Servant of the Beast – L. Patrick Greene

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pulpfiction01Kopjies, basilisks and klipspringers — oh my! Despite the presence of this impenetrable vocabulary on just the first page, this one goes down easy even being the longest story in the collection so far.

It is told in the same stripped-down style as the adventure stories of Arthur Conan Doyle or Edgar Rice Burroughs which were written less than 20 years earlier.  White explorers, black natives, dubious tale of a lost treasure; really, all that is missing is the old solar eclipse gag.

A hunter has his site trained on an antelope by the river.  His attention is diverted by another animal — a man — who approaches the river for a drink.  With Oswaldian efficiency, he puts a bullet in the antelope; then, before the man can take cover, he gets off another shot which fells the man whose body is then carried off by the river.

The hunter, Burgess, strolls back to camp, “whistling a cheerful tune” with the antelope slung over his shoulder.  The sickly Professor Compton and his hot daughter Dorothy are happy to have some food to speed his recovery.

The party is in Africa seeking a lost valley said to be teeming with riches.  Most of their native carriers have fled taking their provisions with them.  Only the giant Jan has remained.  Rounding out the group is the absent Dick Harding who is vying with Burgess for Dorothy’s affections.  Say, you don’t think . . .

It is noted that Burgess, the backer of this expedition, is rich.  This pleases her father who is worried for her security.  On the other hand, his competition is named Dick Harding, which pleases Dorothy.

When he does not return, Dorothy says, “I’m anxious abut Dick.”  She and Jan go searching for him.  Down by the river, Jan determines from his spoor that he entered the river but did not make it to the other side.  He must have been washed away with the current and drowned.

They discover Harding’s pith helmet with 2 bullet holes — wow, Burgess is Oswaldian. Because Dorothy heard two shots and Burgess slyly claimed he did not miss, she accuses him of killing Harding.

Like Pete Meadows in Satan Drives the Bus, Burgess illustrates why your first call should always be to a lawyer.  He says, “Yes, I shot him and now there’s nothing stands between us.  You can’t prove anything.”  Well, the two witnesses you just confessed to might disagree.

Jan is ready to toss him off a cliff, but Dorothy convinces him to just tie Burgess up instead.  Just as Burgess is restrained, Harding reappears, the bullet having only grazed his noggin.  Fortuitously, after he was almost killed, he was washed downstream where he found a Shangri-la-esque tunnel leading to the fabled valley.

All members of the group are soon abducted and split up.  Harding and Burgess end up together in a cavern.  They are able to put that petty MURDER attempt behind them and work together.  They are soon reunited with Dorothy and Professor Compton.  Although alive, none have made out as well as Jan who has been made king of the tribe and given quite the fly ensemble with ostrich feathers, a kilt and a gold headband.

With Jan as their protector, the group is fine until Jan and Harding save a native girl from being sacrificed to a leopard.  Burgess allies with the Sherry Palmer of the tribe, but things don’t work out for them.

All the others come out winners.  Harding gets Dorothy, Dorothy gets Dick, and the happy couple & Professor Compton get the diamonds and will wallow in fabulous wealth for the rest of their lives.  Jan remains as king of the tribe to live in a mud hut and sleep on the dirt.

Post-Post:

  • First published in Action Novels, April 1930
  • Also that month: Hostess Twinkies invented.  Yada yada . . . still edible.
  • The word spoor is used 20 times in this story.  As I had originally confused this word with scat, I was baffled why everyone was leaving a trail of shit.
  • Jan calls all the white folks Baas which I assume is meant to be boss.  But why the strange spelling?  Surely it is not his native tongue.  Is it dialect?  It really looks pretty much like it would be pronounced just like boss.

Tales from the Crypt – Loved to Death (S3E1)

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tftclovedtodeath02Directed by the nephew of Herman J. Mankiewicz, writer of Citizen Kane.  Written by the first cousin of the Director.  Starring Mariel Hemingway, grand-daughter of Ernest Hemingway.

