Hello, and welcome to FlashCast episode twenty-night – prepare yourself for burials, voting, John Travolta, a Ghost Rider, The Murder Plague, and extra-terrestrials Vs ranch hands.
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[Music] Hello and welcome to Flashcast 3. Prepare yourself for Barials, Voting, John Travolta, a Ghost Rider, the Motor Plague, and Extraterrestrials vs. Ranch Hands. [Music] Tonight we have myself, Opoponax, a Naratron, Deskamé, Hello, Productionot, and JRD. Hello. Valed Duster. I believe after this episode, we'll actually be leading into a named segment at this point, some sort of news related item. As it stands, we haven't actually come up with a name yet. We have a vote going on on the Flash mob. I'd encourage anybody out there who listens but doesn't really hook around the Facebook page. Go check that out and throw on your vote. Oh yeah, but it's going to be the same segment where we discuss things that are new and pulp or have for some reason caught our eye, right? It's the same segment. We're just going to have a nay. It's going to have a nay. It's going to have a nay. It's going to have a nay. Absolutely, same gibberish. You can make it jingle. Same gibberish, different label. Exactly. So, yes. Oh, also, Stephanie Powers, the greatest Stephanie Powers debate of 2011. Yes. She was one of the lady, she was the lady in Heart to Heart. Well, what's Heart to Heart? It sounds like a 1980s band. It does. Like a hair band. Close. 1980s detective show. Yes, that's a close second. The 1980s and the lady detectives. Those were the days where there was detecting and ladies. I feel like there should be a saxophone playing. There is. Yes. If you can't hear it, you're not listening hard enough. You're not a lady detective. I also just want to briefly touch on the fact that I haven't really been posting a lot of blog posts lately. I'm not neglecting the site intentionally. It's just that it's sort of the depths of summer. The internet's emptied out a little bit. Everyone's running around outside. And when it comes down to it, I also, things have been really busy lately. And if it's a matter of higher quality episodes or getting episodes and blog posts out, I think the episodes certainly have to win. Yeah, because you generally were doing your blog posts first and then by, you know, it would get so late that you didn't have a whole lot of time for scripts. Yes, it was problematic. So it may potentially cause more of an issue where fans are bothered by the fact that you're not posting regularly, but. Well, I mean, if I have a good idea, I'm still going to post it up. The urban legends are still going to go up fairly regularly. I have one schedule to go up sometime in the next little bit. Actually inspired by our man Three Day Fish, some items he was discussing this week for the sort of historical pulp character that we've been touching on weekly, lately for some reason. I wanted to touch on a guy who I feel has actually instructed my own writing. It's a Robert E. Howard character, Kull. Are you guys familiar with Kull? No. Isn't he like Conan-ish? Yes. In my mind, Kull is the proto Conan. Are you familiar, Jessica, with the 1997 Kevin Sorbo film? Yes, yes. No, no. Kull is, he was intended to be King of Atlantis before Atlantis sunk. Then he got torn away from his people. He became a slave and rose up through piracy and adventure and swashbuckling to become King once again of Atlantis. And the problem is, and the reason that I think Kull isn't nearly as popular as Conan became, every aspect of his story is too perfectly epic. There's no tarnishing it, there's no... There's no... And then he was a mercenary for a while. Well, there are little interludes like that, but it's all told with such an epic arc that it's impossible to just feel like he was some vagabond for a while. Like, Conan definitely just feels like he accidentally wandered into his throne at the end of it, whereas the entire run of Kull feels like he's moving towards... He's building up to something. His fate, yeah. And you know it the whole time. Like, you know what he's aiming for. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's a very much a noble savage, whereas Conan is just a guy who honors around killing people. And has some success. Yeah, you bet. Good at what he does. Anyhow, as Kull was ruler of Atlantis, we bring you another lord of the sea. A new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening. Three day fish. A flash cast. Another issue of fresh fish. Today, we're reviewing Cowboys and Aliens. A very highly anticipated movie, at least by me. Gotta say, it's a good movie. The title can make you wary, and that's understandable. It is rather simplistic and to the point. But considering the premise, the movie is done very tastefully. There's no outrageous ridiculousness going on. It's all pretty much done in the spirit of a western, just with aliens involved. So, all in all, I'd have to say, it's a very close green