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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: April 2021

The Curator of Schlock #352: All I See is You

30 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #352 by Jeff Shuster

All I See is You

Worst movie of the 2010s. 

So I decided to take a shortcut through Wyoming, but I’ve been stuck here for the last two weeks. It’s like I entered the Bermuda Triangle of the United States of America. I know I’ve stopped at the same gas station to at least ten times. I keep driving through miles and miles of amber waves of grain. I just want to get to Butte already.

I know I promised part 3 of The Black Society Trilogy, but I’ve been busy this week. I will make it up to you next month. There will be a whole lot of Takashi Miike going on next month. This week’s movie is 2016’s All I See Is You from director Marc Forster. It’s billed as a psychological drama. It may be the worst movie of the 2010s.

Blake Lively stars as Gina, a blind woman who depends on her husband, James (Jason Clarke) to take care of her. Gina was in a really bad car accident when she was a little girl that resulted in her losing both her vision and her parents. James and Gina live in a nice apartment in Thailand. James works in insurance. Gina gives guitar lessons to a little girl where they sing a song that goes something like this:

I like to double dutch
I like to swim
It makes me happy
It makes me grin
It makes me happy
And all I see is you
And when I’m happy
All I see is you

Anyway, there’s your title with that last line from this detestable ear-worm. You sang a bad song, Blake Lively. A bad song!

Things are looking better for Gina when she gets a cornea transplant in one of her eyes. The doctor says she needs to take some steroidal drops if the implant has any chance of restoring her sight permanently. Now that she can see for the first time since she was a little girl, she realizes that she’s a beautiful young woman and that her husband looks like a creeper. James asks her if he looks like she imagined him to and she says no. James prods her as to what she thought about when they made love in the past and she admits she thought about many different men.

In an attempt to put the old spark back into their marriage, they go to Barcelona where that had their honeymoon. James and Gina meet up with Gina’s sister and her obnoxious artist husband. They go for a night on the town, see a live sex show where the participants where pig masks. I guess this awakens Gina’s a lustful side that James can’t fulfill. They’ve also been trying to get pregnant because I’ve heard that can save a marriage. Too bad James learns from the doctor that he’s infertile.

I guess James figures that the marriage is doomed unless Gina becomes dependent on him again so he starts watering down her drops. Gina goes to the doctor to have the drops checked and he tells her they’ve been watered down. She gets new drops and starts taking them in secret while pretending to be blind around her husband. Oh, and Gina is finally pregnant because she had a brief affair with the local personal trainer.

James discovers a bunch of empty drop bottles at their new house realizing that Gina has indeed been taking them without his knowledge. He sees Gina and student at a local talent show where they play that stupid song while Gina looks directly at him. James ducks out of the concert, the shame and disgrace proving too much for him. He drives headfirst into an oncoming truck, killing himself. The last thing we see is Gina giving birth to a healthy baby.

The thing about bad movies is that there are always new ones to discover. All I See Is You somehow eluded me all this time. It makes The Boy Next Door look like Casablanca.

Don’t watch this, everybody. Heed the warning of the curator of schlock. This is very bad schlock.


Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #120: Have the Time of Your Death

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

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

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #120 by Drew Barth

Have the Time of Your Death

Death is final. Death in comics, a bit less so. Just look at Deadman. Or Swamp Thing. Or the legion of characters that have died and come back to life a dozen times. Their reasons for returning are, at best, nebulous and, at worst, not even explained. But then that’s where a series like The Many Deaths of Laila Starr comes in—not only is death and returning explained, but the cause is literally the Hindu goddess of Death herself. What Ram V, Filipe Andrade, and Inês Amaro have created is a series that straddles the line between life and death in a way that I’ve never seen in comics.

