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50th Episode!!! Guest: Author, Podcaster, Badass, Scott Sigler
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Our 50th episode features sci-fi/horror novelist, publisher, and podcast pioneer Scott Sigler. We talk the pro and cons of ADHD, King Kong, and parse ChatGPT for language creation. We also discuss AI ethics, a drug called caffeine, and close with a 1990's radiodrama that Scott and I made with some friends way back in undergrad. And of course, there's a MadLib.
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Transcript
Introduction to Mentally Oddcast
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:34
Speaker
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesdayly Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Do find us on coffee.
Guest Introduction: Scott Sigler
00:00:44
Speaker
This week, we have Scott Sigler, who is an American author of science fiction and horror and a podcaster.
00:00:53
Speaker
Scott is a New York Times number one bestselling author. ah Let's see, 20 novels, six novellas, dozens of short stories, and thousands, not an exaggeration, of podcast episodes.
00:01:04
Speaker
He is a co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his young adult Galactic Football League series. And he lives in San Diego. ah Scott Sigler also went to undergrad with me. Yep. So welcome, Scott.
00:01:18
Speaker
now I'm happy to be here. It's nice to be chatting with you. Indeed, indeed. And you know, I didn't actually realize this when we planned this interview, but this is the 50th episode of the Mentally Oddcast.
00:01:31
Speaker
Woo, fantastic. I know, right? It's super exciting.
First Horror Movie Experience
00:01:35
Speaker
So if you're a regular listener, you probably already know this, but we start by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing.
00:01:44
Speaker
And it's weird that I don't know yours, but I don't. So let's hear it. Well, the first horror movie I saw was King Kong 1976 in the theater. And it was this really special moment because i am the youngest of two boys.
00:01:59
Speaker
My older brother is much more is very similar to my father. They're a very similar person. I'm not all that similar to my dad in a lot of ways. But the first movie my dad went to see in a theater ever was the original King Kong with his dad, with my grandpa.
00:02:17
Speaker
So. My dad, knowing I was already a bit of ah a storytelling kid, took me, just me and him, not my brother. We went to see King Kong and it was great and i was super excited.
00:02:28
Speaker
And then during the movie, there is a scene where King Kong comes out of the jungle and starts pounding away in the bamboo fortress and, And it scared the crap out of me.
00:02:39
Speaker
i was, gosh, i know I was not very old. And I start crying. I'm like asking if we could leave. and remember my dad saying, laughing and saying, oh, no, we paid money for this. So we just sat through that that through the whole thing and I was miserable for the whole movie.
00:02:54
Speaker
And then the is we're walking out of the theater and I'm like holding my dad's hand, walking out of the theater. And as soon as we got out the doors, i asked him when we could go see it again. And that was this, the first inkling that I wanted to scare people with something that I did.
00:03:15
Speaker
Right. That's ah wait. Now I want to be clear. King Kong in the seventies. Is that, is that the Charles Grodin one or is that the real one? ah Yes, that is the Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange. Jessica Lange.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yep. And one of the brother actors, the the dude, I think one of the bridges. Gosh, who was? Okay. I can't. Who played? Who played the dude?
00:03:42
Speaker
Yes. One of the bridges. You're right. One of the bridges. Yep. Wow. That's, I mean, honestly, it's kind of a unique experience to have seen that movie at that age yeah because it actually scared you.
00:03:55
Speaker
Like it would not have scared you if you had seen it as a ah teen, I think. My dad and I watched all the old creature features all the time. So the original King Kong, all the Godzilla movies, there was just anything that was on the Saturday night creature features, a guy in our area,
00:04:11
Speaker
on the local channel called Count Zapula and Count Zapula every Sunday or every Saturday would have on monster movies. And that was one of the big things that my dad and I really connected on.
00:04:23
Speaker
And so he's like, yeah, I'll take you to the theater to see it. But keep mind, I had never been in a movie theater before. So this was the whole overwhelming sound and visual spectacle for a seven or eight year old kid like that in itself was something wow amazing.
00:04:38
Speaker
And then, you know, not having the ability to discern fantasy from reality all that much that that giant, giant gorilla up on that big screen was just an awesome spectacle.
00:04:51
Speaker
damn, that's amazing. yeah it's and that's I mean, I'm ah kind of blown away by that just because that movie but had never seemed particularly scary for me um because I was much older when I saw it. Because I had actually seen the original King Kong on Sir Graves Gastly, who was our Saturday morning guy, our Saturday you know afternoon horror movie guy. And It was like, it was this weird combination because even as a kid, I could tell that it was models and you could tell like the way that the fur was like moving around on the thing. yep
00:05:27
Speaker
That it was all models, but yet it was still scary because the performances in the movie were such that you could feel what the people were feeling. And the 76 one, the special effects of course are ah whole generation of effects better than the original one.
00:05:45
Speaker
um But that that stuff, a lot of that stuff holds up pretty well. A bunch of it doesn't, but there's definitely some scenes. If you watch the 76 King Kong and and the biggest screen you can find with good sound, there's some still phenomenal, phenomenal monster elements in it.
00:06:00
Speaker
Wow. not See, no now I want to watch it again.
Influence of Stephen King
00:06:03
Speaker
um so you're saying that that really is what made you decide you wanted to scare people for a living? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I, I was always writing monster stories.
00:06:14
Speaker
And like, probably from that point on, just like that, everything I did in class was like, write this monster, that monster. And it was really, really starting to dig it. And so that, that's what sort of led me toward writing fiction and writing horror because I, um my mom was a big reader. She was a grade school teacher.
00:06:36
Speaker
So she was just books, books, books all the time in our family. She'd take me to the bookstore, give me a book, take me to library, max out how much we could get. so I was reading constantly, but she was a big reader too.
00:06:47
Speaker
So every Christmas I would save up my my quarters, my nickels, and I would get her the latest Stephen King and the latest Donyell Steele novel. And I think I can't, I might've been like 12 or so.
00:07:03
Speaker
And one of the books that I got over Stephen King was called Cycle of the Werewolf, which ah they made the movie, based the movie Silver Bullet around. Yep, yep.
00:07:14
Speaker
And I had never read so read Stephen King because that's you know that's grown-up stuff. And as I'm wrapping presents and whatnot, I open up the book and I start reading. And like from the first line, i just wound up reading the whole thing over the course of a couple of days. And I remember my mom coming in.
00:07:30
Speaker
and my bedroom and like I would hide the book behind the desk. Like, so clever. And I'm pretty sure she thought I was like reading a Playboy or something because I was at about that age.
00:07:41
Speaker
ah But no, I was just hiding it because it was her Christmas present. But I read the whole book and then I sort of connected, ah sort of connected like the experience with King Kong. And in my head, was like, I understood making a movie was this incredibly complicated process.
00:07:57
Speaker
And when I read Silver Bullet, that was a light bulb moment. like, oh, I can give people those safe scares like I had in the theater, but I can do all that myself and not have to involve anybody else or coordinate with with any other organization, et cetera.
00:08:12
Speaker
And that's really where where it started off.
ADHD Diagnosis and Management
00:08:17
Speaker
Okay. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Now I am aware that you have ADHD.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yep. What I don't know is when, when were you diagnosed with that? Was that early in your life? I'm not sure how active the diagnosis that was when I was a little kid, but I i was, my mom was trying to figure out like what to do with me.
00:08:38
Speaker
ah Cause I was very, very hyper kid. And I think our family doctor, somebody get did a prescription for Ritalin. But my mom, being a grade school teacher, you know, third grade mostly, had seen a lot of her students come in, you know, these very excited, hyper bright kids.
00:09:01
Speaker
And then they would go on Ritalin. And she said it was back then, she's like, it's like, like most of the light just went out of their eyes. And it was very disturbing for her to watch that. And, you some parents back in the day would parent by over-prescribing the stuff. So she had seen some worst case scenarios and she decided that that was not the route we were going to go.
00:09:23
Speaker
So technically, I guess I was probably diagnosed with it way back when. And, but then just went through, you know, grade school, junior high, high school, college, et cetera, and really didn't start to get at didn't go for a diagnosis until I'd say about five, six years ago.
00:09:44
Speaker
So well, you know, well into my midlife area. And that came because my wife was in the pharmacology industry, was in the drug industry, and I was suffering from like super bad heartburn all the time. She's like, you know, there's medication for that. I'm like, what?
00:10:02
Speaker
And wound up getting a prescription for that. And all of a sudden, that like changed my life dramatically. And so now I'm very pro, I was very pro drugs, you know, like, if there's something that's going to solve a problem, let's check it out. So she got me to look into the ADHD, see if we get a prescription and and get on some for that. And We did, so we got a diagnosis, got on that, and that's had you know moderate levels of um success.
00:10:29
Speaker
So the answer your question is probably you know about five or six years ago, well into midlife. All right. Now, I just want to want to focus on something for a minute here. so So what I'm hearing is that you have over 20 novels. You revolutionized podcasting.
00:10:47
Speaker
You started your own ah publishing house and you did all of that while unmedicated and having ADHD.
ADHD Hyper-focus Benefits
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And there's a couple areas where I get the hyper focus.
00:11:00
Speaker
They talk about if you if you follow ADHD or know someone who has it. The then one side, the bad side of the coin is being scatterbrained, being very easily distracted, not being able to hold the thought or pursue a thing and needing, frankly, for me, it was like, I need a lot of management to get me through my homework. The homework was always a piece of cake, and but like except except for math, everything else is just like, no problem. like I can knock that out.
00:11:26
Speaker
It was just sitting down long enough and focusing enough to get that done. So a lot of problems in that and that area. But the the good side of the coin was when you get into hyper-focus, like everything else just fades away and all you are doing, you're sort of in the yeah in the tunnel, right? Doing that one thing.
00:11:46
Speaker
And I had a couple of things that would do that. Sports was a big thing for that, especially any kind of sports with physical contact, like wrestling or football. um I was able to pay 100%
00:11:59
Speaker
100% attention to that stuff. And especially with wrestling in high school, I just worked out religiously. I would work out before school, skip lunch and work out, go to practice, and then work out after practice.
00:12:10
Speaker
And so wrestling season was this crazy time of just like everything was calm in my head. Everything was super chill. I was really good at my homework and everything else. Um... And the other place where it really started to kick in the hyper focus was writing, writing in general, and then writing fiction in particular.
00:12:29
Speaker
So I could go. i remember being at college and writing for like just 10 hours straight one Saturday when I'd come home and barely remembering to get up to go to the bathroom kind of a thing. um So that.
00:12:41
Speaker
So the ADHD, when it comes to the podcasting and the fiction and things like that, a lot of times it was very beneficial. It was like a superpower to be able to just focus on this narrative thread and this character arc and the story long enough to get that thing done. So it it's definitely had some pros and cons, but i overall i give it a lot more pros than cons.
00:13:03
Speaker
Wow. Now I have never ah talked to anyone with that experience before. That is fascinating. And it's also interesting to know that you were so into sports. Like I knew you were a sports fan, but there's also a lot of sports content in your work, you know? yeah um Cause even though like there is a strong focus on horror and sci-fi, like the first novel of yours that I read was Infection because I got, to you had given me a ah draft of it.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, And yeah, i wasn't I wasn't prepared for how much like sportiness there was going to be. You're ah you're a Lions fan, right? That is correct. All all my lifelong Lions fan.
00:13:43
Speaker
Well, and it's also interesting because I've i've gleaned from your social media that you seem to prefer Faygo Town Club. And and i just want to say, i think it's really brave of you to have the courage to admit that publicly.
00:13:57
Speaker
Well, I guess it is Count Ortega or Vernors. And Vernors, of course, is forever associated with being sick. So i don't like Vernors. That's the Michigan culture. Oh, you got a bellyache? Here's a Vernors.
00:14:09
Speaker
oh Exactly. Maybe be some Campbell's soup. The Faygo thing, I actually picked up of all places when I lived in San Francisco. because of course, Faygo was, you know, like a quarter for a two liter when I was a kid.
00:14:21
Speaker
So when it was playing me and do with my pals or hanging out with everybody, the parents would just come show up like eight two liters of Faygo trying to keep these teenage boys happy. And then, you know, move out, go to college, live around and go San Francisco and found a Lions bar, a Detroit Lions bar in San Francisco.
00:14:37
Speaker
And the guy who owned the bar was a Michigander. So when the Lions were on, if the Lions scored, he would serve Faygo and vodka shots. Oh, wow. What flavor?
00:14:50
Speaker
It was all over the place. you would because be I think there wasn't even a BevMo back then, so he was just having the stuff like trucked in. And just all these Michiganders would flock to the area.
00:15:01
Speaker
And living in San Francisco for 10 years, being from the Midwest is a little bit of a culture culture clash. Not too much, but you get to go to these football games, be around other people in their Lions gear, talking about stories from Michigan. It was wonderful. it was like this very...
