Hello, and welcome to FlashCast episode twenty-four – prepare yourself for a pulp Lama, fade haircuts, The Haunted House on Willoughby Road, toothaches, and a second chance for the Green Lantern.
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FC24 - Fade Haircut
[Music] Hello and welcome to Flashcast24. Prepare yourself for a pulp llama, fade haircuts, the haunted house on Willoughby Road, toothaches, and a second chance for the Green Lantern. [Music] Tonight we have myself, Opopon X, illustrative and narrative Zarena, Jessica May, Millew, Audio and Ego Rainey, and JRD. Hello. Letter puller, letter puller. That doesn't sound really degrading. Well, I was thinking in sort of a farming sense, like there's a bunch of letters in the ground and I got to go pull them up. Okay. They say pulling is much harder than pushing. It's a meal enough to ask, I'm happy with that. So, not to step on fresh fish at all. Because it'd be slippery. [Laughs] It might fall down. I did have a few little movie items I wanted to discuss real quick. Galermo del Toro. He's no longer doing At the Mountains of Madness. Why not? Which is disappointing. That's H.P. Lovecraft, right? Yeah, I believe it was studio problems. And it's really a question. It wasn't Cthulhu problems? No. It's really unfortunate because I think he would have done an excellent job. Yeah. I think he's a perfect man to be covering Lovecraft. Patre Manus. Yes. I can picture that from him. Well, are you familiar with the story at all? Not, like, I couldn't quote it. Right. But he is working on another film now, Pacific Rim. Have you heard of it? No. No. It's about giant Kiju. Kaju? Oh, no. I don't know. I'll have to ask somebody. They're attacking from a portal under the ocean. Oh, my. From the Pacific, specifically, as if that wasn't obvious. The Pacific and specific? Mm-hmm. [Laughs] And it actually reminded me quite a bit of John Windham's The Craken Wakes. Oh, I loved that book. Which was a great book. It really was. I never heard of it until I picked up a John Windham box set. Mm-hmm. And I just flipped through it because it looked interesting. And it was fascinating. It was a great apocalypse story. Yeah, I read it, I think, maybe two years ago now. And I couldn't put it down. It wasn't that long, but it was, like, really intense. And I had to go back and reread parts because it was a little more in-depth of a book than I usually read. But I found it, like, just totally captivating. Yeah. He does a job of selling the science a bit. Yeah, it also scared the pants off me. Yeah. And every time I'm near water now, I think about it. What I liked about that story, actually, on sort of an odd side note, wasn't necessarily the things rising up from the ocean. It was the married couple, who are sort of the main protagonists, and just how they interact with each other. Yeah. And I often see, in modern tellings, the sort of almost Nick and Nora style couple, or the very functional loving couple who get things done, they're usually, you know, there's got to be romantic problems, they've got to be fighting each other. He's got to be away from home too often, and, you know, the wife who's getting upset. Some kind of drama. Yeah. Dinner's left on the table cold. Yeah. There has to be a separate drama. Mm-hmm. And what I liked about this especially was that not only was she not just waiting at home forum, she was actually, they're both reporters in the story. So she's off gallivanting while he's off gallivanting, and sometimes he's the one, you know, clucking in concern and she's off doing stuff. Feeling lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was a great book, and I'm interested to see the specific rim doesn't have any connection to the actual story, but it did make me think that I would like to see the crick and wigs. Yeah. I'd love to see that made into some kind of movie. And speaking on the literary front, and sort of the film front as well, well, maybe literary is overstating it, but John Carter of Mars, they're making into a film. Are you familiar with the Carter of Mars series at all? Yeah. They were a fascination for me when I was a younger man. He's a fellow who through semi-mystical means finds himself on Mars. They were written in a period though before we had any serious scientific knowledge about Mars. So there's the planets inhabited as I recall by essentially green ape men and ladies who look exactly almost like Earth ladies. Wow. So there wasn't any traveling back and forth. It was some mystical means like the only interaction or something? The only interaction like the only back and forth that I recall from, I didn't read the entire series, but I did read the first few novels. And essentially, usually at the end of the story, as I recall, he would end up back on Earth and he'd be like, "Oh nuts, I miss Mars." And then at the start of the next edition, he would essentially zap back. Actually, I recall Barry when we were discussing Carter of Mars not too long ago, and he was correcting me. My memory of how