The story here begins with the Goddess of Death being let go from her position in a manner not unfamiliar to anyone who has to empty their desk into a banker box after their employer decides to restructure. But it’s the world itself that is restructuring as Death is losing her job due to a child being born that will soon create a way to give everyone on Earth everlasting life. The one consolation Death is given here is that, instead of simply disappearing, she can inhabit the body of a mortal and live out the rest of her life with a normal mortal lifespan—the body of the titular Laila Starr. And of course she takes this consolation as it is the only real option she has anymore. But she plans on doing something with that life because she wants to keep her job. And the only way to keep her job is with some infanticide.

What works so well in this first issue is the interplay between Ram V’s running narrative and the constant kinetic motion of Andrade and Amaro’s art. Set in Mumbai, even the traffic jams are constantly in motion. The world we’re given for this story does not stand still. And for good reason. Death herself doesn’t have long to deal with the baby that will create immortality and Laila Starr herself is currently falling out of a window to her first death. And the ways in which Ram V’s narration helps to bolster the mood Andrade’s lines create throughout this first issue only helps with that pace. We’re given a moment to linger with characters and dialog before the narration zips us back to speed again.

More than many first issues, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr helps to establish a pace and mood that maintains a perfect consistency throughout. I’m intrigued because the series has a nice combination of mise-en-scéne and traditional comic movement that keeps the story from ever feeling flat. As is good in all first issues, this kind of storytelling helps the world feel alive and lets the characters really shine through with their moods and lives. Or, rather, unlives.

Get excited. Get dead.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

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 Perfect Life #13: Reality Training

26 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Perfect Life

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The Perfect Life #13 by Dr. Perfect

Reality Training

Dear Dr. Perfect,

I don’t know how to deal with my sister-in-law, who is suffering from delusions. She insists that Joe Biden is the President and that COVID-19 is a legitimate disease and not simply a hoax. When I call her out on such dangerous beliefs, she enumerates evidence, as if evidence can be anything other than a smokescreen generated by the illuminati to distract the rubes. She refuses to let my nephew join me in militia training. I am so worried about his future. What can I do?

Sincerely,

Armed and concerned

————————-

Dear Armed & concerned,

Your sister-in-law is in tuned to the alternative facts we’ve heard so much about. I admire her tenacity. Anyone can cite unsubstantiated reports on who’s president and for how long. Open up any newspaper and you’ll find the same lies smeared across the pages in fresh ink.  And if you don’t like the outcome of something, just wish it away like a distant dream. We’re living in the age of relativity, my friend. If something isn’t to your liking, just say that it isn’t so.

Just the other day, I heard some crackpot on the Internet say that time travel was indeed possible through wormholes or something. Another claimed that dinosaurs never really existed. I dismissed them outright, walked away from my laptop, and then sat within my Zen garden, doubting my once grounded beliefs. All it takes is a little crack at the foundation to throw everything into question.

There’s no future in joining a militia, frankly. They’re not quite the résumé enhancer your nephew may be looking for. Are you really prepared to fight the federal government, or is this just a ploy to meet girls? I’m not certain if either would work due to the bad rep militias have gotten in the press over the years. I’m sure that your grizzly gang of rebels pack a punch, but you’re not going to get very far without the support of boorish late-night comics and pampered, prime-time pundits. You must reform and strategize. Decide if there are better, less antiquated ways to defend freedom.

You could support a bald eagle sanctuary or sweep the floors at the local VFW. And there’s no time like the present to take up model building, taxidermy, or a variety of activities less provocative than your average militia duties. I always recommend model building to my readers. It just tends to put me at ease. And once those paint fumes kick in after a few shots of Irish whisky, you’re in a deeply patriotic place.

I’m guessing that your sister got her COVID-19 vaccine and proudly posted about it on social media. I can see the pictures of her freckled arm and band-aid closeup followed by her vaccination record. Good for her. While she’s basking in “likes” for her heroic duty, you’re languishing in the shadows, unvaccinated and perplexed. Perhaps the pandemic is real to a certain extent, as real as the biased news media wants us to believe. They’re certainly no strangers to sensationalism.