light. And this is why. There's nothing... I feel like anybody could like this movie, as long as you can swallow the whole Cowboys and Aliens pill. If you can do that, you can probably walk away feeling like you were decently entertained, that you want a good movie with a good story and some good action in it. So yeah, I will put my reputation on the line and give this a green line. That's all. Always listening. Thanks, fish. Yeah, I was on the fence about this. I believe that you're right that the title and entire approach is sort of not to offend anybody. It does feel like a little bit almost not Cowboys and Aliens enough. Like, it should be a little more over the top in some ways. I haven't seen it. This is just my feeling. They were aiming to make a non-offensive blockbuster. I would have loved to see Deadwood with Aliens. Like, let's really ratchet this up. I can't call any movie of western without Clint Eastwood in it, though. And he's too old. So it's like the genre. There will never be a westerner and he's just been ruined for me. There will be no Cowboys. No. That sounds like a movie in and of itself. Where have all the Cowboys gone? Yeah. Hey, that's that song. Nice. I just wrote that song. It's a little late though. Well, we move from the always fresh three-day fish to the slightly more decomposing spot of bother this week. Have you ever been faced with the age-old question, "Why do I do with the body?" No. No, I don't mean the little one that's locked in the freezer and the shed by the woods. Nor do I mean the larger one that's moldering under the old blue tarp in the basement, under the stairs waiting until... well, never mind. I'm talking about grandma, or perhaps Aunt Nettie, but most assuredly you. Aside from the more primitive of those among us, such as the Koraway tribe of Papua New Guinea, who still insist upon eating their dead, most of us in civilized society choose one of several culturally acceptable means of corpse disposal. There is of course traditional burial, either above or below ground with all of its ritualistic pomp and circumstance, burial at sea, cremation, and scientific whole body donation, which in fact usually results in the aforementioned cremation as a final end. Well, I'm here today to tell you about a new, interesting, and rather artistic means of body disposal. It's called the Mushroom Death Suit, and here's a little more from intdissinfo.com. Artist Jay Rem Lee designed her mushroom burial suit to address how we part with the dead. Lee says, "By trying to preserve the body, we poison the living. The garment is embedded with spores of toxin cleaning, flesh-eating mushrooms that will consume the corpse wearing it, leaving the earth cleansed and renewed as we make our final exit." The first prototype of the Infinity Burial Suit is a black ninja-like body suit with hood, embroidered with thread-infused mushroom spores. The embroidery pattern resembles the dendritic growth of mushroom mesylum. The suit is accompanied by an alternative embalming fluid, a liquid spore slurry, and decompaculture makeup, a two-part makeup consisting of a mixture of dry mineral makeup and dried mushroom spores, and a separate liquid culture medium. Combining the two parts and applying them to the body activates the mushroom spores to develop and grow. If you'd like to take things a little further, why not join the Decompaculture Society? The Decompaculture Society promotes intimacy with and acceptance of the physical realities of decomposition as vehicles toward death acceptance. The society seeks to advance knowledge and awareness of post-mortem options through research, education, and decompaculture. The cultivation of organisms that assist in metabolic decay. Society members include funeral industry professionals, providers of green burial options, artists, designers, health care workers, and curious individuals who seek to explore the relationship between human bodies and the environment from a secular perspective. If you would like to join the society, sign up for a shroom suit or learn more about Decompaculture, please visit infinityburialproject.com. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's This Week's Spot of Bother. Well, that's, that makes me feel a whole bunch of different things. A fantastic entry, as always. Yes, yeah, very great read. I love the sound effects, very nice work. The idea is growing on me. Oh, you know, if you feel like a fungus, if they were mushrooms, you could eat if they were like portobello mushrooms. We could consume you. I don't think I'd want you to eat my body mushrooms. Oh man, I totally would eat your body mushrooms. I want you to turn me into a diamond. Yeah, did you hear about that? I love diamonds. Pressed carbon ash. Yeah, you love diamonds. But what if I lost you? No, you wouldn't lose me. Okay. My, my feeling is this, it would be about the diamond idea. It would be cool to build up over time. Like your entire family history is told in like a ring