The Skinner Co. Network
FC27 - Exploding Basilisk
[Music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast 27. Prepare yourself for Johnny Kanek, a spot of bother, breaking fish, buggy, and an exploding basilisk. [Music] Tonight we have myself, oh, Popodex, a narrative admiral. Jessica May. Hello. Adio Marshall and JRD. Hello. Typist. I wish you could all see how I twiddle my fingers. Well, I say that line every time. Those delivery. Every single time. Every time. I really do. If I had a mustache, I'd twirl it. So after we did the green llama bit a while ago, to sort of delving into a little bit of pulp history, I sort of got a little more interested in expanding my knowledge because I realized that there's a lot of, like, sea stringers that I have no knowledge on. You're knowledge on Lamas? No. Pulp characters. Everyone knows the shadow, for example. Yes. Even Doc Savage. Most people have some idea of who he is. Wait, doesn't no one know the shadow? Har, Har. But... Sharp. I wanted to expand my search a little bit. So this week I thought I delved into a fellow known as Johnny Canuck. Was he a Canadian? Yes, by the name you may be able to tell. But he was originally made as a political cartoon character, more for editorials. He was actually sort of supposed to be the younger cousin of Uncle Sam or like... Okay. The younger better looking cousin. Well, he was generally pictured as a sort of rustic fellow. A happy town, or like a lumberjack. Yeah, I was going to ask. If that was it. A lumberjack. But the thing is, over time he morphed a little bit and then he sort of came back during World War II as a superhero, like comic book superhero. They really loved their superheroes back then. Well, I learned something very interesting. During World War II apparently, there was a law passed in the states. Oh, no, sorry. I believe it was in Canada against the states. It was a mutual thing. To conserve resources, the states weren't going to export any of their comics to us. Oh, no. All of a sudden there was a market that opened up because there were people who were... Bootleg comics? Well, no. They opened up some places open in Montreal and Toronto and they started selling local comics. And a lot of them were essentially rip off of things that were already being produced in the states. But there were some relatively original titles. Johnny Knuck was not one of them. Johnny Knuck is essentially a dude who wanders around in an aviator costume. Although I don't think he ever flies a plane. He has the goggles and sort of a leather jacket. That's great. You never see him in action. His biggest claim to fame, I would argue, is that he got to punch Hitler. Really? Yeah. I can picture like a comic version of Burt Reynolds. I will attempt to. Punching Hitler. I will attempt to locate that picture included in the show now. Yeah. Please do. Wow. That's awesome. Unfortunately... Why was a lumberjack? Yeah. Whatever. Unfortunately, the rest of his comics, other than the Hitler Punching episode, you know, we were fighting the Japanese and that was a major concern. But there's a lot of racism and... Yeah, I can... I can believe that. You know how that sort of thing goes. Yeah. And then I just thought I would wrap up Johnny Knuck. I believe there's a certain amount of Ode to Johnny Knuck in Captain Alantis/Captain Newfoundland/Captain Canada, who you may remember as the creation of Jeff Sterling, my occasional obsession. The rich dude who runs MTV out on the coast and never has holidays. No, yes. Commercials on a station and runs crazy psychic television shows at night. When he wants to, he essentially calls into the station and tells them to put on. Yeah, he can change the channel on his channel. The epitome of eccentric billionaire. Yeah, apparently he supposedly, I should say, he has a room in his home, which is just a bunch of sort of oak-paneled... It's a miniature oak-paneled studio, which he can broadcast from at any time. He can cut in on the signal and just like, broadcast from his home at any moment. Has he ever? Oh, yes, he has. He's so weird. He's like, that's when he probably just say, and everyone must hear it. Or at least four people. Everyone listening in. Yeah. I guess at first the reason he got away with it so much is because he was the first 24-hour station in Canada. Instead of signing off at night, he would just keep, play whatever, because no one's going to be watching it. Apparently he would occasionally just have a shot of a fish tank. Or he would get local politicians on and ask them a question and let them ramble for two hours, just to fill time. Wow. Yeah. But now it's essentially a lot of popular music videos, but they don't necessarily come in and go out when they start and when they end. Yeah, it's like they're just always playing in the background, and sometimes the show ends, and you can see what's on in the background, and sometimes the show starts. As I think I've mentioned before, it feels very much like the Sterling Empire has been handed over to like the 16-year-old niece. Who just plays music videos. Yeah, it just decides to play like her favorite videos instead of anything. Yeah, because they're pretty bad videos, most of the time, too. The other interesting thing is Jeff will occasionally call in and force a Elvis marathon. He's just a night full of Elvis videos back to back to back. Well, that's not so bad. Yeah. I can think of a lot worse. Anyway, so I thought that was interesting. Johnny Canucka, next week I'll try to come up with somebody else that's relatively neat to look at. Like Johnny Guitar. At least Johnny Canucka was actually a Canucka not an American. Yeah. Like the Green Llama, Poor American Llama. May I? Poor pseudo Llama. Poor Porta Betans. Yes. Before we move on to our next segment, I just wanted to bring