In no way to honour my birthday, I thought I’d introduce a new feature to the site: Simple Answers To CNN’s Stupid Questions. All of these are found on today’s CNN front page.
Up front, the sport section hits us with a hat-trick:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoPWALM2riQ]
Yes.
– with bats!
Thank you, good night!
This is no fortune, this is just an awkward ’70s come-on line.
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Eighty-Seven.
Tonight we present Bonecruncher, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp087.mp3]
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Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight we present the short terror tale of Teddy Watkins, and his most pressing fear.
Flash Pulp 087 – Bonecruncher, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
In 1924, at the age of eight, Teddy Watkins began to wake in the night, weeping and telling tales of a monster he referred to only as Bonecruncher.
His mother, a harried but loving woman, assumed it was a passing phase, something put into his head by one of his five older brothers, and told him so at length. Their apartment was small, and his father spent his evenings working molten metal at the Pribax foundry, so it was up to her to settle his night troubles.
Teddy shared a bed with three of his brothers, and Mrs. Watkins began to note that his terrors most often came when the young boy was forced to take up a more middling position in the bed, caught between the crushing shoulders of his larger siblings.
By the time he was eleven she’d grown short with his notions and regular cries of “Bonecruncher”, and began to enact the family punishment for misbehaviour. Teddy would often then spend hours shut up amongst the pressing and musty clothes of the front closet, tearily entreating his mother to let him out lest the monster find him in the dark and squeeze the life from his body.
At the age of thirteen he made his first escape attempt. He found the streets cold and the open sky exhilarating. He ran for two days, until he was picked up by two well-meaning police officers who suspected him of truancy.
With tears in her eyes Mrs. Watkins told the judge of her distress. She explained that she’d done what she could for the boy, but that she had a half-dozen other children to tend to, and could no longer stand the strain.
The man on the bench found it difficult to believe the stories regarding the round-faced lad, at least until the bailiff attempted to place cuffs on Teddy so that he might be moved to a nearby holding cell. The youth’s screams brought the court to a halt, and his flailing kicks left the uniformed man with a broken nose.
It was twenty long years of straitjacketed terror for Teddy then, as he was shuffled from cell to asylum, and from psychologist to psychiatrist.
His horrors finally ceased on a clouded night at the State Hospital. The night shift had only recently begun work, but they were already once again growing tired of Teddy’s shouts of “Bonecruncher! Bonecruncher!”
“He’s playing your song,” Mitch O’Donnell, the orderly in charge, told his massive friend and underling, Casper Johnson.
Teddy, now a man, had become something of a celebrity amongst the denizens of his ward – for the kindness he would show during the few occasions he was allowed to roam the grounds, and for the constant and wearing screaming he would let loose once he was returned to his bonds.
The pair of orderlies were walking the floor when they realized that the familiar backdrop of shrieking had ceased.
They ran to Watkins’ cell.
Despite his lack of freedom, Teddy’s muscles had grown taut and knotty during his constant struggles against his restraints, and his persistence had won him a temporary victory.
Throwing back the door of his room, the two men in white found the lanky man sitting on the edge of his bed, his straitjacket puddled at his feet, humming and smiling to the dark. His look of content was short lived, however. As he realized what the intrusion meant, he once again took up his wailing. He stretched to his full height, bowling over Mitch, and nearly made it to the door before being scooped up in Casper’s thick arms.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” the giant shouted at the thrashing form in his arms. Teddy only redoubled his efforts, and panic soon took hold of both the combatants.
It was only once Mitch had pulled himself from the floor and shook his friend’s shoulder that Johnson realized Teddy had ceased his screams of “Bonecruncher”, and that it was in fact O’Donnell who was now screeching the name.
They’d worked together twelve years, and Mitch had long since jokingly replaced towering Casper’s older nickname of “Troll” with the constant refrain of their persistent burden.
His face white, the large man set the now lifeless body upon the room’s cot.
Its arms sprawled wide as it reclined.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Eighty-Six.
Tonight we present Sgt Smith and The Dish, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp086.mp3]
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Flash Pulp on iTunes.
Play them all backwards and discover the truth behind the death of Paul McCartney!
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Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Sgt Smith finds himself nervously attending a social.