or entire family. Yeah, think of the family ring. Yeah, it brings a whole new meaning to it. I think that's a fabulous idea. But you would feel terrible if grandma got stolen. I know, that's what I said. What if you lost it? You got mugged. But you know, that, that happens. But it happens to the things you drive. Back to Decompaculture. There's a urban legend in there somewhere. There's some sort of ghostly painting or religion. Decompaculture. JRD has always wanted to be just shoved out of the side of a helicopter to be feedings to all the wildlife. Which I've always said before. Oh yeah, not just anywhere. Over a major metropolitan area. Somewhere, yeah, to the north. To be snacked upon by hobo. Oh, okay. JRD comes from the north and he would like to return to the north. But I say no. Boo-hoo to that. I would like to have something of his left behind a toe. A nose. No, okay, not like that. But I just, I don't know, I'm not. I'm not. Yeah, I don't want him to be snacks of creatures. So this would also be very cool. This would be, you know, sending you back to the earth in a very natural way. Would you consider it JRD? Do you like mushrooms that much? Well, it's interesting that we actually wandered down this discussion because I was reading over at Jim's, uh, no, it wasn't on his blog. I think it was maybe even on his Facebook page. Jim, he who hosts flashball.com. And relic radio. Charlie to our angels. On his wall, he actually posted an item regarding a company that will mummify you in the classic Egyptian fashion. Well, there are some items I believe that they've modernized. There's more like a long-term chemical bath and stuff. I'm not sure if they pull everything out through your nose or not, but they will mummify you and bury you in that style. And if you want to invest the money, you can even be buried in a mummiform, like one of the large caskets with your own image on top and like a sarcophagus. I don't know if you have to supply your own or if they have a custom company that does work. I don't know. Like just think of the day where all your family and their family family is dead. And you're just like being sold at a like auction for $75 for somebody's game room. I'm not sure that's pretty harsh. That's my worst here. Is that 300 years from now? Is this your impression of Egyptology? That's what archaeologists do. They just dig up mummies so that they can sell them off for people's game rooms. No, I was thinking that maybe somebody would put me like in their den or something, you know, with some candles and people could visit, you know, grammar. Yeah, yeah, my whole sarcophagus. And people could come visit me and look at me, but then like my great grandchildren, they're kind of like, wow, she's really big. And like, she takes up a lot of the room and we live an apartment where we were never meant to have this. You just left it in the will. And now, now we just need to use this. What are we going to do? And then so the times get tough. Yes, then, you know, think snowball. And there I am in the game room next to the Indiana Jones pinball machine. Actually, this gives me a brilliant new product idea for Skinner Co, a sarcophi table. Oh, very nice, very nice. Yeah, and we'll mummify parts of you. That way we can sell you to lots of different people. And you can have matching end tables. Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah, when we listen and we speak to Jeff, we also start getting bolder ourselves. And we start saying bothersome things. Speaking of the dead, today's curious tale of Vienna actually involves a ghost writer. I don't believe he's Johnny Blaze with a skull and a knife though. Because I was going to say that's perfect, because remember we were talking about ghost writer last episode. I have heard in relation to the butterfly. I have heard that there's a new ghost writer film on the horizon. It continues to start in a cage. Oh my god, it's going to ask is it Nick Cage? But apparently, and I can't speak to this. I haven't seen it. I'm only going on the reviews that I've seen. Supposedly, it's really good. What? Supposedly. I know. I know. Unbelievable. But that's what I've read. Not time, but fish. Fish will tell us three days of fish. In the meantime, I'd much rather angry just tell us a tale of Vienna. Yes, it's tried and true. The curious tales of Vienna. The ghost writer. Once upon a time, a Viennese woman was in great need. One evening, she decided to go with her child to the magical source known as Argnus Pointle, near a glad cult the Yegavisa deep in the forests of Vienna. Argnus was a legendary fairy of the woods. She lived in an subterranean palace and was known as a generous helper when one was in financial need. And people knew that the best time to visit this magic place and to meet Argnus was around midnight. Mother and child lay down near the wanderer's source, and while the woman hoped that Argnus would appear her child fell into sleep. Suddenly, the woman saw a tall man