Prepare yourself for Christmas, Bothersome Things, The Elg Herra, and more discussion of excrement than you’re probably comfortable with.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC004 - Hospital Rec Room
(tense music) (tense music) (tense music) (tense music) - Hello, hello, it's just me. Thank you so much for all the chatting my core, my darling. Well, you see it by, I'm afraid you aren't too late. They're already here. (tense music) - Who really needs to read any more? Flash pulp, available on iTunes or download a dose today at skinner.fm. - Prepare yourself for Christmas, bothersome things, the El Cara, and more discussion of excrement than you're probably comfortable with. (tense music) Tonight, we have myself, Opoponax, narrator, and illustrator. Jessica May. - Hey, oh, sound engineer and voice of reason. And J.R.D. - Hello. - Alphabet, slave. - You know what? I was thinking already, and I mean, I used slave there in a joking sort of sense. I was thinking sort of, you know, Star Trek 6 in a salt mine, asteroid, or whatever. But the truth is, I think we're going to get to a point and this sort of comes around to the Huck Finn conversation. That slave in itself is going to be offensive. You know what I mean? And it kind of should be, like these-- - I was listening to MSNBC and they were talking about, I can't remember specifically who, but it was, some southern state was messing with history using other terms other than slavery because it had a nasty connotation, whereas, you know, should you keep it or should you-- - Oh, so it was like a southern state, like one of those, let's reclaim the confederate-- - Let's remember the history we want to, and anything else that is abrasive or wrong, or-- - It's like those, I know this may be a little touchy for you guys, but I was noting pictures online the other day where they've, like Robert Johnson and Winston Churchill, they've cut out the cigars or the cigarettes in their photos, and to me-- - E.T. and the guns. - Yeah, well that's the one I was going to go with. - It all started with E.T., sorry, carry out. - Well, I was just, especially somebody like Robert Johnson, but I mean, Winston Churchill, that's his trademark man. - You're cutting out-- - The cigar, yeah. - You're like, Daffy-ducked bill being cut off, right? - Which, yeah, and the Huckleberry Finn thing, taking out the N word. - Yeah, but, you know, they replaced it with slave, but eventually slave's gonna be inappropriate, and then they'll just get-- - Then what will they replace with? - Well. - Who knows? - Yeah. - How long does it work continuously get edited for? Anyway, I think that the people who originally brought that up had great intentions, but not a big fan of going in there and slamming your edit button around. - Yeah, like when do you stop, when do you say, you know-- - No, this can't be edited or-- - Oddly, to loop back, what was it like the third episode or whatever, of Flash, Pulp, I used a bit of an naughty language, and I self-edited, I actually, like, 50 episodes. - And it's mostly done. - Yeah, 50 episodes or something, and I decided to-- - We went back and changed it. - Yeah, we recorded some sections, and actually, I think we just re-recorded the whole episode, didn't we? - No, I don't think so. - No. - Or maybe we did. Oh, you know what? I think we did, because our sound quality was so different by then. - Yeah, yeah, I think-- - So it would have sounded very different. - Oh, man, I do not even wanna hear our first 20 episodes, (laughs) - Well, I was actually, I was going to reference something out of our first Flashcast, and I noticed there's already a big audio quality change, although I was on the other side of the mic at the time, so it was definitely more tinny for me. - Well, speaking of which, the audio tenacity of hope, there is such a difference when I listen to the episodes on the headphones as opposed to when I'm listening to it, on its speakers, and I like listening to it like, the headphones, I feel like I'm listening to the fan, and I'm listening to something that's noisier to me than it will be to the next guy. - Yeah, but you, well, I mean, unless you run it, well, the problem is that the sound straight from the laptop isn't exactly all that crisp. It's not a laptop developed specifically, we don't have a mix board, that's the next step I suppose is to, 'cause what you're hearing there is the crackle from the feedback of the drive, the electromagnetic flux in there. - Yeah, there's nothing I can do, you know? - Yeah, well, we'll fix it eventually, but I mean, one step at a time. - Yeah, for sure. It