exactly he ends up with Mars may be wrong, but I thought he died, and then his spirit essentially woke up on Mars, but he didn't really die. It was one of those odd situations. He ended back on Earth. Yeah. It was one time for the next book. But anyway, they dropped the of Mars. So now the movie is just called John Carter. Which sounds like like a inner city basketball teacher drama. Well, I have two concerns here. Either A, they're moving it off Mars. Like they're going to be like, "Yeah, it's PARS. It's out of the solar system." Yeah, because they don't want it to sound stupid because there's all these eight men on Mars that aren't really there. We know. Or they're like, "Well, no one realizes that this movie's about a dude on Mars anyway, so..." Yeah, so that's going to be... Make that part of the surprise. But it shouldn't be. No. Because it's obvious. No, because the way the Mars stories are written, Burroughs has this weird, like every, like you'll encounter a hill full of just like glittering diamonds or whatever, like everything is so over-the-top and obviously not in any way grounded in science that I think you can just say like, "Yeah, Mars, guess you didn't know, and no one's going to be too upset about the whole thing." But there are some issues with those stories, namely that it's very much buff hard chunk wandering around, sweeping up ladies and... Defending against natives? Yeah. Yes, those pesky natives. And speaking of sort of odd social situations, I learned of a new pulp hero today. Oh, yeah? The green llama. He was a... That covers up all sorts of animations. He was a hero of the '40s. His costume is very sort of of the era. It's basically like cape and a dude. Okay. It's green. Underpants. No, not so underpantsy though. He's kind of wearing flowy or clothes a little bit. Okay. But he was a Buddhist. Yeah. Like llama. Like the Dalai Lama. How does a Buddhist fight anything really, let alone crime? See, that was kind of mine, whatever. But apparently, they work in a lot of like, Dharma and, you know, kind of justify the thing. I think karma is the English alliteration or whatever you want to thought. Or the... No, wait. Hmm. I may get in trouble for this, but I believe karma is maybe the Indian version of the Tibetan idea of Dharma, which is, you know, like all the different Buddhist versions, because there's several different splits, I believe, have different words for essentially the same concept. Okay. Hmm. Although they all have minor variations, I believe, on what that concept may mean. So please do not turn to me for any sort of Buddhist lifestyle, I'm not sure. But it did get me thinking about superheroes with contradictions. Well, in episode 177, there was a fairly, I would argue untouched upon social issue in the pulp annals. Dig. And it got me thinking in modern sort of pulp terms. And specifically on one fellow who I feel, I've mentioned in the past that pulp is sort of a social conduit, right? Like it's the junk drawer of pop culture. There's a lot of black and white terms, a lot of those are the good guys were the good, like were the good guys, those are the bad guys kind of thing. And Tom Clancy, who I do call, who I do think falls in the modern pulp, I was wondering if you'd ever had a gay character. And I actually saw that you had a note on that, so I did a little research myself. Mind you, it's, it's not a character that's I believe has, you know, a whole lot of dialogue or room in the story. But the most notable one that I've been able to find via TV tropes is what's it called? The Cardinal of the Kremlin. And it's the sequel to Hunt for Red October. Hmm. I'd read that. I'd read that. See, no. Yeah. Hunt for Red October, both a great film. And actually a good book too. I do usually count Clancy as a very technical kind of fellow. I don't think of his characters as really having a lot of, as having a lot of personal traits. Like they're usually fairly. The reason that I jumped to Tom Clancy is my first thought was because his characters tend to be very much machines within what they are like, hey, they're snipers and what do you do? What do you know about them? Well, they're snipers. They're, you know, snipers. So they all have those same kind of traits. Yeah. Interesting though, like apparently this gay character, this Republican Senator, he, within that book, the Cardinal of the Kremlin, him and the protagonist get along, you know, he's not considered like the bad guy. Nice. And yeah, he gets involved in his sting operation against the Soviets. So. Very interesting. Yeah. Interesting. But yeah, I guess generally he doesn't really have a lot of gay characters or anything other than stereotypical buffard junk, lady in distress. