully some creepy music backing that up or something, kind of fifties and jazzy and hopefully I will have Joe's jingle forum next week. Backroom plots. So despite it being vacation time I actually have quite a bit to cover in Backroom Plus this week. Ran the urban legends. I really enjoy writing those. Sometimes I feel like I might be doing myself a larger favor if I save them and rolled them into a coffin episode or maybe even a black hole depending on the subject of the tale. But at the same time, A, I really like having something sort of in the can for when we do need a little break like vacation period. And to be, be, to, what did I start with anyway, I really, ever since I was a little kid I've always wanted to know every single one of these stories. Like anytime anyone has some sort of superstition or urban legend associated with a place or thing I've always wanted to hear it. The goofier or the more extreme the better and I really enjoy the context of sending them forward in just an almost textbook sort of way. I really grew up reading a lot of ghost story books that were probably fictional but written from the perspective of some fellow who claimed to have actually been there at 65 Worschbeier Street and a quiet London suburb you might find the grey misty form of blah, blah, blah as I did one Tuesday. And yeah, so I have a lot of fun writing those. I have another one that I have the seed for and I just haven't put it together yet. It was actually inspired by something Fish mentioned the other day. So that may go up as a blog post later this week, we'll see. And it must be nice also to write something not always reworking it in script form. Well, as I'm sure people have noticed the urban legends are also considerably shorter than a full out script 300 400 words and you're usually got the meat of it across. So other things I got done during this vacation period got a good portion of episode 200 written just got to polish that off. Which is good. Any moment now. I have the name of the episode and I'm wondering if I should drop it on people. Drop it like it's hot. The name of the episode is "The Death of Ruby Departed". What? That's crazy. People be so mad at you that she's like everybody's favorite. That's so funny. Consider the chronology of how flashpump works and don't get you upset until you read the episode or hear the episode I suppose. Huh. It's interesting. Some assume that there will be actual Ruby episodes after this episode. But at the same time I can also promise you that this isn't some sort of cop out death where it'll really turn out that she wasn't dead. She just had to take some sort of poison to appear dead for. So all the episodes after this will have happened before in the chronology? Yes. So she really is going to die. Yes. Episode 200. Yes. And I thought that she would make it. Did she make it? Where is she supposed to be going? Yes. Oh, come on. We're ruining things now. Yes. I will tell you that Ruby's, it would be kind of useless of me to write a story and a quarter of the way through the expected arc. She just dies. Them's a bricks. I would like to hear what goes on with Ben. That should be interesting. Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. Who is Ben? So the other thing I got working on, I figured we're, what, seven episodes away, eight episodes away. From the 200? From the 200. Why not, for some reason, write a black-hall six-parter that had nothing to do with anything and just, so that's what I'm doing. For some reason I plotted, in truth, there comes a day, usually Saturday, in which I sit down and I say, "Brain, what do you got sitting around in the bottom of the hopper?" And brain either goes, "I got nothing," or you should look in your notebook. And if I come up with something brilliant, if I've come up with three or four ideas over the course of the week, maybe it's going to be a series of one-parters, but I just had all of these little black-hall threads. They came together. The story itself isn't going to be necessarily affecting the overall black-hall chronology all that much. It's not going to be one of my most socially relevant stories that I've ever done. It's just going to be a fun six-part black-hall romp. You know, a black-hall could stand to have some fun. Yeah, he really could, that said bastards. Speaking of bastards. I also wanted to mention that, except for the seven words that you can't say on television, we're not going to be bleeping anything else, and I'm probably going to be increasing the cusp factor a little more. Good. Good for you. Okay, sure. It comes from something Jim was saying the other day. It was actually a fair while ago now, I guess. He threw us a plug in one of his relic radio shows. And at the same time, I apologize because it was a bunny episode that came up immediately afterwards. That's right. And it was just laden with F-Bombs. And we