00:15:16
Speaker
found family kind of thing and then I just after that I was totally back on the Faygo wagon so now the only time a Faygo gets consumed in this house is when the Lions win a game not play a game and I get a Faygo because I'm a lot older now and that straight up sugar water is really really sweet yeah Yeah, yeah, I'll tell ya. That's because the soda has always been one of my my weaknesses. That summer that that Mountain Dew invented Code Red, I really thought maybe they wanted me to die. yeah
00:15:46
Speaker
ah like i but The nectar of the gods, that stuff. My near-death experience with soda came because of Red Bull. So yeah, that'll happen. Red Bull came out and I, you know, heard about it. i was living in San Francisco at the time.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I've always been like a huge caffeine guy because caffeine is one of the things that sort of helps. I've convinced myself it helps get me to more of a hyper focus and sort of deal with the ADHD symptoms.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so, you know, um um'm a ah I'm a soda guy. I'm a manly man. Like, why have one Red Bull? I'm just going to have two. These little baby cans they got. And I had ah two Red Bulls. And I remember sitting at my desk and being like,
00:16:29
Speaker
I think I'm having a heart attack. This is crazy. Like just everything was racing inside I was like, so that's the last time I've ever had one of those energy drinks. i'm Like that's not for me.
00:16:41
Speaker
Well, for Gen Xers, I mean, we were taught that that was like a good way to get fucked up is with super high amounts of caffeine, Jolt Cola, man, the theater kids were passing Jolt Cola around backstage like crazy. Jolt was huge in the right for us wrestling in high school.
00:16:58
Speaker
We would get Jolt Cola and then there was a candy bar called the One for the Road Bar. And this had the equivalent of two cups of coffee in it. So we would be at wrestling tournaments all day long, pounding Jolt Colas, drinking one for the road bars, and just the over-the-top caffeinatedness of it.
00:17:19
Speaker
I'm very surprised we didn't die. Now, was your coach down with that or did they not know? They didn't really know what was going on. You know, like we're just like we were we had strategies to get the jolt colas in.
00:17:31
Speaker
But just um I finally realized i needed to cut back on caffeine as my senior year. and we're watching film of one of my wrestling matches so we watch all the weight classes watch the watch the matches watch them all together and i wrestled at 126 pounds the guy before me is at 119 so i'm just a little guy and we're watching the 119 pounder wrestle and on the edge of the mat there's me walking up and down the side of the mat with my hands up by my ears and just flinging my fingers around And kind of staring around.
00:18:03
Speaker
and then And then every now and then looking at the person I'm going to wrestle because I was going to murder him. And then just like, I did that for like eight minutes, nonstop. Yikes. And I'm watching it. And I'm watching it. I'm like, that's that's like watching a crazy person do crazy things.
00:18:19
Speaker
So I decided at that point, i'm like, I'm going to cut way back on the caffeine.
00:18:26
Speaker
Wow. And I imagine you slept better afterwards, too. Because that's that's what I notice now is that I sleep like crap if I have caffeine. Yeah, I'm finally to that point where have caffeine after six o'clock or seven o'clock at night, it can interrupt my sleep a little bit.
00:18:42
Speaker
um But I've always been super lucky in that I can fall asleep on the drop of a hat almost anywhere. So all that caffeine never impacted my sleep at all when I was a kid or my 20s or anything like that.
00:18:57
Speaker
well, that's handy. it It's very handy. And I having, I'm on my, the um my second marriage, my first wife had ah very difficult time sleeping like constantly.
00:19:10
Speaker
And it was ah it was an educational experience to find out that people have trouble sleeping because I had i had no frame of reference for that whatsoever.
00:19:20
Speaker
So I have become so very lucky that I still can, I'm i'm a big napper. I can take a 10 minute nap and feel like a million bucks. What? Oh man. yep That is wild.
00:19:33
Speaker
So listen, on this show, um we complain a lot about generative AI, talk about how we don't like it, we prefer the humanities, blah, blah, blah, blah.
AI in Language Creation
00:19:42
Speaker
blah Now I am aware that you use AI in the process of language creation, and I find that fascinating. yeah um I tried to do some language creation,
00:19:53
Speaker
After I learned Dothraki, I had this brilliant idea that I was going invent a language for these like Sonny Bean type family of of murderers. And it was going to be really minimalistic. And even doing it minimalistically, was way too much for me.
00:20:07
Speaker
It was just too huge and I couldn't do it. So so how is that going? How do you go about that? Well, I have a book coming out next year in March called War Path, and it is set in 1760 during the French and Indian War.
00:20:23
Speaker
And ah Fort Pontchartrain, which is now Detroit, a unit of Rogers Rangers who were kind of like the special forces group before special forces were a thing,
00:20:34
Speaker
have to go from the from the Detroit area down to Western Kentucky, or what would become eventually Western Kentucky. And in 1760, there were no European settlements of any kind in all of Kentucky, that whole region.
00:20:50
Speaker
And it was all Native American cultures down there. And they were just starting to really get impacted by the spread of disease and you know the the Europeans taking advantage of different different aspects of things.
00:21:02
Speaker
But to make the book as realistic as possible, I wanted... some of the protagonists to be from this tribe. And I wanted to showcase the the communication difficulties and build up the culture on it.
00:21:16
Speaker
Cause I didn't want to like, I'm not going to take Cherokee or Chippewa or Cree and being a pasty white guy, write this, write a character from within that culture and screw a bunch stuff up and piss a lot of people off.
00:21:29
Speaker
So invented one. I treated it like, Like a lot of guys who look like me and women who look like me, write they make up European cultures, mostly Western European feudal cultures for fantasy, whether grimdark or high fantasy, e etc. So there's all these wonderful made-up cultures over there that look and feel and smell like you like like the French or like the English or or German or any combination thereof.
00:21:53
Speaker
So i want I just want to do the same thing four for this North American native tribe because and this is... this is the land where I was born. We're like five generations here. I have far more identification with people who have always been in North America than I do say people who have always been in Europe. It was just that far apart from it.
00:22:16
Speaker
So I was like, this is great. This is basically a Warpath is kind of a military fantasy horror novel. And let's just make up a whole culture, whole cloth, except instead of it being a bunch of white people, it'll be a Native American invented culture.
00:22:32
Speaker
So you're going to do that, you need to have a language. So i I was trying to figure out how to do it, and i I had tried to create my own languages for books before.
00:22:43
Speaker
And as you found, it's incredibly complicated. And tracking this basic stuff is really rough. So I asked ChatGPT, I'm like, hey, can you help me come up with a language?
00:22:56
Speaker
I learned from ChatBT there's a whole concept called a conlang. think that's a contrived language. It's what you do if you write a fantasy novel and you make your your own language. That's called conlang.
00:23:08
Speaker
And so I just had it start helping me with that. And like, well, This is ah Native American culture. Can you use whatever is known about those to kind of find commonalities in sentence structure, in in dialogue, in nomenclature?
00:23:28
Speaker
Are there any threads that go through all things? Because then in Europe, of course, Latin... is is the bedrock of most of the languages over there so more different you have lot of shared stuff so i asked chat to come up with that so it came up with ah and like all of a sudden like here's verbs here's gerunds here's sentence structure like came over this whole i was like this is amazing and then it came up with like great let's come up with a so i said put it put it in the you know the sort of the chippewa family there's a whole tree, a language tree involved in that, much of which is is lost to time. There's so many tribes that didn't have a permanent record written down.
00:24:07
Speaker
So a lot of this is guesswork. And ChatGPT was able to go out and find current thorough research and say, great, here's your vowel set. Here's your consonant set. And right out of the gate, I'm like, this sounds like, you know, like growing up in northern Michigan.
00:24:25
Speaker
And, you know, there's Chippewa ah names all over the place. It sounds a lot like that. But these were invented words. And the final step I had it do was, and this is where it broke down.
00:24:37
Speaker
i just assumed like, well, it can track the whole dictionary for me. And like it can correct things. it It turns out it can't do that. It can't keep a whole vocabulary going. So I then had to use a wiki.
00:24:50
Speaker
So I use my wiki to be great. Here's what wolf means. Here's what tree means. And then I would constantly have to re-upload that to ChatGPT every time I had to make a new word.
00:25:03
Speaker
Because I'm like, make sure we don't want the same word for two things, if at all possible. Because I say, once I got to about 40 words, 50 words, there's no way i I can come up with any combination of syllables and what have you, and it's eventually going to be a word that's already in play, which would be more confusing to the reader.
00:25:23
Speaker
So ChatGPT was really, really helpful in that in that regard. it It gave me education on the concept of a conlang. It was able to take existing research and kind of craft a rule set by which I could build language, vocabulary, sentences, et cetera, and then kind of help me proof all of that.
00:25:45
Speaker
And we would often run into like, well, this this sounds too similar. Wolf here was this word, but wolf pack is now two completely different words. Those should be closer, more related.
00:25:56
Speaker
Things like that was able to kind of an iterative process with ChatGPT to eventually find like like this word, this collection of syllables has not been used. Great, we'll put that in stone, put that in the wiki. And they're actually gonna put all of those words in the back of the book when Warpath comes out, which is which is pretty cool.
00:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And you know, like like I said, I'm really down on the whole AI thing, especially in the creative arts, but I think that is a really good example of something that,
00:26:28
Speaker
I mean, you can't just hire someone to do that. It's not like people are losing out on jobs because we use chat GPT in that way. Like it's legitimately a helpful thing. It's very helpful. And I think there are probably people out there that you can hire to do that.
00:26:44
Speaker
Guillermo del Toro hired someone to make a whole troll language for Hellboy 2 written and everything and spent many thousands of dollars on it. They wound up not using it, which is the way movies get made, I guess.
00:26:56
Speaker
But Something like that, you know they're there i have problems trying to find my footing in the debate about generative AI in certain areas like this.
00:27:11
Speaker
I could hire somebody to do that. That would be three times as much as I was paid to write the book. Right? Right. Exactly. It's going to be exactly a lot of work And um probably not someone you'd probably need a team for that. Right. um I, I assume so. Yeah. But this is not.
00:27:27
Speaker
So depending on the project, you know, now del Toro making a 50, $80 million dollars film, that's, he can go hire somebody to do that. I'm like, I just want, you know, for that, the 28 lines of dialogue in this book, I want to feel real.
00:27:41
Speaker
I want the readers who really want to break this stuff down, because there's a lot who do, be like, oh, this is how this how they have a possessive. This is their articles. like That stuff is deep dive Easter eggs that turn people into absolute super fans. Like if you hit their sweet spot, they love it.
00:27:58
Speaker
So it was, ChatGPT was a great solution for that. But there are areas where where it's not taking away jobs. Like if you need help with math, you're trying to understand a math concept.
00:28:11
Speaker
All the math is already out there. you know You're not taking money away from someone or or pilfering someone's copyrighted work if you need some... ah simple explanation for some complicated math or physics. I use it a lot for physics for my Crypt series and Far Future Sci-Fi.
00:28:30
Speaker
This stuff is all out there. It's how much time do you want to spend trying to learn it or do you just want to get that one nugget of things? So if you do have physicists and mathematicians who read your work, they don't turn up their nose. Well, this this person doesn't know what they're talking about.
00:28:45
Speaker
Just enough granular reality to make it feel normal to the people who really know that stuff. So I think that's a very good use of it.
00:28:56
Speaker
Collating and assisting analysis of scientific research, you know, again, as a fiction writer, I'm not a scientist. I am not a physicist. I want characters who are physicists. So how much time am I going to spend learning about the math of wormholes?
00:29:09
Speaker
Very little, if any, because that's a special effect. That's not plot, character, dialogue. It's not the thing right i people pay me to do. It's not the really good stuff.
00:29:22
Speaker
I think it's got fantastic uses in education. There are so many people out there who maybe have access to a computer but don't have access to a tutor and don't you know they're in a classroom with 60 kids in it.
00:29:37
Speaker
And you know getting there are educational opportunities with it that I think have a lot of promise and potential, especially as if if you're able to have a generative AI that sort of you follow along with, you know, ah and and it starts to understand how you learn, how you communicate, and its ability to give you information that you could not otherwise get or don't even know exists to make you a smarter, more educated person give you more opportunities. So that's out there.
00:30:07
Speaker
um You know, if I'm going to go have chat GPT help me come up with, i need and I need a plan for my ADHD to help me get through this novel. I need to need to break it down.
00:30:18
Speaker
Sure, I can go buy seven books. I can read all of those books. I can spend a lot of time doing that. Or since those books are built on you know common source research, could I use an AI to help me kind of tailor a plan that fits current existing real world knowledge? I think there's areas there's tertiary and secondary areas of the creative process that that it can help you with.
00:30:41
Speaker
I am a full believer like ChatGPT AI in no way should be involved in the actual creation of the fictional content.
AI in Education and Publishing
00:30:50
Speaker
That's a full top bar none.
00:30:52
Speaker
I don't wanna see AI actors. I don't wanna see AI scripts. I don't wanna see AI fiction. Although all of these things are coming and they are coming fast,
00:31:03
Speaker
Because valley yeah that's kind of my my line in the sand is I'm like, I look at a problem that I need solved. Can chat GBT help me with this? Can Google Gemini help me with this?
00:31:15
Speaker
And if so, is it drawing on copyrighted work to do so? Is there copy of other writers out there that this will take from?
00:31:25
Speaker
So that... That kind of becomes my initial acid test for it. Like if the answer is obviously yes, then that we're not using it for that. But um there's so many so many gray areas in there.
