Pre-Teen CSPAN
President Obama is attempting to implement new regulations to rein in derivatives?
– but then what will Ke$ha do with herself?
Zing!
Mr. Bruce Jaws The Third
In the same way that a good horror tale should only be read while alone in the dark, Jaws 3 should be legally restricted to only broadcast on remote cable channels on slow Sunday afternoons.
Crud – what if once ‘3D’ TV finally does start selling there’s a rush for content and we’re all stuck repeatedly watching the third Friday the 13th movie or Jaws 3(-D)?
If it makes the new Clash Of The Titans feel any better, these movies weren’t known for just being novelty films to satisfy a fad craving, they were also known for being terrible.
Also, the third dimension being terror may explain why the physics in Event Horizon were so buggered up.
Flash Pulp 006 – Mulligan Smith in The Trunk
Welcome to Flash Pulp episode six.
Tonight’s story: Mulligan Smith in The Trunk
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp006.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)
Tonight’s episode is brought to you by JustinBowes.com. How many friends does the ad copywriter have with dis-used domain names they’ve registered and forgotten about?
Let’s find out.
That’s JustinBowes.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.
To round off our week we have a tale a little longer than normal, a telling chapter in the checkered history of Mulligan Smith. In this evening’s episode, the P.I. finds himself explaining transportation safety.
Mulligan Smith in The Trunk, Part One of One
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
“I don’t ride in trunks.” Mulligan said, laying one foot up on the rear bumper.
“Going for a ride in a trunk isn’t like on TV. My Dad started on the force at the tail end of the mob days, and if he got a couple of wobbly pops into him one of the first stories he’d always come up with was how nasty it was to have to clean up after someone who’d gone for what he’d call “a drive in the boot”.
“I’ve only been shoved in a trunk once, and I only survived because the guy who did it was in too much of a rush to frisk me properly.
Mulligan took a sip of his slurpie, continued: “I’ve killed two people in my life, and he was the second.”
He zipped his hoodie.
“It was late fall, it had gotten dark but it was barely after supper. I was working a missing person’s case and I’d been asked to swing by the client’s place. Sweet people really, an aging Ma and Pa. The Dad actually reminded me a lot of Lloyd Bridges. Too bad about that guy, had a long career with a lot of diversity, but whenever I think of him all that comes to mind is: “Picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.” You know, from “Airplane!”.
“I’d knocked twice and my hand was getting cold holding open their metal screen door. I was actually thinking I was going to miss The Wheel Of Fortune when the wind died down for a second and I could hear shouting through the front door.
“I was worried Lloyd might be taking his stress out on Ma Bridges, so I overplayed my welcome and pushed on inside.
“As soon as I was through the front hall I could tell it wasn’t the man of the house shouting, the voice was too young and strong. All I knew for sure was that he had money on his mind.
“I edge into the kitchen, hands out, figuring I’ll play it like the ambassador of peace. Instantly the noise vapourises and everyone is staring at me like its breakfast and I’m a leprechaun that’s just burst out of their box of Lucky Charms.
“The three of them were standing around a shiny kitchen table – Mom, the lead actor from Sea Hunt, and a shaggy bushman who looks like he’s spent the last six months in the wilds of Alaska wrestling fresh salmon from the maws of grizzlies.
“I must have looked pretty surprised as well, the guy was holding a cleaver that looked like something out of a mid-’80s slasher movie. Long and hefty – the kind of thing they probably used in abattoirs around the turn of the century.
“Anyhow, the larger problem was that I’d found myself right beside the guy – from the hall it’d sounded like he was on the far side of the room but when I entered he was close enough that I could smell his beef jerky breath and see the grease in his ratty beard.
“I hope I said something witty before he hit me, but I don’t remember. The next thing I actually knew I was in the dark with a bad headache and blood in my eyes. At first I was pretty sure he’d hit me with the cleaver and it’d made me blind, but after a moment of pitiful moaning the smell of oil and dirt reached my nose and my fingers took the time to prod at the thing making my ribs ache, which I realized was the spare tire I was lying on. He must have whacked me with the cleaver handle and carried me out to the trunk before hightailing it.
“I started kicking – kicking above the wheel well, kicking the roof the trunk, doing my damnedest to put a hole through any piece of the bodywork. I was freaking out – if I’d been unconcious long enough, he would have already hit the outskirts of town, at which point I’d be totally pooched.
“What I really needed was a lot of people around, the more cops the better. The longer I listened though, the quieter it seemed. As time passed the trunk felt like it was shrinking, like there was less oxygen in the air to breath.
“I’d reached around for my cell phone and my pistol but came up empty.
“Like I mentioned earlier, my Dad had been a cop from the 1930’s till the early-80’s, and he carried the same .38 special the entire time. He’d only ever had to fire it on the range.
“When I got my license he passed it on to me. I think he hoped it’d bring me the same luck it’d brought him. The thing was tiny though. It’d have no problem killing a man, sure, but when I practiced with it at the range I got plenty of “nice lady’s gun” from hillbillies with nickel plated super-canons.
“I ain’t ashamed to admit that, once I’d reached down and felt the full ankle holster, I started crying.
