Total Recall: The Musical
I’m grabbing this from BoingBoing, so you may have seen it, but the fact that someone took the time makes me quite pleased on this busy Thursday:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej3Szj6WcCY]
Flash Pulp 014 – Mulligan Smith and The Retired Man
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Fourteen.
Tonight’s story: Mulligan Smith and The Retired Man
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp014.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)
This evening’s episode is brought to you by VintageHorror.com
Like Horror? Sure, we all do – but modern horror contains up to 75% more iso-Roth-inol than equivalent horror did even a decade ago. It’s well known that iso-Roth-inol is a dangerous neurotoxin that may lead to health risks such as watching Hostel, but what are we to do?
Fortunately, as a free medical service VintageHorror.com provides horrific video, audio and stories – visit today!
That’s VintageHorror.com
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – 400 to 600 words brought to you Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
In this episode, we present another tale of Mulligan Smith. Tonight, the PI searches for a certain Mr. Johnson, at a busy eatery.
Mulligan Smith and The Retired Man – Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
It was a public place, but a private booth. The old man had visited this McDonald’s every day for nearly three years. His heart was bad, so he rarely ate any of the grease that came over the counter, but he’d mostly acclimatised himself to the coffee, and he enjoyed the occasional muffin.
Well – in truth he hated the cheap food, the cheap coffee and the cheap seating, but in the mornings it was relatively quiet and he missed being around people.
The newspaper lay dead on the table, split open and abandoned, a few rogue caffeine drops causing inky blots amongst the paragraphs.
The day’s news had been forgotten when the lanky man in the black hoodie dropped himself onto the booth’s opposite bench, interrupting the old man’s two-sugar-two-milk dessert.
“Mr Johnson?” the interloper said, unzipping his sweater.
“Who are you?” Johnson replied, giving his thick gray moustache a quick rub to shake loose any bran crumbs that might remain.
“It’s funny, if you ask enough people if they are who they are, you start to notice patterns. People only respond with a question of their own if they are in fact the party being inquired about – so – it’s nice to meet you Mr. Johnson, my name is Mulligan Smith.”
“Mulligan?” The old man panned his eyes around the room while he talked. “Is that your actual name? Isn’t a mulligan a do-over in golf?”
“My Dad’s name was John Smith, and he hated the generic sound of it. He also happened to love the PGA tour.”
“I see, I see.” The old man’s search came up empty, and he sank into the vinyl cushion. “How can I help you?”
“Well, first you can stop looking for a guy to hit me with a wrench. Most of the folks look like they’re in here just trying to grab Saturday breakfast, not to watch a man being beaten bloody. Second – I thought you were supposed to be a clean man since your stroke?”
The old man coughed.
“Yes… well, I’ve heard many stories of the man I was supposed to be before my episode – usually from people who drop in on me unexpectedly, without invitation, and without the best of intentions.”
“Ahh, well, there’s where you’ve got me wrong. It’s my job to show up unexpectedly and without invitation, but I never have anything but the best of intentions.” Mulligan reached into his sweater, pulled a thick envelope from an interior pocket.
“Just what is your job?”
“Private investigator mostly, although at the moment I’m moonlighting as a pediatrician.”
He slid the package across the table.
“Congratulations! It’s a boy! Hope you can remember the number for a decent lawyer.”
“What?”
Mulligan stood, re-zipping his hoodie.
“Your memory of the last couple of decades may be shot, but there’s a lady in Miami named Candy Millions who sure recalls your time together.”
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.
Dead TIME Quotes
Just a couple of random quotes from one of the more interesting TIME pieces (article might be stretching it) I’ve read lately.
The theft of Santa’s bones is still celebrated in Bari with an annual parade and fireworks.
Forty-three years later, Mussolini’s granddaughter Alessandro tipped off police that someone was selling glass vials alleged to hold the remaining brains and blood of Mussolini on eBay for 15,000 Euros. eBay promptly removed the listing.
People have been fixated on Napoleon’s penis … [it] has been compared over the years to a piece of leather, a shriveled eel and to beef jerky.
Damp Yahoo Answers
Some days Yahoo! Answers provides the best comedy on the internet.
CNN Thunderdome
Given the weight differences, unless the Bikes build a Kirk-style Gorn cannon I’m fairly sure it’s mostly all Cars.
Flash Pulp 013 – Say It Ain't So, Part 1 of 1
Welcome to Flash Pulp, Episode Thirteen.
Tonight’s story: Say It Ain’t So
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp013.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)
This evening’s episode, and every episode of Flash Pulp, is partially inspired by Marvelous Bob.
Google it.
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – 400 to 600 words brought to you Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Tonight we present a tale of science fiction, originally published on 365Tomorrows.com. It’s a story of high level corporate maneuvering in a not so terribly distant future, a story which opens with a simple question of identity.
Say It Ain’t So – Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
“So, are ya?” He’s maybe twelve, wearing blue shorts and a Mexico City Raptors t-shirt, a leg up on the wrought iron patio fence. My lobster is getting cold.
