Testing The Emergency Boocast System With The Eights
FP145 – Coffin: Drifter, Part 1 of 1
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and forty-five.
Tonight we present, Coffin: Drifter, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp145.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Ladies Pendragon.
Find out more about their Pendragon Variety Podcast at http://pendragonvariety.com/
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 find Will Coffin, urban shaman, and his associate, Bunny Davis, awaiting a disreputable delivery.
Flash Pulp 145 – Coffin: Drifter, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
On the previous evening, Coffin’s roommate had discovered a Western-movie marathon playing on a dusty cable station, and she’d nested in front of the television for a long vigil with her vodka bottle. Now, Bunny was eager to discuss her new found enthusiasm.
“John Wayne? I love John Wayne,” she reported.
“Sure,” replied Will, watching the street.
Except for the waiting pair, the Plexiglas bus stop, and the darkened street beyond, were empty.
“Bullets? #### you, I’m John Wayne. I mean, True Grit – Missing an eye? #### you, I’m John Wayne.”
“Uh huh,” said Coffin.
“Acting? #### you, I’m John Wayne,” she continued, while taking a sip of whisky.
“I heard he couldn’t properly ride a horse.” Will replied, frowning at her upturned flask.
Bunny wiped a trickle of escaped spirits from her chin.
“When’s this #### pusher going to get here?” she asked.
A friend had conveyed the tip to Coffin a few hours previous, and, despite the tardiness of its proof, he still felt confident in the lead.
“The old mute said our drifter would be getting off the seventy-three, and it hasn’t passed yet. It’s just running late.”
Bunny grunted. “Ever seen The Shootist? Now there’s a ####ing -”
She was cut short by the grinding lurch of a city bus rounding the corner.
The behemoth rolled to a stop, its doors fluttering open just long enough to eject a thin man in a heavy brown sweater, then it continued on down the road, eventually pulling to the left, and out of sight.
“You the guy wanting the stuff?” the lanky faced newcomer asked.
Coffin inspected the blackened rings under his eyes, the sloppy grin, and the constant flurry that were the man’s hands.
“You certainly look like the guy with the stuff,” he replied.
“Yeah, I’m Jimbo.”
Bunny thought, at first, that Will had suddenly placed a Twizzler in his mouth – she realized quickly, however, that it was actually an ornately carved length of red wooden tube.
Coffin made a sound familiar to any school-child who’d dabbled with spitballs.
Just below Jimbo’s jugular, a bright plume projected from a sharp metal base.
“Whoa! Where’d that ####in’ come from?” asked Bunny.
“The south Pacific,” Will replied. He tucked away his blowpipe and motioned for the man to follow him down the sidewalk. With the stumbling gait of a pedestrian not watching their footing, the newcomer trailed the conversing pair. “I don’t use it much. It leaves a mark, doesn’t work on everyone, and I’m down to seven darts. There used to be two dozen, but I’ve lost a few.”
“Lost?”
“Yeah, and when I do get them back, I’ve got to sterilize them, which is a pain to accomplish without messing up the tail feathers.”
Coffin paused briefly, depositing some loose change into a newspaper vending machine and extracting a hefty sheath of weekend listings. He directed his troupe onwards.
“What the ####, anyhow? What do you care about this ###-bucket?” his drunken companion inquired.
“Well, every now and then someone with a little too much information needs to make some quick cash, and they end up tossing some concoction into a friendly drug dealer’s supply chain. Most small-time occultists are dealing in love potions, because, just like everywhere else, sex sells. Mixing the two is referred to as “drifting”. Thing is, these aren’t hippies hocking ditch herbs anymore – science has come a long way, and something like, say, meth, layered with a supernatural compound intended to invoke passionate fixation, can be a problem.”
The streets were damp from an earlier shower, which had kept passers-by to a minimum, but, as they turned into a shortcut which lead over a closing Home Depot’s empty parking lot, a late shopper in business attire pushed his clattering load of paint across their path. Taking in Bunny with her flask, and the heavy-footed shuffle of the slack-faced Jimbo, the suit’s cart picked up speed.