Try a fun exercise. For the next week, pretend that everything you see on the news is real. Whisk yourself away to the paragon of propaganda that is your local newspaper from the local grocer and give it a read. Watch the evening news with a big smile on your face, taking in everything they say at face value. Forage through NPR articles online for the “right” way to think. You must be smiling for this experiment to work. You’ll also begin to understand the very lies you’re trying to suppress with the nuanced understanding of Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French philosopher and historian.

Like you, he was trying to make sense of things, most notably, the madness of the French Revolution. He traveled to America in its infancy to write about the New World from a first-hand perspective. A hundred and some odd years, we’re on the cusp of about a dozen mini revolutions from all political factions, including your own lofty pursuits. You see, Armed & Dangerous, the times never really change, and neither do we. And I address you as such to call-back to one of my favorite John Candy films of the 1980s. Wait a minute, I was thinking of Uncle Buck!

Last I checked, Joe Biden was sworn in, and while he remains the oldest of the exceedingly decrepit Washington politicians, he is the president. I can understand your befuddlement when you were told there was a plan or that Trump would implement martial law or that the pope was under house arrest or whatever fantastical scenario you’ve heard. Most of these conspiracy types are just messing with you for their own amusement, much in the way the national news media enjoys tweaking you with comments about “the fairest election in modern history.” They know it drives you and your militia friends crazy. Be smart, take refuge in your bunker, and don’t emerge until all is right in the world. I’ll send for you once it’s safe.

We’re expected to put aside our differences for the greater good and get along with one another, respecting different viewpoints and ultimately moving things along. The problem is that we’re not robots, and even if we were robots, we’d still find something to argue about. I have a few robot designs in mind far more energy efficient than what’s currently on the horizon. My robots are powered by the complete and innate satisfaction of serving their human masters.

I might have left you in a higher state of confusion than before. The truth we’re all just pawns for the elite. Aliens have been studying us for decades. The Pentagon confirmed as much.

These aliens are going to wait a little while longer.

Just you see.


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

Episode 469: Geoffrey Kent!

24 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Shakespeare, Theater

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Episode 469 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 show, I speak with the actor Geoffrey Kent about Shakespeare in performance, how actors make the texts come alive, the modern English translation of Shakespeare plays, the agony of having to cut Shakespeare’s texts down, the scenes that are rehearsal-eaters, slinging steel, how action sequences by themselves tell stories, and other important matters.

NOTES

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.
  • For any listeners out in Colorado, check out Geffrey’s latest gig at the Arvada Center in Bess Wahl’s Small Mouth Sounds.
  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Episode 469 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 #351: Rainy Dog

23 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #351 by Jeff Shuster

Rainy Dog

Part 2 of the Black Society trilogy.

Edwige and I have been consuming a lot of beef jerky on our little road excursion. Edwige prefers the teriyaki flavor, but I’m more of a black pepper fan. Oh, and I learned that the Slim Jim company makes pork rinds. They come in Squealin’ Hot and Hogwild BBQ. What are pork rinds? Pig skins! Hmmmmmmm…

Tonight’s Arrow Home Video release is 1997’s Rainy Dog from director Takashi Miike. This is a movie about an ex-Yakuza enforcer named Yuuji (Show Aikawa). He actually got fired from the Yakuza. How does that happen? Do they bring you into the main office, tell you this isn’t working out, that you haven’t put your shoulder to the wind? Then you have to clear out your desk while being escorted out by security. You’re not allowed to talk to anyone on the way out and you may start bawling like a baby. The secretary you’ve had a crush on looks away as you walk past her desk. As you drive home, you realize you left the Death Wish II CD soundtrack in the CD Rom drive of your desk computer, but you’re too chicken to go back to ask for it.