up a single correction last episode we mentioned. Jesse Eisenberg as being in Scott Pilgrim, whereas it was the Canadian Jesse Eisenberg Michael Sarah. Yeah. Exactly. Pardon me. But you obviously, you can't blame us. They were obviously created by the same corporation. Yeah. I believe we can now introduce a new segment to the show. Indeed. Jessica May. Our friend Jeff from North Carolina, he is now going to be calling in and having a segment for us called A Spot of Bother. And it's essentially something noteworthy that is weird or slightly bothersome. He researches and records for us. So, yeah, I've yet to put an intro together. I've been busy on other things. And this came kind of late in the day, so it's introless. We'll come across an intro next episode, right? But nevertheless, it's a very good segment by Jeff, and we appreciate it, so it doesn't really need an intro. I was very sad to hear about the demise of bothersome things. Yeah, I didn't know if we're actually going to bring that up or not, but we are sad. Yeah, I understand the reason. It was very bothersome news. It was. It was the most bothersome news of the news. But everyone has their time. Yeah, don't do it. You don't want to be doing it. Yeah, if you're not enjoying it, you shouldn't be doing it. Absolutely. We're talented fellows, for sure. But we're happy to suck the succulent meat off of the bone. Absolutely. Absolutely. We will suck the meat from your bones. And then grind them to make our bread. Summer is now in full swing in the northern hemisphere. With warm sunlight and temperate conditions, the fauna and flora are flourishing. Try and say that three times, really fast. If summer's little friends that has tormented me personally since childhood is poison oak. Rarely does a season go by that I don't have to phone my doctor for the dreaded little white pills. A week-long treatment of steroids to assist my body in battling the red itchy welts that I usually get in all the wrong places. A result of contact with the dreaded poison oak, or sometimes just one of our dogs who's been in the backyard gleefully wallowing in the awful stuff. Well, poison oak along with its cousins, poison sumac and poison ivy may be bad. But I've just discovered this week that there's a new sheriff in town that dreaded giant hogweed. Here's a story from this week's New York Post. It's got beautiful flowers as big as umbrellas and sap that causes blindness and third degree burns. And it could be coming soon to a city park near you. Giant hogweed, a monster plant that looks like queen ant's lace, but is more akin to the man eating plant Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, is spreading a New York state with dozens more confirmed sightings since last year, experts said. The botanical beast is so rampant that the State Department of Environmental Conservation has even set up a special giant hogweed hotline in order to special 14-man crew to root out its nesting spots along streams, roads and unsuspecting residents backyards. If the sap gets on your skin and it's exposed to sunlight, you end up with third degree burns, oozing and scars. Not just crowds, the DEC's giant hogweed program coordinator told the Post. If it gets in your eyes, you can go blind. The outwardly stunning plant, with up to 20 foot stalks, two and a half foot wide flowers and five foot leaves, is now in full bloom, Crouse said. There are currently 1,004 confirmed sightings, 60 more than last year. The plant was brought to New York around the late 1800s and since then has spread, mainly through the central and western parts of the state. The closest confirmed sighting to New York City has been the Muntantown Preserve on Long Island. As if there had been any sighted in places such as Central Park, Crouse said no, but quickly added, just because it hasn't been reported, does mean it isn't there. Crouse said her office has received reports of kids using the plant's forest wide stems as telescopes, putting them up to their eyes and getting severe burns on their faces, and even DEC workers aren't safe. A technician who came in contact with the plant last year got a horrible burn on her leg and she still has to cover up, Crouse said. Here's a bit more from Wikipedia. Giant hogweed was among many foreign plants introduced to Britain in the 19th century, mainly for ornamental reasons. It is now widespread throughout the British Isles, especially along riverbanks. By forming dense stands, they can displace native plants and reduce wildlife interests. It is also spread in the northeastern and northwestern United States and central and eastern Canada. It is equally a pernicious invasive species, say that again three times, really fast. In Germany, France and Belgium overtaking the local species, it was introduced in France in the 19th century by botanists, much appreciated by beekeepers. In closing, Matt, I suggest googling this monster and familiarizing yourself with its appearance. Like poison oak, it's a beautiful plant with evil intentions. I'm Jeffrey Legend. This has been this week's Spot of Bother. Thank you very much, Jeff. That was fantastic. That was terrifying. I feel like we're the evil NPR now. That was really great. We were actually googling up the photos of both of the plants and the repercussions to scare as we were listening. You're right, it really does look identical to Queen Anne's lace, which is a rather nice flower, but not poisonous. Certainly something worth keeping an eye out for. I'm going to put a link to the Wikipedia article in the notes if anybody wants to come check it out. Don't blind yourselves. I feel itchy, I'm actually scratching right now. Do not put hogweed in my eye. Do not put hogweed in my hand. Just in your eye? Can I put it anywhere else? Thanks a lot, Jeff, and we're definitely