smiles better than it was at a time. - Yeah, well, actually, you know, May just redid the recording room, and she gave it kind of a little makeover, and she put some curtains up on the walls, gave me a nice little table in there, it's all very nice and cozy, and I was wondering the difference of having the fabric on the walls, is that made a difference in the recording? - I mean, I'd like to say so, I would like to say yes, there's a tangible difference here, but I haven't really noticed. Like, I figured it would be helpful, 'cause a lot of it's like cement. - Yeah. - Maybe it would be, it would take away some echo, but there really wasn't a hole up before. - Yeah, it's not a big space, so. - This would actually probably be a good place to insert a quick, you know, throw to the crowd, whoever's listening, if you have noticed any differences in our audio quality. - Let us know. - Yeah. - We like praise. - Yeah, I do. - I just about crapped myself when we were listening to Highland and Woods intro for us. I don't know if we would call it an intro, but that's what I'm calling it. - Yeah, the bumper. I guess we should, the bumper off the top, that was a brilliant work of wood of Highland and Wood, over at Brothers and Things podcast at. - Thank you. - Yeah, thank you very much. - It was so great, but see, JRD didn't actually tell me what I was going to be listening to. So when I started to hear our intro, I was thinking he was gonna be showing me something that was like wrong with the previous episode or something. I'm listening like intently, and then all of a sudden I hear something wrong. I'm like, oh my God, I've never heard that song before. What did he do? Oh my God, that's on the internet, people are, and then I realized it's, yeah, it's the intro, and I just burst out laughing. It was just like the, such a high stress point and then realizing, no, like it's a gift from somebody else who's spent their time to, you know, mess with my edits, which immediately made me think, oh God, you know, there's somebody who's listening to who edits, who's also listening to my work and, oh, I was just wiggin' out the next couple episodes thinking that, you know. That's funny. Yeah. Actually, we can loop this around, even the art of narration, 'cause I got an email, I haven't actually let you guys know this today because I wanted it to sort of go into the show content, but I got an email from Wood today, and he was asking if he would mind, because he does all the voices, I believe, out of the narrations for the different bumpers, there's three of them that we've gotten, and we'll sort of spread them out over the shows and let him unveil his own work and stuff. Mm-hmm, it's so very exciting, though. But he actually asked me if, 'cause he does very good male voices, but he finds female voices, like, obviously, difficult, so he asked me if a popanax would record a couple snippets for him. Really? Oh, well, feet, no, no, no, that's fine. Yeah, right. Yeah, thanks for all your hard work, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, no. But that sounds cool. Yeah, I didn't think you'd do it. Yeah, that'd be fun. So he was saying that he wouldn't make you cuss, but I said that you don't cuss on the show, but you do tend to cuss like a sailor. I cuss like a poof. Yeah, she thoroughly can cuss. You're almost cussing describing how much she cusses. Three languages, so. She's pretty fantastic. I don't, you know what, I can cuss in three languages, you're right. Mother cusser? What were we watching the other day where they kept attacking? Fantastic, Mr. Fox. Oh, such a fantastic film. It really was cuss, yeah. Yeah, they wouldn't swear, but they would mark the moment with saying cuss. Yes. Which I think is a lovely idea. I don't really know why. But you used it around the children. Yeah. And we giggle. I don't really know why FlashPulp goes devoid of cussing. I try to keep it sort of-- So it's not explicit. I try to keep it PG-13. Yeah, well, it's true. It's trying to avoid the explicit tag. Yeah, we don't want that tag. That's like the NC-17. You don't want that. No gradient. iTunes really needs to work on its rating system. Yes. Because it would be nice even throughout this podcast because we do have salty tongues at-- To be fair, they will give us that kind of guff over salty language. But I can kill five guys in episode, and that's no problem. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think the violence-- You can have you just describe it in an eloquent manner. Yeah. Well, that's almost part of the challenge with the murder plague, is as things eventually ramp up there are going to be moments of sort of, well, not mass murder, but like mass murder. [LAUGHTER] Lots of murder. Yeah. And just kind of keeping that sort of state classy, and it's going to be-- Casual formality. Yeah. Casual formality. We've decided that's the key to the carry grant lifestyle. Yes. Are you finding it, Opoponax, easier to do the accent? Are you feeling more settled in it? It's getting easier as I go along. Actually, Jared, he gave me a really good suggestion last time. He could hear me going over my-- going over my lions and he suggested a little bit more nasal tone. And I found that actually helped a lot with the carry grant sound. Well, I feel like some of the carry grants sound is almost-- almost verges on old-timey radio guy voice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kind of-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] Speaking of which, not to insert a political message at a random point in this episode, but totally I think we should be assisting maybe the homeless a little more, even if they don't have a golden radio voice that would play on a station that you would never bother listening to anyway. Yes. Absolutely. Do-do-do-do. It wasn't really an informative fact. That was more just a PSA. I don't know if there's the sound for that. Did you guys see that Pee-wee Herman anti-crack PSA that I was hosting up the other day? No. Is something that he's recently done? No, it was back in the days of like Pee-wee's playhouse. When Jerry was-- He was on crack. He's like, "N.P.S. don't do math kids." What was he saying? Well, I'm not going to do a Pee-wee Herman imitation if that's what you're fishing for. No. How about just content? Essentially don't do crack. You know, there's a thing with Jaredie, if he does something that you find him using or adorable. If you ask him to do it a second time, he never will. And I know in time he did do it, and I can't recall what it was for, and I really wish I did because it's probably the one and only ten. Yeah. Sorry. So no crack? Yeah. He was just in the middle of the show. No crack in the play, yes. The P.S.A. and he's-- No, I believe it was just that period where a lot of-- it was the kind of cool thing to do for celebrities to show up in commercials and tell people not to do crack, and-- This is your brain on drugs. It was around that time. Yeah, yeah. I don't remember that with the wire brain. You know all of those ads and everything were paid for by the pharmaceutical corporations? Really? Yeah, I believe-- Don't do illegal drugs. Do ours. Do ours. Yeah. OK. Don't do over the counter, do behind the counter. I guess. Well, the flip side of that is that there's a bit of a deeper thing, like if you lump all drugs together, then some of the bad ones that maybe shouldn't be bad get thrown on that side. But on the other hand, if you have a strong anti-drug mentality, you may not take this as a depression medication that you require. Blah, blah, yeah, which can be controversial. Depressing. Mm-hmm. Agreed. OK, so, maybe we'll roll into back through watch. So we recently completed the final part of the Alghera saga, which was really-- I labeled it the chase, but in truth, it really looped back to the first six Alghera stories. And I felt like I needed to complete that for my own good. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, because it's been a while that you've had the Alghera story line going on, and if people-- I know we've mentioned this before, but if people have been paying attention, there was the first six Alghera stories. There was one in the middle, the first six being about the Princess Ida and Blackhall sort of solving that, and first meeting the Alghera. And then there was one in the middle with the Golem of Prague, which was Prague, right? And that was basically Blackhall and Marco. And now there's the chase to sort of end it all. And I was wondering, how long has it been that you've had this completed story that you've just had to wait and put in parts, because that must be frustrating having sort of a whole storyline in your head that you have to break up and sort of put things in the middle. And in the middle. And retain it in a way that is going to make sense when you have previous points, where people will still understand what you're talking about. Yeah, and having the same point of you when you've stepped back from it for so long. Well, I don't know if you recall, but when I wrote the first three parts of that story, I think I was on the second episode, and I was saying that it really should probably be a nine-parter. Yeah. But you