on a huge white horse coming out of the woods. The animal shone as bright as the sun, so that it was as light as day at that moment. Without a sound, the horsemen galloped down the meadow. When he saw the woman and her child he stopped his horse and asked, "What are you looking for?" startled she replied, "Just wood!" He moved his hand to show her some pieces of wood. "Take that one with you. It's much better than any other wood you can find here." The woman followed his advice, but she took just a few pieces because she noticed that it was almost rotten. While she bent down to pick the wood, the mysterious rider disappeared. Quickly, the woman took her child and heard back home. The next morning she wanted to take the pieces of wood out of her bag, but when she looked at it, she saw that it was pure gold. Immediately she ran back to the place where she met the ghost rider, but not even one single piece of the magical wood was there anymore. I really like that one. Yeah, that was a much nicer ending than we've grown accustomed to. Yeah, usually they're pretty tragic. Ingrid has mentioned that she'll be probably returning to this location for future legends, as she's discovered it to be a mystical wood, which I love. I love that there's a mystical wood. Yeah, we don't have mystical woods, but Ingrid does, and she shares them. We have Mr. 3 quietly sitting here. He's gotten up from a nap, so we're going to see how well he does. Very pleased to have Ingrid back on the tail. We missed you. Don't feel like you have to be here every week, but certainly know that you're appreciated when you are. Absolutely, said well. And now we take you from Vienna all the way to the mean streets of New York. Hi, I'm Barry, and this is your New York Minute. Last week, I told you about Henry Hudson, sailing under the site of the Verrazano Bridge. Well, that bridge figures in today's tail. The Verrazano Bridge was named after Giovanni de Verrazano, whose name I probably pretty badly pronounced, who was the first known explorer to enter New York Harbor, beating Henry Hudson by about 85 years. It spans the narrows, a strip of water which connects upper and lower graves and bay. It's also the closest point between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which is why the bridge was built there. Although the bridge was built in 1964, the narrows goes back about 18,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age. Sorry, I don't have an exact aid for that. Before the Ice Age, Staten Island and Brooklyn were connected, but today Staten Island retains a quieter identity of its own. I could describe the bridge to you, but odds are you've already seen it in a little movie called Saturday Night Fever. Set and filmed entirely in and around my neighborhood, that's the film that made John Travolta a star. I stopped holding that against the movie years ago. There are many, many shots of the bridge, it's a metaphor, and the part where Bobby C falls off the bridge was filmed on the actual roadway. While I don't remember much of the filming, I do remember the impact the film's debut caused in the neighborhood. Everyone saw it, and saw it again, and saw it again. In fact, in the Marlboro Theatre on Bay Parkway, it ran for years. It was constantly running. You may remember the film's opening scene. John Travolta is walking, now make that strutting down a street, below the train tracks, eating a slice of pizza. That's 86th Street, and was filmed one short block from my grandmother's apartment. In fact, those are the same tracks and the same streets that you see in the opening of Travolta's TV show, Welcome Back Coder, and also in the fantastic 1971 Gene Hackman movie, The French Connection. That film has one of the best chase scenes ever put on screen, as Popeye Doyle, played by Hackman, races his car through the traffic below to catch up to the speeding train on the tracks above. But back to Saturday Night Fever. It is amazing that the movie ever got made, and I don't mean because the studio had no faith in it, that's true, but what I'm talking about is the constant harassment by the people of Benson Hurston Bay Ridge. Men in the neighborhood hated John Travolta. Why? Because the women loved John Travolta. Every girl and young woman in this part of Brooklyn flocked to see him. The entire cast was mobbed wherever they went. The guys took their frustrations out on the cast and crew, especially Travolta, who had to endure threats and obscenities from the mostly rowdy teens. If the harassment stopped there, it would have been bad enough. But Benson Hurston the 70s was, let's say, a bit connected. Remember I said they were mobbed wherever they went? If you know the book or movie, Donny Brasko, those are the same guys. No matter where they tried to film, the producers had to pay off about a dozen local hoods for the privilege of filming. Even worse than the harassment and shakedowns was the bomb threat to the disco, where the company ended up paying