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no. Clever soldier. Well. And you try to break free from that too. I have sort of outgrown and I think maybe Tom Clancy a little bit, but at the same time, or at least I find his work a little repetitive at this point. But. And you try to have a social message, right? Yeah. I would say. So. So as opposed to the social message that say terrorists are bad, yes, is. But at the same time, what I'm trying to get to is in Clancy's defense. It's not like he writes a lot of personal life to any of his characters. So that was also part of why I was wondering that it was all about the job, you mean? Yeah. Well, that's what I mean is it because it's so like he's the president and you never see him doing anything. But yeah, it's more about this scenario than it is relationships. Okay. Well, I believe that basically leaves us time for. Fresh fish. A new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening 3-day fish. Hey, Flashcast, the 3-day fish here with more fresh fish. As promised, I am reporting on the Green Lantern, which, as we all have expressed, I think, has some of us a little worried, well, as the Green Lanterns would say, "Don't let fear control you." It wasn't bad. It really wasn't. And I was really expecting it to very probably suck, but it didn't. It was a little cheesy, but I mean, he can always forgive a movie for some cheese as calcium. I think it made a really smart move with whoever they played as Sinestro because Sinestro really caught my attention in this movie and he'll be a good lead of some kind if they make a sequel. I hope I'm not spoiling this for anyone, but his name is kind of Sinestro and he is Lifter a villain in the Green Lantern series, but if that's one, he's still a Green Lantern and has not yet done the yellow ring. So yeah, all in all, pretty good. One of my co-workers is actually a Green Lantern fan and has both comics, so I got this statement from him on the movie. As a half-avit follower of the Green Lantern, I thought this movie was great. It was a lot of CGI, but I can deal with that. The story falls fairly close to the comics as far as I can tell. For a comic book movie, this is a must-see stick around in the credits to see Sinestro's true colors. Sinestro chore-forever. So as you can see, this movie can please both people who don't know the comics and people who are more familiar with the comics, so I guess to conclude really, if the CGI's going to bother you, then that may be the deal breaker for the movie. I wish I thought of a reading system before I called in on this, but I'll work on that movie. And I do. I do like superhero movies. I don't know. That might have been a good enough review to make me want to give it a chance. Well, not to say the review is, you know, good enough, but... No, I mean... A positive view truss... A positive view truss. Not "ficious" review. But it is positive feedback enough to think that maybe I would see the movie at some point. That's much more careful. Yes. Well, good. If we were able, maybe when it comes on the Netflix, we'll watch it on the Netflix. Well, while I continue to have my doubts about Ryan Reynolds, I do feel that fish is a trustworthy enough source to make it worth checking out. We had an opportunity to see it at the drive-in, but we had to skip it because of child responsibilities. Which would have been fantastic, because I believe that would be the perfect place to see that film. Yeah. Definitely. But we'll definitely hopefully get in for some other superhero film later in the summer. Absolutely. We must. Thanks a lot, fish. Yes. Thank you very much for calling in. Thumbs up. And we're sure you'll get that. Well, no. I don't think he likes a thumbs up system. I believe that's copyrighted. I think Roger Ebert's robot corpse is going to come after you. Oh my god, I hear them at the door, right? Listen, I love Roger Ebert. I believe he's a very intelligent man. I don't always agree with him, but I think he's usually fairly correct in his film analysis. But that dude scares me at this point. I understand it is within everybody's right to do everything they can to live as normal a life as possible under the most extreme situations, but I do not envy that man his robot jaw. There is very little in this world that disturbs me, but video of him is something that gives me the willies. And this is the man that can watch anything except him. Yeah. Yeah. He is the one. And I mean, I love Ebert, but geez, man, just stay off camera. I think that's what he's doing, especially with Twitter. Yeah, you do. He's very much part of the Twitterverse because, though, I don't know, it's funny. I don't know if he can actually speak, but I know for the longest time it took him quite quite like a bit of effort to communicate with other people. Mm-hmm. I believe he continues to be using using a robot voice, which has been essentially synthesized from clips of him from the show. I don't know. Yeah. That's crazy. They actually got one as it was his own voice. That's pretty awesome. See, this is where my memory of him is burned in because I believe he unveiled it on like Oprah. And I love the concept and the fact that they had to remove his jaw because of his cancer is a horrible thing. Like that is not something anybody should ever have to go through. But I was very