00:31:38
Speaker
And we are absolutely right around the corner from that. It's already happening right now. Audible right now is using AI-generated narration.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, they are. To anybody who's on ACX, which is there their homegrown self-serve, like I write a book, I can upload it to ACX, have somebody narrate it for me. So ah that that's this is a big soapbox of mine.
00:32:01
Speaker
Where we're going to see this happen in bulk is with Amazon. Because Amazon, of course, makes bookstore in the world. They own Audible. We are very close to um watching Amazon have AI write books and short stories because there's a couple of things they can do because they're the biggest horse and biggest biggest gorilla in the room and their data analytics are out of this world the amount of stuff that they can follow like for my audiobooks i got a book deal with audible for a book because they went back and could tell how long people listen to my other works whether they listen to it fast or slow whether they repeat listened
00:32:41
Speaker
And they were like, oh, this guy has great stickiness with his work. Let's let's bring him in. But the other thing they can do with that is, great, we're going to write a standard hero's quest or a standard boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl get together story.
00:32:58
Speaker
They can do variations of the structure, plot, and character. they can Because they can push that book out so many people, they can have that book in front of 20,000 people, the snap of the fingers.
00:33:10
Speaker
They can break that down into A, B, C, D, E groups with different sets of story and different wordplay and different writing levels, and then see how long people listen and see how long they read if they finish it.
00:33:22
Speaker
And then they can go back Have AI almost at the speed of light. re mountain Okay, great. Now take all, take B, C, D, and and rewrite them with A style. Now let's split things up and do more control groups and focus groups.
00:33:35
Speaker
And all of this can happen in weeks and in months. And that's the kind of work that as a human writer, you simply can't do. What that means is when Audible pulls the trigger on this, when Amazon pulls a trigger on this, they're going to crack the code of a bestseller Super fast, much faster than any of us want to accept or admit.
00:33:57
Speaker
So that is. And then with that, they've got the audio book narration. And we are within a year or two away from audio book narration being indiscernible from human narration, from everything, from pacing, volume to emotional content. All of that's to be done Yeah, i mean, I always, like now, I have a hard time telling on YouTube. but I'll get, you know, eight minutes into a video before I'm like, wait, wait a minute. That voice is damaged. I don't want to purposely patronize any of that.
00:34:33
Speaker
yeah But I just wanted to hear the spooky story. That's all. And yeah, it is. It's terrifying in so many ways because... I mean, first of all, you know, I run the magazine and I've gotten submissions. I got one that straight up started with the line.
00:34:50
Speaker
Sure. Here's that same story again with more suspense. Oh my goodness. and Yeah. Like, okay. you're You're not even trying to trick me. um and And that's, I think that's why I have such a knee jerk reaction is because that's where my mind goes. When someone says AI is people that,
00:35:11
Speaker
don't want to take the time to write something. They just want to be a writer. yeah But you're not being a writer. You know, you're you're a prompter at best. yeah But... you know Having said that, there are a lot of good uses for AI, and it is my hope that ethical people will do that.
00:35:27
Speaker
Once we get into a point where we consume more AI work than work from actual humans, art will just become this stagnated echo chamber of mediocrity, and I'm not looking forward to it.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's absolutely coming, and things are going to get weird because eventually companies like... Amazon and you're going to see Penguin Random House do this because all I've been in publishing for 20 years, no matter what you hear from anyone, all the bean counters at all the big five publishers and all the mid listeners, if they could put out a book and not have to pay anybody for that book and that book would sell.
00:36:03
Speaker
That's business. And they're absolutely going, they're going to do that. They're going to have a, they're going to have AI generated authors, images. They're going to do AI generated social media. You're going to see primarily what you're going to see is, you know, a female authors, probably like 24 to 29,
00:36:22
Speaker
AI person doing social media and for a lot of people it's going to be indiscernible and there's two other factors to it like we're all up in arms over it and panicking over it you know there are 12 year olds out there who are about to be enter into the main reading demographic it's always been around for them they they don't care and it's not it's not a moral quandary for them and you're going to also get this stuff is going to wind up being good in a way that it caters to very niche demographics, right?
00:36:56
Speaker
It's going to get to the point where if you're like, you know, you're you're a 14 year old farmer boy from Kansas and you like, you know, you like fixing up old cars, stuff like that.
00:37:08
Speaker
There's going to be entire lines of fiction that cater specifically to that small, small, small demographic because it doesn't cost anything to make these things. So that's where you're going to get it. It's terrifying because when you give Any group of people, but let's, I mean, just saying general consumers, when they get everything they want all the time, first of all, they don't appreciate it, but they also don't learn anything. There's not opportunity for growth and development and the introduction of new things.
00:37:39
Speaker
Because even if I read a book that's right up my alley, there's probably going to be stuff in there that I didn't know or a perspective that I've never heard before. Yep. Yep. All the time. And that's why getting into books with diverse castes and things like that, having different perspectives on things has always been very beneficial to me as a learning, constantly striving to grow human being.
00:38:01
Speaker
But it's, it's, it's a, there's a lot of darkness coming around for creative people. Cause at the end of the day, nobody wants to pay the creatives. None of these people, they don't want to pay reviewers.
00:38:13
Speaker
They don't want to pay news journalists. They don't want to pay authors. They don't want to pay artists. They just want to make as much money as they can in the highest margin they can. And that's going to be the point where think it's going to be wild is when really well-developed AI fiction starts to analyze other really well-developed AI fiction and how strange that's gonna get when they're not you know they're not pulling from Edgar Allan Poe and from Shakespeare, but from Johnny 209 or whatever.
00:38:42
Speaker
So I think the only thing that can keep the only thing that'll keep the wolves from the door is human fiction's just gonna have to get weird. It's gonna be weird as hell, you know?
00:38:54
Speaker
like a standard or thriller. Like I wrote, I've written several thrillers. I don't think writing a thriller is that complicated. It's, there's a specific formula to it.
00:39:05
Speaker
I don't think writing a romance novel is that complicated. Now there's good and bad, of course. and people after the craft. But the basic premise of how these things go is similar to the hero's journey. You know, like that you can map so many of the hero's journey, Star Wars, ah the Matrix, et cetera, because they follow a very predictable formula that has been with humankind for at least you know two, three, 4,000 years and even farther back.
00:39:31
Speaker
If human beings are following a formula, AI can follow a formula. So I think the if if any creatives out there are listening, the the the The only thing that's going to help you in the long run is you have to have at least some stuff that's just bizarre and weird and could only come from your brain. If you're writing your version of Star Wars, that market's going to be locked up.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right on. Yeah, that's wow. So much to think about there. Yeah. we um You mentioned that you have something coming out next March. um but You're podcasting all the time, right?
00:40:11
Speaker
So let's let's say that someone out there is
Where to Find Scott Sigler's Works
00:40:14
Speaker
unfamiliar with you. Where is the best place for them to get started with the majesty that is Scott Sigler? Well, I would say if listening this as a podcast, then the place to go would be wherever you're listening to this and search for Scott Sigler, S-C-O-T-T-S-I-G-L-E-R.
00:40:29
Speaker
Look in the podcast and audiobook section. You're going to find a whole bunch of stuff. Most stuff in the podcast section is free. The full audiobooks, some of which I read, some of which are read by by other narrators.
00:40:41
Speaker
um That's the the fastest, easiest place to go. And then you, of course, can go to scottsigler.com. And we've got our big book section tab there. And you can see all the stuff that I wrote.
00:40:53
Speaker
Plus, we got all the merch for all the the i write the sports series. So there's all the stuff for that. And hopefully another series, book two of The Crypt, will be out soon. We were hoping to be out by the end of this year, but we're waiting on the audiobook narrator to finish his work.
00:41:08
Speaker
So um that's those the biggest ones. And finally, I currently am doing a series called Slay, S-L-A-Y. We live stream that every Wednesday.
00:41:19
Speaker
And I do a new piece of fiction from that. and People can watch at twitch.tv slash Scott Ziegler, youtube.com slash Scott Ziegler, facebook.com slash Scott Ziegler. Join us in the chat room, blab about the story.
00:41:30
Speaker
Then we take that audio, rip it from the video, edit it, put that in the podcast feed. So we're getting ready to finish up season three of Slay. ah hundred and It's 115 episodes total in the series so far.
00:41:42
Speaker
And that is fresh, fresh storytelling in the feed every Sunday. Nice. Yeah. Nice, okay. <unk>re We're certainly nearing the end of our time here. I do like to give guests a chance to ask me a question if they want to, so now is the time for that.
00:41:59
Speaker
Well, I would say basically a good chunk of the conversation based on AI. What do you see as positive use of AI in the creative space?
00:42:11
Speaker
um Well, i was I was thinking about language creation. That was one of those things, but... um what What I have used it for is um languages I don't speak.
00:42:24
Speaker
I will feed in the information and I find that ChatGPT does a much better job of translating, yeah but also it can explain cultural things that I'm missing.
00:42:35
Speaker
okay So I've used it for that. Like i've I've uploaded poetry and been like, well, but I understand the translation, but what is the symbolism? What is being discussed? What event is this in reference to? You know, stuff like that, that, yeah, I could probably spend an entire weekend researching it, or I could just ask and it will tell me.
00:42:56
Speaker
I use that a lot with Warpath as well, because there's there's a native speaker of Italian, Several people speak French in the book and even a little Portuguese in there as well.
00:43:09
Speaker
You know, ah assembling that battery of people to help is quite a big task. And that is the wrinkle of, okay, can you make this
00:43:21
Speaker
in the dialect of that tongue, 1760, from a first generation American, but has got, come from all, like, whole family is from Italy.
00:43:32
Speaker
Things along that line, and, you know, having Chachubiti help me figure out, like, people didn't curse a lot back then. Warpath is a story about soldiers going to do awful things.
00:43:44
Speaker
So I was, you know, I started writing it. I'm like, well, this just, of course, it's going to be like every war I've ever seen. It's going a lot of, lot of fuck this and blah, blah, blah. Really, that was not the case back then. So having...
00:43:55
Speaker
having a digital assistant that can kind of look at stuff online for you and become this great search engine to say, that's not how they would have set it back in 1760. So a straight translation of English to French is only part of the story if you want to be somewhat contextual. So I've used it for for that, for language translation with very specific nuances as well.
00:44:20
Speaker
Exactly, because, I mean, my work, I always want to be at least witty, but maybe downright funny. And if you are not in your element, then you definitely need help with that, because humor isn't just about translation. There has to be a deeper cultural and sociopolitical understanding of of what you're actually saying and why it's funny.
00:44:41
Speaker
So to get there, yeah, sometimes I need a little help. I have tried to get ChatGP to punch up a line or give me ideas on a line like, okay, this is supposed to be funny. I don't think it's funny. Give me give me you know four variations on this joke because what it can do is like give me a variation on this and they all suck, but it can go like, oh, okay, I got talk about this and go now I get it. Now I get it.
00:45:03
Speaker
It's very unfunny. it it Genitive AI is is incredibly bad at telling jokes. Yes, it is it is dry. Even Alexa is better at telling jokes than JGPT.
00:45:16
Speaker
So that's another area where the creative is listening out there. Work hard to get humor into your stuff because it doesn't look like AI is going to be able to nail that anytime soon. Speaking of which, sir, it is time for the Mad Lib. I hope you're ready for this.
00:45:30
Speaker
Let's go. I'm so excited. All right. We're going to start with a plural noun. Horses. And a number. seventeen 17. A singular noun.
00:45:46
Speaker
Windmill.
00:45:48
Speaker
And an adjective. Actually, give me three adjectives. Three adjectives. Let's see. I'm terrible with adjectives. Let's see.
00:46:01
Speaker
No, you're not. What the hell? that's right I can read, dude. I know you're not terrible with adjectives. Let's go with glowing.
00:46:11
Speaker
Glowing, um bright, and broken.
00:46:19
Speaker
Okay. i need one, two, three, four more nouns. Four more nouns. We'll go with ah can, book, mountain, and streetlight.
00:46:37
Speaker
Okay. And i need a part of the body. Finger.
00:46:44
Speaker
An adverb. let's see. Adverb.
00:46:51
Speaker
Blazingly. That works. yeah All right. And a part of the body, plural. The part of the body, plural.
00:47:02
Speaker
Let's go with ears
00:47:06
Speaker
Okay, so this is called Coach's Pep Talk, because it's the sports section of the Mad Lib book. Okay. All right, horses, listen up. It's the bottom of the ninth, and we're down by 17 runs.
00:47:21
Speaker
Okay, we know our opponents are a very glowing team, and they're on the winning windmill right now, but we can beat them. Some say it would take a bright miracle for us to score a single can.
00:47:34
Speaker
to that- oh fuck me, I forgot to put in- I forgot one actually, there's one here that's an exclamation and I forgot to say it and so I just completely screwed that up. But, I know right?
00:47:48
Speaker
We all put our pants on one finger at a time. It ain't over till the broken lady sings. We can still win this book provided that you think blazingly and play your ears out.
00:48:01
Speaker
Remember you can do anything. You put your mountain to now. Let's get out there and give it our best street light You know that would get me pumped up.