Once the interloper was out of earshot, Coffin continued.
“It’s never the people who get a little pinch here and there that are the real issue, it’s the guy who’s got a supply and is wandering with it. This guy isn’t local, he’s probably come all the way up here from Texas, or New Mexico – this is just another stop on the greyhound for him.”
“What’s with the traveling?” asked Bunny.
“He’s got to sell to live, and, for a while, people adore him as the bringer of goods. Attention is inevitable; he charges a fair price to part with the powder of his affection, and people eventually run out of money – but they still want it. Like anyone caught up in a forbidden affair, they get crazy, and before long he’s not feeling so comfortable about sticking around, because, by then, he’s also deeply involved with his stash, and he’s willing to leave everything behind to keep it safe. You can get a Greyhound ticket for straight cash and no questions, so, on the bus they go, off to play king for a day in the next city, pulling from his own supply the whole time.”
Having reached a point of deep shadow at the edge of a strip-mall construction site, Will called a halt to the procession. He frisked the man, and, taped to the flesh beneath the brown sweater, he found a thick packet wrapped in the white plastic of a grocery bag.
Coffin extracted the illicit goods and tucked them amongst the bright advertisements he’d retrieved earlier in the walk, ripping at the edges of the accompanying business section. He doused the wrapping from a yellow bottle which he pulled from his pocket, then tossed the package, and the remainder of the lighter fluid, into a trash barrel.
He chased it all with a match.
When he was confident the evening’s rain wouldn’t hold back the flame, he again set out.
Jiggling her nearly empty liquor cache, Bunny asked when they were heading home.
“Shortly,” Will replied. “With the dosages their love usually drives them to, many die between cities, on the buses. Some outlive their supply and turn vagrant, but their mind is always gone by then, and they just mutter to themselves about their obsession until they’re rounded up or die of exposure. The best we can do is to send him into a twenty-four hour clinic to make a confession about his chemical habits, and, when they can’t help him in the usual manner, hope that they get him a good psychiatrist.
“Means I’ll be down another dart, though.”
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
An Early Reminder
As I usually make a last minute announcement, I wanted to float the reminder regarding Sunday’s FlashCast a little earlier this week.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, call our voicemail line at (206) 338-2792, or email us text or mp3s to skinner@skinner.fm.
As we’ve mentioned before, don’t be nervous about flubbing a call-in, Jessica May is a kind editor.
Scarily Classy (and Acting!)
You’ll have to excuse me if I go into weekend blogging mode a little early – I don’t mean to turn the site into some fourteen-year-olds tumblr full of animated Glee images, but check out this fantastic publicity still of Vincent Price and Peter Lorre’s wax head, from Tales Of Terror.
Last night Mac of BIOnighT was mentioning John Wayne’s dislike of Gene Hackman, which seemed, to me, to come out of that odd clash between classical and method actors that reached its peak in the ’60s and ’70s.
I have a lot of love for the personalities that arose out of the earlier style, and the realism that came with the later, but I have a theory that we’ve moved into a third phase – neo-classical.
Green screens, casting looks over talent, the tween market, and an aging Hollywood pantheon, have brought us back to where we began. At the risk of receiving a beating in my own home, let’s use Robert Pattinson as an example. He’s not a bad new-school actor, he’s a bad old-school actor: handsome, wooden, and without the charismatic personality to sell his roles.
(Yes, by this logic Vin Diesel is the new Errol Flynn. Dandy swashbucklers, sure, but let’s keep their dialogue to a minimum.)
Don’t fear, however, as this also means the new Orson Welles is somewhere in the wings, busily producing some under-appreciated bit of work we can all claim we discovered before anyone else.
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NMGsRmZTFQ]
Warning: NSFW language, if you can stand to watch the clip to its conclusion.