looking forward to further spots of bother. Yes, that was very bothersome indeed. Okay, and actually we should now move into... Little bag! Because Jeff also sent in a little item regarding the ghost brothers of Darkland County. No, I've heard of that. Okay, I'll see what Jeff has to say first. Well no, Jeff actually just sent in the link. Is that not? I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that that is a play that Stephen King wrote. Is that correct? Correct, apparently he got it. John Millenkamp supposedly came to him with a general idea, and he wrote the innards of the thing. Okay, I'm not going to discount it immediately. T-bone Burnett is producing. Okay, very nice. And I'm actually just going to read a little bit from the Wikipedia article before we discuss it. This is from a John Millenkamp interview with the Chicago Tribune in November 2010. T-bone and I and Stephen King are working on a musical. All the music was recorded. We had Chris Griswofferson, Nico Case, Elvis Costello, Taj Mahal, all singing different characters' roles. Rosanne Cash is involved. The play is called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, about two brothers who hate each other. And I'm assuming they're ghosts. This reminds me of a Scooby-Doo episode. Well, it fits well in that southern idea, right? And I'm hoping it's going to be a little bit more of a modern mythology. You can get away with that in the south because it doesn't necessarily have the... I hate to say it modernization in a lot of places. Yeah, sorry, Seth, but there you go. If you like your rustic heritage, fantastic. So, oh, to continue with the article. Right now, Elvis Costello, Meg Ryan, Chris Griswofferson, and Matthew Conahay are doing table readings like an old radio player. And I guess they're going to record it and release it as a audio-only experience as well. And then they're going to actually have the stage play. That should be fun. Yeah, that sounds really different. Sounds like a neat idea. I feel like this is a win for the sort of pop culture, grimier end of the pulp spectrum and over top of the Andrew Lloyd Webber gilded sort of musical. Yeah. A little more Sweeney Todd than Phantom of the Opera. Yeah, diversity. Yeah, so thanks a lot, Jeff. Thanks for giving us a heads up on that one. Ray also wrote in. So, regarding our discussion last week of Batman, he was giving us a bit of a heads up. Oh, this will actually give us a good opportunity. There was no fish this week. That's right. I was a little bit sad about that. Fishless. But I understand. It's summer and it's tough. Mm-hmm. He's a young... Tough fish. He's a young man out there sewing his wild oats or whatever. That sounds obscene. Yeah. Yeah, fish don't be obscene. Behave. Stop being obscene. Get back here. You're supposed to be at the office. You're not. But, Ray did write in Gigantor to say, "Batman III, the villains are going to be Bane and Catwoman. In Hathaway, supposed to play Catwoman and one of the guys from Inception, Tom Hardy, the British guy that could disguise himself as the rich guy's uncle in the dream world, is going to play Bane. I haven't heard anything about Too Faced, but that would be cool. It wouldn't surprise me either because I care if I'm going to quick appearance in Dark Knight, which I thought was a neat little kind of tip. I remember that, too, yeah. No, the weird thing about that film, and I may have mentioned this the last time I discussed it, was the fact that they left Heath Ledger alive at the end of the film, but he's obviously not going to be able to come back and reprise his role. Yeah. I remember assuming that they were always building up to a third episode where there's a ridiculous number of, or a third entry in the film series that was going to have a ridiculous number of villains. Villains and stuff. Because that's what you go for with Batman, right? It's supposed to be this villains gallery, rogues gallery situation. But, I mean, maybe they'll just get somebody to fill in the role. That would be weird for people. Well, what it? Superman. I guess if- What are you thinking of the Maginarium, Dr. Parnassus? How they can just- No, I'm just- I'm talking about- they make the next movie and they have somebody else playing the Joker, that's all. I don't know. I just don't see it. I don't see the casting somebody. People are replaced all the time. Exactly. We don't have Christopher Reeves still playing Superman. Dead quote unquote beloved people. It's disgusting. Sorry. In my mind, there's a difference between a reboot to an entire universe and swapping out one of the main characters. But he's dead. Look at Edward Norton being replaced as the Hulk. Yeah. And frankly, that bothers me less. Why? Because- Because you don't like Edward Norton? To my feeling, one of the reasons that people got so excited about Dark Knight was Heath Ledger's characterization of the Joker. Now, I may not necessarily agree with him for getting excited about that, but I do feel, especially by roaming around people's Tumblr blogs that have nothing but why so serious posts, that there is a- Love of that character. I thought he did a really, really good job. Yeah, but at the same time, are they just going to never have the Joker in another Batman movie? This is going to be- No, this is the end of Christopher Nolan's run, right? This is the last film and then they're going to be rebooting the universe for Justice League movie or whatever. True. I'm just- I'm happy to never see another Jim Carrey Riddler character. Anyway, thanks a lot, Jack Antoa. Thanks for sending that heads up in. Yes. No doubt. Maybe now we will move on to a call from Joe. Hello, Flashcast Crew. Joe from Colorado. But coming into you from Arizona, where Linda and I are visiting our daughter and her fiance, who is also a