00:48:12
Speaker
I'd be ready to go out right and get some things done Yeah, go out there and hit a few cans All right, so dude, thanks so much for being here I want to let everybody know because it's kind of a short interview today.
00:48:27
Speaker
We're gonna I After this episode, we're gonna show, um well, we won't show it, but it's Deadland. It is a radio drama that we made back in our W.O.C.R. college days. Awesome. And it actually stars me and you.
00:48:41
Speaker
Great. Yeah. And i actually, I'm always on the fence about saying other people's names on the show, but they'll be in the credits. You'll be able to hear them. It's an eight-part radio series that we did all the way back in the 90s, and so that'll be here.
00:48:57
Speaker
In the meantime, do find us on Ko-fi where we are sometimes hilarious horror because we pay people who submit to us with real earth money. And the way that we do that is because people subscribe and give us their money.
00:49:11
Speaker
It's all a big capitalism party. So Scott, man, I'm so glad you could be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's just a delight to get to chit chat with you for a while. Right,
Transition to 'Deadland' Radio Drama
00:49:22
Speaker
right. And we'll see everybody else next week.
00:49:30
Speaker
Deadland, an eight-part post-mortem adventure written by Jason Morningstar and produced by the Olivet Radio Theater. And now, Episode 1, Welcome to Deadland.
00:50:06
Speaker
I remember the rain on my windshield. My wipers were beating furiously. What a night! was speeding home on Interstate 40 with a carload of linoleum for our kitchen addition. It was raining cats and dogs. Cats and dogs?
00:50:17
Speaker
There was a pair of blinding headlights. Then there was the grill of a Peterbilt semi-tractor trailer staring at me. I could see the bugs splattered on it. then I couldn't see anything at all. I remember little birdies circling around my head and chirping.
00:50:29
Speaker
remember seeing my body from a distance, just like in the time-life mystery of the unknown books. There was no escaping the ominous conclusion that presented itself. I, Barney Schicklegruber, was dead.
00:50:41
Speaker
When I realized that, everything went black again. I woke up wet and cold and covered with grass and dirt. A short young lady in sombrero and knee boots was standing over me. Hi. Hi.
00:50:51
Speaker
What am I doing laying down this field? Beats me. Where am I? About a half a mile from Tiny Town. You're also dead. Is this freshly mowed hay? I think so. Dead?
00:51:02
Speaker
As in dead? That's essentially correct. Who are you? My name's Abdul. I live around here. Abdul? That's my name. Don't wear it out. You can get up, you know. Thanks. I'll just brush myself off. That's the way. Feeling a little disoriented?
00:51:17
Speaker
The last thing I remember is being hit by a truck. Then I was right. But why did you end up here in the middle of a field? I can't figure it. Can't figure what? You should have gone through a processing center. Where am I? You're dead.
00:51:29
Speaker
No, I mean where am I? Is this heaven? Does this look like heaven? Um, it looks like the Catskills. Well, it's not that either. Is it hell? Look, mister, this isn't heaven or hell. It isn't purgatory or limbo or the 12 rings of isosceles or the polar region of Mars.
00:51:45
Speaker
This is dead land. Deadland, like Disneyland or Opryland or Alaskaland? In a manner of speaking. So what am I doing here? Let's go for a walk. I got places to be.
00:51:55
Speaker
OK. Just walk and talk. Yeah, that's the way. There's a trail. This leads to Tiny Town. That's where we're going. Now let me explain. Please do. Deadland, which is where you are, is sort of a holding facility. Oh, yeah?
00:52:08
Speaker
Sure. Every place else in the afterlife is filled to capacity. Heaven wasn't designed for the kind of crowds they've been getting. Hell's the same way. Of course, Hell packs them in pretty tight, but they've been full for a long time now.
00:52:21
Speaker
So folks started getting placed in purgatory or limbo, temporarily, of course. But those were getting crowded too. So, some clever fellow thought up Deadland. No kidding. Opening Deadland gave everybody a little breathing room. It's not so bad here.
00:52:35
Speaker
We're all on waiting lists for heaven or hell. But most of us would just as soon stay here in Deadland. What about me? You've got me there. i don't know why you didn't wind up in a processing station like you were supposed to.
00:52:47
Speaker
If I were you, i'd just forget about it play cool. I need to know. Do I belong in heaven or hell? I'll be honest with you, pal. You're better off not knowing. If you find out you're on a waiting list for hell, that's like starting a death sentence back on Earth.
00:53:00
Speaker
You'd be mighty uncomfortable knowing that the devils would come knocking on your door as soon as there was an opening. i figure I belong in heaven. Don't they all? I lived a good life. Right. I did. Well, don't fret about it. I guess Heaven is supposed to open another edition in a few years.
00:53:14
Speaker
Heaven Heights. Heaven Heights? Sure. They've already got Heaven Shores, Heaven Woods, Heaven Farms. Those suburbs fill as soon as they open. Wow. Still, Deadland's pretty nice.
00:53:26
Speaker
Is that Tiny Town? Yep. Sure is tiny. Don't blink. You'll miss it. It's where I live. How'd you like to come over for dinner tonight? All right. Where do you live? Right over the grocery store.
00:53:37
Speaker
Bye. What did you say your name was? Abdul. Abdul Robinson. I'm Barney Schickelgruber. Thanks for your help, Abdul. No problem. See you around six? Great. Abdul walked off, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was very alone in this strange place.
00:53:53
Speaker
had so many questions. How is my family taking my death? If we were dead, why did Abdul invite me to dinner? And why did my sport coat fit for the first time since I bought it? Hey! Everything was strange and brand new.
00:54:05
Speaker
Tiny town sure was small. Hey! are you talking to me, lady? No, I'm talking to your brother, Sherlock. Of course I'm talking to you. Sheesh. My name's Barney. What the hell kind of name is that? Barney. It's Irish. I'm Harriet. I'm the mayor.
00:54:18
Speaker
Mayor of Tiny Town. No, mayor of your underpants. God, what are you, Slo? Sure is a small town. We like it that way. So what are you doing here, Barney? Um, I just arrived. No fooling. In Deadland, I mean.
00:54:30
Speaker
You know Abdul? Do I know Abdul? Of course I know Abdul. She lives over my grocery store. What about her? She found me and brought me into town. Did she fill you in? Yes? Then you know about the war thing. War? No, she didn't tell you. You better get indoors. Hey! Hey, run!
00:54:44
Speaker
What? I don't... Hey, stop! Hey, go easy. I know you. You're from Bill's Valley. I'm from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Ow! Don't try to get away. Ow! Knock it off. you paid You're hurting me. I'm taking you prisoner. Look, pal, I just got here, okay? I don't know what's going on. I don't know anything.
00:54:59
Speaker
I've heard that before. I'm taking you prisoner. You could be from Bill's Valley. I don't even know where Bill's Valley is. Sure. Ask Abdul. She found me asleep in a field of hay. I died last night at Interstate 40. All right, march.
00:55:11
Speaker
Step live, Lira. I'll poke you with my spear. March. Hup, two, three, four. i two all right i'm marching hello welcome three four where are you taking me down the street and to the left two, three,
00:55:24
Speaker
two three four all sure oh In the door marked war. Now. oh
00:55:35
Speaker
Well, soldier, what do we have here? ah guy I found standing in the street, Colonel. He claims to know Abdul. I see. Listen, lady. That's Colonel. I'm Colonel Petty.
00:55:46
Speaker
I run this place. I can see that. Soldier, fetch Abdul for questioning. Good work. Right. Back in a flash. Now. What's your name?
00:55:57
Speaker
Barney. Barney Schicklegruber. I just died last night. Welcome to Deadland. Thanks. Listen, Colonel, are you at war or something? As a matter of fact, we are.
00:56:08
Speaker
Approximately nine months ago, troops from Bill's Valley crossed the border and attacked one of our settlements. Did they attack Tiny Town? They attacked old man Watson's shack. Oh. We drove him back, but we're on a constant lookout for enemy agents, like you.
00:56:23
Speaker
I just told you. I've heard it all before from better spies than you. This is wartime, mister. We can't trust anyone, especially not strangers who wander into town unannounced.
00:56:35
Speaker
That's reasonable, I suppose.
00:56:39
Speaker
Here he is, Colonel Betty. Good work. Give yourself a raise. Thank you, Colonel Betty. Hello, Abdul. I never saw this man before in my life, in my death, in anything. He's a total stranger.
00:56:51
Speaker
he may be a spy for Bill's Valley. I'd hang him if I were you. Abdul, hey! Silence! But you brought me to town. Who, me? You must be thinking of somebody else. I've never laid eyes on you before.
00:57:03
Speaker
Thank you, Abdul. That's all you needed? That's all. Wait, wait, don't go. What about Harriet? Harriet? I doubt if our honest and upstanding mayor would talk to a known fugitive such as you.
00:57:16
Speaker
If she'd seen you... Which she didn't. She would have turned you in. This is absurd. That's the final straw. Soldier, take him to the cookie jar. My pleasure. Wait, don't I get a trial?
00:57:27
Speaker
Trial? Hmm. A court-martial is what you get. As commander in chief of the armed forces of Tiny Town and the surrounding communities, uh, the surrounding shacks, I declare you a traitor and a spy.
00:57:40
Speaker
We'll hang you or something. You can't do that. Why not? I'm already dead. What difference does that make? Gee, I don't know. We'll think of something unpleasant. Take him away.
00:57:51
Speaker
Where are you taking me? You heard the colonel. You're going into the cookie jar. I'm afraid to ask. We used to have a guy in town who baked cookies. He kept them in a huge pottery jar two feet thick. Well, he had a little accident when Colonel Betty came to town, so we use his cookie jar to keep prisoners in now.
00:58:07
Speaker
Move! Sounds awful. See for yourself. There it is. What an enormous cookie jar. Yeah, quit admiring it and get in. No! Ow! Okay, all right, I'll climb Get up there.
00:58:21
Speaker
I'm Well, stay there. Aren't you going to lock the top or something? You want me to? No, that's okay. I'll manage. See you later. Sure it's dark in here.
00:58:31
Speaker
Yeah, certainly is. Who said that? I did. Who are you? People call me the corn man.
00:58:50
Speaker
Please go make your acquaintance, Cor-Man. I'm Barney. Barney? No, Cor. I mean Barney. My name is Barney Schickle-Pooper. Nice to meet Too bad it has to be in the jar. Move closer. can't see you Oh, there you are.
00:59:04
Speaker
My goodness. How long have you been in here? Quite a while. When's the last time you trimmed that beard? What beard? Never mind. Why don't you climb out? What's that? Climb out.
00:59:15
Speaker
They didn't even close the top. We could... Oh, I see. Well, we'll have to when we get hungry. They don't feed us? Wait a minute. Why would we get hungry? Why wouldn't we, Sonny?
00:59:26
Speaker
We're dead. We can't die again. So why should we have to eat? Well, don't ask me. What do I look like, a nuclear genius? I'm just corn man, that's all. All that I know is when I get hungry now and then, when I do, i crawl out of this cookie jar and sneak down to the grocery store.
00:59:41
Speaker
Harriet? She sits down to sauce her milk for me now and then. She's a kind soul. What are they going to do to me? I don't know. What did you do? i didn't do a damn thing, corn man. May I call you that? That's fine.
00:59:55
Speaker
I died last night. I woke up here in Deadland and met Abdul and Harriet. And all of a sudden, that soldier grabbed me and presto, here I am. Abdul pretended he didn't even know me. Abdul Robinson?
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one. So what's going on exactly? Let me tell you a little story, sonny. A long time ago before I died, I had quite a business going. I was a farmer. I farmed corn. I was rich.
01:00:16
Speaker
My family was large and happy. Then I died. I started farming in purgatory. Again, i did pretty good. Sold a lot of corn. I shacked up with a woman who made tortillas and chips.
01:00:27
Speaker
And we opened a little Mexican place. Then I get a call and had to leave on a moment's notice. They forced me out of purgatory into Deadland here. Told me I was lucky. I sure didn't think so.
01:00:38
Speaker
So once again, I started my corn business from scratch. My fields were good and I grew a hell of a lot of corn. Tons of the stuff. I made a lot of dinero off my cornfields. Then that battle axe Betty came along. Colonel Betty? That's the one.
01:00:52
Speaker
She beat me up and confiscated my corn. Then she took over my house and made it into a resort for her and her officers. And she threw you in here. You can't chop fast, Marley. You've had a hard existence, corn man.
01:01:03
Speaker
Call me Lucky. Why don't you escape? you mean break out? If you leave whenever you get hungry, why do you come back to the cookie jar? Why not keep walking? I never gave it much thought. Well, I'm not sticking around. Why not?
01:01:16
Speaker
Because I want a pleasant afterlife. I want to know where I was supposed to go if heaven and hell weren't overbooked. I want to see how my family's doing. anyway Is that too much to ask? If I busted out of Tiny Town, i just have to start farming corn all over again somewhere else. What's wrong with that? I'm sick of it.
01:01:31
Speaker
I've grown in enough corn to feed the multiverse ten times over. I've grown corn alive and dead. I've seen fortune slip it from my fingers three times. Enough, I say. I'm destined to spend the rest of eternity in a giant cookie jar.