weren't comfortable with having something that long. Yeah, even having a six-parter is a little weird. And to double that up, Blackhall, I find out of all the characters. People have, like, either you like him or you just don't really find him accessible. I think it has to do with the period and the language that I sort of use. Is it like the commitment with the six-parter, or you don't know if you can, like, what is it about if it's weird? Like, it's weird. Like, this one is weird to me. It's just staying with the same sort of, that much continuity is a little odd, staying with the same storyline for two weeks. People are going away for the weekend. Yeah, we haven't had any other six-parters for any other characters. Yeah. Well, yeah, there was the only other six-parter we've done, I suppose, is... The first Blackhall. Yeah, Redmouth's Legacy. Yeah. And I think to a certain extent, you have to trust your audience to lighten it up, to retain what it is that you've said, and to keep coming back, you know? Well, part of my thinking in doing it when I did also, though, was it was sort of a Christmas gift to myself, but I also knew the internet is always dead around Christmas. Like, people just kind of wander off. And I wasn't expecting a lot of people to be a boot to listen anyhow, but I wanted to... That was an intentional agreement. Yeah, I was just going to say that, for all you Americans, we're not really like that, eh? Oh, yeah. But I knew... Sorry. It's hard to focus right now, because Campbell's just staring at us from across the way. I knew the internet would be empty around that time, and I just figured... I wanted to get the story done, and if there was anybody out there who had sat through the first six-parters and were sort of invested, you know, maybe that was going to be just like a quarter of the audience or whatever the number actually is. But I figured they might enjoy it too, so it was more of like a fan-building thing, but also... Well, not a fan-building, that sounds a little pretentious, but it was about getting it out of my noggin, and also about pleasing those people who like it. As Joel Robinson of MST3K said, it was... It's more about the right people getting the right stuff that's supposed to everybody getting everything. Anyhow, yeah, I think this might be a good time to go into... So, we got a few bits of feedback this week. I thought it were worth mentioning. No phone calls, unfortunately. I know that a few people mentioned that they were considering, or the fantastic Reverend P. I assume that's what the Rev part is, from the Rev P on the Twitter said he was attempting to record a defense of his country's love of X factor. I don't know if he'll ever get it. Like, I don't know if he'll have the opportunity to get it to us, but I definitely appreciate his efforts. Barry, our caller from last week also, was considering sending a follow-up, but he didn't have an opportunity, but he did leave us some comments on the blog. In the world. So, Barry said about the previous episode, and you can read his full comment at skinner.fm, but I'm just going to read the highlights, the bullet points, if you will. He agrees about Carlos Mincea, and I mean everybody should. That guy's a racist. Captain Ron, the best Kurt Russell film, Escape from LA bar none, according to him. Escape from LA? Yeah, I know. You saw that first it was going to be New York, right? Yeah, no, I thought it was LA, and then I realized, "No, am I wrong? Am I thinking New York?" But then, no, LA, Escape from LA, really? Don't judge him. I meant judging. I honestly, in a non-ironic way, really enjoy Escape from New York. Yeah. I do think there are things that, you know, aged. I think Kurt Russell's skin type pants, maybe not so classy nowadays. Actually, I disagree with you, I think type pants right now are the thing. I'm trying to get you in some tapered tightbait, skinny jeans, but... Are you trying to tell me that Kurt Russell and Escape from New York is in D, because I have... Maybe he's wearing those... You mentioned tight pants, I thought I would just say something, and I'm done. They do actually look kind of like those, what do they call those, legging jean things? Yes, and now they have the pajama jean, which is the same sort of, anyway, but yeah, the legging that looks like jeans, the pajamas that look like jeans, soon we'll have jeans that look like jeans. Jeans that look like jeans. Great. What about jeans that look like pajamas? What's the point of that? They're uncomfortable, but it looks like it's comfortable, it's like, I look like I'm comfy. But I'm not. All I'm