Communist Threat
Just one of those items that I hadn’t heard, and which I thought was worth mentioning:
Soviet documents released in 2003 reveal that, despite being a fan of Wayne’s movies, Joseph Stalin ordered Wayne’s assassination due to his strong anti-communist politics. Stalin died before the killing could be accomplished. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, reportedly told Wayne during a 1959 visit to the United States that he had personally rescinded the order. – wikipedia
What would the cult of John Wayne look like if it could truly be said that commies had shot Liberty Valance?
Shazam!
Hopefully you’ll barely notice, but we’ve moved!
(As indicated by the flashpulp.com listed in your address bar.)
Gentleman and raconteur, Jim, of the Relic Radio Network, was very kind in offering some of his server power to host our little dog & pony show, and, after some fussing with the clockwork monstrosity that underpins our operation, today is the day we’ve finally made the jump.
In theory all old links should work just fine, and the skinner.fm/flashpulp.com addresses should be interchangeable. There are some areas of issue: the audio player isn’t working in all instances, and youtube videos simply didn’t make it at all. We’ll have all the holes patched before long, but obviously posts related to episodes take priority over my wide-ranging collection of kitten videos.
The move allows us many new freedoms, including the likely return of items like Audioboo-ographies, and the ability to not show ads on posts unless we’re the ones profiting from them, so I’m pretty excited.
Enjoy the new digs – kick the tires, check out last night’s episode, and let us know what you think.
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9y4iXAso4I]
FP144 – The Glorious: Key, Part 1 of 1
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and forty-four.
Tonight we present, The Glorious: Key, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp144.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by the Ladies Pendragon.
Find out more about their Pendragon Variety Podcast at http://pendragonvariety.com/
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 come across an odd conversation at the edge of the Valhalla’s eternal warfare.
Flash Pulp 144 – The Glorious: Key, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
The stranger hadn’t noticed Leroy “Cutter” Jenkins belly-crawling through the rice paddy, and Cutter was nearly on top of him before the large man started out of the reverie he’d been engaged in while reclining against the dirt that held the shallow water.
Leroy felt some kinship for the man, as he was not unfamiliar with becoming lost in thought while staring into the unchanging blue sky that blanketed the daytime portion of the endless fight and feast cycle that was Valhalla. His opponent’s beard and moustache, made up of stringy patches, also brought old high school chums to mind.
The man fumbled for his weapon – an eighteenth century broadsword – then noted the grin on Jenkins’ face and sat down heavily.
“Hi. Name’s Moe – if you don’t shoot me, I’ll share some of the deer-flank that I saved from last night’s feast.”
“I could shoot you, then take it,” Cutter replied, making it an obvious joke by tucking away his rifle and taking a seat on the mud.
Moe smiled as he responded.
“Do it and I’ll be sure to bleed all over it before I go.”
It was fine meat, as always, and both men were soon speaking over greasy fingers.
“If you’ll excuse my saying so,” said Leroy, “you don’t have the face of someone who lived a life full of combat.”
“Oh – I was in the military, certainly, but I was a computer technician,” replied Moe. “I wasn’t bright enough to design systems or engineer missiles, but I could jockey a keyboard like no one else – but it is a lengthy story.”
Cutter waved towards the sounds of gunfire drifting to them from the east.
“I certainly don’t have anything better to do.”
Moe nodded, coughed, then began:
“The trouble in my country had begun when I was very young, and for much of my childhood I lived with my mother, overseas. When she came to a point where she could no longer stand to be away from the rest of her family, we moved back. Qalat was a poor area, but the things I’d learned brought attention, and I was soon ushered into our ragged army.”
He plucked at the hilt of his weapon, never lifting the blade from the muck.
“Much like this, our weapons were largely cast-offs, and acquired cheaply. Still, the world is eager to supply an angry hand, and our little tinpot eventually found his fist filled with missiles which could strike his enemies down from many miles away.
“Qalat was not a particularly nice place, as I mentioned, and there was a boy, whom we called Bulldog, who made my transition back a misery. His youth was spent punching anyone smaller than himself, and I was regularly the outlet for his frustrations. Oddly, however, once I’d been torn away from the familiar to conduct my military service, I found him to be one of the few whom I spoke with regularly – he had been assigned to the same command as myself, but, where I was a technician, he was one of what we referred to as “the doormen”, thugs who did not associate with the computer people.