pilot. When the girl's not racing, which is usually, she's a flight instructor at a university here and is also working on a master's in safety science. Excellent knowledge for a pilot to have. Long term, her goal is to mass in a flight time to get a job at the airlines. Also, she wants me to mention that while she's not a child, she isn't an old maid either. Think low to mid-twenties. We're having a good time, but due to some very bad weather, we were unable to fly with the kids, which would have been a lot of fun. In lieu of that, we've spent the time catching up, which were the Arizona mountains, including taking in a wildlife park. And I've been getting my butt handed to me in Settlers of Catan. The girl is very good at the game. Wow, it sounds like she's a superhero. That's fantastic. Yeah, I think. She sounds like a rough and tumble, old-timey, punch-em-up, bush pilot. Yeah, sounds like fun. And she plays Settlers of Catan. She's like indie. She works at a school, and then she goes off and races planes. Yeah, she has people in her class that write "I love you" on their eyelids. Occasionally fights crime somehow, using planes. And whips. I like to imagine her with a whip. Flies low over the city and scoops up criminals. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah, and it sounds like you're having a great adventure. I love this time. Yeah, Joe from all over. Yeah, at this point. You're not Joe from Colorado anymore. You're Joe from everywhere. Joe from everywhere. Now, I wonder if that's... I'm the present Joe. Part of the advantage of having so many pilots in your family. Yeah, that's right. It seems a little shorter. Yeah, cool. You'd mention potentially hiring her to fly the flash mob on an excursion to Austria. While she has a commercial license, it turns out that doesn't allow her to fly passengers for a fee, if she advertises. And the mere fact that I told you she was a pilot qualifies as advertising. In order to fly passengers for a fee, she would have to start her own airline. Only a government could come up with such a nonsensical rule, but there you go. With regard to using a blimp or dirigible, that's a totally different rating and she wouldn't be able to fly it. Also, these modes of transportation are going to get more expensive as we're running out of helium. I chuckled at JRD's comment on fireworks and bulk liquor. The connection is not quite as obvious in Wyoming, mostly because most fireworks stores are not in towns, and most liquor stores are. But in many cases, alcohol and fireworks are definitely found in close proximity. In our case, not so much. Well, that's probably good. What are we going to do without helium? What will we be without party clown blowing up balloons? I know we just got helium balloons yesterday. Not nearly enough for our shift, though. I'm going to have to look into this deeper. Are we running out of hydrogen as well? Because we could go back to a pretty problematic situation. You recall the disparity during World War II, and the reason that Germany had to give up Zeppelins and stuff was because the Americans had all of the helium, and they didn't want to share. Well, I mean, it didn't blame us yet. I'm not saying they were being jerks about it. No, I don't think so. I just kept sending over clowns with balloons, but she wished you had some of this. Yeah, do the Germans go into the air? The Germans just tried to sneak it out in balloons really slowly. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting a lot of clowns going to Germany lately. A lot of clowns with accents in here. And now a clumsy segue to mobster business. A question you may or may not be willing to answer. In the bookworm, Sergeant Smith goes to Coffin for help. Apparently aware of the business he's in, while his son Mulligan is not, as we discovered in nurture. I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that Coffin and Mulligan were roughly the same age. This does not appear to be the case. Can you shed some light on whether Coffin is somewhere between Mulligan and his father in age, or is perhaps ageless? Read the actor to play Sergeant Smith. My immediate thought was Kevin Spacey. I don't have a good mental image of Sergeant Smith, but for some reason I can see Spacey playing a mute and doing an amazing job of it. Wow, you know what? I really love the idea of Kevin Spacey playing Sergeant Smith. A lot of people really hated the movie Capax, but I loved his acting in that movie. And I really can't help but really be excited about that idea. I don't know that Capax is necessarily the one that sells me on the idea, but definitely it's a great idea. Yeah, I think, well, he'd definitely have to be older if that's the thing. And that's the other thing too. Will Coffin is an elderly gent. The negotiator would be the film that I would go to for Kevin Spacey, I believe, in that role. I don't think I've seen that one. Maybe he would have to be older, but sort of somewhat that idea. Coffin is a little older than Mulligan generally, but the thing with Coffin is that it's all happening linearly, starting at a very specific time, which will become clearer in the future, whereas Mulligan's stories are kind of all over the place. Mulligan jumps around and the chronology is left unclear. For instance, I do know that in the first episode mentioning Mulligan, it says that he is 36. But that is just that instance. There are instances of Mulligan relating a story to, say, his dad while they're fishing or something like that. And it might not be a story that happened last week, it might be something that happened, like, eight years ago. It's never really specified. So his story isn't as linear as the other ones. Now, there will come a time when I add some clarification to that, and especially, without saying too much, once