01:01:44
Speaker
Are you sure? Corn is my calling, Barley. My vocation. And I can't stand it. I'll stay here. What about learning some other trade? Or farming some other crop?
01:01:55
Speaker
Now there's an idea. How about... Potato. Now you're cooking. Or jewelry. You can't grow jewelry. I can grow wheat and make pasta shell necklaces. The sky's the limit.
01:02:06
Speaker
So let's get out of here. Oh, hold on, Barley. It's Barnum. We need a plan. If we just start walking, Betty's troops will catch us in a heartbeat. She's a crafty old bugger. Now, we'll want to head for the big city.
01:02:18
Speaker
Nearest big city would Choctown. They'll have the records you want to see. cho Chalktown has embassies from heaven, purgatory, limbo, and hell. Not too good. What's wrong? once To get to Chalktown, we'd have to go through the junkyard. What?
01:02:33
Speaker
The junkyard. It's the place where construction crews dumped all their machinery and toxic waste when they finished building Deadland. So? We'll just go through. likely. The last time hell got too crowded, they dumped about a half million souls and really rocked humans in the junkyard.
01:02:48
Speaker
It's not a vacation hotspot, if you know what I mean. there's got to be another way. We could go through the big sand of Toolololula. That's quite a trip without camels, Barley. Or we could make a run for the border with Bill's Valley.
01:03:01
Speaker
They're at war with Tiny Town, right? Why not head that way? Well, last I heard, old Betty built a 20-foot-high concrete wall across the entire mouth of the valley with machine guns and landmines. So what's our best option?
01:03:12
Speaker
Mmm, the cookie jar. It's the junkyard, isn't it? We can't cross the desert. We won't make it past Betty's Wall. But at least we'd have a chance in the junkyard. oh you haven't seen it, Sonny.
01:03:23
Speaker
You wouldn't be talking like that if you'd seen the junkyard. If a gang of devils catches you in the junkyard, they will torture you for the rest of time. Agony without release. No fun. And that's not all.
01:03:34
Speaker
There's more? There's I don't think you really understand what things are like now that you're dead. Maybe not. Let me try to explain. This may come as a nasty shock, but just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't get killed.
01:03:45
Speaker
what If someone sticks a spear through your head, you'll die. I'm already dead. You'll die worse. I'll just start over again in some fields here in Deadland? Nope. Well, what happens if you die? Well, nobody knows.
01:03:57
Speaker
So it's a big mystery? and More or less. Great. Terrific. So I lived a good life on Earth with the knowledge that once I died, it'd be sunshine and roses in heaven forever. And now I get here.
01:04:08
Speaker
I can't even get into heaven. I'm in a holding facility for God's sake. And I'm not immortal. And I can't fly or play the harp. And the only way to find out what's really going on is to make a long, dangerous journey, in which I may get killed for the second time in two days.
01:04:21
Speaker
Is that it? That's it. About the death thing, and I've seen it happen plenty of times. When Colonel Betty took over my farm, one of her soldiers skewered a farmhand with a spear. The poor kid just said,
01:04:31
Speaker
Oh, and fade it away. So we'll be careful. It's too dangerous. I understand your fear, Corman, but we've got to try. You've got to try. What about becoming a potato farmer? What about making jewelry?
01:04:44
Speaker
Was that just idle chatter? No. Well, then come on You have nothing to lose but your chains. That's not true. I could get killed again. And you'd be worse off? How long have you been prisoner in this cookie jar? 90 years. See? What a waste.
01:04:56
Speaker
Hey, I've got all eternity, mostly. What's the rush? I'm going to Choctown. Are you coming or not? Oh, I'm coming, all right. You never make it alone. Those elves would have you strung up in a heartbeat.
01:05:09
Speaker
Oh, ah. Need a hand? Yeah. Oh. Well, uh, shall we go, Barley? Lead the way.
01:05:20
Speaker
Glad to be out of that cookie jar. Eh, what was that? Hey, Cornman. Oh, it's Abdul. Hello, sonny. Let's run for it. He'll turn us in. Come here, Abdul.
01:05:32
Speaker
I want to meet my friend Barley. His name's Barney, Cornman. Listen, sorry to give you the cold shoulder in front of Colonel Betty earlier. You got me thrown into the cookie jar, you rat. I was just on my way to break you out.
01:05:44
Speaker
I had to lie or she'd have punished me. When I brought you into town, old Betty was out of the resort. My house, you mean? Sorry, Cornman. Anyway, she wasn't due back until tomorrow. We were all caught by surprise.
01:05:56
Speaker
Where are you going to escape to? Chalktown. Chalktown? Are you nuts? Did the corn man talk you into this? No, he said it was a bad idea. Then why? I've got to find out what's going on.
01:06:07
Speaker
They'll have the records in Chalktown to set me straight, and the corn man here will become the potato man, right? You betcha. I'm gonna start a potato ranch. You're going through the junkyard? There's no other way, Sonny. I'm coming with you.
01:06:20
Speaker
Abdul Robinson, you'll do no such thing. I won't let you walk into such danger. I'm protected, Corn Man. I'll be there, Abdul. No, you're new to the afterlife and inexperienced. You can't sway me, Corn Man. I'm coming. All right.
01:06:34
Speaker
Let's go, then. It's only a few hours the edge of the junkyard, kids. Any second thoughts? No. No, I'm with you all the way, Corn Man. It's time to escape from Tiny Town.
01:07:07
Speaker
We walked for hours through the shadow-haunted forest near Tiny Town, under Deadland's pale moonlight. As we trudged through the leaf-covered woodland, I couldn't help but think about the family I'd left behind, loving wife and two devoted daughters.
01:07:19
Speaker
Were they mourning their departed father at this very moment? Would I rejoin my wife when she died in her time? My mind was full of questions that I was determined to have answered in Choctown. We moved through the forest like machines, following the corn man's steady pace.
01:07:33
Speaker
It was slow going. We had to watch for Colonel Betty's patrols that crossed the forest constantly. But just before dawn, the trees cleared, and I saw it for the first time. The junkyard.
01:07:44
Speaker
Oh, there it is, Barley. God help us all. Here they are! Colonel Buddy and her dragoons! We're done for! Run! Get them! Stop doing them!
01:07:56
Speaker
You two run. You can make it to the junkyard. But Corn Man, I'll hold them off. There's no time. Go. If you don't run now, you'll never state a chance. Run for the junkyard. want them alive!
01:08:08
Speaker
Stop them! Come on, Barney. Goodbye, Corn Man. Thank you. Let's go, Andrew. Run! Wait. Corn Man, we don't have time. The jewel. What?
01:08:19
Speaker
Stop! Out! Don't go after them! Those fools are headed into the joke yard! Come on, we gotta go! The jewel! Remember the jewel! Grab him!
01:08:32
Speaker
Hold on there, Colonel Betty. got me all right. Well, corn man, an escape attempt? I'm shocked. Don't be. That traitor and spy, Barney Schicklegruber, put your head in this, didn't he?
01:08:45
Speaker
I've been planning this for 90 years. While playing for another 90-old man, take him back to Tiny Town, put him in the cookie jar, and this time, put the lid on. No, you can't do that.
01:08:59
Speaker
Watch me. Now move! Abdul and I ran as fast as our feet would carry us nervously glancing over our shoulders to watch for soldiers in pursuit. They had the corn man. There was no doubt.
01:09:13
Speaker
He'd given himself up to slow them down. He'd save the day, and I vowed to return and rescue him one day. Abdul and I were at the very edge of the junkyard before we stopped to catch our breath. Colonel Betty and her troops had long since abandoned the chase headed back to Tiny Town.
01:09:28
Speaker
So we slumped down against pitted metal machinery, utterly exhausted. think we're safe for the moment. Abdul? Yeah? How'd you get your name?
01:09:40
Speaker
My dad fought in the Crusades. As the story goes, he was hoping for an Arabic boy. Instead, got an Irish girl. They didn't understand genetics back then. When did you die? 1408. Smallpox. Oh.
01:09:54
Speaker
I was in a head-on collision with a Peterbilt semi-hauling
Junkyard Journey Begins
01:09:57
Speaker
timber. Ouch. So how do we go about doing this? How do we get through the junkyard? I'm not sure. Every once in a while, somebody will come through from Choctown.
01:10:07
Speaker
When they get to Tiny Town, they're usually a lot worse for the wear. One guy crawled out alone saying he'd gone in with some 90 other guys. That's a pretty slim survival rate. Yeah, it is, come to think of it. And I can't help but wonder what what the hell I'm doing here.
01:10:21
Speaker
I came to protect the corn man, Barney. Well, it's too late. You can't go back. I could say you kidnapped me. Look, Abdul, I need you. I've got to get to Choctown, and I don't stand a chance without you.
01:10:33
Speaker
Are you fishing for sympathy? Yes. All right, let's go. Quit looking so sad. Let's go already. What's the plan? Don't get caught. Right.
01:10:45
Speaker
We'll head into the junk and travel off the main path leaving to the Choctown side. Come on, stay with me. Right by your side. do you have any weapons? No. Food or water? No. Some of these machines are as big as cities, Ed Gould.
01:10:59
Speaker
It must have been quite a project building, Deadland. They brought in volunteers from all over the place. It took 200 years to finish, I guess. And man, it was some kind of paradise. But filled up real fast and got sort of dirty.
01:11:11
Speaker
And they just dumped all their machines here? They were going to cover them with dirt and make a ski lodge, but the project ran out of funds. So we got the junkyard instead. How big is it? Well, if we walked straight, it would take two days.
01:11:24
Speaker
But since we're off the beaten path, it'll take longer.
Threat of Mario Lanza's Warriors
01:11:27
Speaker
Here, take my hand. Thanks. Can get food in here? I hope so. OK, let's try and stay low and inconspicuous. Good idea. What was that?
01:11:39
Speaker
Get down, here in this hole.
01:11:43
Speaker
Mario Lanza. What? That was one of Mario Lanza's warriors. Oh, God, are we in trouble? Mario Lanza. Isn't the opera singer from the 20s? None other. He runs a big piece of the junkyard, and he's not very nice.
01:11:57
Speaker
In fact, they say he's an evil genius who can turn men into zombie-like slaves to do his bidding. Time to go. come on, Barney. What would he do if he caught us? If his reputation's any measure, I imagine he'd turn us into zombies.
01:12:11
Speaker
But don't think about it. Let's just move. We walked for hours through this ghostly stillness of the junkyard. There were no signs of life beyond an occasional circling vulture and thick vegetation growing out of the cracks in the machinery.
01:12:24
Speaker
We didn't have any more close calls with Mario Alonza's men, and I was darn glad of that. We'd better find a place to hide tonight. It's getting dark already. Can we eat these plants? They feed on toxic waste.
01:12:35
Speaker
I take it the water's bad, too. Yeah. So what do we eat? Quit whining and give me some room. See that vulture? I'm gonna throw this rock and kill us dinner. Where? You got it I'll go pick it up. You wait here. You want me to start a fire?
01:12:52
Speaker
What are you gonna burn, ferns? Right.
01:12:56
Speaker
So here I am, on my way to Chalktown.
01:13:01
Speaker
Yep, sure is dark. Dark, dark, dark. Who's there? Abdul? Uh, Abdul, if that's you, please answer the definite yes.
01:13:13
Speaker
If it's not, just keep w rustling around in the dark. Okay, so
Barney's Capture and Escape Plan
01:13:17
Speaker
you're not Abdul. Ah! Please don't kill me! We're moving up. Pin your guts to the ground.
01:13:24
Speaker
I am motionless. All right, stand up. Let me see your face. this better? Who's Abdul? You are calling for Abdul. abul My, uh, invisible childhood friend. I never outgrew him, and when I'm frightened, I call her name. Your invisible childhood playmate was a girl named Abdul? Yes, yes. Still is, as a matter of fact. Never outgrew her.
01:13:47
Speaker
Are you one of Mario Lanza's warriors? Why? Are you one of his bathroom slippers? Turn around. What for? What are you going do? Hit you on the head as hard as I can with my club. Oh, I'm not in favor of that.
01:14:01
Speaker
and Too bad, Small Fry. Turn around. Good. Now close your eyes. Closed. oh The warrior hit me on the head, just like he promised.
01:14:13
Speaker
It was a bright flash, and then I was unconscious, so I can't really say what happened next. This little weakling may just make me rich. Mario Lanza's gonna love this one. Be a good cheer.
01:14:39
Speaker
Emperor? Wake him My pleasure.
01:14:55
Speaker
my measure
01:15:02
Speaker
say Hey, where am I? through Looks like the inside of a lawn mower. Who are you? The one sitting on the throne. For your information, this used to be a lawn mower.
01:15:16
Speaker
A huge lawn mower the size of ten city blocks. used to mow all over Deadland. There's even a warning on the outside telling you to keep your fingers On your feet, you dog! Hey! Ow!
01:15:30
Speaker
God, I have a headache. Feels like some meathead walloped me in the club or something. Wait a minute. Oh, no. What is your name? Barney.
01:15:40
Speaker
Barney Schicklegruber. I've been dead less than a week. What brought you to the junkyard? Just passing through. I see. Just passing through. Listen, your majesty, I'm weak with hunger and beaten up and soaking wet.