It would be easy to blame the nepotism of Hollywood, but these people have some decent credits among them.  Here, though, they came together to produce a pretty disappointing episode.

It’s a given that any show which involves fantasy or the supernatural will eventually have a love potion episode.  Maybe two.  I have no beef with revisiting the classic tropes, but you still have to put some effort into it.

The direction is sluggish — once again we have a guy at the helm who doesn’t seem to understand what the show is supposed to be.  At 28 minutes, it is one of the longer episodes and for no good reason.  Just trimming 5 minutes out might have helped.

tftclovedtodeath09Sadly, Mariel Hemingway is not much of an actress.  The awkwardness she brought to her role in Star 80 seemed like a great performance, but in retrospect, it might not have been acting.  On the plus side, she looks great in several lingerie scenes, and has insanely nice long legs.

Andrew McCarthy is a screen-writer who becomes infatuated with his actress neighbor. There is a fairly pointless sub-plot with a chain-smoking, mostly unseen apartment manager.  He gets the potion into McCarthy’s hands, but the part seems set up for far more.  General Burkhalter’s sister shows up, which is always nice but also mostly pointless. Yada yada love potion yada yada irony.

There are a couple of fun points, but it kind of loses me when McCarthy slugs Mariel Hemingway.  Overall not worth any more words.

Post-Post:tftclovedtodeath11

Satan Drives the Bus – Wyatt Blassingame

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pulpfiction01Allen Sargent is taking a bus trip.  He is killing time by profiling the other passengers. There is the short bald guy with the cigar who must be a salesman; the poorly-dressed country woman who had probably been working in the fields since she was six; the hard-faced blonde lush who had called the driver “baby”; the hard-boiled gangster with the scar who seemed scared; and “on the back seat, a negro sat alone.”

Well, ya can’t accuse him of racial profiling. Sargent doesn’t even bother to come up with a story for him. He’s like Franklin in Peanuts — just the black guy.

There is also a priest, an old shaggy-haired hobo type, the driver and Sandra Bullock.  OK, just a pretty girl — which I gotta think is a rarity for bus travel — but I re-watched Speed just before reading this.  Sargent thinks, “With her to look at, this trip might not be so bad.”

As he is drooling over Sandra, the old man jumps up in the aisle and proclaims, “It’s death!  Death and sin!  They are riding with us, and they shall strike; they shall kill us all because someone here has sinned against man and God!”  Sargent sits him down and gallantly inserts himself in the seat beside Sandra.

The guy might have been crazy, but he was right — minutes later, the salesman lets out a scream and keels over dead.  The driver says he will stop in Perry Corners and alert the police.

The “negro” stands and flashes a gun.  He says, “I’m Pete Meadows.  They’re looking for me in Minneapolis for a couple of bank robberies.”  He clearly wants to avoid the cops, but he doesn’t seem to get the concept of laying low.  He might as well have shouted out his home address and Social Security Number while he was at it.

The old man shouts about sin and death again, and this time the country woman drops dead.

The driver begins going too fast.  When Meadows complains, the driver lets out a maniacal, “laughter from hell!”  When he turns, he is sporting the face of a cartoon devil — triangular face, V-shaped eyebrows, pointed ears — signifying true evil, the pit of Hell, vile pestilence; or deviled ham.

Meadows tries to shoot the driver, but he is the next to drop dead, clawing at his throat, tearing bloody flesh from his neck.  The driver next turns his attention to the hard-faced blonde. She begs for time to make a confession to the priest, and the driver generously gives her 2 minutes.  This guy must have had the buses running on time because he kills her 2 minutes later.  And then the scar-faced man.

But there is a nice twist, and the things turn out to have not been so supernatural after all.  A pretty good yarn.

I look forward to the sequel, Satan Pulls the Train.