the relationship between Coffin and Sergeant Smith becomes clearer, I think some of those answers will be laid bare. And I really like the idea of, you have made it known that Sergeant Smith is aware that, "Okay, there's something a little wonky going on here, go to this guy, go to Coffin." But that doesn't necessarily mean that Mulligan knows what's going on either. And I really like the disparity there, so you're kind of like, "Oh, what does he know? Well, what does the Sergeant know? You know, what does Will know about Mulligan?" That's all really. The Sergeant has his own reasons for keeping his son in the dark. Yes. There are a few stories of Mulligan's and the Sargents, I suppose, that have yet to be told that I'm pretty anxious to hear, that I've been bugging J.R.D. about so. Mm-hmm, some mysteries. He is slyly smiling at me right now. Regarding your question about three-parters, I've always felt you should take as long as it takes to tell the story. It really annoys me when people complain about long books or three-hour movies, particularly when they're good. Simply because of the length. Damn MTV Generation, no attention spans. In your genre, the cliffhanger is a tradition. Your latest murder plague arc is a great example, really looking forward to the finale. Well, that's a wrap for today. We're heading home. We'll be back in Colorado for my next submission. Oh yeah, 16 episodes to go. Can't wait. Take care. I know I'm excited about number 202. Yeah, I was looking, I was finishing up the script for 185, and I was thinking, "Oh, 15 episodes, I better get my button gear." Yeah. I have some things lined up, I'm excited about revealing, and I have some things that I really need to figure out quickly. Five weeks, I guess, technically. Now, you may notice that there was a bit of a slip this week. We just got a little bit behind. We've been behind for a couple weeks. We've been getting out three episodes a week, but they've been, you know... Not the right days. And that bothers Jaredy to no end. It grates on me endlessly. He's like, "We have made a promise to the Internet." Yes. So we've let it slip a little bit. We're going to do part three tomorrow. We'll be releasing part three of the murder plague arc we're on right now, Buggy. And then we'll get two one-parters for this to leak, and we'll be back on track. And hopefully people will enjoy having a little flashcast with their Monday, as opposed to on their Tuesday. I hope that you have a safe trip home, Joe. I hope things go very smoothly. And the return of Joe from Colorado. Mm-hmm. Get back to the People's Republic of Boulder. Boulder, yeah. Make sure that no one is revolted. That's right. And I hope you don't miss your family too much now being apart from them. I don't know how often you get to see them, but... Yeah. I hope it was a good time. And I hope you beat your daughter at Catan one day. One day. You need more sheep. So, I think that would be a good time to move into... Are you a dassy? Oh! Oh! Wow, that sounded a little different than normal. Yes, it actually, uh, I considered... No, somebody gave me the idea. You did J.R.D. today, did you not? I may have. Mr. 3 assisted me with making an intro or three intros today. The audio-dacity of both backroom plots and the art of narration. And it was really, I was sitting down to work on something else entirely, but he came in the room and he was just so nice and sweet. He did so well, didn't he? And he was so adorable when he said thank you to Jim from Relic Radio. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was just, he seemed like in the right mood, so I grabbed the mic and... He likes to help, yeah. Yeah, it was adorable. And at the end of the show, um, after all the thank yous, there'll be a couple things that he said really funny. Oh, thanks! Yes, indeed. So, yeah, Mr. 3, thank you. I even told him I said, "Thank you for helping Mr. 3 working on the Flashcast, it's going on the internet and people will be happy." He was like, "Yay!" Yeah, like he got so excited. Like, he understood anything I was saying. Yeah, you told him it would be better now. Yeah, but I think he was very impressed. I think it better. Yeah, and he was very impressed with hearing it all played back, like grouping the words perfectly because, you know, sometimes it was hard. Like, can you say "of" again by "of"? And he's like, "Now!" You know, so... Or "of" again. "Ooooove!" Yeah, he screams super loud in the mic. I'm like, "That's really good. Can you do it again?" He's like, "No!" You know, like he's 3. Yeah. But try it pretty good. We have other interesting intro news, but I have something breaking. Do you want to hear it? Yes. We just got a phone call. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. Hey, Flashcast, 3 day of fish. There you are. Having kind of a weird week, so calling this one in instead of sending it by. No worries. We thought you were dead. Anyway, nothing pulpy this week again, so I'm going to do another retro review. Nice. This review will actually be on a episode of a series that was on stars. The series was called "Masters of Horror." Mmm. Essentially, it was a group of horror directors getting together and just doing a bunch of stuff for stars. The channel? The movie is called "Dreams in a Witch House." It is based off of HP Lovecraft's story. I wish I had read the story before I had seen the movie because I'm not sure how well it compares, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it doesn't follow 100%. But it is a pretty decent watch. And the thing I'm liking so far about this series is that all the ideas seem fairly original. Or at least, yeah, just something that hasn't been done in a while. So yeah, I'll give "Dreams in a Witch House." If you don't like low budget for more than probably not for you, but