Anyway, Yuuji is getting by as a working class assassin, killing assigned targets for quick cash. A woman stops by his crappy apartment with a little boy named Chen (Jianqin He). This little boy is Yuuji’s son and his mother is tired of taking care of him so she just leaves him there, making a fast getaway in a cab. Chen is mute and doesn’t say a word throughout the whole picture. He keeps following Yuuji wherever he goes whether it’s to shoot a man having lunch with his family or partaking in the services at a local brothel.

Yuuji starts hanging out with a prostitute named Lilly (Xianmei Chen) that kind of ends up taking care of Chen as a surrogate mother or surrogate big sister. Lilly dreams of moving somewhere else where it doesn’t rain all of the time. Yes, it rains all of the time in whatever city they’re currently living in. Chen eventually befriends a stray dog that’s drenched in the rain so I guess that’s where the title of the movie comes from.

So Yuuji assassinates a few criminals in the middle of a money exchange and ends up with a a whole bunch of cash as a bonus. He decides to high tail it out of town with Lilly and Chen, but a bunch of men start shooting at the cab they’re leaving in. A hit has been put out on Yuuji by the brother of one of the men he’s assassinated. The three of them hide out in a shack by the beach, trying to figure out what to do next. I won’t spoil the finale.

I enjoyed this film better than Shinjuku Triad Society. It had a melancholy feel to it and was less batshit. We will conclude with part 3 of the Black Society Trilogy next week with Ley Lines.


Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #119: Oh God, It’s Coming This Way

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #119 by Drew Barth

Oh God, It’s Coming This Way

I’ve said it once before and I will repeat it again and again: John Allison is one of the most consistently great writers in modern comics. I’ve gone over his history in the previous article where I took a look at the first issue of his new series with Max Sarin and Whitney Cogar, Wicked Things. A bit over a year later the six-issue series has ended and the collected edition is out, and is just as good as the first issue had shown. Surprising me, this series, despite being completed, may still live on later.

Wicked Things is a Bad Machinery style mystery all the way through—the main case becomes background for a series of characters and misadventures in-between the bits of serious crime drama. From the inciting assault at the end of the first issue, we’re taken on a journey through the Metropolitan Police, underground casinos, and some brazen heists with our teen detective of the year-slash-murder suspect, Charlotte Grote. Lottie is one of the returning characters from the original Scary-Go-Round stories, and one of the main characters in Bad Machinery, along with another returning friend in the form of Claire Little. Allison has built a sandbox and I’d be remiss if he didn’t play in it more. But his has become a 4-D sandbox with all of his series spinning off and existing in some way together to create a larger universe of stories. Wicked Things is another story that will likely continue due to a cliffhanger so large it may as well star Sylvester Stallone.

As much as I love Allison’s writing in these series, it’s been the art of Max Sarin and the coloring of Whitney Cogar that have made me come back to these series consistently. After stepping in for Lissa Treiman through the second volume of Giant Days, Sarin’s lines have been some of the most expressive and comically perfect I’ve seen in many modern comics. If much of Allison’s work is considered slice-of-life, Sarin and Cogar match that feeling. They’re not going to make life look photo-realistic, but instead opt for the mental pictures we have of ourselves with all of the exaggerated expressions and lunacy that we imagine after growing up watching too many Looney Tunes.

As Wicked Things does end on a cliffhanger, there are more opportunities for the series to continue. But as this single volume stands—along with rest of the work in Giant Days, Scary-Go-Round, and Bad Machinery—it can end here and that would be fine. It’s one of those things that makes Allison that consistent writer—there is a continual feeling of satisfaction with his work once it hits an ending. As a reader, you always want more from characters you’ve been reading for twenty years now, but you’re content with how their stories turned out. But still, I’m exited to see if Wicked Things will continue into the future as I’m never content.

Get excited. Get wicked.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

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 Perfect Life #12: The Rage of Chinguardians

19 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Perfect Life

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The Perfect Life #12 by Dr. Perfect

The Rage of Chinguardians

Dear Dr. Perfect

I am afraid to go outside in the time of COVID-19 since people are so stupid. How hard is it to socially distance and wear a mask over one’s nose and mouth? Every time I see a nose sticking out over a mask, I feel like I have witnessed a sex crime. Is our country doomed to such stupidity?