Post-Post:

  • First published in Ace Detective Magazine, October 1936.
  • Also that month: First commercial flight from US to Hawaii.
  • Pointless Duplication:  The bank robber was named Pete Meadows.  And the guy pretending to be a priest was also named Pete?  Why?

Palate Cleanser – Haircut 100

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This phenomenal album is great to put on in almost any setting — at home, at work, riding a bike.  One of the benefits for listening at work is that you won’t be distracted by the lyrics — I have listened to this album a thousand times and know NONE of the lyrics.  Also good for that reason — Talking Heads.  Not good for that reason — Bob Dylan.

Maybe I should listen to the lyrics.  Other than the parenthetical  “Boy Meets Girl,” this seems like the gayest track listing ever.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)
Love Plus One
Lemon Firebrigade
Marine Boy
Milk Film
Kingsize (You’re My Little Steam Whistle)
Fantastic Day
Baked Bean
Snow Girl
Love’s Got Me in Triangles
Surprise Me Again
Calling Captain Autumn

Pelican West Plus bonus tracks:

Boat Party
Ski Club
Nobody’s Fool (12″ version)
October Is Orange (day 1 and 2)
Favourite Shirts (12″ version)

Outer Limits – I Hear You Calling (S2E4)

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olihear02Carter Jones (Ally Sheedy) is a reporter, one of the few like Sheryl Attkisson who will actually do something other than put on the knee pads and suck up to power.  While stuck in traffic, her cell phone picks up a call from a nearby car and she hears “Krieger is scheduled for removal this afternoon.  There will be no witnesses.”

She looks around and stares eye-to-violet-eye with Michael Sarrazin.  Rather than go home to prepare for a cocktail party at the home of some cabinet official, she shockingly pursues the story.

Her editor is old school, though, and wants her to cover the garbage strike.  He says Joeseph Krieger’s name gets “thrown around a lot.  He’s this country’s Salmon Rushdie.”

I kinda think of Salmon Rushdie as this country’s Salmon Rushdie (even if he is a British citizen).  Nothing to see here, move along.

She goes to Krieger’s house and sees the police taking photos of man-shaped purple ash residue on the driveway.  They throw her off the scene.  In her SUV, she gets a call from Sarrazin who says he knows her name, her address and warns her that she could suffer the same fate as Krieger.

olihear09In the archives, she finds a story from 2 weeks ago about a hiker that disappeared from a boat trip.  Purple ashes in the shape of a man were found on the dock.  She gets the world’s most intrusive email notification that tells here, “Do not pursue this.”

She goes to the dock, to speak to the captain of the boat, but learns that he hasn’t been heard from in 2 weeks.  The dockmaster tells her that Krieger was also on that boat. There was also a married couple on that boat.  Jones goes to their house and sees Sarrazin reduce them to purple ashes.

Since Sarrazin knows where she lives, she goes to her father’s house.  They don’t get along because, like Samantha Marsh, she has exposed environmental problems at her father’s employer that resulted in the loss of jobs.  Even if she did the right thing, she is really an asshole about the lives she disrupted.

She goes back to see the dockmaster, but he is now missing.  His sister is there also looking for him.  She says another odd-looking man was just there looking for her brother.  Jones is able to track him to a hotel  Sarrazin has followed her and also reduces him to purple ashes.

olihear14Turns out, Sarrazin is an alien.  One of his scouts had a virus which infected the people whom he has been eliminated.  He was merely preventing a massive outbreak on Earth. The last infected person: Carter Jones.

The good news is the people he zapped to purple ashes did not actually die, they were just transported to Sarrazin’s planet where the the virus is not a danger.  Which sounds suspiciously like my dog Skippy “going to live on a farm” when he got old.

Good episode and nice twist on the killer aliens.

Post-Post:

  • This would have been a much better title for the episode starring Marlee Matlin which had the blah title The Message.  It barely makes sense for this episode.
  • Hulu Sucks.  However, their beautiful IHOP commercials are mouth-watering. New: Caramel Bon-Bon Pancakes.