believed him, but at the same time, they were there. And I think of his operation as a pretty classy enterprise. So he came back to me, essentially saying, "Don't apologize. These people could use a few more F-Bombs in their lives," which I thought was pretty funny. Jim's family-friendly. Yeah. I thought that was pretty funny, and at the same time, not bad advice, really. I do tend to hold myself back a little bit. I'm not saying that we're just going to be custom left and right, but I can't be concerned about sensibilities as much, I think. He knows things. Yeah. So thanks, Jim. F-Bombs for everybody. The R-O-N-Racial. Okay, well, it's interesting that you mention Ruby departed because I just recently came up with a new Ruby departed picture that I was hoping to put on the site. I don't know if anybody has checked out any of the artwork that I recently put up in the album. We have a new Mulligan picture, a new really limited peg picture. If you look for the Flash mob, if you aren't already a member on Facebook, there's a gallery with some sketches. I really enjoy the new sketches, actually. We keep the special things for the mob, so. Yeah, so I had mentioned that in the last Flash cast, but they're up there now. On Facebook, they may want to check them out. And I'll get that new Ruby picture up there sometime soon, too. And I just recently, for my birthday, got a copy of Photoshop, so I'm so super excited and happy and flabbergasted. That's the word. Mm-hmm. A legal copy of Photoshop. Yeah, yes, I'm all legit, yo, that should really, hopefully, improve the quality of my work. And she's going to use it for the 200 picture, which we're very excited about. That's right. I have been working on a 200 picture recently, and I've got some nice sketches done. So now I'd like to get those actually into Photoshop, and Jaredie is working on getting that done for me. So good for Jaredie. He's looking at me with a look of curiosity and his eye right now. So I'm a little bit worried, but I'm sure it'll all get worked out after the cast. You know what? I'm kind of freaking out a little bit. Thinking about episode 200, everything coming together, and then I'm thinking, there is a whole bunch of people that we're using for different parts of it, and the audio quality is going to be so different because they are every time that they come in. Like berries are different than ingrids, which are different than Jeff's. We're getting requests for parts in the show now. I think that's funny and wonderful. Don't worry. I'll work. I'll work it out. It'll be fine. And on that helpful note for the future, I'd like to just remind everyone you like the show. Just tell somebody. That would be fantastic. We'd really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Spammy friends. Just a little bit. Don't annoy them. But once people do listen, they really do enjoy it. Well, you know, because you listen. I'd also like to thank Jim from relicradio.com for hosting the site at flashbelt.com and the wiki at wikio@flashbelt.com. Congratulations again, Jim. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Big number of downloads. Very nice. And congrats. One more time to Joe and Linda. Joe and Linda. Go Joe and Linda. Go for 98 more. That's right. In our robot bodies. And if you should have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashbelt.com. Color voicemail line at 206-338-2792 or email us text her mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm. I want to say thank you for everybody who wished me happy birthday because a lot of people wish me happy birthday. It was really nice, you guys. So thanks to everybody who gave me their wonderful birthday wishes and I'm giving you all the thumbs up even though you can't see it. I see it. I see the thumb. It's a left one. Yeah. Well, there's two of them except one of them is holding my iPod over here. Oh. Okay. I see both of them now. There's two. There's two thumbs up guys. Two thumbs up. We are all winners. Jessica May is vocal talent. So musical stylings can be found at matoons.com. Yes. Yes they can. The Poponex's artistic work in general updates can be located at poponexothers.wordpress.com. You can find Barry's work at bmj2k.com. You can find most of the spot of other stuff at bothersomethings.com. And you can find Ingrid's work at dancingella.bluxbot.com or her legends at vneaslegence.bluxbot.com. The entire run of flashpop can be found at flashpop.com or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Great of Commons attribution and controversial to the 25 lessons. ♪ And then I am ending ill ♪ ♪ And there'll be candles and prayers at us at our door ♪ ♪ Why should they cry when they know that I'm glad to go ♪ ♪ It's a dead dream ♪ ♪ Then I'll dream I'm expressing you ♪ ♪ On the long journey I know I'll be blessing you ♪ ♪ But I'll be some way ♪ ♪ And I'll be some way ♪ ♪ I'll be some way ♪