if you're into that kind of thing, do some movie to watch. The excited Flash Mom for next week will either review on Harry Potter. Sweet. So yeah, always listening. That was a nice surprise. Yeah, thank you, Fish. Thanks for coming in at the last moment. Yeah, we didn't know. Yeah, good. Three-day Fish were like the last second Fish. I do appreciate the review, though. Certainly. I have actually seen a few episodes of "Master of the Horror." Yeah, that sounds right up your alley. Yeah, they gave the directors a lot of free reign to come up with some pretty interesting ideas. I haven't seen this one, but I would actually check it out because I do tend to enjoy modernizations of Lovecraft stories. Lovecraft, yeah. Even just to see how they shake out against the original. Thanks a lot, Fish. You know, my dad used to watch... My dad used to read a lot of HP Lovecraft novels. And I remember as a little girl being afraid to use the bathroom at night because he left his books on the back of the toilet and they had scary pictures of him. Oh my God. That was so adorable. I remember this one particular picture on it. It was like a skull with the flesh being ripped off. I just could not use the bathroom while that book was there. Does he know that? I don't know. I would always flip the books over. And then he would lose his page and he's like, "Geez." No, I would just turn them over so their covers would be, you know, covered. I hated that as a child. I couldn't turn around pictures or things that I didn't like the image of because I felt like who knows what they're doing if I can't see them. That's so cute. I would be scared because they would be behind me on the toilet. So I would like run as soon as I flush the toilet. All right. Well, let's loop back into... Me. Yes. I have made a new intro for Ingrid, an actual proper intro because she's been calling in with these legends and they're awesome and... Now, I have to admit, I've been wanting to make Ingrid's legends into their own section for a while now, but I feel like I really appreciate the amount of effort that Ingrid must put in every week to get these things done and I didn't want to make her feel like she was being saddled with the responsibility of coming up with one every week. But the fact that she's willing to do it so far has been fantastic. Well, I mean, the amount that we've got too is really pretty awesome, especially considering they're all pretty much centered around this one, like, area. I think that's fantastic. Everyone seems to really enjoy them, honestly, it seems. I was just going to say, be sure to check out her work over on VienneseLegends.blogspot.com and Dancing Ella.blogspot.com being used legends, pretty self-explanatory, but she also does poetry and short stories over at Dancing Ella and she's fantastic. So this would be a good time to play the latest story for you, beginning with her new intro. [Music] The curious tales of Vienna. The Basilisk What a big turmoil it was in the house of Baker-Karheebel in Schünler-Tianga III in the early morning of June the 12th, 1212th. Cuttling the maid was sent to bring water from the well. Now she stood there and pebbled something about a monster at the base of the well with Bastiel's stench and she also mentioned very strange sounds. Baker-Karheebel was furious about the alleged imaginations of the girl, but even he couldn't deny that there was an unpleasant smell in the air. "I'll have a look," said Chairman Heinrich. He took a torch, let him tie it to a rope on which he could be hold by the baker in the other Chairman Hans, then he climbed down into the well. Suddenly, he screamed that it said someone's tooth on edge. The light from the torch was extinguished in the well Baker-Karheebel and Hans pulled him up quickly. Heinrich was unconscious. They opened his shirt and fanned fresh air to his face, finally he awakened. "A monster," he pebbled, "disgusting." The head of the cock, the body of a toad, a tail so long and scaly, and it wears a crown of bright red stones and it stinks. Then he fainted again. In this case, we must call the town megastred, Baker-Karheebel said to his folks, and so he sent the mate Catherine for the town megastred, Jakob von der Höden. It took about an hour until the honourable Jakob von der Höden escorted by guards in the crowd of bystanders arrived at the baker's house. Greatfully and relieved the Baker-Karheebel told him what had happened. The town megastred considered, but he had no idea. They stepped a man out of the crowd. His name was Dr. Politzer, and it was known that he was well-versed in all natural phenomena. "I suppose it's a basilisk," he said. "A basilisk? What's that?" Catherine asked. "When I lose the lace and egg," explained the man, "and the egg is hatched by a toad, and the offspring is reared by a snake, then the result is such a monster. Its breath thinks of decay and its vision is profoundly ugly, whose ease it is doomed to death. No spear, no sword, not even fire can harm the basilisk. The astonished crowd of people were horrified. "Is there nothing which can destroy the monster?" Gaiebel asked, already afraid that he had to give up his house. "Yes, there is a possibility," replied the doctor. One must dare to climb down with a mirror. When the beast is confronted with its own uginess, it will explode. There was dead silence. Finally, a journeyman hand said, "Let me try it." He turned to the baker and continued, "And if I can make it, would you allow me to marry a daughter, Anna?" Well, Gaiebel knew that they both were in love, but he couldn't give his agreement so far, because the journeyman wasn't an adequate marriage for his daughter, but under these circumstances, so he nodded. Quickly, the warm mirror was brought out of the baker's house. Hands was tied to a rope, Anna put