Your hosts delve into the higher forms of culture today, starting out with a discussion of acting in games and how that impacts the design process. Then get out your berets and turtlenecks and get ready to snap your fingers, smoke clove cigarettes, and get hit on by a guy named Carnival Moon, because it's Mildly Alarming Poetry Corner time. Plus a note on conservation, and a very real message from a very real astronaut.
Your hosts delve into the higher forms of culture today, starting out with a discussion of acting in games and how that impacts the design process. Then get out your berets and turtlenecks and get ready to snap your fingers, smoke clove cigarettes, and get hit on by a guy named Carnival Moon, because it's Mildly Alarming Poetry Corner time. Plus a note on conservation, and a very real message from a very real astronaut.
Intro gag: Comin’ to ya’ live from a big bowl of soup, I’m Tom Rich and with me as always is POTATOS! and this is the Mildly Alarming Podcast. Episode 61: Clamparts
##Segment 1: Acting, Role-playing, and You
Episode Sponsor: Calvonimous Bro Preserve
##Segment 2: Mildly Alarming Poetry Corner
Tom
Once upon a Sunday queery, while I Iabored—well, in theory—
Over many a quaint and curious volume of our podcast lore
As I droolded, clearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“Must be Snoop Dogg,” did I mutter, “rapping at my chamber door.
Only this, and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I recall it, for I had just lost my wallet,
After landing fall-down drunk upon a barroom’s sticky floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow—vainly, I had sought to borrow
Twenty bucks to ease my sorrow—sorrow at my podcast chore.
At that pain-in-buttock tasklist that I call my podcast chore
To which I’m chain-ed evermore.
And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with a deep confusion never felt before;
So that, now, to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating
“I do not remember seating purple curtains here before—
Have no memory of buying purple curtains long before
Snoop Dogg turned up at my door.”
Johannes
Waiting outside ever longer, as my rage grew in me stronger,
“Doofus,” called I, “get your lazy carcass off the floor.
Clearly, I have caught you napping, or, if I’m unlucky, crapping,
But most likely you were napping, napping on your chamber floor.
I can see you through the window, lying there upon the floor.
A moron there, and nothing more."
Through the window I stood peering, (as if) my eyeballs could be searing
Work ethic into my co-host, who rose, shaking, from the floor.
But his silence was unbroken, and his stillness gave no token,
And the only words he’d spoken had been muffled by the door.
Something about Snoop Dogg, likely, muffled by his chamber door.
Likely that, and nothing more.
Away from the threshold turning, all my wrath within my burning,
Soon I heard him tapping, louder than I tapped before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely he is on his feet now, thinking ‘Geewhiz,
He’ll most likely break my kneeses, if I don’t complete my chore,
Break ‘em with a hammer if I don’t complete my podcast chore.’
Now open up your stupid door!”
Tom
Open wide I flung the shutter, and with many a flirt and flutter
Out through the window stepped I, like a burglar of yore.
Not the least obeisance made I; not a minute stopped or stayed I;
But, dashing cross the sidewalk made I directly toward the door—
Sprinting like a sumbitch aimed directly at his truck’s front door.
“Yolo!” called I, “Swag galore!”
Johannes
No he didn’t; he is lying, clearly, for some reason, trying,
To convince you, and by rhyming, upon your good-sense implore
That you might believe this fable, to our podcast fix the label
Of ‘exciting,’ ‘thrilling,' ‘able’—from the list pick one or more.
Look down a list of good descriptors and, from it, pick one or more.
That’s what he’s after, the dumb whore.
Tom
Much I marvel, this ungainly fellow to discourse so plainly
Though his mock’ry fails to cut the issue to its core.
For, though yes, my goal’s amusement, and is fueled by a boozement,
Parody’s the thing, I’m choosin’ it, as I labor at this chore.
The fun of parodying poems sets me working at this chore.
Only this, and nothing more.
Johannes
I must ask, you goofy midget, think you that I am an idjit
Who didn’t know you had that motive, it and likely several more?
For instance, note that I have uttered—with my nipples lightly buttered—
Several stanzas deeply cluttered with phrasing that’s a dreary chore.
Phrasing hard to say aloud—you gave me this insipid chore.
Delib'rate, say I, that and more!
Tom
Startled, my reverie broken, by reply so aptly spoken,
Duder, say I, we should punch this up a good deal more.
For though I like a good parody, thicky, creamly, and most carroty,
We gots to take especial careody—your assistance I implore.
With the next turn of this po-em, your assistance I implore.
Come inside, and shut the door.
Johannes
Though it could get somewhat hairy, we could still poke fun at Gary
And the predilections he indulges on the shore.
See now, here’s what I am thinking: He’s aboard a ship that’s sinking,
And hears the sound of sea-shells clinking on the cabin floor.
The sound of sea-shells clink-clink-clinking on the tilted cabin floor.
List’ners, this, would never bore.
Tom
Funny, yes, but I am guessing, if this idea you’re expressing
Goes where Gary jokes have oh-so-often gone before,
If our imaginations, fertile, must return, again, to turtle
Then the shark our podcast hurtles, and the readers it will bore.
We’ll leap a shark if we talk turtle, and the readers it will bore.
And they’ll read us nevermore.
Johannes
Fair enough, you measly gno-em, but how will we end this po-em,
And, these stanzas, stow-em in a package we can store?
If Gary jokes are off the table, Alphonse jokes must be a fable,
And I’m unsure we will be able to come up with something more.
And will the listeners listen if we give them nothing more?
Answer, answer, I implore!
Tom
Co-host, says I, your point I mind, co-host still, if rather unkind,
It may be that of content we’re unlikely to find more.
Desolate, and rather daunted, by this lack of humor haunted,
by impending failure taunted—shall we, then, press on no more?
Is there beef at Taco Bell—tell me truly, I implore?
Yo Quiero, anymore?
Johannes
Co-host, say I, loutish laggard, co-host still, if super-slaggard,
You can’t use a dirt-cheap taco to evade your podcast chore.
This bit now’s the sixteenth stanza, a cheesy, beefy, word bonanza,
An excess, an extravaganza—just complete it, I implore.
There can’t be many stanzas left—tell how many, I implore.
Tell me, now, how many more?
Tom
I believe that there are lurking, if my count has not been shirking,
Two more stanzas left to send up ere we start meal number four.
Lest our readers think us lazy, lest their patience wavers, hazy,
Lest they take to acting crazy—complete, we must, this awful chore.
Let us have mercy on the readers and complete this awful chore.
Or they will read us nevermore.
Johannes
So here’s how this podcast endeth, as to rhyme scheme words we bendeth,
And thru’ tortured language wendeth, so that meter up we shore.
And as the lines draw to the finish, our hunger will soon diminish
With food that tastes a little tinnish from the Taco Bell next door.
We’ll feast on deeply healthless foodstuffs from the Taco Bell next door.
And do this segment… nevermore.
Outro Gag: Vic Chefterly's Outer Space Hair Cream
Music in this episode:
"Mesmerize" by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 3.0