01:15:56
Speaker
So? Well, how about getting me a nice change of clothes and something to eat? Then we'll play 20 questions, OK? Do you know who i am? um you're an Italian opera singer. I forget your name.
01:16:07
Speaker
Mario Lanza, you dog! That's it, Mario Lanza. That's my name. But more important, I am the emperor of this junkyard. That's right. All that I survey is mine.
01:16:18
Speaker
If I so choose, I could stuff you out like a candle flame. get picture? Yeah. Leave us. Have my secretary pay you the reward. Of course, Mary Alondra.
01:16:30
Speaker
You're giving him a reward? For capturing a traveler and bringing him alive. You're lucky he found you. Barney. See, I remembered your name. Names?
01:16:42
Speaker
Names are important. But what's more important is the fact that you are still in one piece. I'm surprised the devils didn't get you first. Devils? Are you reasonably intelligent?
01:16:53
Speaker
Sure. I was a systems analyst for Mutual of Rapid City Insurance. Good. Good. What do you know about opera? Nothing. Too bad.
01:17:05
Speaker
I see so few people these days, I was hoping, well, here's going to do. Barney, you may not know this about me, but since I've been in Deadland almost 85 years now,
01:17:16
Speaker
I've carved out a respectable empire here in the junkyard. I'm hated and feared. People in Chalkdown say Mario Alonso will get you if you don't watch out. I'm sorry to hear that. Don't be It beats having a stack of 78s with your name on them gathering dust. I suppose so.
01:17:31
Speaker
but to know What nobody realizes is that I'm a genius on top of my other talents. Look here. Let me open this curtain and show you my latest creation. Wow.
01:17:44
Speaker
That sure is an impressive looking piece of equipment. Yes, I call it the brain pole. This gadget will allow me to control the minds of certain individuals.
Escape from the Junkyard
01:17:53
Speaker
With a brain pole perfected, i plan on diversifying my interests.
01:17:57
Speaker
I'll take over prominent businessmen in Chalktown and that troublesome Colonel Betty. I'll become the most powerful force in Deadland. That's fine by me. Good. then you won't resist.
01:18:10
Speaker
Resist what? There's no need for alarm. I merely need an experimental subject. My brain pull is operational, but I need someone to test it who'll resist its effects. I've trotted on vultures and a stray dog someone found, but I've been waiting for just the right person to stumble along for my first full-scale test.
01:18:30
Speaker
And you are that lucky fellow. Well, uh, Mr. Lanza, I think that's a bad idea. Why? Because I'm stupid. I'm very impressionable.
01:18:41
Speaker
I'm a conformist to the core. I can be hypnotized at the drop of a hat. I'm the wrong man for your experiment. Your brain pull would get me in a second. I see. Watching television puts me in a trance.
01:18:52
Speaker
Once there was a hypnotist on radio who had me walking like a chicken in less than a minute. All right. Guard! Yes, mighty emperor?
01:19:04
Speaker
This man is no good for the experiment. Take him out the back and roast him to death in a whack basket. With pleasure. Wait. Yes? Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit.
01:19:15
Speaker
I thought not. You want him dead, emperor? Well, you heard him. He doesn't want me dead, so lay off. Sorry. over here and I'll hook you up. Guard? Stand guard.
01:19:27
Speaker
Comfortable? The strap is too tight. I'll loosen it up. There. Just so you know, this little red light is tied into an alpha wave monitor.
01:19:39
Speaker
If it flashes, I'll know you're not as up yet. Great. What will you do then? Turn out the power until the brain pull works on you. Unless your head explodes first. boy.
01:19:51
Speaker
Well, Mary Alonza made the final preparations for turning my brain into an eggplant. I had the opportunity to reflect on my dilemma. It was beginning to look like my adventures in Deadland would end in the throne room of a crazed ex-opera singer.
01:20:03
Speaker
I was about to become the first of his army of mindless henchmen.
01:20:09
Speaker
And I had left poor Abdul all alone in the junkyard. How's this thing that go? Are you ready? Farewell, cruel afterlife. These are my last words as a free-thinking being.
01:20:20
Speaker
How poetic. And now the brave pole will work its special magic on your synopsis. Goodbye, Barney Schickle Gruber. Hello, zombie slave.
01:20:34
Speaker
Everything seems to be working. Can you hear me? Banana. Overly splendid amphibian. It must working.
01:20:48
Speaker
What was that? Guard? Beats me. i know what that was immediately. Yes, sir.
01:20:57
Speaker
Oh, no. The ceiling. The blades. Oh, no. Mind the emperor. Somebody started the lawnmower. Let's get out of here. My experiment. I can't leave. Come We'll be sucked into the blades.
01:21:08
Speaker
Let's escape.
01:21:21
Speaker
All right, we should be safe here. That crazy man will have all his thugs out looking for you. I hope the effects of his brain ray wear off. Rama bowl flavored drink mix? Yeah. Barney, snap out of it.
01:21:32
Speaker
Buster Jangles. Barney? Reno? Come on, Barney. Come on, Barney. Hey, you just repeated me. Hey, you just repeated, what's your name again? All right. Oh, come on, you're smothering me. Come on, let go. Are you OK? Yes, I think so. Carpet warehouse.
01:21:46
Speaker
Remember me? Abdul, my faithful friend in Deadland. We're in the junkyard. We certainly are. Mario Lanza put me in his brain-pull machine. I couldn't think straight. How did I end up here in this hole? I rescued you, Barney. How?
01:21:59
Speaker
Well, I followed the tracks of the guy who comped you and carried you off. They led to this giant lawnmower surrounded by all kinds of guards and painted purple. I figured this was his headquarters. So I snuck up onto the roof, just saw you through a vent, and figured out a distraction to get the bad guys out of the way. You started the lawnmower.
01:22:17
Speaker
It wasn't easy. That thing had a pull started with a cable as thick as your wrist. But I did it. Thanks. I owe you everything. Aw, but it wasn't anything, really. Want some vulture meat? Sure.
01:22:30
Speaker
We'll stay here tonight. Starting first thing in the morning, we've got to cover a lot of ground. ah hurry Don't eat so fast. You'll get heartburn. Besides, you want to pick the little black things. Oops. Abdul?
01:22:42
Speaker
I forgot to tell you. Those black things aren't part of the meat. look That's disgusting. Well, good night. Enjoy your dinner. Hey, boy.
01:23:01
Speaker
sun rose in the neon pink Deadland sky, and Abdul led the way at a breakneck pace. Come on, Barney. We were at least halfway through the junkyard, and i narrowly escaped the mad genius Mario Lanza. Pick up the pace, Schicklegruber. Whatever terror stood between us and distant Chalktown could not compare to the terrible brain pull that had come close to turning me into a mindless zombie.
01:23:23
Speaker
The experience had toughened me, and after a fit full night's sleep beneath a pile of rusting machinery, I felt prepared to finish our trip to the junkyard. What? What's the matter? just stepped on a nail.
01:23:34
Speaker
Hold still and be quiet. Jesus, will you sit down? That's it. Just let me look at it. Boy, that hurts. Yep, you've stepped on a nail, all right. Okay, I need to pull it out. That's not necessary.
01:23:46
Speaker
Quit being such a baby. It's not deep. I'll count to three and then yank. One, two... No! There, was that so bad? You said you'd count to three. Caught you off guard. You didn't tense up. I'm bleeding.
01:23:59
Speaker
Listen, you big crybaby. Put some weight on it and it'll stop bleeding. Easy for you to say. It's gushing. Come we've got ground to cover.
01:24:09
Speaker
My foot hurts. I'm limping. Look at me limp. You want me to weep for you? Well, could you slow down at least? Listen, Shickle Groover, I've just about had enough of you. I'm escorting you through the jug yard, which I don't have to do.
01:24:21
Speaker
I saved you for Mario Lonza, which I didn't have to do. I gave you vulture meat. And what did you do? Did you thank me for feeding you? No, you complained. You didn't tell me about picking off the worm. So?
01:24:31
Speaker
I don't owe you anything. And if you keep whining about your damn foot, I'm going to leave you here to fend for yourself. He wouldn't do that. Don't tempt me. Oh, come on, Abdul. Are you going to complain anymore?
01:24:42
Speaker
No. What's that? I'm not going to complain anymore. There's a good soldier. neck get up and follow me. Jesus. You can be a real jerk, Abdul. Takes one to know one, I guess.
01:24:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:57
Speaker
Quit making so much noise. Huh? Quit banging around. Be quiet. You'll wake the neighborhood. Bud.
01:25:06
Speaker
Abdul? That wasn't you? No. I think we're in trouble.
01:25:12
Speaker
There it is It's a double. Barney, that's a double. What do we do? I think we lose. Yes, I think we lose everything. Yep. not very big. It's not the size of Dom Skull. It's what he does with it. With what?
01:25:26
Speaker
With his pitchfork. Are you blind? Easy there, fella. Hey, back off. I was just thinking about a snack, and look, I don't even have to call for takeout. We're not food. We're people.
01:25:41
Speaker
Oh, ho, ho. I'm not going to eat you all at once. Just little bits here and there. I smelled your blog a half mile away. It's like a dinner bell. I'm tough and stringy. We're both tough and stringy. Plus, have a bladder infection.
01:25:55
Speaker
Please don't kill me. Kill you? I'm going to string you up and talk to you for the last of time. Please kill me. You can't negotiate with devils, Barney. Negotiate?
01:26:08
Speaker
I have an idea. Don't do anything stupid. Yes. Do you play cards? Barney? Cards? Cards, you know, poker, blackjack, pinochle. You're asking me if I play cards, huh? Yeah, that's essentially correct. Do you?
01:26:25
Speaker
Yes, I play cards. Some of my friends I played were marathon game of Uno that lasted 10,000 years. What are you doing?
01:26:36
Speaker
Uno, huh? That is the game of my choice. Then let's play. What? Let's play Uno, here and now. You got cards? Of course have cards.
01:26:47
Speaker
Right here in my back pocket. Those are pants. What did you think they were? I thought that was your skin. Well, they're tight. All right, devil, deal.
01:27:00
Speaker
Seven cars each. Wait a minute. Are we playing for funsies? No. How's this sound? Winner gets to go free. And if I win? If you win, I'll give you my class ring.
01:27:12
Speaker
What's it worth? Sentimental value. It's priceless. Okay, let's play. cuts the card Can't believe this. What? I can't believe that Barney's willing to risk his incredibly valuable class ring in a game of chance.
01:27:28
Speaker
Head skill. There you go. Green five to you, mister. My name's Barney. This is Abdul. Pleased to meet you. I'm Azdrith Bazuzu, lesser hells-born henchman of Satan.
01:27:42
Speaker
Nice to meet you. Oh, I have to draw. Yeah. Red, five. Excellent. Draw two, Abdul. Funny. There. Green nine, back you, Astrid Pazuzu. Amass.
01:27:56
Speaker
All right, Abdul. Wilds, draw four. One, three, four. That's quite a peacock you've got going here, Abdul. Shut up. Wild card. I'll make it yellow. What's he need to draw?
01:28:09
Speaker
I have everything but yellow figures. It's your turn, Abdul. Yellow four. Blue four. Uno. Now, that's fast. You've only got one card. Just play. There.
01:28:21
Speaker
Thanks. have draw again. And I'm out. Ah, it looks like you're free, Barney. Good game, you two. I had... 68 points. I had two eleven One more game, all right?
01:28:33
Speaker
No. Oh, come on. I'll deal. I'm cutting my losses. At least I'll still have you to torture him for the rest of time. If you win this time, I'll throw it. Watch. Oh, yeah? It's a Seiko.
01:28:47
Speaker
Come on! All right. But this time I'll win, and then it's quits. Fine. My deal. Green zero to you. All right, draw two.
01:28:58
Speaker
Blast. Back to me. Green reverse. Back to me. Skip. Back to me. draw four. One, two, three, four. I'll call it red. Back to me.
01:29:09
Speaker
Red two to you, Asdrith Pazuzu. I don't have a red. Then draw. Red to me. There. Reverse.
01:29:19
Speaker
Uno. Back to me. I'm out. I've been had. She'd beat you fair and square. They'll live up to your end of the bargain. Right. And last single cart. What can I say? It was a lucky deal.
01:29:31
Speaker
Well, I'm on my way. and I'll see that no one bothers you for the rest of your journey in the junkyard. You sure are a good sport, Antsworth Pazuzu.
01:29:42
Speaker
That was close. You ain't kidding. You were great, Barney. How'd you know I could cheat at cards? You know how to cheat at cards? Sure. Harriet taught me back in Tiny Town. Wait a minute, you risked both our lives on a round Uno?
01:29:54
Speaker
Well, it's better than being tortured for all eternity. I suppose so. In any case, we did it. I stacked that deck so crooked that it wouldn't even sit straight. Good thing, too. Well, it's over.
01:30:05
Speaker
if that devil keeps his word, we should be home free. We'll be in Choctown before nightfall. And then I'll find out. Find out what? Everything. Where I'm supposed to be, how my family back home is, why I ended up in that hay field near Tiny Town. Listen, Barney. Yes?