saying is Barry must be really into extreme sports, because that's what that movie was about. Not even a Bruce Campbell cameo was going to save that film. He was in that? Really? Yeah, briefly. He was like the head surgeon of the post-apocalyptic Mayo Clinic or something, I don't really recall. Wow. That's who I'd want in church. Yeah. I was also thinking maybe it was on like Timothy's On, that's a Star Wars reference. All right. He's a guy, man, he doesn't matter. He's right over my head. So he does actually go on to the, as far as the catch phrase, it's on like Teragon or Captain Ron. I prefer it's on like the TV and the Rec Room at the Nursing Home. Because it's always on, and always on the same channel, however I can see the arguments against it. I have a hospital rec room story. You have a hospital rec room story? Yeah, but it's gross, though. I'm sure you'll remember once I tell it. But anyways, me and my brother, we had somebody who was dying in the hospital, and all that we had to do was watch movies. And one was a Kurt Russell movie, I think. It was The Diamond and the Rough. Is that the wrong guy? Diamond and the Rough? Douglas. Michael Douglas. Oh. Jewel the Niles? Jewel the Niles? No. Diamond and the Rough. Was that actually the title? I don't know. Who knows. It's a romancing the stone. Romancing the stone. There we go. Anyways. Okay. So we would go to the rec room every day, we'd watch ridiculous movies like this. And on that day, there was that movie. But on the way, towards the rec room, they sectioned people off. They said, "No. You have to wait here." Like, "Man, what happened? This is the dead people, the dying floor. What's happening?" And they're like, "Oh, just, you know, a gentleman had an accident." And we looked over at this guy who we had just seen walking into the rec room fully clothed with a walker, had somehow crapped his pants, but like just down his pants and a perfect mound like he had just like squatted over the ground, which he didn't. It just fell down his pant leg and it was just this giant dump from a guy. See, that's a case for underpants right there. Or at least breez. How does that even happen? You know, I will tell you a story about how that happens. How does that happen? My friend of mine's grandfather was a traveling salesman and he didn't always take bathroom breaks. He used to tell a story about how sometimes when he was in a hurry, he would just go and shake it out the pant leg. Wow. That is horrific. Some people do that, I guess. So maybe that's what he did. Maybe that's like when people blow the snot on their nose by covering the one nostril. It's like the firmer blow. But I still, I can recall the odor and if you're inside a hospital going into the rec room, you're not going to be able to just hide it. It's not just like traveling salesman and it drops at the side. He's walking by like, that's the worst trucker bomb I've ever heard. And you know, it was so sad. It was just an old guy who clearly didn't have underpants or continents. Yes, see that guy's got an excuse, right? So you're just a salesman and you're lazy, that's just kind of correct. It's crazy. Crazy place. Yeah. Yeah. I have groups. Yeah. This is the Extra Man episode because I have an Extra Man story that I don't know. I'm sorry I bring this show down and it's class. The Guttering. No, that's, I mean, it's an, I wouldn't call it a good story, but it does for some reason remind me, you may recall a girl I used to hang out with in high school and she had a boyfriend at the time who was an older, he was actually older. He was a college student and he lived with his sister and any time that she annoyed him or he had any sort of reason to be angry with her, he would begin to apparently urinate vigorously around the home indiscriminately. I actually had a friend when whenever he was upset with his girlfriend he would pee in her bath. Yeah. He had her bath. Yep. Like her bathtub or like her, her bath water. In her bath. That's disgusting. At least it wasn't all over the house, I guess, but that's pretty bad. Okay, people, anybody who pees in anything other than a toilet or. You're wrong. The side of the road. Yep. You're doing it wrong. Yeah. Yep. We got some problems here. We got some programs for you to listen to learn how to pee. I think that's actually some certification that you've yet to acquire. The first step for AA is admitting you're urinating all over yourself and others. Okay. Okay, so we had some other great feedback. I just wanted to quickly give somebody called, I don't know who this is, but somebody named a three-day fish, which I