excited to see what a robot job would look like. And I am now very excited for the technology to move forward. Yes. Yeah. For his sake. Barry posted a comment on the blog recently. I said this elsewhere, but it pretty much sums up how I feel. The DC relaunches. Oh, wait. I should preface this with. He is one of the largest comic geeks I know, especially the Superman mythos. He is very knowledgeable. And I don't say that in any way derogatory. It's very interesting, but it makes this point or this email all the more or sorry this comment or the more poignant. Okay. The DC relaunches has me torn from a business point of view. It all makes perfect sense. But the Fannie Mae sees this is the perfect place to stop collecting a problem with the whole plan is that Warner's has so far not shown any consistency in how they deal with the comic movies. For example, they are already talking about a Batman reboot, even as they prep the next film. So after Christopher Nolan is done with the franchise, they are rebooting Batman again. And I can't blame them, but what is the difference between a radio? Maybe a little bit of time. Give it a little bit of time, let the new toys get off the shelves before you're offering up something new. I would argue the schizophrenic styling and plotting of the original, well, no, that's unfair of the 80s Batman series that went into the 90s. Essentially Keaton to whoever to whoever to whoever. The reason that failed is because each one, well, A felt increasingly a caricature of the previous one, but B was wildly different. Yeah. Like the tone of Batman 1989 versus the final film, which what was it Batman and Robin? No, no, no, no, it was the one with Alicia Silverstone with George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell. Yes. I don't remember the name of the film. Anyway. They're Batman and Robin, but then there was another one after that. Are you sure? Batman returns. That means forever. Which turns again from the night. Batman, some. Forever? Forever. Batman forever was the last one, wasn't it? Maybe. Batman, Batman returns, Batman and Robin, Batman forever, I think. Whatever the case, the tone is wildly different between all of the films, in my opinion. And although it's kind of progressing in a certain direction as it goes on, I feel like the Joel Silver stuff especially is a ridiculous. The next Superman film is expected to be, if not a reboot, a new tone for the franchise with yet another actor, and will it tie in with Smallville? Who knows? They want synergy and consistency between a movie and comics platforms, as well as TV, they need an overall vision. I think Dan Dideo and Jeff Jones have done an amazing job making the DCU cohesive and the planning they have used as exceptional. The long term plans for the GL are a great example, but if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, DCU will be stuck with another big relaunch necessary a few years down the line, or even every few years. And I absolutely agree with that point, they tend to work themselves into a corner, and then they have to reboot. I'll also add, having seen most of the new costume designs, DCU has already set themselves up for a relaunch. The costumes are much too of the moment and much too alike, with a surveillance of high collars and overly techy looking boots. Superman should never be redesigned, he is timeless, icons don't change for the times, soups. With long hair failed, soups with the electric costume failed, all super redesigns ultimately fail because Warner's merchandise is the hell out of the classic look, it is never going to leave the public's consciousness. And I absolutely agree messing with his costume, like I said last episode, people just want to go back, they want to read a classic Superman tale, they want him to maybe bust through something like a wall and then beat up that guy and then bam done, and hopefully he's thumb's upping the camera as he flies away with a little panel. And in regard to being too much at the times, remember in the 90s when they brought back Superboy with a leather jacket, fade haircut and earring, it didn't last long and DC laughs about it now. Listen, I believe that action comics is something like 15 issues to a thousand or something like that, like some massive milestone. There's no way that in 15 months from now they are still going to be running the renumbering. They're going to want to capitalize on that number, they're going to want to push it out to the public. You may see a double numbering system for a while, and then when they hit a thousand, I assure you the number on that issue is going to be a thousand. If I have that number correctly, maybe two thousand, three thousand, I have no idea. But I bet you I don't know who does, very, very well known. The current thing is for the comics to reflect the movies, make sense, the films have a broader audience than the comics are more profitable. Problem is that there is only a nuke film every two to three years while the comics put out 36 issues in that