Bitter Karella's Hot Fresh Slurry 57
Hey this is Bitter Karella, Internet bon vivant, and this is Bitter Karella’s Fresh Hot Slurry with all the news that’s fit to be extruded.
A Special Presentation 218: Mandrake (1979)
Mandrake the Magician has, for some reason, not made the jump to the big screen in this latest round of superhero mania, but the globe-trotting crime-fighting magician of the comics page has so much potential that we can’t help but imagine a much better movie than we got with the sole Mandrake film adaptation: this 1979 made-for-TV lost dud starring Robert Reed from the Brady Bunch and James Hong from everything that James Hong has ever been in.
Episode 6: The Tale of the Nightbreed
Clive Barker takes the stage and relates his cult classic of an eternal battle—gay monsters versus redneck cops. Cabal has always had unsettling dreams of becoming a gay monster, but his personal journey to gay monsterhood is obstructed by queer-gatekeeping monsters, Nazi sheriffs' departments, and unconvincing gimp-mask serial killer David Cronenberg. Frank Belknap Long teaches Dean Koontz to be a furry.
Now here’s this week’s Midnight Pals!
Ray Bradbury: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lazy summer of youth
Bradbury: long days down by the river, fishing in miller's pond, afternoons at the soda shop, ice cream sundaes with fabulous unicorn worlds built of whipped cream, nickels for a dime
Bradbury: and becky miller's freckled-face kisses
Bradbury: sweeter than sunsweet prunes
Bradbury: sunsweet prunes, i tell you
Bradbury: the only prune that's sweeter than a nostalgic midwestern childhood
Bradbury: and they come in these little individually wrapped plastic packs too
King:
Poe:
Barker:
Koontz:
Lovecraft:
Bradbury: I just think they're neat
Bradbury: according to my stories, in the far distant future of 2001
Bradbury: we shall travel in tubes
Bradbury: we'll have flying cars
Bradbury: and we'll all be eating our sunsweet prunes out of individually wrapped plastic packs
Poe: wait you never said that in your stories
Bradbury: i wish i had
Bradbury: i would have been 1 for 3 at least
Bradbury: look, they individually wrap these sunsweet prunes in plastic
Bradbury: what a world!
Bradbury: its like living in the not too distant future
Poe: doesn't that create a lot of waste
Bradbury:
Bradbury: tearing open this individually wrapped snack pack reminds me of tearing open presents on christmas morning, snow on the ground, ma and pa taking the day off from working the farm, the whole family arriving in a caravan of automobiles, aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozen, oh my! oh my! uncles a little too loud after three egg nogs, cousins playing cops & robbers in the hay loft
Bradbury: and the feasting, the jollity! too many voices all at once, raised in laughter, in song. the twinkle in dad's eye, the red roses in mom's cheeks, grandpa's baritone chuckle. falling asleep to the sounds of bing crosby on the tombstone radio, surrounded by the warm glow of early evening
King: wow these prunes sound pretty incredible
King: i'm sold!
Koontz: [tearing open sunsweet prune container] guys
Koontz: i think my prunes are broken
Koontz: i didn't feel any of that stuff ray said
Poe: ray are they paying you to advertise for prunes
Bradbury: no no of course not!
Bradbury: i would never accept money to tell you about the incredible health benefits of america's favorite prunes, sunsweet
Bradbury: full of 12 different antioxidents
King: can i buy them with my american express card
Neil Gaiman: but ray!
Gaiman: using the limitless vista of your inpirational mind to advertise a mere consumer good
Gaiman: such a tawdry use of the gift of imagination!
Gaiman: it cheapens us as writers just as the low low prices of chipotle cheapens organic rice and GMO-free beans to bring wholesome healthy Mexican inspired fusion cuisine to the masses
Gaiman: you can't leash the phoenix of creativity to the millstone of commerce!
Gaiman: she must fly free!
Gaiman: free like the secret dragon sauce available now at now extra charge at your local chipotle
King: neil's right!
Poe: about chipotle?
King: about everything!!
***
Eric Stenbock: hello midnight society
Stenbock: i'm Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock
Stenbock: [producing life-size mannequin] and this is my son le Petit Comte
Thomas Ligotti:
Ligotti:
Ligotti:
Ligotti:
Stephen King: you're uh
King: really staring at that mannequin kinda intently there, tom
Ligotti: hm
Eric Stenbock: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the true story of the vampire
Stenbock: one sec, let me just get le Petit Comte comfortable first
Stenbock: how are you doing le Petit Comte
Stenbock:
Ligotti:
Stenbock:
Ligotti:
Stenbock:
Ligotti:
Stenbock: he says he's doing good
RL Stine: hey does your puppet talk
Stine: my puppet talks
Stenbock: does my what talk?
Stine: your puppet
Stenbock:
Stenbock: you mean my son?