the little wax in her fianciest ears, then the brave climbed down into the dark well. Like a shield, he held the mirror in front of him. Suddenly, the fox heard a horrible, heart-rending scream let out by the basilisk, and a deafening bank. "It's dead," hands was echoed out of the well. Safely, although a bit hard of hearing, in spite of the earplugs, hands to the cheers of the crowd climbed out of the well. Unfortunately, Henry the journeyman who had seen the basilisk died the same day. Gaiebel and his fox filled the well with stones and earth, and pretty soon the brave hands married Anna. That was really good, and I really enjoyed the description of the basilisk. It was very different from any description of a basilisk I've heard before. I mean, I'd heard the whole rooster thing, but what I particularly liked about this is as opposed to, I don't know whether it's just Western as more North American as opposed to European, but I've always seen basilisks portrayed as serpents or lizards of some sort. And I really like the idea of a basilisk being born of a mundane rooster. It's just a case of how it is brought up. It's like a socially created monster. It is born of a rooster, brought up by a toad, and then brought up by a serpent, and that's what makes it the monster. And also that it blinds people, but that it's so ugly, it kills them. And that the sight of itself and its own ugliness makes it explode. I think that's fantastic. I was thinking about what not to wear when I heard that part. I just totally see them sneaking them on. We need to talk to you about your wardrobe. But the other idea that came to mind was a modern version of the story where it's happening so frequently that you actually have a service, like a basilisk destroying service. There's a professional guy and he just kind of works a day job. It's not really a big deal to him. Yeah. People think he's hardcore because his job could like kill him, but he's kind of like occasionally he shows up on like a TLC special about or discovery show special about, you know, worlds toughest jobs or whatever, but he's essentially just a really, he's an exterminator. Yeah. You know, I also I also found it interesting that they said something about the scream of the basilisk because that's not anything that I had. I hadn't encountered that before. Yeah, that was not something that they they plugged their ears with wax to prevent like what was it madness or deafness or something that yeah, I found that very very cool. It was like a whole different beast almost, you know, what I what struck me as well was the mention of it was 1212 and I was considering what were what was North America doing at that point. Yeah. Good question. The camera cuts to North America and there's just a moose walking by like nothing chewing some grass. Yeah. Well, that's not fair though. We're up to something and people a little more South the Algonquin and everything, but most candidates. Yeah, I'm sure they were living for filled lives without all of the junk that we have today. It's not a topic. Yeah, they weren't. It's not a topic to get into today, but the Mississippi native culture is amazing. And what what Europeans accidentally did to them through just their ignorance and accidentally slashed on purpose. Well, my understanding of how disease moved through the natives ahead of actual European explorers who recorded what had happened. I think we missed a lot in the nature of the historical record has been unclear or unfortunately kind of wiped out because they weren't using a lot of materials that were really permanent. It was a lot more lumber and foliage. And I think there was a lot of society and culture there that we just don't know anything about. Yeah. But great story, Ingrid. Yeah, but sorry to loop back fantastic story. They always tend to end on a sad note, I've noticed. The journeyman dies because he saw the bassless. Yes, but there was also a marriage. It was kind of sad. And I hope you like your intro, Ingrid. I know it's very short, but this song especially is near and dear to our hearts. When she tells why. The movie the third man. It was. And unfortunately though, it remains a popular film and its theme remains under copyright. So it's not an easy thing to utilize for more than say 10 seconds. It's very distinct. I had an outro too, but it was too much time. Alright, so let's move into backroom plot. So we're in the middle of the buggy three-parter for the murder plague. And I have a few notes that I wanted to share. One, I think this is part, the end of part two is probably my favorite cliffhanger that we've done so far. I've mentioned it a few other voices. Yeah, you're saying how hyped you were about this one. Yeah, I remember when you first asked me my opinion of this one, I said, oh, it was really great. You get to the part where Jeremy's on the road and he discovers something that has been left behind. I'm not going to give it away. But, and he's kind of like, oh, you know, where are these hillbillies getting, whatever. And it made me think of the video game Borderlands. I don't know how many people have played that, but it totally made me think of those crazy, like... Dudes with the goggles. Yeah, exactly. And I'm thinking of them driving by and, you know, cutting people to shreds, which, you know, is not that different from Borderlands, frankly. And that's the picture I have in my mind. And then it gets to the last line and that is such a groaner. It's just, oh God, what's character going to do now? These aren't some crazy thuggy punks, you know. There has to be a little bit more finesse to the solution of this one, I think. So it's, I'm pretty excited by the third one myself. I think the next story arc involving Harm Carter will technically end what I think of as chapter two of the murder