Things to chew on for a while…

As I have been lazily working my way through the process of producing a podcast, I have been listening to a lot of on-line shows to get an idea of how exactly one produces something “Good.” So, while I’m running around doing other more pressing things (like making actual currency), and being a generally lazy ass when it comes to writing things for this blog (again… that damnable currency), I thought I’d leave you with two of the better podcasts I listen to, to occupy you in the meantime.

The Bugle (Audio Newspaper for a Visual World):

I can’t imagine that many of my readers have never heard of “The Daily Show,” but I can easily imagine that most of you haven’t had enough interest in John Oliver to seek out the British podcast he hosts with Andy Zaltzman. And may I just say, shame on you readers for ignoring this prodigious source of “funny.” If you enjoy the smart, savvy, well-executed political satire of “The Daily Show,” I think you’ll really enjoy listening to this podcast. Very few things in this world are funny, and very few things are good. To listen to something that is both funny and good is extremely rare and refreshing.

If you have a horrible mental image of podcasts as being the awful result of what happens when delusional fifty-five year old men get access to a microphone and the internet, then this podcast will restore your faith in not only podcasts but the Internet as a whole. Really, I have no reason to lie to you, so please, take my advice and listen.

Answer Me This:

I came across this podcast while looking at the Wikipedia entry for Andy Zaltzman, trying to figure out where I could find more of his content. I found this research to be worth while, because Andy Zaltzman is exactly like Carrot Top in the best sense that he is nothing like Carrot Top. For those of us who don’t fall over laughing at prop comics, Zaltzman is a sophisticated and refreshing recourse.

When I discovered that unless I moved to Britain, actually kicked down the door on Andy Zaltzman’s house and forced him to perform for me that I was never going to see his stand-up routine, I took a chance when I saw on his Wikipedia page that he had a podcasting sister named Helen. A quick search for “Helen Zaltzman Podcast” yielded the home page for “Answer me This.”

In this podcast, listeners write in questions to the hosts, who then, in comic fashion, answer them on air. While I won’t claim this is the same kind of humor as on “The Bugle” I will say that it is funny, and that if you like to learn something when you laugh that it’s well worth your download. Again, it’s not as though I know any of these people, so please take my word for it. I hate seeing good people make good things not have as big an audience as they deserve.

And while I’m at it…

If any of you dilly-dallying, rapacious, roustabouts have not yet read John Hodgman’s book “The Areas of My Expertise” let me be the first to drop all pretense of intelligent humor and wish a pox upon you. While I can abide stupidity, I cannot abide willful ignorance. If you have not yet supped upon the pages of this divine compendium of “Complete World Knowledge” I will have one of my Bukor sorcerers unleash an army Zombie’s to first kill all you love, then corner you in some kind of compound (or subterranean dwelling) and then I will watch as you emerge weeks later from aforementioned dwelling (driven by supply shortages no doubt) in some kind of hastily improvised armored vehicle.. hmm….

A World in Which You Did Not Read “The Areas of My Expertise”

Vanessa shrieks as the bodies of the undead slam into the side of the van. The walking cadavers strike the metal reinforcements with a sound like a bowling ball thrown down too hard on the lane. Before I even think I reach out, grab her firmly around the upper arm, and pull her away from the window. Her skin is clammy against mine. “Stay in the center!” I holler, reminding all the others. The shout momentarily causes black flicks to enter at the peripherals of my vision. I haven’t eaten anything at all in three days. Nothing decent in weeks. If it hadn’t been for the hunger, we’d still be holed up in Abigail Freemantle’s mansion estate.

Holy Joe Jeffreys is behind the wheel, and as I watch his thick black arms turn the steering wheel this way and that, I think, just for a moment, that there is hope. That he can get us out. I had met Joe on the run to the Freemantle estate, and I knew right away that he’d be a handy man to have around. I hoped I’d go before he did. I didn’t want to watch him die. Even as I think this bodies begin to pile under the car, intermittently lifting us up from the pavement. It won’t be long now.

I turn to the right. Ms. Freemantle is sheltering Vanessa’s weeping figure in the hollow of one withered arm. The night before Vanessa had come into my room with a hunger in her eyes not unlike the hunger of the undead. An endless hunger that consumed all else. We had made love for two passion-filled hours with the wild abandon of people who know that their moments are running out. I want to tell her I love her, but even now I can’t. The image of my dead wife is still too strong in my mind. In the last few moments… yes… in the last few moments I will be able to say it. I hope.

The motor of the old van no longer hums. It roars. Joe is giving the all gas he has. We are tearing through them like a bullet shot out of a gun… but a bullet shot into water. Viscosity. We’ll slow down soon enough. And then the zombies will open us like a can of tuna. Just add mayo. Bon appetit. Depressed, I take a seat on the other side of Vanessa, throw my arm around her, and weep quietly on her shoulder, biting my lip to stifle my moans.

Joe is screaming in victory even as we slow down. Even as the armored van begins to turn over on it’s side. As my body tumbles to the side, I watch Joe die. Lucky Joe. He won’t have to suffer the Zombies bites. Joe’s head hits the ceiling of the van as we tip, and he moves no more. Even as I weep in terror, some distant, floating part of me cannot help but feel jealousy. Lucky, lucky Joe.

The ripping comes only moments later. My middle-class upbringing, liberal education, and office job had not prepared me to do welding work. The Zombies tear off the added steel plates like tissue paper. “Why?” Vanessa whimpers. “Why wouldn’t you read it?”

Mrs. Freemantle can barely move. Several of her frail bones had snapped when the van flipped. “It’s so reasonably priced. Used copies start at $2.58,” she wails in frustrated horror, “new copies are only $22!”

“I was busy! I didn’t have time to just sit down and read!”

“You fool! The book is arranged in short page-length articles! You could have easily worked your way through it, giving it only ten or fifteen minutes a day!” Ms. Freemantle whimpered.

“But I had never heard of it!”

“Oh please!” Vanessa wails, even as the arm of a zombie punches through the front windshield. “It received excellent critical reviews! Jon Stewart liked it so much he hired John Hodgman as a contributor to the Daily Show! I thought you loved me!” A Zombie grabs her by the hair, and drags her toward her doom, but her eyes never waiver from me. Hating. Accusing. I do, Vanessa. I do love you. I think I say that to her before she dies. I think.

I’m crawling toward the back of the van, even as Ms. Freemantle is devoured alive only a few feet in front of me. Blood is thrown up from her neck in three foot coruscating arcs. “Seven hundred” she whispers, “Seven hundred hobo names…. The author was featured in those famous Mac ads you fool. All you had to was-” her accusations are cut short when her voice box is torn cruelly out of its housing in her neck.

When they come for me I am already half-mad. And as their maggot strewn fists clasp my ankle, and pull me toward doom I wonder why. I wonder why I was such an asshole that I….

The world fades away forever.

So, world, unless you happen to be a welder, mechanic, or metal worker capable of producing a viable zombie proof van, I suggest you do as told.