Sincerely,

Incensed and afraid

—————————-

Dear Incensed and afraid,

I too ponder the intricacies of wearing a face mask under one’s nose. Some intrepid mask wearers believe that their nostrils are an adequate filter on their own, which they are in a very general sense, having a forest of nostril hair between them and your lungs. Or perhaps the mask wearer is content at displaying the most minimal effort possible to simply say, “At least I tried.” This occurs when such precautions take the form of image over a real emphasis on public health.

Such half-assed approaches can be found in other instances, like wearing a pair of pants without a belt or conjuring up a dissertation off the top of your head, using index cards. My pergola porch is a perfect example. The contractors I hired did a subpar job. I knew something was off when the contractors initially estimated seven weeks for completion. It actually took fifteen, and their shoddy craftsmanship wasn’t worth the already low amount I had haggled them to. Come to think of it, I’m even not sure if they were real carpenters. They looked awfully young in their matching jumpsuits.

Texting and driving puts everyone around you at risk, but we do it anyway. We sometimes shift lanes without signaling, or stir our fresh margaritas from behind the wheel. Complacency begets carelessness, which naturally leads to stupidity. You’ve probably seen brazen pedestrians dart across a busy crosswalk, staring into their cell phones without pause or concern. They don’t stop to think that the driver barreling toward them could be just as lost in their phone as well. In the words of the immortal Stephen Tyler, we’re all just living on the edge, in one giant self-centered petri dish with more creature comforts than we know what to do with.

The simplest solution in dealing with mask posers is to report them to the nearest authorities. If that sounds too harsh, grab your cell phone and proceed to berate them in a hysterical fashion while live streaming the public shaming ritual for all to see. Those types of videos usually come off pretty well.

Are mask sizing issues worthy of exploration? Is it possible to consciously purchase an ill-fitting mask and wear it anyway? I’d like to see a study on this. It could bring us closer to understanding the droopy mask phenomenon before us. I can’t justify the actions of these mask offenders, Incensed and Afraid. Perhaps we are doomed to a thousand years of addled grievances throughout the dark winter of our souls. My advice is to wear three to four masks just to make a statement.

I’m no economist, but something irks me about profligate spending. Our government spends money at an astronomical rate, printing and borrowing us into oblivion. Some might call this careless act of governance risky in itself. The devaluing of our dollar eventually renders those stimulus pity checks meaningless. Speaking of money, I’m getting into this corporate cultural censorship action like there’s no tomorrow. My vintage copies of yanked Dr. Seuss books are selling like crazy on eBay. Add this to my Special Freedom Edition Pepe Le Pew Looney Tunes DVDs and expired boxes of hydroxychloroquine, and I’ll have plenty of scratch. I can finally retire and move to Antarctica like I had always planned. Sure, it’s cold there, but I’ll make it work. Don’t try to find me.

Don’t lose hope though. For every mask-dangling dolt, there’re people writing symphonies or engineering the latest Mars rover. And what of Mars? Can we move there yet? Would we want to move there?

The lack of an atmosphere might be a problem. The sloven masses would probably just follow us there anyway, and we’d be right back to a planet teetering on the brink in no time. If you’re anything like me, you’ve tired of hearing wealthy celebrities and politicians tell us to “do our part” to achieve x, y, or z. By answering these advice letters, I am doing my part, thank you, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

At fifteen, I was raiding my mother’s pantry for Little Debbie’s and sneaking peeks at Miss July in father’s Playboy magazine. I’ve come a lot further since then. I can buy my own Little Debbie snacks now and watch all the free porn I want. But I chose to do neither. What kind of perfect life would that be? You mustn’t live your life in fear, regardless of others flagrantly disregarding COVID etiquette.