plague. And if everybody else recalls the end of chapter one was right around when he was sort of parting ways with his daughter. He had only just found her again only to have to leave her. And I think there's a lot of really hard choices that Harm's having to make as the story progresses. And I think this is very similar to the end of that previous chapter where he had to make a decision of what he was going to do about his daughter. He's going to end up in the same situation now, like, he can't just- Oh, just wait till the next one. I also wanted to mention that there's an interesting feedback loop that's happening now. With none of the other characters, when I write them, I think of my personal voice for them over top of maybe your reading of them in most cases. I have a Mulligan voice in my head and you come very close in like timber, but not exactly the voice, right? You're interested. The one voice that I do, I essentially end up reading the entire story out loud to myself doing Harm Carter's voice, but you doing, which is this weird thing where it's you doing Carrie Grant and me doing you doing Carrie Grant. Carrie Grant, yeah. It's funny. Six degrees of Carrie Grant. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. But the thing is also though that I don't- while we originally started with Carrie Grant as a bit of a blueprint or an inspiration- It's not him. Yeah. It's a rendition. It's never been him, but it's not just a rendition. It's moved into his own thing. Yeah. Harm has his own dialect now that is not just an imitation of Carrie Grant, it's... And I find myself halfway through an episode thinking, "Oh, I'm trying to do Carrie Grant too much and it doesn't actually sound like her own character anymore." Yes, exactly, exactly. So I'm finding that very interesting. And I'm finding it interesting that it's coming back to adjust how I write the dialogue or write how the story is going just because of how you would read it. Mm-hmm. Which is also a bit the excuse, this last story arc, to have a lot of sound effects. I found there was a lot of dialogue that wasn't herm in this last one. He is, or rather, his story is one of the only stories that I have to use a voice throughout. Mm-hmm. Even when I'm saying something like, you know, Jeremy said, "I have to say it as harm because he is the one that is telling the story." And I think the only other one would be Ruby and that's because I'm always using my Ruby voice whenever I'm reading it even when it, you know, he said she said, "But it's because Ruby's voice is just my voice." Right. So it's no different for me. The other one that would come up for me would be a Sergeant Smith or when Mulligan is essentially bookending but just telling his dad a story throughout, you know what I mean, where it's just it opens on them somewhere and then he's discussing what happened. Yeah, but that's, yeah, it's always them telling the story, whereas the whole concept of the murder plague is harm recounting it. So right from the beginning, it's all going to be him. So it's kind of weird for me to do a different voice for somebody who is in the story. But can you do harm coder, do it? Exactly. Exactly. I couldn't be like, and then home coder said, you know, so-and-so said, it just doesn't, I meant, I have a car to try to do Maggie. Yeah. So. I think that's a challenge. I don't think it's a challenge I'm willing to take. I have a hard enough time just doing harm. Mini? Yeah, mini, that's right. Yes. And then mini-sense. Okay, well I think this might be a good opportunity to move into. The R, O, narration. Well aside from just narration and stuff that I've been doing on the illustration narration front, I've been really trying to get a lot more articles fleshed out in the wiki. So I've been doing a lot of updates there. I'm particularly proud of the page I did on Dorset's today. Yes. If- You did a great job. If anybody recalls, Dorset is one of the characters in the Wilcoffin series, owner of the bar, Dorset's. So I had a lot of fun doing that page. It's only just started, and of course, you know, things have to be added as the stories are written. I think the poems are very good. So get on it, mobsters. Yeah. Well, JRT has to write more for there to be more, you know, as indeed. But I'm really enjoying doing a lot in the wiki, but I do find there's a disproportionate amount of Mulligan-Smith information versus other information as well as Wilcoffin. I find them the easiest ones to write about. Right. I'm hoping somebody will step up and do some collective detective work in a few other pages. Yeah, I could start naming off some of the known collective detective members. But yeah, if anybody is interested in helping out with that. Wiki.flashbop.com. Yep. I'd be excited to see what contributions everybody else would have. Any other things people have noticed? Speaking of the wiki, we should give a big thanks to Jim. Thanks, Jim. Thank you, Jim. I'm having so much fun. Over at relicradio.com, he has an excellent series of podcasts he put out himself, you guys. Go check it out. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at skinnier.fm or flashbop.com. Call or voice me online at 206-338-2792 or email us text or mp3s to skinnier@skinnier.fm. Jessica made his vocal talents and musical stylings. Can be found at maitunes.com. Yep. Still haven't got that song on, got that song on. Thank you. Oh, oh. You should just stop promoting my song. The Pope and Acts is artistic work and journal updates can be located on Popenextethers.workbest.com. The entire run of flashbop can be found at flashbop.com or via the search bar in iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Great of Commons attribution of a crucial 2.5 lessons. [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC] [SINGING] [MUSIC]