01:30:21
Speaker
Why don't you forget about all that? Forget about my wife and children? Forget up about my chances for going to heaven? Yes. You may like it here, Abdul, but I was good my whole life so I could get to heaven. do you understand that?
01:30:33
Speaker
I suppose so. I just don't want you to be disappointed. Disappointed? Oh, Barney. What? i didn't want to be the one to tell you. What? What? Sit down. Abdul, what's going on?
01:30:46
Speaker
Look, this isn't pleasant. You're going to be upset. But I guess it's better that I should break the news to you instead of some faceless bureaucrat. Listen, Barney, the plain truth is that if you go sniffing around, they're going to kill you.
01:30:59
Speaker
kill me Yes. You see, when a person shows up in Deadland at random, just sort of pops in like you did, it means there's been an accident. Damn right. I collided with a Peterbilt semi. No, I mean a mistake. You're not supposed to be here.
01:31:14
Speaker
I'm supposed to be in heaven, but heaven's full, right? No, you're not supposed to be dead.
01:31:40
Speaker
Abdul, you said that I'm not supposed to be dead. That's essentially correct. That's exactly what you said. Now what exactly do you mean? Just relax. I've heard that before. As I understand it, this kind of mix-up happens perhaps once every hundred years.
01:31:53
Speaker
You were injured and near death, but you lived. Or rather, this is hard to explain. You didn't survive the crash because you ended up in Deadland. But you were supposed to, right? I don't know. You're the one telling the story. OK, just take my word for it. You should still be walking the Earth, but there was a follow-up and you arrived in Deadland.
01:32:12
Speaker
Now this poses a knotty problem for the authorities to here. I guess. And they don't handle it with grace. What do they do? They kill you, quickly. Oh. I read a book about it once. I'm not supposed to be dead. I want to go back.
01:32:24
Speaker
You can't. Why not? I don't know. You just can't. It can't be done. are you paying attention? Good. corn man obviously thought bringing you here was a good idea. And I assumed that he had some kind of long range plan.
01:32:36
Speaker
But he's not here right now, and I have no idea what to do with you. You acted perplexed when you found me. But you knew all along. Well, what was I supposed to say? Well, how about you shouldn't be here? That would have helped. so if anyone discovers me, he'll kill me dead. if the Bureaucrats from Heaven or Limbo catch your scent. They won't rest to tell your history.
01:32:54
Speaker
You're bad for their public image. Why didn't the corn man tell me? He obviously had some plan. If only we knew what it was. Corn Man obviously thought we'd figured it out into Why's that? He surrendered Colonel Betty without a fight.
01:33:06
Speaker
He just waved goodbye and went back to the cookie jar. Corn Man knew we'd figure it out. Let's think this through step by step. Why Chalk Town? He said it was the best choice for escape. Nonsense. We could have easily slipped through the Bill's Valley. Huh? He said there's a 20-foot high wall.
01:33:22
Speaker
Well, he lied. There's just a big swamp. That means he wanted you to end up in Chalk Town. Right. Which brings us to where we started. Why? Do you know anyone here? Not really. Did he?
01:33:33
Speaker
Maybe. I just don't know. Hey! It's a policeman from Chalktown. We must be near the edge of the junkyard. Hello? Who goes there? Two travelers from Tiny Town, officer. I see. Well, hello.
01:33:46
Speaker
You're lucky to be alive. That's a perilous crossing through the junkyard. You can say that again. What happened to your foot? I stepped on a nail. Yuck! Have you been to Chalktown before? no we haven't.
01:33:57
Speaker
Well... Enjoy your stay. Listen, we're on the lookout for two travelers passing through the junkyard this way, a man and a woman. Really? Now, the border guards got on a phone call from Colonel Betty over in Tiny Town.
01:34:10
Speaker
It seems these two did a lot of damage before escaping into the junkyard. Says they set a bunch of animals on fire. Well, we haven't seen anyone in days. Well, they answer to the names Abdul and Barney.
01:34:23
Speaker
Not sure which one's which. The girl has dark hair and wears a sombrero. The guy's in a sport jacket. Kinda like you two. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for him.
01:34:34
Speaker
Will do, officer. What's in the bag, young lady? Vulture meat. Oh, yeah. wow Well, time to throw it out. It's stinking. Get rid of that outside city limits. We've got ordinances against rotten meat carried in public. I'll do that, officer. Good, good. no You kids have a nice day. Chalktown's just around that last bend. Bye now.
01:34:51
Speaker
Bye. Goodbye. Oh, my God. What? What? That cop was really dumb, Abdul. Colonel Betty called the Choctown border guards. They're looking for us.
01:35:02
Speaker
hope they're all I can. do They're not, trust me. Colonel Betty tipped them off. Does she know about me? If she puts two and two together, but she's not too bright. More likely if she wants us arrested for the jailbreak. Poor Corn Man. He's got a rough back in Tiny Town. We'll rescue him, Barney, just as soon as we figure out why we're here.
01:35:21
Speaker
Let's go into town and get a room and a decent meal. I'm all for that. Well, time's wasting. Let's move, Shiggle Gruber.
01:35:39
Speaker
I guess you could call Chalktown a ghostly shadow of Las Vegas. It's a thriving hotspot in Deadland, designed as a tourist resort den of sin. Everywhere there are casinos and brothels and hamburger stands.
01:35:50
Speaker
No cars, of course. There are no cars in dead land. No guns either. Apparently gunpowder only works on Earth. But it's a rough place. Abdul and I passed government row, saw the ambassador from purgatory staggering out of his embassy.
01:36:05
Speaker
We got a room with what little money Abdul had. The change bought two burgers and we shared a milkshake. It tasted good after two days of vulture pate and rainwater. Hey. What? Ready to go? Go.
01:36:16
Speaker
i thought we might try and catch a show, relax, maybe see Charo. Charo's still alive. Well, if she was dead, she'd be playing Chalk Town. Come on, get up. I'm tired. Barney, we're here for a reason. it ain't going to find us. We've got to find it.
01:36:30
Speaker
So get up. You go on. I need some sleep. I said get up. Get off me. Up. Get up. I have a life, Barney.
01:36:42
Speaker
Just because you are content to lay around like a useless ball of dried up dog poop on a bed rented with my money doesn't mean that I have similar goals in life. I want to get back to Tiny Town as soon as possible and resume what I was doing before being so rudely interrupted by your arrival. Now get up.
01:36:59
Speaker
Get up. You can't go back to Tiny Town. That's all part of the plan, Barney. I see it now. That's the tail end of the corn man's plan. We return to Tiny Town, defeat Colonel Buddy, and set the place free.
01:37:12
Speaker
But before we tackle that project, we've got a fill in the middle. Abdul? Yes? What's your life? How's that? What do you do? Who are you? All I know is that you live over Harriet's grocery store, that you died in the fifteen hundreds and that you know an incredible amount about Deadland.
01:37:28
Speaker
Who are you?
01:37:31
Speaker
I'm a historian. I've devoted my afterlife to solving the riddles of this place. Sounds incredibly cinematic, doesn't it? Is that why you're with me? The corn man, who is much older and wiser than me, thought it was important to bring you to Chalktown.
01:37:44
Speaker
So important that he lied to you to steer you this way. And I've never known him to lie about anything. Wait. He's crazy, I know, but there's just something about it. What did he say? The corn man!
01:37:55
Speaker
What did he say just before he got captured by Colonel Betty? Um, he said something about easy, you got me, I'm an old man, right? Something else, something about jewelry. Jewel?
01:38:06
Speaker
That's it! He said the jewel. Remember the jewel, yeah. So what's it mean? I have no idea. But it's something at least. He yelled remember the jewel to us as we ran away. And we remembered, but we're no better off.
01:38:18
Speaker
What the hell's the jewel? We'll find out. You know, Abdul, you look sort of cute in that sombrero. Why, thank you. I've been meaning to tell you. The cops! Don't move, you two.
01:38:31
Speaker
I don't know anything. We just got this room together. I don't know him. Never seen him before. Cut the chatter. Abdul Robinson, get off that bed. We've been found. yep All right, hands against the wall. Both of you.
01:38:43
Speaker
One false move and I'll spear you like a toad. Spread those hands. Run! You thought you were so clever, didn't Actually, know ah You slept by me once, but it won't happen again. Read in their rights, Daphne.
01:39:03
Speaker
You have the right to be killed and exit the multiverse in lieu of trial. You have the right to take a residence in purgatory in lieu of trial. I'll take the trial. Your choice, Barney Schicklegruber. How about you, Abdul Robinson?
01:39:16
Speaker
Trial. Good. Both of you. Won't that be fun? What's so fun about a trial? Well, we run things different here in Chalktown. You're probably used to a judge and jury, right? Blind justice?
01:39:29
Speaker
Equality in the protection of the law? Sort of. yeah We settle things differently here. With our fists. You'll go to the arena. The big sand arena. Hold still while cuff you. And fight to the death.
01:39:43
Speaker
Survivors found innocent. And since there's two of you... Oh, no. We fight side by side? No. You fight each other. Now move. Wait a second.
01:39:53
Speaker
Oh.
01:40:08
Speaker
Welcome to Big Sand Arena. These are our holding facilities for contestants. We call this our squalid look. It's wet and and covered with dirt. Comes with a fabulous sink and chamber pod combo and a straw-covered stone bench for that down-home hellhole look.
01:40:24
Speaker
Optional rodents and vetting parasites are included in this package. Have a nice stay, kids.
01:40:31
Speaker
You. What? This is your fault. Oh, come on, Abdul. I didn't want things to turn out this way. i wish I'd never met you. That goes double for me. Well, it goes triple for me. What are we going to do?
01:40:42
Speaker
Do battle in the arena. i assume that you won't put up a fight. Put up up a fight? You mean you just murder me? Well, it's legal and everything. I'll kill you and go home. That's the way I figured it.
01:40:53
Speaker
Did it ever occur to you that we might be able to find a more amicable solution? Amicable? Friendly. I know what it means. There isn't one. We can't escape from the arena, and they won't let us leave until one of us is gone.
01:41:05
Speaker
What if we just refuse to fight? Ha! That's a good one. If the crowd gets bored, they open the gates and release devils or gladiators or CPAs to butcher the contestants. It's actually very interesting. Sure.
01:41:16
Speaker
Look, Barney, the bottom line is that I'm going to have to run you through. Just come to terms with that, OK? You've gone mad. I have not. It's just that, well, this is your fault.
01:41:27
Speaker
I'm counting on you to do the honorable thing. You weren't planning on killing me, were you? Of course not. Well, there you go. Abdul, I... Well, the thing is... Spit it out We don't have much time.
01:41:38
Speaker
Right. Look, Abdul, we've been through some pretty amazing things together these last few days. Uh-huh. And I've gotten to know you pretty well. What's your point? Point? What are you trying to say?
01:41:50
Speaker
I'm trying to say that I like you. Well, I like you too. What's the big deal? Your rutta's a soup dish. Well, I mean, I really like you, Abdul. I mean, if I wasn't married... Oh, you like me, do you?
01:42:03
Speaker
I think so. That's terrific, Barney. Terrific? You're absolutely transparent. You thought you had me, didn't you? What?
01:42:13
Speaker
You sentimental, didn't you? Maybe make me think you felt something for me so I couldn't bear to chop your greasy little head off out there. Well, you made a big mistake, Buster. Abdul Robinson is not the kind of cheap, malt-shot bimbo who gets hoodwinked by hoods like you.
01:42:28
Speaker
You misinterpreted me. My Aunt Clara. Abdul, I think I'm in love with you. Yeah, I'll make sure they carve it on your headstone. What do you want? Abdul Robinson? She's Abdul. I'm Barney Shicklegre. I know who's who.
01:42:41
Speaker
You two are looking a little worse for the wear, I might say. You haven't answered my question. I'm Officer Slim for your information. It's time for your match. You mean I have to butcher Barney now? My, but aren't you the self-assured one? He's not so scrawny, you know. He might put up quite a scrappy little fight in the end. doubt it. You got lousy accommodations here. I'll be glad to get out of this raffle. Well, Big Sand Arena has a pretty high turnover rate.
01:43:04
Speaker
You should feel lucky. Had we captured you yesterday, you would have had to share this room with 100 midgets. Good lord! Pretty cramped, wouldn't you say? Wall-to-wall midget flesh. Exactly. What do you want? It's time to go. On your feet. the crowd wants blood. Great.
01:43:19
Speaker
Listen, Abdul. Let's make this quick and painless, Shicko Groover. I have a plan. Just follow my lead. Right this way. Watch where you point that thing. Just keep moving, you two. Do you play Uno?
01:43:30
Speaker
No. Oh, too bad. Get a move on before I poke you with this thing. We passed through a set of big bronze doors and into the arena. The
01:43:43
Speaker
place was packed to the rafters with the screaming mobs of Chalktown. Money began to change hands as soon as they saw us, betting on who would win. Here. Are these exactly the same? Look, lady, a sword is a sword. Take it up with the management.
01:43:56
Speaker
I don't want Barney here to have an unfair advantage, that's all. Oh, give it a rest. Both of you give it a rest. The crowd wants to see some guts spilled. So get out there and spill kids. You're a charming man. That's what they tell me. Now move!