Stine: yeah your puppet there
Stenbock:
Stenbock: never speak to me or my son every again
RL Stine: i just wanted to know if le petit comte talks
RL Stine: [producing ventriloquist dummy] cuz knothead here talks
RL Stine: especially when i drink a glass of water
RL Stine: watch he'll sing the old gray mare
Stenbock: how dare you
Stenbock: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the true tale of a vampire
Stenbock: it's the story of carmilla
Sheridan Le Fanu:
Stenbock: not THAT carmilla
Stenbock: a totally different carmilla
Stenbock: this carmilla story is not to be confused for sheridan la fanu's carmilla
Stenbock: for one thing, this isn't a lesbian vampire story
Stenbock: it's a gay vampire story
Stenbock: extremely gay
Bram Stoker: oh no
Anne Rice: oh yes
Stenbock: so carmilla lives in a castle with her sexy brother gabriel and their dad
Stenbock: and she's narrating this story so
Stenbock: she's all "hey its me carmilla, let me tell you what i look like"
Stenbock: "i'm just an average girl, but i think i'm pretty hot"
Stenbock: "but boy my brother, damn what a smoke show"
Stenbock: "pouty youthful mouth, tangled blonde locks, the whole deal"
Stenbock: "you know how it is"
Stenbock: "so my brother was so kind and gentle, filled with nothing but love"
Stenbock: "just loved animals"
Stenbock: "and animals loved him"
Stenbock: "he was a delicate cinnamon bun too good for this cruel bitch of a world"
Stenbock: "anyway this vampire comes to our castle"
Stenbock: "and he's always hanging out with my brother"
Stenbock: "but my brother is suddenly all sick and pale and doesn't have as much blood as usual"
Stenbock: "suspiciously vampiric"
Stenbock: "anyway then my brother died and the vampire left, the end"
Stenbock: what do you think of that
Ligotti:
Ligotti:
Ligotti:
King: thom it's not going to move, it's not real
Ligotti: hm
***
Eric Stenbock: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the other side
Stenbock: ok so there's this brook
Stenbock: and everyone in the village says you shouldn't go to the other side
Stenbock: they're all like "nooo don't go to the other side"
Stenbock: "the other side is bad"
Stenock: "the other side is scary"
Stenbock: "it's too gay"
Stenbock: but this kid named gabriel goes
King: oh, another gabriel!
Stenbock: and gabriel is not like other boys
Stenbock: all the other boys love violence and sports ball
Stenbock: he's super sensitive and artistic and gentle
Stenbock: you know, he's just...
Stenbock: different
Barker: oh believe me I know
King: is this about being gay?
Barker: steve its decadent literature, of course its about being gay
Stenbock: now gabriel has a friend named carmilla
King: oh!
King: another carmilla?
King: you really like those names
Stenbock: yes!
Stenbock: so on the other side of this brook
Stenbock: there's wolves and werewolves and wolves with the heads of people and people with the heads of wolves and wolves with people legs and also people with wolf tails (and they all have red eyes) and wolves with people ears and people with wolf ears
Stenbock: and some scary owls too
Eric Stenbock: hey does anyone here know anything about vampires
Bram Stoker: oh i'm your man
Stenbock: cuz i think i might be a vampire
Stoker:
Stoker: okay um
Stoker: why do you
Stoker: why do you think that
Stenbock: well see i think i might be a vampire
Stenbock: cuz i really really like men
Stoker:
Stenbock: you know, like, sexually
Stoker: that's not a vampire thing
Stenbock: are you sure? cuz i feel like it is
Stenbock: i feel like me liking dudes is definitely a vampire thing
Stoker: no vampires are not gay
Stenbock: i dunno, i'm gonna ask le Petit Comte
Stoker: do NOT ask le petit comte!
Stenbock: [through le petit comte] vampires are gay
Stoker: they are not gay!
Stoker: shut up!
Stoker: shut up you stupid puppet!
Barker: bram are you yelling at the puppet
Stoker: well...!
Stoker: well, he's wrong!!!
***
Bill Watterson: what ho, mortals
Watterson: it is i the hermit bill watterson
Watterson: i have lived up in my cave on the mountain for nigh on 30 years
Watterson: in silent contemplation of the mysteries of the cosmos
Watterson: but now i descend to walk amongst you
Watterson: to speak of the revelations delivered unto me
Watterson: thus spake watterson!
Stephen King: oh my god! bill watterson!
Watterson: yes
King: i'm a real big fan of calvin and hobbes you know
Watterson: thank you
King: i've got so many bumper stickers of calvin peeing on things i don't like!
Watterson:
Watterson: listen, people! i bear important news-
Koontz: i have a question!
Koontz: is the transmogrifier real?
Frank Belknap Long: god i wish the transmogrifier was real
King: i love the spaceman spiff strips haha so good
Poe: i prefer the tracer bullet arcs, funny stuff
Barker: hey did you draw frazz? c'mon you can tell us, we're cool
Watterson: see this is why i don't come down here much
Bill Watterson: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this the tale of the mysteries
Watterson: ok so follow me here
Watterson: what if it turned out that man was just an insignificant speck in an unfathomably vast and hostile universe
HP Lovecraft: i know the answer to that one
Watterson: so i realized, in my years of meditation, that man is a meaningless blip in the vast nothing of space
King:
Poe:
Koontz:
Barker:
Lovecraft:
Barker: hahaha
Poe: clive
Barker: did you just rediscover cosmic horror from first principles?
Watterson: what if there were things in the universe that we didn't understand?
King:
Poe:
Koontz:
Barker:
Lovecraft:
King: is there more?
Watterson: no that's it
Watterson: see, the thing is
Watterson: mysteries exist
Watterson: what are mysteries? we just don't know
Watterson: i'll leave it to your imagination to fill in the rest
Watterson: you know, like the noodle incident
Watterson: anyway i'll see you all again in another 30 years
Barker: ya know i was always more of a far side fan anyway
King: i always liked garfield, ya know garfield?
King: like eating lasagna, hating mondays
King: classic strip, classic!
Frank Belknap Long: i liked ozy and millie
Barker: wow frank big surprise