a lot of protection money. The film is finished, and the rest is moving in soundtrack history. Most of the places where they filmed are long gone, the paint store, the dance studio, the disco, even the theater I saw it in are just memories. Of course, the Verrazano Bridge is still there, and I'm sure that the arsenal of 1500 rounds of live ammunition discovered buried near the base of the bridge just a couple of years ago is only a coincidence. I'm Barry, and this has been your New York Minute. Thanks very much, Barry. That was really good. I love how we traveled through your grandma's apartment. I like that part. I enjoy how much information you seamlessly staple together, and I do find the idea interesting that so many of the landmarks are now gone. Yeah, I find that part about the live ammunition under the bridge pretty interesting. It's well, the thing with New York is my impression is that it's gone through a huge transformation in the last, well, decade or two. And in order to do that, they have to have some demolition. But not only that, but the mythical New York that we're so familiar with is becoming increasingly disconnected from the reality maybe. Mm-hmm. I have a huge desire to see New York one day, so you're going to take me their dirty. Barry's going to bring us to all the great spots. Yeah, that's right. You should check out his other work at BMJ2K.com while I'm thinking about it too. We don't plug his set enough. But thanks Barry. Great entry. Very nice. I look forward to the next. I'm really liking the way we're developing this sort of sectional portion of the podcast. It really reminds me actually a lot of when I was a little guy. I'm a couch, a sectional couch. No. A recliner. It reminds me of a recliner. No. When I was a wee guy in the comics I would buy, they would have these occasional one-pagers that were just odd informational items, usually in horror comics. They would need a little filler. The story would run a little short, so they would have like a one-pager on vampires. How to kill vampires, what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are. Bam. Vampires. Yeah. And I feel sort of like the bits that we've got going on and all the very helpful items sent in by people are sort of like our inserts. Mm-hmm. You know, it's funny because I had a decent size collection of comics when I was younger. Granted, they were given to me by my uncle, who had been a big collector. But until I met you, I had never really seen like the pulp-based comics, the horror magazines and stuff like that. Oh, the flashy stuff? Yeah. I hadn't really seen the, you know, weird tales and stuff like that. It had all been like comics, like superheroes and actual like cartoons and stuff like that. So it was really quite eye-opening. In my youth, I had a great obsession to own as many comics as possible, really to read as many comics as possible. And so I spent a lot of time going to garage sales and flea markets and anywhere that might have a bin of old used comics. And I would pick up a lot of the old weird tales. Because I love those ones that are just, you know, the one-off story. It's not any kind of like, you know, and then the X-Men blah, blah, you know. Yeah. Well, they were always cheaper when I was a kid too because they were, you know, 25 cents and you get a comic or whatever. Yeah. That sounds awesome. I don't know. Who cares if they're missing the front cover because I'm just there to read them anyway? Yeah. All right. Well, I think it'd be a good time for mailbag. Two items in the mailbag today. One. We'll actually address closer to the end of the show. There's a follow-up to last week's bit of mob fiction from Amy. From Amy. Handy dandy. So don't miss that. That'll, that'll come after our jim thing. Ham was handy dandy. Yeah. I like how she giggles. Hehehehehehe. A pope did a bang-up job on this one. So definitely check that out. Well, I think Amy did a bang-up job on this one too. I'm enjoying the dill and tie-ins. Due to our early recording schedule, it was tough I think for people to get some messages in. I know that I had some, uh, or some tweeted promises that never quite made it through. I know everyone has lives going on. We do have an item though from the ever fantastic Joe. From Colorado. Hello Flashcast crew and fellow mobsters. Joe from Colorado. Quite a week here. I'm sorry about your van. I hope you find a replacement. Regarding Stephanie Powers, she was an actress most notable for her role in the 80s detective show Heart to Heart with Robert Wagner. I mostly mentioned this because I hadn't thought of her in years, but when you mentioned her name, I could see her face immediately. Brains are weird. I don't want to go uber political, but to me the interesting thing about Bohemian Grove is not the conspiracies, but rather the fact that a bunch of supposed conservatives go off in the woods and do whatever weirdness they want, which in my opinion is a right. And then return to public and denounce