Flash Pulp 086 – Sgt Smith and The Dish, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Mulligan,
Whenever I had reason to be nervous about my day, your Mom, probably because of her Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing, always had the same solution: pie. There’d always be a slice on hand, often blueberry, my favourite, and she’d eat with me in the stillness of the morning as we sipped our tea and pretended like nothing was wrong.
I remember having to take particular care at that breakfast, as I was wearing my Sunday best. It was the only decent set of clothes I had at the time, beyond my uniform.
Then, when I was done, she straightened my attire and told me to watch my tongue.
She was a kidder, that one. I know what she meant though – your touch for subtlety didn’t come from my side of the family.
Anyhow, it was 1956 and, after our morning ritual, I had to leave for a date. It wasn’t long before the sun was burning my prematurely balding pate and I was fussing with my tie in the noonday heat. Around me, the picnic area was awash in color. Balloons had been fixed with ribbons to the edges of all the tables; green, red and yellow streamers hung from the tree branches; and the loud dresses and Hawaiian shirts were out in full Saturday-in-the-suburbs force.
I don’t think they would have set me up with the date if they thought I was actually going to meet her, but they were stretched pretty thin which is probably why they sent a mute to a social event.
Two card tables had been hauled onto the grass, and pushed together to create a buffet area. As folks came strolling in, they’d drop off a little something for the smorgasbord, then wander into the surrounding knots of familiar faces.
It was a beautiful day, but when I think of it, I can’t help thinking about the flies – I don’t know what it was with that neighbourhood, but it seemed to be swarming with those buzzing aggravations.
I was standing at the edge of the crowd, trying not to look too interested in the red-faced old guy who’d been highballing since I’d sidled in – his drinks had gotten him into berating two hand-holding teenagers – when Beatrix arrived.
She stepped from the car, her legs extending from her well-cut baby blue dress like an invitation to sin. As she collected up her goods, the mother of one of the teens stepped up to the tipsy codger in an attempt to explain that the young couple were promised to be married. All eyes were discreetly on them, and not the blond, her hair piled high, who moved confidently from her car to the food table to lay out her covered bakeware.
She was as much a stranger to the party as I was. When we were alone together later, she told me she’d driven all morning just to be there.
As the family drama played out to my left, my eyes stayed on the veiled dish – at least, until a tall woman, her hair held back by a hankie, approached me to chat. I doubt her intentions were anything more than getting a better view of the burgeoning tussle between drunken galoot and defensive housewife, as she seemed little interested in the fact that my lack of a tongue made it impossible for me to maintain my end of the gossipy conversation she eagerly began to recite, stopping only to sip at her wine glass. I don’t recall anything of what she said, I mostly just remember the rock of tension growing in my belly, and the tickle of the occasional fly trying to seek shade under my shirt collar.
Your mother would have known how to better handle the situation; she was always the social one.
I watched the blond set down her bakeware and pull back the simple dishtowel she’d been using as a cover.
I tried to move then, but I think the gossiping woman thought I was coming in close for an especially tantalizing bit of information – she grabbed my arm to steady herself.
Two kids, I swear both of them wearing full boyscout uniforms, stepped up to the table for some grub.
The baby-blue dress stood back, her eyes bright, and I tried again to make my way around the handerchiefed woman- but she was caught up in her own story, laughing by then, and I couldn’t shake her off.
I hadn’t been at the last party to observe the aftermath, but I’d seen the photos: the blood filled vomit, the trashed cutlery spread across the lawn by the fleeing crowd, the weeping children, the glassy eyed stare of Martin Nikolaus, dead but still wearing a child’s coned party hat.
I pushed her.
All eyes moved from those gathered around the teens, to me.
I jumped over the prone woman, and a fella in a tweed jacket stepped into my path.
“Hey now,” he said, grabbing, and ripping, my white Sunday-shirt.
I couldn’t take the delay, so I pushed him over too.
My objective, still holding her dishtowel, had an epiphany regarding my intentions.
She started running.
I may have been the last resort, the bottom of the barrel only out there because we had two hundred miles worth of suburban get-togethers to cover, but there had already been three unfortunates done in by Beatrix’s Drano Casserole, and I wasn’t going to be remembered as the guy who didn’t move fast enough to save the ranks of Scout Troop 97.
On my way by, I upended the table, sending Jello and deviled eggs out over the lawn.
