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The Drunken Odyssey

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The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: April 2020

Episode 414: Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway Review, with Todd James Pierce!

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Episode

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Episode 414 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, I talk with creative writer and Disney historian Todd James Pierce about the new Disney’s Hollywood Studios attraction that let’s guests cross into the screen of a cartoon experience.

Todd Pierce Studios CROPPED June 2018

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway Sign

Photo by Todd James Pierce.

Mickey Minney Railway Podcast Photo

Photo by Todd James Pierce.

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out Todd’s books:

Ward Kimball

Three Years in Wonderland

Check out Todd James Pierce’s site and podcast, Disney History Institute. His episode devoted to Kevin Rafferty and the Runaway Railway is here.

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame Cover


Episode 414 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #316: Night of a 1000 Cats

03 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Hugo Stiglitz, Night of a Thousand Cats

The Curator of Schlock #316 by Jeff Shuster

Night of a 1000 Cats

Was this the inspiration for Dr. Tongue’s House of Cats?

I apologize for my near meltdown last week. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. Well I may presume too much. Let’s get our minds off the global pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout. Think happy thoughts. Think fluffy thoughts. What’s fluffy? Cats are fluffy. I’ve got an idea. How about a Cats Month for this blog I’m writing from my remote location in the Florida Everglades? Doesn’t that sound nice? Doesn’t that sound peachy keen?

Tonight’s movie is 1972’s Night of a 1000 Cats from director René Cardona Jr.

1000A (1)

It’s a tour de force of screams, snarls, and entrails. The movie centers around a millionaire playboy named Hugo (Hugo Stiglitz). So the main character is named after the lead actor in the film if we are to believe the IMBD. Frankly, I don’t recall hearing his name mentioned in the movie, but how often do I pay attention to character names while watching these things. Still, I will call him Hugo for the remainder of the review and trust in the IMBD. (Do not confuse him with the Hugo Stiglitz of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds—that would be irresponsible).

1000D (1)

Hugo is a millionaire playboy as evidenced by the fact that he lives in an ancient monastery his ancestors inherited and the fact that he flies around in his own personal helicopter. This must impress the ladies since they fly up to his monastery to enjoy wine and cognac and to feast on meat dishes prepared by Dorgo (Gerardo Zepeda), Hugo’s malformed manservant. Hugo makes passionate love to these women before he tires of them and shows them his collection of severed heads.

Oh, yes. Hugo has a collection of severed heads in glass jars that he insists are made of wax, but none of the women buy what he’s saying since they know Hugo is a accomplished taxidermist. Are we to believe that he collects the heads of real animals, but would settle for wax replicas of human heads? I don’t think so. It’s around this time of discovery that Hugo chokes the life out of his latest female guest. Her head ends up in the collection, Dorgo burns her bones, and what’s left of her is ground into fresh meat.

1000B (1)

What is this human meat for you might ask? The meat is for Hugo’s other collection, his collection of one thousand feral cats that he keeps fenced in and secured from the rest of the castle. Every night, he tosses handfuls of ground up human flesh to the cats for reasons unknown. I’m not really sure what motivates Hugo to do any of this. At some point in the movie, Dorgo beats Hugo at a game of chess so Hugo gives him the honor of being the one to toss the lady flesh to the throngs of feisty felines, only to push him over a mezzanine to be devoured by their hungry jaws.

1000C

Hugo’s latest conquest is a bored housewife. She figures out his plan  and makes a run for it. Hugo would have caught up to her, but the cats manage to get through the fence and decide the bite the hand that’s been feeding them. The young housewife manages to escape as we see an army of cats parading around Hugo’s dead body.

What the hell did I just watch? I better watch it again.


Jeffrey Shuster 4

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Episode 413: A Discussion of Escape From Fire Island (Bonus Episode)!

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Episode

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

CYOA, Escape from Fire Island

Episode 413 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing.)

mwm_pixel_non_cutout

In this bonus, mid-week episode of The Drunken Odyssey, the game-writing expert Michael Merriam and I read and discuss Escape from Fire Island, a lost classic from the 1990s. Somehow, we touch upon Dragon’s Lair, The Canterbury Tales, Hamlet (naturally), He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Escape from Fire IslandCanterbury TalesThe Hero with a Thousand Faces

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

If you are looking for a happier view than your own window yet again, try my scenic views of Walt Disney World playlist.