pretty much everyone else who tries to do the same. I have to agree Joe. Yes, I concur. Yeah, um, do whatever you want in private, but don't denounce everybody else. Yes, exactly. I too have mixed feelings on anonymous and lolesack, but because they're supporting Wikileaks, which I think is performing an extremely important public service, I kind of have to side with them. For an interesting take on where groups like this could go, I recommend the books Demon and Freedom Inc. by Daniel Suarez. Excellent reads. That's exactly where my concern/support comes in as well, Joe. I really believe in the service that Wikileaks is out there providing, and I think it's an important without getting too into odd politics. I do feel like it's another level of development and transparency that the internet is going to provide us in the future, and it may be a little uncomfortable in some ways, but it's a necessary evil. I'm speaking, I guess, anonymous and lolesack more than Wikileaks, which I think is a necessary goodness, just an uncomfortable transition for a lot of political parties. But in the end, you end up with a better world, the more sunlight you got. Well, so much for not getting political, on the more pulpy stuff. Jared D mentioned the lack of humor in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie. I think the problem is the screenwriter, director, didn't trust in the intelligence of the audience. In the book, when Ford Prefect convinces the construction worker to take Arthur's place and lay down in front of the bulldozer, that is funny to fairly high cerebral level. In the movie, where Ford instead hands out six packs of beer, the humor is much lower brow. Adam's work deserved better than this. I could not agree more, and the one benefit that we have in this age of constant remakes is that eventually a material as quality as Douglas Adams' books will come back around as the source for a further movie or mini-series. I'm glad you find the phantom toll booth as enjoyable as I do. The movie is true to the book. It just cuts out a few scenes. A reboot is planned for 2013. I have high hopes. I caught a movie this week I had not seen in years that really fits the pulp theme. Buckaroo Banzai across the eighth dimension. I know it's kind of cheesy, but I really love this one, particularly the subtle humor that is interjected throughout. I found out this week it has ties to another pulp story. Buckaroo and his team are based extremely loosely on another superhuman adventurer and his team, Doc Savage. More books I loved as a child. They made a movie of this as well. I'm going to have to try and find a copy for nostalgia's sake. According to IMDB, there's a Doc Savage movie scheduled for 2012. Yep, I'm salivating. Phantom toll booth movie. That'll be awesome and exciting. I'm really super excited about that. Buckaroo Banzai classic. I don't know that I've ever heard of that. I tried to make you watch it at one point and I think we got a little into the opening and you were a little confused and we didn't have time to sit down and explain it to you, so we just kind of turned it off. But we will definitely reproach it because although it is, I can definitely see how they would have based it on Doc Savage and his team of adventurers, but at the same time, Buckaroo Banzai is beautifully over the top. Peter Weiler also, fantastic pulptai via RoboCop. What are my favorite cyborg films? Exciting me here, there's going to be a Doc Savage movie. I think that's definitely one of those franchises that's gotten a little bit forgotten, but was so strong for so long that it's inevitable that somebody's going to take another crack at it. I just hope they go more. Jeez. I'm trying to think of a good stand-up example of a modern take-on classic pulp, but the shadow movie with Alec Baldwin has questionable merit at best and the Dick Tracy film, I don't think holds up over time. These are tough. It's tough time for pulp characters. What about Sin City? I would call that pulp, but it's modern pulp portrayed in a modern sensibility. It's tough to make good use of those classic characters sometimes. Yeah, I can see that. I was excited to hear that Sam Raimi was briefly attached to a shadow film, but I don't know, I haven't heard anything about development on that in a while. Anyway, looking forward to this Doc Savage experience, even of it tanks, usually these things tank wonderfully. I totally emphasize with JRD regarding the collective detective writing. In order to do such a good job, you really have to get into the minds of the evil to understand their motivations, which can't be fun. I'm sure zombies are much easier. Brains. Seriously though, more kudos on some great writing on the collective. We're leaving at the end of the week for our final trip of the summer, so we'll be coming to you from yet another state. Cue suspenseful music. Take care. Linda and Joe are really in a traveling fam. Yeah, I dig it. That's awesome. They're lucky. Oh, how