Step outside and breathe in the fresh air. Despite the endless apocalyptic rhetoric, the birds are still flying, the bees are still pollinating, and those neighborhood cats are still going through your trashcan. Hiding under your bed with desert goggles and a face scarf might seem appealing at first, but it gets old after the first few months of lockdowns. I know this from experience. You have nothing to fear but fear itself and the likelihood of contracting COVID.

It’s a tough call.


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #29

19 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Sozzled Scribbler

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The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #29

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

19 April 2021

To the members of the commonwealth and to all peoples of lowly status,  it is with a heavy heart that I announce the death of my dearly beloved cousin Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband of more than seven decades and a towering ribald figure in the public life of Britain. He was, by the looks of him towards the end, 2000 years old.

I speak to you at this sad time as the Queen’s papa and the father of her children, except the vile Prince Andrew. That unwholesome personage did indeed spring from the loins of the now departed consort.

It may surprise you to hear that I, the Queen’s father, also sired some of her children. Don’t be alarmed. It’s perfectly normal.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was a bit of a stallion in my youth. More to the point incest among royals is alive and well in the 21st century. It is only forbidden for lowly people such as you for the simple reason that you produce ugly inbreds with savage grudges against oversexed college students who mistakenly wander into the Appalachian mountains. Whereas blue bloods are apt to give birth to specimens of the highest caliber, who hang out in Monaco and Mustique. So what if some are simpletons, have buck teeth, huge ears and pronounced honkers? No one is perfect.

But I digress. The Duke of Edinburgh has gone Casper and we must pay respects.

Pip, as I called him from earliest childhood, is survived by the Queen and their children, kooky Prince Charles, hilarious Princess Anne, sleazy Prince Andrew and the invisible Prince Edward. Old Pip had eight grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and various cheap slags who married into the dynasty, the most recent and possibly worst being Meghan Markle. Not because — as she claims — of her skin color, but because she is one of the richest, most privileged women in the world donning the grey cloak of martyrdom.

She also stole Prince Harry from me, but that’s another story for another day! Not that I am one to hold a grudge.

Anyway, back to Prince Philip. What else is there to say about a man who in true Greek style did so very little with the time allotted to him on earth? Except that idleness is its own virtue. And yet only this morning I heard the bereaved wife proclaim from behind closed doors, ‘So young, so much to give.’

Is she senile or what?

Meretricious Meghan, on the other hand, released a statement asking the media to respect her privacy during this time as she throws a party. La vache bon marché!

My memories of Pip, the fifth child of Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark, and Princess Alice of Battenberg (don’t rich people slum it with the poor?) go back to our idyllic summers on Corfu, before the ghastly proletariat banished the royal family from Greece, and before Princess Alice, dressed as a nun, was committed to a loony bin.

Who says the rich have it easy? They suffer too, you know. Only in greater comfort and elegance than you.

Needless to say it was I who brought the then rather gauche Princess Elizabeth and Pip together. ‘Marry her,’ I told him. ‘You can sponge off the Windsor millions for the rest of your life.’ So struct was the young princess by Pip’s golden Olympiad radiance that she ovulated on the spot and, within days, produced Dumbo, I mean Prince Charles.

The rest as they say is histrionics.

I could relate many an amusing tale about Pip, such as the time we accidentally blew up his uncle Lord Mountbatten’s yacht off the coast of Ireland, killing all on board. Oops. Lucky, the IRA was blamed. Phew!

And how can I forget the time we toured China and Pip called the communist cadres ‘slitty eyes’? Terribly amusing fellow, what?

Which reminds me. If Pip is remembered for anything it will surely be his peppery, take-no-prisoners wit. No concessions to political correctness with him. Oh, no. He went for it, come what may.

Many accused him of being racist or misogynist or whatever adage you care to attach to what was once known as humour. Really, it was Pip letting off steam. He used comedy to keep his feet on the ground on those long, arduous tours of savage, uncivilised places, such as Australia. But he was greatly misunderstood and castigated for it, too, in a most unfair manner, one must say.