She’d parked across the street, and I was lucky that a dinged Ford truck had pulled up too close behind her. While she was trying to reverse out, she bumped its fender, then, panicking, she miscalculated the distance to the red Buick in front of her and slammed into it with the full force of her chugging engine.
I dragged her from the car then; blood was running down her mouth from the nose she’d broken rebounding off her steering wheel.
By the looks I was getting from the crowd, you’d of thought I was the monster. I’d likely have taken a terrible beating from the tweed jacket who was briskly approaching to defend his manhood, but by then I had my badge out. I was going to sign for someone to call the police, but I could see half-a-dozen party goers already streaking home to set the phone lines ablaze.
Beatrix Johnson – Killer Bea; she never spent a day in prison.
We didn’t have lady serial killers back then, we just had “troubled women”, so she landed in a sanitarium. Still – an asylum then makes prison now look like a resort and spa.
It was probably just as much a relief for me, as it was for her, the day they found her hanging by her bed-sheet.
I still haven’t had any casserole in over half a century though – I’ll stick to pie.
Dad
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm. The audio and text formats of Flash Pulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
The new idea: Sheen Squad – a reality television show that follows the exploits of the unit of elite Los Angeles police officers tasked with cleaning up in the wake of the walking crime-wave that is Charlie Sheen.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
does not have the same ring as:
Forget it, Jake. It’s Scotlandtown.
– and definitely not the same as:
Forget it, Jake. It’s the end of town where all the foreign folks live.
Still, I could see a movie being made around:
Forget it, Jake. It’s Jonestown.
A few years ago, Jessica, my brother Codos, and I, were Christmas shopping in an HMV, when we encountered something I have never forgotten.
A woman entered the store from the mall beyond, a bundle in her arms which she held with some care. As she moved to speak with a friend who’d already been browsing the albums, the angle changed and I could see what she was cradling.
It looked like a child, a boy of maybe five, but his skin was a shade I’m hard-pressed to describe. Pea-soup green maybe, or the colour of lush but rotting jungle foliage, and with an aspect as if a portion of skin might peel away and fall to the floor at any moment; not in the sense of a dollop of costume make up, but in that of an advanced leper.
The most unsettling part were the boy’s eyes, lolling as his mother turned about the store, bright against his Lovecraft-ian face.
I certainly do not mean to offend, I have no idea what condition the child might have been suffering from, but it’s a hard image to shake: the tender affections of the woman as she cradled a boy who looked like he may have been dead a week.
So far this week we’ve posted up two stories, Ruby Departed: Shuffle, Part 1 of 1, for last Friday, and Time and Again, Part 1 of 1, for Monday’s episode. Tomorrow we post two more: a tale of Sgt. Smith, and a story of creeping terror in honour of this weekend.
Stay tuned!
2029: The first wave of Emo nostalgia hits, likely sparked
Like many, I have a long-time fascination with the music from the 1960s Spider-man cartoon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tmMn6wFmt8]
While on the prowl for a source at which I might obtain the swinging soundtrack for my own personal use, I came across this post from WFMU’s Beware Of the Blog.
While it does answer some of my questions, it also brought some interesting details to my attention:
Toronto had a large pool of actors in the nineteen fifties that were nourished by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, one of only two major players in Canadian television, and the only major player in Canadian radio drama. This pool came in very handy when voice acting needed to be employed by American producers looking to cut costs. Rankin-Bass was the first American outfit to exploit the Canadian acting community, at a time when its soon-to-be-prolific animation outfit was still nothing in America. The now legendary 1964 stop motion animation special Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer employed an enmormous stable of Canadian voice actors that all went on to provide voices on Spider-man (What? You didn’t know Burl Ives played Doc Oc!?). Hemrie the Misfit Elf was done by Paul Soles, the future Spider-man and Peter Parker himself. Billie Richards, Rudolph, often played Paperboys or other anonymous children in the show. Paul Kligman who played both Donner the Reindeer and the Reindeer Coach in the classic holiday special became the cantankerous J. Jonah Jameson.
Interesting, but unmentioned in the WFMU post, is that one of the co-writers of the famous Spider-man theme song was actually Paul Francis Webster, Best Song Academy Award winner for Best Original Song, and sixteen-time nominee.
That is to say, one of the fellows involved in writing the Spider-man theme also wrote:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XClu_oqkE]
(Try and cover that, the Ramones!)