long are you going this time? Where are you going? What's the plan, Joe? Maybe tell us after you're back because I don't want any burglars coming around because of us. Yeah, yeah. I hope no people who are in the mob are burglars. I have to admit that I did have a little bit of trouble with this last murder plague arc as well, in sort of the same sense. It was a bit sad to say goodbye to people I'd somewhat come to know. Actually, that would make this a good time to move into backroom plots. I found a little tough to write this last bit of murder plague as well for some of the same reasons, but more just that it was difficult to say goodbye to some characters that I'd come to know. I'm excited to launch into the next chapter, the next little arc of harm's sort of journey to safety or unsafety. Or just somewhere new. Yeah, and I did actually just want to chat a little bit about how things have developed with my plotting skills over time. I first started this overarching chapter idea with the first bit of Ruby that I did, which a number of threads came together to sort of cap off the first arc of that story, and then she moved out of the neighborhood that she was living in. So that was my first attempt at that sort of storytelling, and then when I started doing harm on episode 100, I really came into it with the knowledge that unlike Ruby, which is put forward in a chronological journal kind of sense, I wanted this to read one completed like a novel. So I have chapter ideas in mind and sort of sections of how things are going to move through things, and hopefully with a little bit of editing, once it's all done to remove some of the last time on harm Carter, it would be a fairly easy, easy transition to make it into a novel to sort of smooth it down. And I mean, although it does connect to the greater flash pulp universe, harm stands in some senses, as Ruby does, as almost a little capsule universe within a universe. You know, you're not going to see Mulligan suddenly wander into frame in the murder plague. Well, one would hope not. Although, obviously there are links down the road, but is that going to be hard for you, Pope, like when bad things happen to Mulligan? Let's not talk about that. Speaking of the greater universe, episode 200 is rapidly approaching, but so is my summer vacation. That's right. We're taking a week off in a sense, although we will be releasing. In a sense. Yeah, it's not really a week off. Like, it's just a little extra work this week, so that we don't have to do it next week. Well, it'll be less time altogether, like we won't be recording because that's special episodes. Yeah, we're putting out three special episodes, which for those familiar with our first special episode, essentially means we'll be recording one of the urban legends that we've posted up on the website. Reminder to the mob. Quite everybody, don't say anything, but these are all just things I've made up. Don't tell your friends. Or do tell them. Just don't tell them they're made up. Yeah, anyway, you'll see three of those come out this week, and then we'll be back next week to continue the lead up to 200. I plan on taking this week to actually finish writing 200 and getting everything in line necessary for that. And I have to admit, I've had a bit of a novel on my mind lately, and I'm sort of toying with the idea of moving forward with that. Because he has so much extra time for all of this. A novel. Is it one of the ones we've discussed before? Yeah, I've had a lot of sudden brainstorms recently. Very painful. Without really requesting them. I've had a lot of ideas suddenly strike me that would really solidify that plot. I've always had a structure in mind, and all of a sudden I feel like these linchpins have fallen into place without me even asking for them. And it seems like if I've got this lightning, I ought to do something with it. Strike another. Anyway, we'll see what happens with that. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. I want to need lots of time for episode 200 to cut all of the different voice actors and all the sounds and stuff. So, priority number one. Yeah, definitely, episode 200. Then next week's scripts, and then maybe I'll think of it writing a novel. That's okay. That's definitely one of those episodes that we want to have the script like more than a half an hour before nine o'clock. Let's get some of that in advance. You know, it's perfect. They were talking about the 200th episode because I have been doing a little bit of extra, well, I wouldn't say it's extra drying because it's the drying that I should have been doing, but I've been doing a little bit of, she's been doing it. Yeah, I've been doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I've been doing a little bit of work on the 200 picture, so we'll see how that goes. It's only just like in building block stage right now. Right. I think you should put up on maybe the mob page or something. Some teaser images. Some of