*

Check out my adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame Cover

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #64: The Big Reads

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

≈ Leave a comment

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #64 by Drew Barth

The Big Reads

We’ve got some spare time on our hands. I personally have been watching way more cooking videos on YouTube than I thought possible. Luckily, there’s a wealth of longer comic content that can help bridge those days a bit better than going through Tiger King for the third time.

br1

I probably haven’t talked about Warren Ellis recently, so let’s fix that. And what better way to fix things is there than with a series all about fixing a horribly damaged world with archaeology and punching: Planetary. Conceived as a love letter to all things genre—westerns, pulps, giant monsters, spy thrillers—Ellis and co-creator John Cassaday sculpted one of the most enduring pieces of comic fiction over the course of its twenty- year run. And it is a perfect comic to read now. Filled with an expansive wonder for the world and an inter-woven mystery that begs to be solved, Planetary is absolutely ripe to binge read when you can barely remember the last time you talked to a person outside of a Zoom meeting. Luckily too, after finishing, there’s always Ellis’ Castlevania if you still need to go down more infinite corridors.

br2

One of the most iconic shojo manga from Chiho Sato and Be-Papas, Revolutionary Girl Utena revolves around revolutionizing the world, and what it means to protect the people you love and to become the savior prince in your own story. Enshrined in symbolism, nobility, and many many sword fights, Utena is a watershed series for many readers. There are comics before Utena and after Utena. And the whole story is now available both to read and to watch—the latter made available to freely watch online from its owner, Nozomi Entertainment. While both versions of the story do have their differences, going through both is excellent.

br3

Speaking of solid, no other graphic novel released in the 21stcentury has had the solid impact of David Mazzuchelli’s Asterios Polyp. It is the platonic ideal of the graphic novel. It is a brick of a story about the titular bastard of an architect who is broken down into his barest essentials. Mazzucelli is easily one of the best creators to work in comics due to his understanding of line, space, and pace. Every piece of this book is crafted with the utmost care—not a single chunk of blank space feels out of place nor does any line look as though it was simply placed. So much of this story works in how characters interact through the space of panels and how they break around those panels. Asterios Polypis the kind of comic to sink into and simply marvel at what Mazzuchelli has accomplished.

br4

And finally, if there’s ever a comic series that exists for a time of quarantine, it’s Homestuck. At over five thousand pages long, this series will keep you entertained, confused, and scared all at the same time. Scared mostly due to its sheer volume as it is one of the longest works of fiction in the English language. But still. It’s an appropriate comic for now since the majority of its characters rarely ever physically interact with one another, every piece of communication is via chat logs and video as the characters are either on different planets or in different time streams. It’s a weird comic about isolation and video games made even more appropriate now that we’re stuck at home.

Get excited. We’re here together.


drew-barth-mbfi

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

The Anonymous Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #6

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post

≈ Leave a comment

The Anonymous Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #6

As transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

1 April 2020

Your corresponded is still holed up at the Hotel Cortez in LA. Might stay here indefinitely, with the ghosts of indiscretions past. It’s the best place from which to watch the world fall apart and politicians make jackasses of themselves.

AHS_501_0271_f.JPG

Look at Donald Trump, trying to be all adult and take-charge about the coronavirus, after labelling it a hoax that will nevertheless disappear with April’s warmer weather. And, proving that male hair dye saps intelligence, Emmanuelle Macron made a handsome but hysterical appearance on national television that more rightly belongs in a Gaspar Noe movie.

Putin is the only one who’s true shown leadership in the matter. Was it not he who suggested chopping off Angela Merkel’s head and holding it aloft to ward off evil, like Perseus with Medusa?

vladimir-putin-2374090_1920

‘Anything that hideous,’ he said to me during a telephone conversation, ‘is bound to scare off the worst calamity.’

‘We bow to your greater wisdom, oh Russian bear!’ I replied, knowing we were in good hands.