span. Superman has two titles after the relaunch, so double that to 72. He also stars in JLA, so to make that 108 comics. Add in the other super titles, Superboy, Supergirl, he's a part of, plus crossovers and in-between films you still have at least 150 issues of story. They have to reflect the films, you have only two choices, one, spin the wheels and make no changes of consequence between the films, or two relaunch every few years. But it has to be a better way. Yeah, absolutely agreed, I don't, well I think what Barry is going through is mega, like mega event fatigue, which is the inevitable result of just these constant massive events that have no effect on your universe at all. I'm trying to think of what would be the first one, the first one I clearly remember would be the Infinity Gauntlet. See, I really, I don't know enough about DC, I would be able to quote Marvel Cataclysm but- Oh, Secret Wars, I don't know, see I'm more of a Marvel boy myself. I should also mention that Barry from BMJ2K.com, next Tuesday he'll be running a banner from Mike Munch who we featured on the flashpelt before, is in promo. He does work over at supermunch.com, but he'll actually be doing a banner for Barry going up Tuesday, it's all the JLA, the different, just as League of America characters, so it's sort of loose back into this whole thing. He's pretty great at the superhero. Yeah. Thanks Barry, very much for running in. Yeah, always appreciate it. Very well written. And great points. Speaking of long term friends of the site, friends of flashpulp, flashers, if you will. Chronic flashes. Chronic flashes. They just can't help it. Ingrid, sometimes known as Ella, opened up a new site using some of the legends that she's recorded for us and some other added items. That's cool. Some background information, which is really interesting, and videos. It's at veneyslegends.blogspot.com and it's a great site, you should check it out. I've been really enjoying seeing the photos that go along with her legends. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Her videos are great. Mm-hmm. Nice work. And so we have one tonight, right? Mm-hmm. We're lucky enough to have one that she sent in. On the facade of St. Stephen's Cathedral is a figure of Christ, a so called man of sorrow. The veneys know this figure is Christ with a tooth egg. How it came to this name tells the following story. Once upon a time three cholly fellows lived in Vienna. They often sat together and drank until late into the night and on the way home they used to play tricks on one or the other veneys. One night after the curfew of their favorite pup, the strolled frolic family through the streets of Vienna. On the way they passed St. Stephen's Cathedral. In the lamplight they saw that the crown of fawns of the men of sorrow was adorned with fresh flowers. So that the wind couldn't blow away those flowers, they were tied with a clove. This ranged from the vertex over the cheeks until under the chin where it was knotted. It was Juncker Deepold, somehow he was the leader of the droop who loved. This looks as if the Lord had a tooth egg, no wonder he definitely stands at a draught place. For a while they continued choking, finally they went to their homes. But that night Juncker Deepold couldn't find a sleep. His cheeks began to burn and a short time later he got a very bad tooth egg. He rubbed his cheeks, poked around in his teeth, rinsed his mouth with heart liquor. But nothing helped. After the sleepless night he consulted a doctor. But that man couldn't help him either. "Your teeth are fine," the doctor said. "But it's an odd thing. You already the third patient today who's complaining of a tooth egg without any particular reason. With these words Juncker Deepold recognized that he was punished by the men of sorrow for his sarcastic remarks and he decided to apologize immediately. Luefully and head bowed he tied a glove around his head and went to the men of sorrow. Actually, he was not surprised that he found his bodies there. He knelt down beside them and begged tearfully for forgiveness. The penitans were answered and the tooth pain disappeared even in the same hour. The three fellows had their lesson. But since that incident this man of sorrow is known as Christ with a tooth egg. Thank you very much, Ingrid. Another fantastic one. I love that one. What I especially like about it is that, except for the fact that the story is widely known now and the statue is obviously known as what it's known as, it almost strikes me as a modern sort of legend. Like you could say it was about anything and they crack these jokes and then some of them get tooth eggs, you know what I mean, and the solution is to go back and say sorry. Yeah, I love that idea. Even though these Viennese legends all center around these ancient buildings and stuff they still have a lot of relevance now. Yeah, connect the elements. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you very much. And a reminder, Ingrid blogs at dancingla.blogspot.com, she does poems and short stories sometimes. And Viennese legends.blogspot.com for her new place. Thank you very much, Ingrid. Thank you, Ingrid. Hello, Flashgast crew. Joe from Colorado, but coming to you from Minnesota. So I'm a bit closer to you right now, visiting my sister-in-law, having a great time, wanted to take a moment to say hi. Thank you. Happy Father's Day to Jared. That's soon. Based on the audio I've heard of you with your kids and some of your comments, I can tell you're a good dad. Aww. It's the greatest job in the world. Hope you enjoy your day. Couple of items from the last Flashgast. First the house renovation. We're in the process of getting a new kitchen, new hardwood floors, and interior painting. Oh, and one time. We're excited, and very tired of eating out. It wasn't apparent from your conversation, so wanted to make sure you knew that the Falcon and the Snowman was based on a true story. Yes, that's true. Not sure if that changed the genre or not. I too was interested in how J.R. managed his Twitter feeds. List, huh? Gonna have to look into that. Also, honored to be in the inner circle. Aww. I'd like to say I'll participate in your forums, but that would be a lie. There just isn't enough hours in a day, and I'm really bad at participating in those. I do hope it is successful. On the Flash business. We'll be road story. Good homes incorporated, huh? Are they a subsidiary of the company responsible for Grumpy and Aggie? Really enjoyed the story. Felt it was in direct response to my request for more stories in the Grumpy Aggie arc. And don't tell me otherwise, my mind is made up. But with respect to episode 200, all I have to say is, "Woot, can't wait." Take care. Best Call Joe, always best call. It was absolutely, kind of intended to fill in some of that time period, sort of some of the future that's gonna happen before it unhappens. I mean, nothing. Nothing, nothing, Trelala. That's my favorite line. Thanks for the Father's Day wishes. My had a great day. And he really is like the best rat in the world. But I'm sure you're a good dad too. Absolutely. And grandfather, did I not hear? Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. He had the whole family right down to the wee ones helping with his renovations. Aww. That's great. That's adorable. Good for you. Thanks out to the park. We had a nice little jaunt and went for a stroll. Yes, they came back sleepy and content ready for naps. It was really quite a cute sight. Things are definitely coming together for episode 200. I have sent out some emails. I'm going to have to send some other emails. I can't tell you what these emails are about. Why? Why can't... I want to say it. Can I say it? I'm gonna say it. Okay. Okay. That's really not the crux of why I'm excited about 200, but it is a detail about it. Okay. Voice work. It's not just going to be a Popon X. Okay, that's it. Yeah, that's the hook for now. That's all we're giving you. That's for the next 10 episodes, and then I'll come up with something else to mention. All of you that know more. Keep it shut. I trust them all. Yeah, we trust you all. Oh, I've paid them enough to be quiet. None of you are getting paid. Just another note. Joy has such a professional comment. I understand... I don't blame him for not having time to participate in forms. I understand everyone's internet user is their own. Yeah, and I appreciate the honesty to yourself and to us what you're able to do and what you're not. Frankly, I appreciate the fact that he took the time on a road trip to send in a little something. That was fantastic. Yeah. That was great. And it's always so well organized. I really appreciate that. It's like you do this for a living. We go and look and you subscribe to 500 shows and you comment to all of them. That's how you get so good at it. That's slightly creepy. I didn't mean that, Joe. Back from... Whoa. So, up front this time, I think we're going to do the actual or actress choice that we've been... We've been... We've been... excellently over discussing it too much. And we keep picking the same person. Well, yes, because who are we looking at today? Oh, well, we're looking at Ruby, right? And we were... I was... Or... You were asking who the actress was, the main character Nancy Button in Weeds. Yes. And I think it's Mary Louise Parker, I believe. We both thought that she would be good for it. And I'm like, "Don't touch her. She's mine!" See, our problem with both of us is that we keep coming up with actresses that I feel would be too old for the role. I think Janine Garafolo might have been good. We both thought... I've never really seen her any physical roles, but whatever. I'm sure she could put her mind to it. I think we've established, though, that if you can identify a period in which, if you were to say, "Mystery Men Janine Garafolo," or "Early Angry Comedian," well, that's really her own career, but you know what I mean? Yes. I was thinking Karen Knightley would be pretty badass. Yeah, that might be okay. I just... You've seen her