the, yeah, because you did a really awesome Ruby one just to put it up there. Yeah, that's a thing. I'll sit down with the intention of working on something and then I'll have one of these painful brainstorms like JRD. Or one of Oprah's uh-huh moments. Yeah, no, I don't have any uh-huh moments. They're all copyrighted and I don't want to pay the fee. No, I'll be sitting down to do something and then I'll have a, you know, lightning strike and have to do something else. So I'll scratch at what I was doing and end up with something entirely different but something I'm happy with and end up spending much more time on than I had initially. Yeah, so yeah, I did uh recently come up with a new Ruby departed picture and uh maybe I'll put that up somewhere for the mob to see and meet to the mob. Yes, and not uh, I guess it wasn't really in the same setting but just before that I had uh done a picture which I decided is very remarkably like my imaginings for Billy Winnipeg and if anybody remembers just recently I had done two little cartoon versions. I don't want to say in response to Nettie's puffy mulligan because it wasn't really, you know, she did a puffy mulligan so I had to do a cartoon mulligan and it wasn't really like that. Don't think it was like that Nettie, I promise. But it made me, you know, think, oh, you know, I should put something up there and that was definitely a little bit more cartoon-y than what I ended up with the other night but I thought, hey, that's, that's perfect. Can you ask me, is that mulligan? I said, well, no, but Billy, I think it suits him. So I'll get that up there for the for the mob to see too. Very nice. Are you a dassy? Oh, oh, I was thinking it's probably about time that we make an intro for Joe because he's not going anywhere. He has such, you know, meaty questions and comments. We're really enjoying them and he's putting out just as much as Joe. Well, how about a just a quick Joe male jingle? I like the idea. Perhaps you can have this together for the percolations with Joe. Percolations. Oh, wow. Oh, Joe. Wow. Yes, but next week, that's what I'll have for you. I've done many things this week but it's pretty much just all the regular jazz I do for you that you don't know that I do. I'm getting weepy. Jazz hands. Oh, oh, oh, I'm all better now. Thank you. Thanks, Pope. Speaking of jazz hands, don't forget to continue listening after the thank yous for Amy's fantastic sequel to Handy Dandy. But in the meantime, I'd like to give a big thank you to Jim at relicradio.com. Thank you, Jim. For hosting flashpump.com. And if you guys have any comments, questions or suggestions, you can find us at flashpump.com. Call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792 or email us text or mp3s to skinner and skinner.fm. Jess Gamey's vocal talents and musical stylings can be found at maytunes.com. Thanks for listening, Nadi. Pope and Axe's artistic work and general updates can be located at popenaxfeathers.work rest.com. Hey, you can put those Billy pictures and Mulligan pictures up. Don't tell me how to do my job. The entire run of flashpump can be found at flashpump.com or via the search bar and iTunes. And now the continuance of Handy Dandy. But while I'm angry and he's depressed, nothing changed but the killing. Agnes watch him cross the broad South Congress, move in and out of streetlight, heading north, downhill to the river. A river that's a lake and has three names, but use only one. I never have understood why they changed the name. Then there's the bridge. No one calls it by the new name, which is a shame because Ann Richards was one amazing woman. I'm his Agnes. She moved without effort. Where her mind went, so did her vision. When her vision moved, her being moved, her being state, anti-corpural. It was a whole lot of knots, not sleepy, not happy, not awake, not hungry, not horny, not walking, not eating, not touching, not, not, not, just present and angry, kind of, watching and aware. She watched an old Volvo go by with music spreading out the open windows, a slip stream of noise and bright colored laughter. "I'm no angel. I'm no stranger to the dark. Let me rock your cradle." Agnes found him, just standing, staring at the water. The brim of his hat shadowed his face. "What a dandy you are in that fedora," she'd said to him the first time he wore the hat on stage. It stuck. He was the dandy bass player. She could tell if he let one vertebrae go, one muscle intense. He would crumble to the sidewalk. What she understood to be her shape, she held his head, putting her cheek to his. Her hands hold him this way, and he let go aside. She then slipped around between his back and the bass he carried there, the shiver, and she sang. "Close your eyes, close the door. You don't have to worry anymore. I'll be your baby tonight." It was torture not to be able to hold his hand. [Music] Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Comment's attribution in our commercial 2.5 license. [Music] [Music]