“I held it like a choir boy at prayer.
“I remember the squeal of the brakes. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or an honest memory, but it felt like I was drowning in the smell of pine, as if I was pulling sap into my lungs every time I tried to take a breath.
“I can hear his Kodiak work boots dragging on the gravel, the jingle of his keys.
“He said something to me that I couldn’t make out through the trunk lid or over the sound of my stuttering heart. Then, suddenly, I could see a half inch of dark forest and dirt road.
“Wish I could say I was sprawled out like James Bond, ready to get the jump on the guy as soon as he opened the lid, but I never even gave him that chance.
“Pop, pop, pop – all six rounds through the trunk. I was able to sight my last shots a bit by aiming through the holes the first ones had made, but it wasn’t really a concern: the guy was a barn – there was no way I was going to miss him.
“The trunk spring finally pushes the hinge open and there’s Grizzly Adams looming over me, cleaver raised. Then he falls over and that’s that.
“I stood up. My ears were ringing but I hoped to be able to wave down some passing lights. Nothing. I search the car for a cell phone, mine or his, but nothing. The car is a mess: it’s got layers of McDonald’s wrappers, moldy home made jerky, odds and ends of rope, fishing tackle and knives of all sizes, with blades ranging from skinning to Rambo.
“I stood there for maybe two hours, it’s tough to know for sure when you’re in shock. Finally I pulled the keys from the trunk lock. I should have left him there for the police, but I was still frazzled, and all I could picture was this guy getting his face eaten off by passing raccoons while I was tramping the back roads trying to find some people or pavement.
“It took me another twenty minutes to get him packed away with the spare tire.
“In the end I called it in from a bell phone on the outside of a closed gas-n-go. My head was pretty clear by then, well, as clear as riding around with a body in your trunk will allow. I spoke to the cops first, then Lloyd – to let him know how his missing person’s case had been resolved, and to try to break the news about his son gentler than the police would’ve.”
Mulligan shrugged, his lips taking a tug at his slurpee, only to realize it had long gone empty.
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.
iPhone Alarm Ringing In My Ears
By the end of highschool I’d come to hate my bedside clock, or more specifically, the grating stab of the alarm. I moved to the radio function for a few years, but the truth is that I’m a half-awake manhandler and it takes very little effort for me to accidentally knock it over to the soothing white noise of dead air before rejoining li’l Nemo in Slumberland.
In recent times I use my iPhone, but the trouble is that I’m running out of pre-packaged ring tones. It takes me a week or two to get mad at pseudo-R2D2 or cartoon-xylophone, and I’m rapidly moving into novelty-comedy rings just to keep it fresh.
I should rip some John Hughes movie soundtracks – maybe then I could wake up with some Bueller-style vim. Or at least learn to start raging every time I hear Don’t You Forget About Me.
Flash Pulp 005 – The Neighbourly Farmers
Welcome to Flash Pulp episode five.
Tonight’s story: The Neighbourly Farmers[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp005.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)
Tonight’s episode is brought to you by codyskinner.com. Visit to see a guy’s resume, or watch the award winning documentary “A Day In The Life”.
That’s http://codyskinner.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.
Next week we will be presenting our first multi-part serial, introducing a new character to the Flash Pulp lineup, Thomas Blackhall. The stories of Blackhall, coloured in shades of Robert E. Howard and Sir H. Rider Haggard, will allow the show a more historical, and somewhat mystical, perspective.
As for this evening’s episode: it opens on two farmers, long time neighbours, ruminating on their lot in life from the saddles of their tractors.
The Neighbourly Farmers, Part One of One
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
It was the second day of Alfred and William’s thirty-first harvest as neighbours. Both hoped it would be their last – as they had for decades.
Their time was evenly divided.
Half was spent staring at the other, either in the eyes or in the back, droning along their rows of wheat. The other half was a blessed relief as their tractors carried them away to the furthest ends of their fields.
Unknown to either, they had each spent long hours prowling around the other’s home, shotgun in hand. In the end both men were too stubborn to surrender by being the one who pulled the final straw.
Without warning each man’s engine stalled.
At that same moment, in a small off-off-Broadway theater, the men’s ex-wives were holding hands and watching a terrible play. Despite the poor acting and pretentious script, they were smiling.
In the distance dogs and cows began to howl, in Alfred’s chicken coop his two dozen hens dropped dead.
Hay bails were tossed into the air and became grassy bombs as they shattered on the earth.
A flood of mice streamed out of the fields, abandoning their burrows in futile exodus.
This day, their last, both men would know the horror of Kar’Wick the Spider-God.
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.
Flash Notes
I’d that hoped Flash Pulp would actually be beginning its first multi-part serial this week but, unfortunately, a porn-addicted hillbilly got in the way.
(I wish I were joking.)
Still, I’m pleased that last night we managed to record two shows. We put a Mulligan story up last night, we’ll be releasing the next one shot tonight at about 4:00 pm (GMT – 4:00), to be followed tomorrow by a final episode for the week.
Flash Pulp 004 – Mulligan Smith and The Standoff
Welcome to Flash Pulp episode four.