The world’s senses are definitely deranged. If further proof is required, we need look no further than Australia, where shoppers are panic-buying toilet paper. Why toilet paper?

toilet-paper-4958068_1920

Because people down under have a fetish for the boom-box, the dunny, the crapper, the shit house or any other colourful variant you care to use. And they live in fear of having nothing with which to wipe. Hence stockpiling.

As of this writing, supermarket shelves are empty as Gwyneth Paltrow’s head. (She, by the way, recommends vaginal steaming to get rid of the virus. For men. And a coffee enema for fun.)

Back in Terror Australis, a truck carrying emergency supplies of toilet paper to Queensland supermarkets crashed and burned. The usual rioting and pillaging ensued as Queenslanders—a variant of the Appalachian inbred hillbilly—rampaged, reducing the suburb of Inala to rubble. Not that anyone could tell the difference.

Adding insult to injury, busloads of Chinese-Australians (neighbor Clancy Smith among them) are raiding country supermarkets, buying all the toilet paper, and selling it online at prices only their capitalist-oriented communist brethren can afford. Elsewhere thieves held up a Woolworths delivery van to steal ‘date rolls’, as they’re commonly known in Ocker circles, and stores are putting up signs that read ‘No toilet paper kept on premises’.

Today the Morrison government passed a law restricting citizens to one square of toilet paper per loo visit. Exceeding that is ‘un-Australian’ and will be punished by five years as senator Michaela Cash’s personal arse-wipe. Out of sheer desperation citizens are using wombats and koalas to wipe the fundament. The man who used the head of a Tasmanian devil is, as of this writing, sans cul.

australia-2365004_1920

To help during this crisis, I should like to offer a quote from Gargantuaand Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais:

‘I maintain that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains.’

Excuse me. The phone rings…

It was my good friend Tom Hanks, calling in sheer panic to bid his final farewells. There was the most dreadful ruckus in the background as he spoke and then the line went quite suddenly, and very ominously, dead.

You may know that Tom and his Albanian-Greek wife Margarita Ibrahimoff—otherwise known as Rita Wilson—have been incarcerated at the Gold Coast Hospital, with COVID-19. Apparently, they brought it with them from the U.S. and spread it far and wide while schmoozing with sundry Australian industry professionals and celebrities.

Who would have thought an innocuous creature like Forrest Gump was going to turn nasty and wipe out ‘the arse end of the world’, as ex-Prime Minister Paul Keating put it, with a cough and a sneeze?

So there’s Tom calling me to say goodbye as rabid Queenslanders break into the ward and perpetuate what history will surely view as a mercy killing. Secret hospital sources later revealed the horror began when Rita stepped onto the terrace to regale the Gold Coast with a rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Even before she finished the first verse, incensed radical lefties with no patience for cultural appropriation, let alone any form of colonialist nationalism, gathered outside the building, booing and hissing.

‘Strewth, mate, a Wog-American sheila is singing the bloody Astralyan national anthem.’

‘Who does she think she is?’

‘Let’s fucken kill ‘er.’

I heard it all. The outrage. The offence. The crude utterances. The screams that ensued. The shouts. The badly constructed sentences. The swallowed vowels. The disregard for niceties of punctuation. And finally: breaking glass. Celebrities ripped apart and eaten before my very ears.

Tom’s last words were: ‘This is so embarrassing.’

Rita followed with, ‘Παναγία και Χριστέ μου, σώσε μας,’ before her larynx was ripped out and tossed from the window. It fell with a splat on someone’s head and he used it to wipe his bottom. Before feeding his family.

It was horrible. On the bright side, Rita Wilson will never sing again.

Until next we meet.

Cheerio!


windsor-castle-1253197_1920

PS My bosom buddy Dickie Arbiter, commentator on the Royal Family, called to say Prince Charles and the Queen were put down this morning at Windsor Castle after contracting coronavirus. The drastic measure was taken before they turned rabid.


people-2570596_1920The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. Of no fixed abode, he has subsisted in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently hiding out in Melbourne. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and four packets of Dunhill cigarettes a day.

His mortified amanuensis, Dmetri Kakmi, is a writer and editor. The fictionalised memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia. He edited the children’s anthology When We Were Young. His new book The Door and other Uncanny Tales will be released in May 2020.

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