“Although Bulldog and I continued to hate each other, our relationship changed. Often we would exchange quick snatches of gossip as we passed, items from home, or theories regarding future actions that the separate sections were not privy to. He would always end the talk with abuse, as if I needed reminding that I shouldn’t think him a friend. It was not cute in a comedic sort of way, it was simply mean.”
Moe licked his fingers, tossing away a stray bone.
“Before I died, we were on high alert, dealing with what seemed like an endless series of rebellions. It wasn’t the first time I’d been made to key in the commands necessary to prepare the array of missiles which lay at the far end of my computer network, but I had never actually fired one of the expensive death-dealers.
“That night I finally received an order to do just that – to flatten Qalat, no less.
“I couldn’t do it
“We’d always known the doormen weren’t on hand for our protection, but for rough encouragement, and when it was obvious I wasn’t carrying out the extensive typing that I ought to be, Bulldog approached.
“”It’s home,” I said in a whisper, trying not to raise the attention of the others.
“”So?” was his reply, and he followed it with a twisted lip which told me that whatever conversation we had exchanged was certainly not an excuse for friendship. He spoke loudly, and the situation became obvious to everyone seated in front of a glowing display, or standing at the entrance, rifle in hand.
“Bulldog was quickly ordered to inform me of my duty, and I informed him of what I thought of his obligations. He shouldered his rifle, removed a pistol from his belt, and held it against my head, saying it was my last warning.
“My response was not voluntary – it is a hard thing to allow a wasp to land on your forehead without reflexively swatting it away. With that act of defiance, I had no option but to continue on with my small rebellion, and I stood from my chair. Bulldog fired his sidearm once into the floor before I’d gotten hold of his hair, then I thrust his face into the sharp electrical mouth of my computer monitor, just as I was shot in the back. His smoking, jerking, dance, was my last earthly sight.”
There was a rare break in the constant din, as if the distant combatants wished to pay a moment of respect, which Moe punctuated with a throaty burp.
“I do not honestly know if I saved any lives in Qalat, but I do know that I’ve found myself here.”
Cutter nodded, and both men reclined, groaning at the satisfaction of their full bellies.
They were still staring into the cloudless sky as dusk began to fall.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
Future Slice
This is a quick grab from BoingBoing, but I defy anyone to look at this image and deny we live, at least partially, in the science fiction future which we were supposedly promised.
(Click the photo for the full size, it’s worth it.)
Cult Of Personality
Asherah’s connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.
“The inscription is a petition for a blessing,” she shares. “Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from ‘Yahweh and his Asherah.’ Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife.” – Discovery News
It’s always interesting to see these odd bits of history rise up from the dust.
I sometimes feel like humanity has left itself an array of sticky notes, hidden in books and behind pictures, and then forgotten about them; or, with items like this, the glue has gone dry, and the thing has fallen down to lay beneath a La-Z-Boy that rarely gets moved while vacuuming.
Anyhow, I mention it because my guess is that these aren’t so much massive theological discoveries, as they are the remnants of early fanboys. This, to me, reeks of a situation you’ll find common in the depths of geek-havens: “Buffy/Asherah is so strong and beautiful, but Superman/Yahweh is wicked powerful. If only we could bring the two together somehow!”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjp0I_okX0w]
When a fanfic like that catches on, you might find entire (web/archeological) sites dedicated to it, and both the clergy, and the trufans, tend to have the same reaction – “Sacrilege!”
Flash Pulp 143 – The Murder Plague: Community, Part 3 of 3
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and forty-three.
Tonight we present, The Murder Plague: Community, Part 3 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp143.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Ladies Pendragon.
Find out more about their Pendragon Variety Podcast at http://pendragonvariety.com/
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, Harm Carter finds himself suddenly in a trust-building exercise, while attempting to avoid the homicidal urges of Hitchcock’s Disease.