Tonight’s story: Mulligan Smith and The Standoff[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/skinner/FlashPulp004.mp3](Click play to listen or subscribe via libsyn RSS or iTunes)
The delay, as well as Tonight’s episode, was and is brought to you by Maytunes.com. When you’ve got to throw out a porn addict hillbilly who’s been squatting in your friend’s apartment, it’s Maytunes.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.
This evening’s episode, originally scheduled to be broadcast on Monday, is another of the tales of Mulligan Smith. Tonight the PI finds himself in the darkest depths of suburbia, only to realize he isn’t alone.
Mulligan Smith and The Standoff, Part One of One
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
They both had guns drawn, and Mulligan knew it to be a bad scene.
Mulligan maintained a simple rule about firearms, and when the police asked he always had generally the same thing to say: “Never draw first if you can avoid it. Pull out a pistol and the other guy suddenly feels inadequate and wants one too. Hell – if he wants it bad enough, maybe he’ll try and take yours.”
Smith hadn’t had much choice however, as he’d stepped from the plush white carpet of the home office to the burgundy pile of the hallway, someone had loudly ratcheted a twelve gauge near the front door.
Since the announcement of intentions the white paneled house had fallen exam-room silent.
Mulligan knew that his unexpected caller, likely the pepper haired golfer who owned the home, was probably tip-toeing along the plush, dusty coral living room carpet. The PI was perched in the shadows at the edge of the hallway: a right would take him to the front door, the fake hardwood of the short front hall directly in the line of sight of the sunken living room. His other option was to move forward into the inky blackness ahead of him, where he knew the kitchen and dining area lay. The alternate route offered the conveniences of a patio door and an overlook into the living room.
A sprint to the sliding door tempted Mulligan, but the idea of silhouetting himself against the glow of the huge window kept him still. He was beginning to contemplate turning back into one of the alternate doors that branched off from the hallway – surely there was an overtly white bathroom with a window he might tumble out of – when a vase in the living room swooned, gave a hollow thud to mark the departure from its tabletop home and made a solid landing on the carpet.
Mulligan’s mind slid this new information around like a puzzle piece, attempting to fit it into his understanding of the scenario. He forced himself to conjur every bit of memory he could from the cursory glance of the living room he’d had before pressing on deeper into the house. There was a large standing lamp in the far corner of the room, a TV directly to his right, couches to his left, and, yes, a heavy pearl lamp with golden shade that would likely have made that exact thud. Its platform was a stout oak side-table, the kind of thing that would be quite handy as a stool if someone wanted to pull themselves up from the living room, over the railing, and into the dining area.
A large part of the problem with wandering, armed, around a strange house in the dark is that you don’t really have a lot of rights under the law, and Mulligan knew it. If he were to shoot the aging businessman, it would be a murder charge. If Eighteen-Hole McSwings took a shot at him, knocking him dead, the police would look at it as one less burglar, and nevermind that the old man drew first and that Mulligan had no interest in violence.
His eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, which he hoped meant that neither had his opponent’s. While still trying to peer into the murk that was the kitchen, his free hand traced loops along the wall, hoping to encounter something that might be of use.
His finger tips came across a large hanging photo, housed in a heavy silver frame.
Mulligan tucked away his pistol and rolled his shoulders in a quick stretch.
In a single smooth motion he removed the frame from the wall, tucked it into frisbee-position and let fly into the darkness. As the picture left his hand, his right foot followed, chasing it into the kitchen. His path diverged there however, as he turned right and flew down the double step that lead to the front hall, and escape.
Behind him, the frame briefly sailed on, catching a glint from the kitchen window to reveal the image of an aging couple, their adult children, and on their laps the third generation, all hanging in a moment in space.
Well before Mulligan had reached the door he heard the shotgun roar, and somewhere underneath, glass shattering.
Unable to feel any new gaping wounds in his body, his feet found fresh speed, his hands moved with surety in finding the deadbolt and knob.
“You… I shot my family!” chased him through the oak frame and down the cobblestone front path, his goal, a series of hotel receipts meticulously kept for tax reasons, tucked deep in one of his hoodie’s many pockets.
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.
Shirtless Hillbilly sells me everytime
This is actually the first web ad I’ve clicked on in years:
Hilariously even after clicking that ad I was still disappointed with how lame the shirts were.
Episode 004 will be up after business hours.
Flash Pulp Technical Difficulties
Episode 004 delayed until tomorrow; our sound engineer is helping a friend extremely in need.
Robots: The Great Capitalist Lie
Is the lead for this CNN article supposed to be pulling in people who’ve just stepped out of a viewing of Metropolis?
Are we really having to convince people that robots aren’t a figment of popular imagination like ghosts, aliens or bigfoot?
Maybe there are a group, like flat-Earthers or Moon landing nuts, of robot deniers who’ve carefully taken apart Short Circuit 1 & 2 frame by frame and can prove that robot technology simply isn’t possible.
(Side note: Did you know the constant cannibal-churn of Hollywood has brought us to the point where they’re actually in the process of re-making Short Circuit for 2011?)