couldn't understand was that like they went fishing for three days or the fish was three days old. Maybe it's like a fish who's on his third day of life. Anyway, they gave us a very complimentary review, five stars and this podcast is a little bit of everything. If you like zombies, private investigators, pioneers, space or spider gods, then there's a story here for you. The narration is entertaining and engaging. I was worried at first because I generally don't enjoy a female narrator, but a Poponex does a wonderful job. The stories are short and sweet, no indulgences in scenery or dialogue, stick with this podcast and it will surely grow on you. That is like the nicest thing somebody could say about you. Thank you, three-day fish. Yeah, it was very nice and it feels nice to hear that sort of the idea that I've had that if I just keep plugging away at this, even though there's not a lot of continuity between. Like, you don't need to listen to every Mulligan story to get any one Mulligan story hopefully, but I have tried to make it so that they bailed over time in a way. Yeah, and if people are paying attention to that degree that they are going to have little nuggets. Yeah, they get the deeper picture. Exactly. Yeah. So, three-day fish, if you haven't been put off by our excrement story, excrement stories, and if you're that person who really enjoyed the extra three parts of the Black Hole story that I took care of over Christmas, then thumbs up to you. Yeah. Yay. Thanks for taking the time, making me feel good. I read it about every hour. It helps my esteem. So we should probably close at the show. Does anybody have any final thoughts? Um, a little sleepy, a little testy, my day was kind of rough, but my feet hurt. We're good, I think. Yeah, I think that's- Oh, you make comments about the show. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Thanks for listening. Yeah, maybe a final terrorist fist jab, thumbs up to wood of Highland Wood. Well, to both of them, those guys do a great job. Yeah, because you're both magic, honestly. Yeah. I'm completely willing to lend you my voice. So check them out at bothersomethings.com. Mm-hmm, absolutely. Oh, I'd also like to, while we're giving personal messages to those guys, Highland needs to tell more stories about being in the Marines. I enjoy those stories when they come up, or when they come up incidentally. Agreed. Um. I mean, if that's cool with you, I don't know if that's something, like he would be comfortable doing, but- I also want to throw out just, I don't know why that reminded me, Be Arthur, Marine. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was pretty awesome. Contracted as sexually transmitted disease, go Be Arthur. She was living the Marine experience. Yeah, thrown through. For real. Uh, I believe Highland has actually said, you know, once a Marine, always Marine. So. Christopher Lee, too, eh? Like, not a Marine, per se, but he was pretty, um, pretty involved in British military, mm-hmm. Yeah, I believe, uh, but I mean, you're talking- Special ups. Yeah. But you're talking, uh, yeah, you've seen some sort of intelligence course, something. Mm-hmm. But you're talking about a time in which Britain is directly under attack, like during World War II, and he's right about that, the Department of Un-Gentlemen warfare. Fantastic. Go, Christopher Lee. I almost feel like just going off and writing a story about the Department of Un-Gentlemen at the Lee Warfare right now. Yes. Uh, maybe not right now. It was kind of late, but maybe tomorrow, or the work. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. We've had day jobs. We've had day jobs. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you have comments, more questions, or suggestions- Or you'd like to hear a story about Christopher Lee and the Un-Gentlemen Lee warfare. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh, you can find us at Skinner.fm, call our voicemail line at 206-336-2792, or email us text or mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm. Jessica May, these local talents and musical stylings, can be found at maytunes.com, and pull up the next artistic work, and general updates can be located at poponexfeathers.workrest.com. I happen to know that Jessica May recently posted up a cover of a arcade fire song that I quite enjoyed. So, you should go check that out. I'm in love. The entire run of Flashpump can be found at skinner.fm, or you can search for it in iTunes. And Flashcast is released under the Creative Commons, attribution, non-commercial, 2.5 license. Bye. It's on like Pokemon. Ooh, good one. [MUSIC]