in too many... I've mentioned before. Yeah, too many... British cameras. Yeah, too many episodes with Mr. Darcy. So... I can't... I think she has the dinner. I don't know what I've seen her in too. I don't know. She was in that King Arthur film. I think she was pretty actiony in that film. Well, you had also mentioned Uma Thurman. I think she would be good, but also she might be a little too old for the role. And I think one of our problems is we didn't know very many actresses within the right age range. No, you know, now that I think of it, who is that actress who played in Juneau? Ellen Page. What do you think of that? I have to tell you, Ellen Page was actually who I was going to say. No way. Not exactly. I mean, it's not like I'm thinking of Ellen Page when I'm writing the character or anything, but different haircut, same sort of... Simple badass. Yeah. A different kind of haircut, maybe slightly different body shape, a little heavier than Ellen Page actually is, but that's a necessity of being a movie actress and not a real person. But yeah, I think attitude-wise and sort of personality-wise, at least the portrayal of Ellen Page's public eye, good call. Thank you. I'll take compliments. I also wanted to discuss 177. There's a classic idea in writing that you write what you know. Yeah, I agree. You probably heard that, even in a grade school, whatever. But the thing is, I've never actually been in a late '80s barbell of transvestites. So I did my best to try to be realistic by kind of going in a direction that was, well, doing a little research, frankly, but also trying to go in a direction that was maybe not entirely expected, which to me kind of sells realism a little more sometimes. Sometimes making details that don't necessarily immediately sound like they fit into a situation, but makes sense in a larger picture kind of... And you weren't discussing them like in a comedic way or making fun of them. Oh yeah, well, I was certainly trying to... Be sensitive to that. You have to be reasonable. Well, I hate the word sensitive, though. I was trying to be reasonable. How's that done? Yeah. I have common sense. Yes. But you don't have to tiptoe around people. I don't like that either. Yeah. That isn't... That isn't equality. That's special interest. Anyway, if anybody has any comments on that episode, especially, I'd be interested to hear them. They feel like crossed any lines. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was a little concerned. Well, there was one previous episode. Some sort of semi-related topic got us a little bit of heat, but... Oh well. Anyway, I think now is a good time to shuffle it along, too. The audio is an accident of hope. I have completed another promo. The lovely Jeff from "Bothersome Things" he wonderfully and patiently gave me a bunch of different takes, different styles that he read in for me. I added some spooka tunes to it, and I think it's pretty awesome. He did a great job, and he offered to do more, which was completely unnecessary, of course, because he did such a good first round, but I appreciate the offer, Jeff. So yeah, maybe I'll play it now. The Flash Bowl Podcast, three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you thrice weekly, from cosmic horrors to fisticuffs, fast cars and smart mouths. We've got a chill for every spa. Find it all at flashpalt.com or search for it on iTunes. Fantastic work. Thank you. I actually, I was there when she was putting it all together and listening to Jeff do the reading and everything, and it was a lot of fun. And Mr. 8 came in and he's like, "Oh, who's that?" He thought he sounded so professional, and he was talking to us and just gives us more cred, thanks Jeff. With our children. Yeah, I need that. Absolutely. I didn't think they'd be this young and think I knew so little, but that's okay. That's another matter entirely. Yeah, one day they'll learn how smart we are. Before we move on to the art of narration, I was suddenly reminded of a story. I was probably partially the Christ with the toothache fiendys legend that popped it in mind, but something about Mr. 8 and his cluelessness. When I was younger after my uncle had had a few wobbly pops, he told me a story. Many of my family members used to be mining miners before the silver market crashed, and he actually continued to work in the mining field, although many of them don't. But one year he was up in Banff—I believe I'm—no, sorry, Baffin Island, my bad. Doing some mining, and he was off in the middle of nowhere, very distant from civilization, and he got a toothache. It was a pressing problem. It kept, like, the problem was that the dentist only came around to the camp every month or something. Oh my gosh. Essentially it was flown in to deal with, like, on-site problems. So he got to a point where he was seriously considering taking a pair of pliers and just removing the tooth himself. Wow. He was in so much pain it was constant. But the thing is, when the dentist got there, the dentist actually told him there's a