“What?” I ask.
I realize he’s holding up a thin rectangle the size of a credit card, alternating his squints to get the thing’s picture to match my face.
“CEO Benjamin “Crush ‘Em” Hinton?”
I remember signing off on licensing my likeness to FlatMedia last May, but I hadn’t seen the cards in the wild.
I ignore him.
That might have been the end of it, but a serving girl swings by my table.
“Your bill, Mr. Hin – Ben.” She says, smiling uncomfortably.
That’s what I get for flirting with the wait staff.
“It IS you! Could ya sign my card?”
He thrusts a red stylus and the card at me. I accept, mostly just interested in checking out the cheap display on the back. There’s a rundown of my resume; schooling, management experience, time spent on corporate boards.
I tap on New Youth Limited. Not much my rookie year, but the second I was apparently one of “The Resurrection Seven”, a voting bloc that saved N.Y.L. by moving from chemical processes to genetic engineering. I remember the vote, but I don’t recall anyone using the snazzy nickname.
Sliding through the listings, I notice some of them have been marked up in a child’s block script, often with arrows pointing to individual entries, things like: “Bob may have had seniority, but not the votes!”
“Anywhere?” I ask.
“Sure!” He says with a sloppy grin.
I tap the pen icon.
“Is it true that you punched Director Jules Wilson?”
“Heh, yeah. I mean, Wilson always came in drunk, but he messed up my presentation of that quarter’s preliminary financials – by the time he started pawing at Kathy Reed, I was just looking for an excuse.”
I look up, wondering if I’ve said too much for a kid his age, but he seems to be eating it up with moon eyes.
“You ever gonna work somewhere huge like Kalstock again?” he asks, face imploring. I give a quick scribble with the stylus and hand him back his card.
“Maybe.”
His saucer eyes begin to droop.
“Hey,” I quickly add, “I mean, there’s talk that Kalstock may revisit their policy and have me back for another term, but it’s hush hush.”
He brightens. I imagine him lording the harmless secret over his friends for a week.
“Tedward says you got lucky with the Talibi Merger because CEO Norma Donald was kicked by Talibi’s oversight expert system. I think he’s a craphead. You’re so smart you must have done something.”
I smile, mentally re-living my best maneuvers.
“I bought shares in a number of Talibi subsidiaries using various fake names and then put out a lot of crosstalk showing a lack of stockholder confidence. The system got nervous. I paid good money to insert low numbers into that week’s financial reports, and the system went to red alert. Things would have been fixed as soon as they saw the next round of numbers, but I used the whistleblower hotline to point out a lie on Norma’s resume involving her university rowing team. With so much bad happening so suddenly, the computer thought the world was ending and booted Norma – the only one who understood Kalstock’s real intentions.”
The kid’s smiling the whole time I’m talking, but as I finish he turns and waves to someone. That’s when I see the New Youth product watermark on the back of his neck.
Without looking at me he says:
“Mr. Hinton – Carl Nochek, special agent for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Benjamin Hinton, it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest.”
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.
Frank Frazetta
Poop, Frank Frazetta died. Teenage-me certainly sheds an internal tear.
Serpent by Frank Frazetta; cover to
Ardor on Argos by Andrew Offutt (1973).
The Death and Rebirth Of MTV
I’m tight for time today, but I wanted to throw a quick thought out:
The lack of music videos on modern MTV is the stuff of legend, or at least second-rate stand up comedians. While they took a lot of flak for it at the time, I think what we unknowingly witnessed was a media transition that many industries – I’m looking at you especially, Print Journalism/Cartooning/Real Estate – need to consider in the age of the internet.
My guess is that it was increasingly tough to turn an advertising dime in the mid-to-late ’90s due to the plummeting ratings brought on by the ever-cheapening VCR, and teen proficiency with the record button. Today, between band DVD releases and youtube, pressing on with a straight video platform would be suicidal.
I’m certainly not suggesting that journalists should start following around spoiled teens or that real estate agents should start creating ‘cribs’ styled videos for their clients, but I think it says something that, while it brought on quite a bit of criticism at the time, MTV looked to their core (e.g. Brand T(w)een) and pivoted to catch the wind – instead of panicking, throwing up their hands, and blaming everything on the internet.
Vincent Price's Menu
For my birthday a few years ago the lovely Jessica May ebayed me a copy of A Treasury Of Recipes by Vincent and Mary Price. It’s been one of the prides of my book shelf since, and occasionally we try out a recipe.
I recently mentioned it to some folks, who, understandably, immediately began referencing ‘eye of newt’ as a key ingredient – really though it’s a fascinating book, and an interesting bit of culinary archeology. I believe it was written near the end of Mary and Vincent’s relationship, and its easy to imagine their storied history spread across the international menus within.
Amboo – A Sunday Minute With Our Ancient Boxer
[audio:http://audioboo.fm/boos/126012-amboo-a-sunday-minute-with-our-ancient-boxer.mp3]Download