As he once observed, ‘Not only do the resentniks have no money but they’ve also lost their sense of humour.’

Wise words indeed! It’s not for nothing Pip was worshipped as a god on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

And so I hereby leave you with Pip’s choicest sayings:

To an Aircraft Research Association: ‘If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.’

On Ethiopian art: ‘It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.’

To a fashion writer: ‘You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?’

On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: ‘A pissometer?’

To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick: ‘And what exotic part of the world do you come from?’

To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms: ‘It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!’

And in case you think he only picks on the less fortunate:

On his own daughter Princess Anne: ‘If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.’

À bientôt, mes amies.


The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. He is currently stateless and lives on gin and cigarettes.

Dmetri Kakmi is the author of Mother Land (shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia), and the editor of When We Were Young. His latest book is The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. He does not endorse the Sozzled Scribbler’s views.

Episode 468: Alfred Corn!

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

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Episode 468 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 show, I speak with the poet and translator Alfred Corn about Rainer Maria Rilke’s sublime Duino Elegies.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

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Episode 468 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 #350: Shinjuku Triad Society

16 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock by Jeff Shuster

Shinjuku Triad Society

Violence and more violence.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? This question has bothered philosophers for hundreds of years. I propose another philosophical question: if you’re driving a Mack truck and run a station wagon off the road because you couldn’t see it when you were changing lanes, does it really count as vehicular manslaughter, if there are no witnesses, hypothetically?

Tonight’s Arrow Home Video release is 1995’s Shinjuku Triad Society from director Takashi Miike. This is a very violent movie filled with female prostitution, male prostitution, shooting, slicing, drug use, organ harvesting, and brotherly love. I know what you’re thinking, “Yes, but what is Shinjuku Triad Society about?” Well, it’s about a Triad Society situated in Shinjuku, Japan.

Oh, you want more?

Okay. So there are Triads operating in Japan that have come over to the country from Taiwan. Our main character is Tatushito (Kippei Shiina), a rogue police detective that kicks ass and takes names. He’s also half Taiwanese and half Japanese, a factor that made him a bit of an outsider in Taiwan. In fact, Tatushito reminisces about how he and his younger brother were thrown in a pig pen every time a robbery happened in their small town in Taiwan. The people there still had resentment toward the Japanese over World War II.

Tatushito is busy hunting for Wang Zhi-Ming (Tomorowo Taguchi), the leader of the Dragon Claw (which is the name of a Triad outfit). Wang is suspected of the murder of a night patrolman. Seems the poor guy was slashed in the neck and wrist, blood was spraying everywhere. It actually wasn’t Wang, but one of the male prostitutes in his employ who was a bit on the psychotic side. Not that Wang is that well-balanced either. During a negotiation with another gang, he crushes a glass of bourbon in his hand to show how badass his is, but really, those glass fibers are going to get all in your palm.

Of course, the big shocker is that Tatushito’s younger brother Yoshihito is working for the Triad gang. He’s set up an organ harvesting operation where he steals kidneys and other expensive organs from new immigrants in Japan fresh from Taiwan. That’s messed up. The police examined some eight year-old with a nasty scar on his side from where the kidney was removed. Tatushito feels he is his brother’s keeper and is under pressure from his parents to look out for Yoshihito. His younger brother wants to be a hardcore criminal and warns Tatushito to stay out of his affairs.

Some violence follows. Wang takes out the Triad leadership in bloody fashion. I think he murders his own father. Tatushito confronts his brother and manages to beat him into submission and send him on a bullet train down to his parents. Tatushito then hunts down Wang and executes him which is against police procedure in Japan, but they can’t pin it on Tatushito and he gets a raise and promotion. Apparently, this is part one of a trilogy known as the Black Society trilogy. These are available in a fancy set from Arrow Video, complete with audio commentaries and other special features, if you are into that sort of thing.

Until next time.


Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

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