sort of projection, the exact term escapes me at the moment, where sometimes if you have an injury on the right side of your mouth— It would be on the other side. Yeah, the pain will show up on the left side if it's on the right side. So if he had gone out his mouth with pliers, he would have actually removed the wrong tooth and done nothing for his pain. Oh, wow. And then, you know, would that be upsetting? Would he go from our teeth, like, "Oh, yeah, that's horrific." So what—what ended up happening? Like, he just waited it out, or— I believe his story was that a friend of his essentially just kept feeding him whiskey until the dentist showed up. Nice. Um, so Uncle R doesn't—he still has all of his teeth today. Mm-hmm. You come from good stock. Yes. Good northern stock. Anyway, sorry for the interjection. Now we can move on to the art of narration. Man, nothing I could say now would, uh, would compare to that story. That's pretty fantastic. Pulling teeth without anesthetic. Sorry, actually, I do believe there is something we can announce that is not only as epic as that, but twice as epic, maybe three times as. Well, that's pretty cool. 10 times the epic knows guaranteed. Uh, so, yeah, well, we decided that, uh, all the, uh, all the Skinner Co. tweets, they're all real damn funny, so can I say that? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. So we've decided the real damn funny. Yeah. Well, I'm glad 'cause I write 'em, so, yeah, glad we've decided that. We've made the declaration that on this day, Skinner Co is funny. Yeah. If anybody's familiar with, we have a couple of Facebook pages now. There's one for Flash Pulp, which you should really join 'cause it makes Jessica very happy. It really does. And then we have a second, much more minor page for Skinner Co, which is the corporation that I employ everybody at. Mm-hmm. All of us. Yes. Oh, that's about it. Most of the town, really. Mm-hmm. But occasionally I'm forced to deliver messages via Twitter. And so, uh, the, the Facebook, the Facebook Skinner Co page has really just been a collection of the Skinner Co. tweets that you can view and, uh, like as well. But, uh, JRD and I have always had kind of the idea that maybe we'd, we'd come up with a comic, so I decided maybe I'd take a stab at, uh, doing one of the Skinner Co. tweets every week. So I started with one from the backlog and, uh, I did a cute little comic of it. Well, I think it's cute. I hope you guys do. Yeah. I thought it was great. And if you don't, you can kiss my butt, but, um, hopefully JRD, you will post it for me and, uh, you can all take a look and think it's mighty funny and I'll do another one next week. Yeah, and we'll start doing them weekly. Mm-hmm. I'll post them up on the blog. We'll probably have a little semi-permanent space to be able to get to them. Yeah. At least to the last one or whatever. And that actually brings me to some more exciting news, uh, which is I have some pretty kick-ass equipment to do said comics on now. I just recently went to Best Buy and got myself a Wacom tablet. Mm-hmm. It was a very, very exciting trip. Yes. Both Jamie and I went into the store and, uh, our- Frolicked? Oh, we frolicked, yes. Definitely. It was much frolicking. Mm-hmm. Uh, we had a quite, quite a long list of, uh, things to get, but- Derek from Best Buy was very helpful. Very helpful. And he was totally into podcasts. So thank you, Derek, and hopefully we'll come out with some really cool content that you can listen to if you end up listening to the show. Using our new stuff that we got from Best Buy! And we did go on the website and gave you, uh, excellent review. Because apparently Best Buy doesn't get commissions. Which was a little sad for me to hear because Derek was so helpful. I believe it's actually one of their selling points because it means that the sales meet will aren't going to hassle you all the time, but it also tends to mean that they're not on hand when you need them. Or they don't care. Yeah. But yeah, like the guy next to him. But that's cool. Derek made up for it. We were late exiting the store, but he was epically cool and we have a new Wacom tablet. Yeah, so I'll put it some better quality graphics for you. Thanks! Okay. Well, thanks, Derek. Uh, you guys should check out the wiki at wiki.flashpulp.com. And a big thanks to Jim for hosting both that and flashpulp.com/skinner.fm. Thank you, Jim. Thank you as always. As always. Our Charlie. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at skinner.fm, call our voicemail line at 206-338-2792 or email us text or mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylings can be found at maytunes.com. Mm-hmm. The Popenax's artistic work in general updates can be located at apoponaxfeathers.wordpress.com. Or at least they will be now. The entire run of flashpulp can be found at skinner.fm or flashpulp.com or via the search bar on iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution on commercial 2.5 license. 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