01:44:08
Speaker
The gate slammed shut, and Abdul and I walked out to the center. Ladies and gentlemen, dead folks of all ages, welcome to the main adventure at the Big Sand Arena. Tonight, two hogging criminals fight to the ugly end.
01:44:21
Speaker
The reward for the winner, life and freedom. The reward for the loser, death. So let's give a warm Choptown welcome to Barney Shucklgruber and Abdul Robinson.
01:44:34
Speaker
Hey, you've got a bigger sword. Quit grousing and help me. Help you, one. Quiet the crowd. Everyone, everyone, can I have your attention, please? What the hell are you up to Watch.
01:44:46
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Miss Abdul Robinson and myself will not be fighting today.
01:44:55
Speaker
You see, ladies and gentlemen, the mysteries that lie beyond death are known to no person here. But I can safely say that I know exactly what will happen to me if I should lose this fight. Nothing!
01:45:06
Speaker
What? I will die, but I will remain here. cow! Because I am not dead yet. I am still alive. Therefore, this fight is invalid and illegal.
01:45:18
Speaker
I forgot about that. Still want to kill No, but it looks like they do. Run! Where? Over here. Through that gate and fast.
01:45:29
Speaker
That ought to hold him. Only for a minute. Thanks, lady. Everybody in Chalk Town is after your head if you're really not dead, mister. Well, not. Who are you? I run this place, the arena. We're safe here for a minute or two.
01:45:41
Speaker
They'll take the long way around. I know a safer place. That was good thinking out there, Barney. I'm not sure I want to talk to you. You were chomping at the bit out there. I was just playing a along. Well, as I always say, sudden turnarounds and surprise endings are what keep the arenas packed.
01:45:56
Speaker
Always have been. That's Jewelhead's law, I suppose. Let's go. What? It's just an axiom I find holds true. No. Whose law? Oh, mine.
01:46:07
Speaker
I call it Jewelhead's law because, well, I thought of it, you see. Your name is Jewelhead? Yes. Holy cow. Jewelhead. That's my name. Can we go? You're the one we need to see.
01:46:18
Speaker
Well, if you're alive like you say you are. The corn man. The corn man? The corn man told us to find you. Oh, my. You know him, right? This isn't just some kind of fluke, right?
01:46:30
Speaker
Um, well? I swear, he told us to remember the jewel. That can only be you. And I think... Will you two shut up? Let me think. Yes, I know the corn man.
01:46:41
Speaker
I know him well. You are friends of his. Of course we are. Then you are friends of mine. How is he? He's in a cookie jar Tiny Town. He's a prisoner of Colonel Betty.
01:46:52
Speaker
Oh, my. And he sent you to me? Yes. I see. The corn man seems to have indirectly guided our path to you, Jewelhead. Every step of the way. Do you know why? No.
01:47:05
Speaker
Do you want to know why? I think so. All right, let's get out of here first.
01:47:26
Speaker
Jewelhead, want to thank you again for saving our lives. You're certainly welcome. It's the least I could do. Are you sure they won't find us here? Absolutely. The secret room is known to only two people, myself and the corn man.
01:47:39
Speaker
And now to you two, of course, so four people. We put it in ourselves when the arena was being built. You and the corn man must be pretty close. A long time ago. In fact, we were lovers.
01:47:51
Speaker
No! Oh, you wouldn't know it by the way he looks now. But the corn man was a real stud in his day. We ran a Mexican restaurant in Purgatory called La Casa Dos Huevos.
01:48:01
Speaker
The house of two eggs. It sounded nice at the time. We made quite a lot of money before moving to Deadland. What about Barney here? Let me tell you a story before we get to Barney's predicament.
01:48:13
Speaker
Once upon a time, many years ago, the corn man took me in and helped me. We fell in love. Eventually he told me the terrible secret. What terrible secret? That I was alive. You're not dead?
01:48:25
Speaker
No. You're alive? Well, if I'm not dead, I must be alive. Right. What happened when you found out? I was young and foolish. I thought I could trust dead people.
01:48:36
Speaker
I told someone accidentally. The government of Purgatory tried to kill me that same day. If we hadn't relocated to Deadland at a moment's notice and changed our identities, we would have both been killed.
01:48:47
Speaker
Both? The corn man is alive, too. Holy cow! He had made a terrible mistake in telling me. We vowed never to see each other again for fear of raising suspicions. How can you help me?
01:48:59
Speaker
By sending you home. What? I can do that. I've done it before. oh Do you want to go? of course I do. Be patient. We have to go over to the edge of the world. The edge of the world?
01:49:11
Speaker
Yes. But, I mean, the edge of the world, Jewelhead, isn't that a little dangerous? Of course it's dangerous, but it also happens to be the only way. Oh. What was that?
01:49:22
Speaker
They found us. I thought you said this place was secret. It is. I mean, was. I mean, boy. Open up, jewelhead. We know you're in there. These cops sure are persistent. What do we do?
01:49:33
Speaker
Can we slip out the back way? There's only one door. They're on the other side. You can't hide those two forever. Oh, boy. How far to the edge of the world from here? What? I don't know. far? Not too far. The arena is pretty close to the edge.
01:49:46
Speaker
A few hundred yards from the main gates. Why? You think I have a plan? We're beating this door down, you criminals! Abdul? Yeah? Open the door and clear a path. Huh? Jewelhead? Yes? Just play a along here. And you think they'll just stand aside? You have a better idea?
01:49:59
Speaker
I'm gonna kill you all! All right, it's worth a try. Hey, you out there! Yeah? you better clear out. Oh, right.
01:50:09
Speaker
Oh, I have a dangerously infectious disease. Joanne Abdul already caught it. Help me along. I'm on my last legs. We're all as good as dead. Oh, man.
01:50:19
Speaker
Move aside, sick man coming through. Stand back. Don't touch him. He's got the Nazi flu. It's catching. What? Get him out of the way, Slim. He's a walking plague. All right, everybody stand back.
01:50:30
Speaker
Men, get back here. Stand back. Don't touch him. You'll be infected like us. What's he got again? Nazi flu. Is he gonna die? Of course he's gonna die, you idiot. Ever heard of anyone surviving the Nazi flu?
01:50:42
Speaker
Well, no. Then get out of our way. Comfort a dying man. How you doing, Bernie? I'm dying. Get me to a peaceful place for my last moments. Aw, jeez. Get him out of here.
01:50:53
Speaker
Let's go. Follow me. i I thought you said he was he was sick. hey Hey, wait a minute. We can't get the Nazi flu. We're dead after the med. Slim and the cops are right in our tail.
01:51:04
Speaker
Stop. There's the main gate. We're not going to make it. Here, behind this statue. Follow me. Get down. They're still looking around. Let's be quiet. Slim and the cops aren't too bright. What now?
01:51:16
Speaker
We wait. Then we send you home. I'm going home. Don't get too excited, pal. You're only going back to Earth. Yeah. I bet you wouldn't kick it out of bed if you had the chance. Aha! Oh, no!
01:51:27
Speaker
What are you three doing hiding behind this statue? I said, what are you three doing hiding behind this statue? Playing Uno? Where's the cards? We don't use cards. We play in our heads.
01:51:37
Speaker
Oh. Well, we're on the lookout for three wanted fugitives that are prowling around this area. One of them is Barney Schicklegruber. You know, the guy who is still alive. Well, we haven't seen him.
01:51:48
Speaker
And one of them is Jewelhead, the owner of the Big Sand Arena. She's tall and wears an emerald green sundress and a big fur hat. Haven't seen her either. Uh, her hat looks a lot like yours.
01:51:59
Speaker
I'll keep that in mind. Well, if you see him, be sure and kill all three. We'll do that, officer. Right, well, I'm off. Have a nice day. That was close. What is his problem?
01:52:11
Speaker
Why... Better not ask. Let's go. The edge of the world was everything I had heard, and worse. The last hundred feet were barren, rust and metal, like the hull a long beach ship.
01:52:22
Speaker
The wind howled. Beyond it blackness that somehow seemed complete, total. We were staring at genuine nothingness. I was petrified. This is where they stopped building. The edge of the world.
01:52:33
Speaker
would have been nice they put up a wall. We ran out of money. least a guard rail. Well, this is it. Come over here, Barney. I'm close enough, thank you. Uh, Jewelhead, maybe you shouldn't walk out that far. This wind is pretty strong.
01:52:48
Speaker
I'm fine. Come on out. Look down. I don't like this. Oh, come on. We've made it this far. What's a few more feet? Come on. Barney. Yes? i um' I'm sorry about the arena.
01:53:00
Speaker
Oh, that's OK. I was scared. Me too. Barney? Yes? Did you mean what you said? About you? Yeah. I did. Well, this is kind of hard to say. don't have all day. Now get out here. do you want to go home or not?
01:53:16
Speaker
Just give us a second. What, Abdul? I think I love you. I know I do. I've known in my heart since I rescued you from the giant lawnmower. Holy cow. What's the matter?
01:53:27
Speaker
This is awful. This is terrible. I mean, I'm about to return to Earth, Abdul. I'm away from kids back there. don't know what to do. I guess you have to make a choice. What choice do I have?
01:53:38
Speaker
You could stay. Will you hurry it up? Someone's coming over by the arena.
01:53:44
Speaker
Abdulla, I can't stay. I just can't. Well, great. Then that's that. Get over Let's go. you go ahead. I've got to start back to Tiny Town. See you later. Abdulla. Come on, Barney.
01:53:56
Speaker
Wait a minute, look! Where? Over there, over there, look! I don't believe it. Who is that? The Corn Man. I got here as soon as I could, Barley.
01:54:07
Speaker
Barney. Oh, Corn Man, what happened? How did you get here? i took the long way, ah through a lululula. But Colonel Betty. her. Well, I got to thinking about what Barney had said. About cookie jar and all, how I could get out and just start walking any old time I pleased.
01:54:22
Speaker
I took his advice. Good to see you, Corn Man. It certainly is It's been long have a been. few hundred years. You look as beautiful as the first day I saw you. I've always loved you, corn man. And I you.
01:54:38
Speaker
There's been never been no one else in my life since we partied. We'll have time to catch up later. Right now we gotta get Barney back to Earth. I can't wait. No, you can't. It's important that we get you back.
01:54:51
Speaker
Well, um I'll wait for you two over in the arena, okay? Just find me once you've gotten rid of him. Abdul, what are you talking about? It's a long story, corn man. Didn't tell you?
01:55:03
Speaker
Oh, I'm old and all my screws are loose. Abdul, the reason I came wasn't to see Barney off. I knew that Jewel Head could take care of him. So why'd you come? To tell you a secret. Oh.
01:55:13
Speaker
Abdul, you've been in Deadland a long, long time. Yes. You've seen the sights from Bill's Valley to the edge of the world. I've always kept a little secret from you. For your own good, you see. I learned my lesson about telling secrets once, didn't I, Jewelhead?
01:55:26
Speaker
You mean... Yes, Abdul. You're alive. I'm alive? Not dead? should have pulled through that smallpox epidemic in 1408. Wow. Barney, I want to come with you.
01:55:37
Speaker
I want you to come. We'll... We'll have to work something out back on Earth, but I want you to with me. Come here. Oh, isn't that sweet? Look at him kiss, Corn Man. Yeah.
01:55:48
Speaker
Reminds me of us when we were young. Jewel head I've been thinking. In fact, I spent 90 years in the cookie jar thinking about this. I want to go home, too. Both of us. Return to Earth?
01:55:59
Speaker
We've helped a lot of people do just that. Now it's our turn. Together. All right, Corn Man, I'd follow you anywhere. You two cut it out. There'll be plenty of time to maul each other later.
01:56:10
Speaker
Right now, we gotta take a leap of faith.
01:56:15
Speaker
We... We're all going back. All for us. Our time here in Deadland is through. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? We'll jump over the edge.
01:56:26
Speaker
No way. Come on, Abdul. No, no, no way. I can't do it. Yes, you can. Now, we'll all end up in different parts of the world, so let's pick a time and a place to meet. Barney? How about Grant Park in Delltel, Chicago in exactly one year?
01:56:41
Speaker
Fine. Fine. I can't do it. We'll see you there. Come on, honey.
01:56:55
Speaker
They just did it. We could stay. You heard the corn man. It's a leap of faith. But I'm really, really... Hey, what are you... I love you, Abdul. It's for your own good.
01:57:06
Speaker
Put me down. Let go of me. Take one last look, because we'll never see Deadland again. Never say never. Here we go!
01:57:15
Speaker
I'm not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow Cause nothing's ever gonna be alright no how No matter how struggle and strive I'll never get out of this world alive
01:57:37
Speaker
Thank you for joining us this evening. The cast of Deadland includes Scott Sigler as Barney and Wednesday as Abdul. Other cast members include Michael O'Hare, Jason Morningstar, Jim Bosch, Shannon Cunningham, Diana Gullett, John DeGarmo, and Laura Wagonlander.
01:57:55
Speaker
Deadland was engineered by Paul Ensley and produced in the Charles Mefford studio of WOCR-FM on the campus of Olivet Colley.