Flash Pulp 143 – The Murder Plague: Community, Part 3 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
I drove the Escalade north, skirting the city, and pulled to a stop at Grant’s overlook. The spot was poorly maintained at the best of times, and park services had obviously been abandoned early in the ongoing cataclysm. The open, cracked, cement wore a crown of tall-grass, and the picnic table, along with its adjoining trash barrel, stood as lonely islands amongst the growth.
Jeremy, the first out, was eager to exit the vehicle and hunker down on the peeling bench. Alyssa, the blond woman, who I’d originally thought was Minnie’s mother, was the last to leave. She seemed to be lost in thought while scrutinizing my face, and it was only once she realized the teen-aged girl was already on the pavement that she also slid across the leather seats and dropped her slender legs to the ground.
I must admit, there was a temptation to simply roll up my window, wave a merry goodbye, and depart the area. We’d gotten this far without anyone making an effort to impale another with some makeshift weapon, and I was hesitant to risk breaking the streak.
Still, I let the engine die, then tucked the keys into my pocket. The doctor had attached a thin Swiss Army Knife to the chain, and I fumbled with it while I strolled to the group. I wasn’t eager to see if its tiny blade, and quite a bit of gumption, would be enough to overcome the strangers I’d found myself surrounded by.
We conducted a second round of introductions, more formally this time, then spent a moment in silence, watching the east end of the city as it was eaten by fire. I couldn’t process that the distant smoke was the cast off of the flame below – it felt as if I was watching my existence drifting high into the blue, where it was blown away in stringy-wisps.
It was Johanna who broke the silence, with a “Jeepers.”
I hadn’t had much opportunity to talk to the old girl at that point, and I didn’t know what to make of her floral print dress and utilitarian haircut. I hadn’t learned of her hidden flask yet.
“Well, we have a ride, just like you wanted,” Jeremy said, turning to Tyrone.
I wasn’t sure if it was a threat, or an assumption.
The codger harrumphed.
“You’ve been wanting to take a drive to this forgotten make-out spot?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the odd pairing.
“What? No I mean -” It was Minnie, the teenager, who cut Jeremy short.
“Can we get a lift?” The girl used her interjection into the conversation as an excuse to get away from the slathering hugs that Alyssa had made repeated attempts to wrap her in.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could say no – to buy time, I mentioned that it didn’t strike me as likely that any specific corner of the apocalypse would be less exciting than the others.
“We want to head to the army roadblock at the state line,” she replied.
Now, you have to understand that the concept of a military blockade held a lot of implications in my mind. I’d spent no few hours walking the perimeters of such outposts, often while the starving folks I was on hand to protect moaned at the gate. As I stared down at the angry red patch creeping over the city, though, I was nothing but welcoming to the news that somewhere the old uniforms still held some starch.
Before I had a chance to grow misty-eyed with patriotism, Alyssa broke in.
She’d positioned herself by the now open trunk, and I couldn’t see what she might be holding in her fist.
“I don’t think we should go with him,” she spat, attempting to lock her free-hand’s fingers around Minnie’s elbow. “He just wants to take her away from us!”
Her traveling companions exchanged a glance that told me they’d come to the same conclusion that I had – the high tone she was using brought to mind the sort of squeaking self-assurance that a child gets when they think they’re in command of information unknown to anyone else.
Alyssa caught the pity in her friends’ eyes.
That’s when she beaned me with my own can of StarKist tuna.
It hurt, certainly, but I was glad that the puck-like container was what she’d come up with, and not, say, a handgun.
As I cradled my bleeding temple, Alyssa snatched up a a bottle of Ragu, raised it in a two-fisted grip, and rushed me.
It was Minnie who tripped her.
We had no rope, but the doc had left a varied collection of cellphone chargers in his glove compartment, and, as Jeremy and I used their retractable chords to create restraints, the others held her in place.
It was while watching her shrink in my rear-view mirror, writhing and screaming atop the picnic table, that I realized I was stuck with them: not because I liked them, but because I needed people around me willing to do the same if, and when, I too went over the edge.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.