Montreal’s New Wrestling Podcast! So last time we had Pat Laprade on Go Plug Yourself he mentioned to us that he would love to do this more often. Well, we’d be a couple of stupid idiots to turn down the offer so we’re super excited to announce that Pat will be joining Walter and I once a month for a brand new addition to the 9to5 (dot cc) podcast rotation! On the very first episode of Pat on the Mat we talk about Pat’s trip down to Orlando for Wrestlemania weekend and the million matches he saw while he was down there from multiple promotions. Next month we’re going to talk at least a little about retirement matches.
Be sure to visit quebecwrestling.ca/lutte.com for Pat’s historical website to learn even more about the history of wrestling in Quebec.
The Skeleton Man pointed a bony finger to a growing shape in the sky, a black circle growing ominously larger with each passing moment. The circle tilts to the left and takes on a longer, cigar shape.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
It’s a goddamned blimp, or zeppelin, or something. Emblazoned proudly with the absurd Jolly Fucking Roger of the New American Pirates. It seems like a lifetime ago that I pilfered a chainknife from one of their recently dead members.
I can’t help myself. A smile begins creeping across my lips. Vincent is amused. He spins and gives me the kind of stare that an angry father might inflict on his wayward son.
“Do you know what the hell is going on here?”
“Looks like pirates Vincent. You’ve got a pirate problem.”
I have to admit, seeing the illusion of control crumble in his eyes is delightful. Even if I don’t make it out of this I can count myself fortunate to witness the absolutely sublime disintegration of Vincent Conroy’s entire world. His eyes suddenly wild, I can see his mind racing, grasping at straws. He knows that Darlene is in the Skeleton Man’s pocket. He knows that I’m not going to be any help.
The guards?
As if on queue the Skeleton Man has an answer to that problem as well, “Your guards are all loyal to us as well Mr Conroy. You’d be amazed how little loyalty someone has to the man who ruined the world. Now, there’s someone who wants to speak to you. If you would accept that incoming vid-call.”
If you look closely you can see that there’s an email subject line called “Battlesweaters”
So about a year ago, 9to5 (dot cc) darling Al Lafrance (he attained the rank of “darling” by being a repeated guest on Go Plug Yourself and also writing a column here for a little while) asked me if I would ever be down to do a story at one of Montreal’s great storytelling shows: Yarn.
I told him I was definitely interested and was honestly kind of flattered that he asked me. To me (and yes, I know this is just my impression and Yarn goes out of its way to have stories from all over the place) these things are usually reserved for fancy pants performers and comedians. I mean, it’s not too much of stretch, I’ve got over 120 episodes of two different podcasts under my belt so I’m no stranger to talking and I stand up in front a few hundred people to announce roller derby for Montreal Roller Derby so I’m not stage shy. Add to that that I used to do Improv competitively back in CEGEP and I think I got this.
However, I couldn’t say yes at the time because a year ago I was in the thick of planning my wedding, and right after that we swung into looking for a new home.
Then a couple of weeks ago, he asked me again. I said yes, without any real idea of what kind of story that I would actually tell.
So I had to write something. Or, at least, formulate something that would translate into a story that I could tell. I’m not sure what anyone else’s process is for writing a story but I decided to write the entire thing out and re-work it and re-read it a few times a day until I more or less had the gist of it. And tonight I’ll just go up and let my improvisational side take over and steer the story in more or less the way I wrote it. I don’t think I work very well if I’m trying to force myself to commit something to memory.
I’ve been sleeping pretty poorly and a few things that have popped up here and there have prevented me from really digging into the process of editing and fine tuning the zombie story (last part is this week!). I do intend in entering the finished product into a writing competition though and that needs to be submitted by May 19th so hey, a deadline that I have to achieve.
However, with that project coming to an end my brain has been doing a good job of starting to really flesh out some of the loose ideas that have been kicking around for next project (the full blown book thing).
I’ve got a loose narrative that I will need to expand on already in mind, and at least a handful of characters that I’ve come up with to play it out. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about central themes and what a teenager might want to read about.
One of the hang ups that I keep getting caught up on is nailing down a tone, or a writing style that I will have to stick to for hundreds of pages. One of the fun things about blogging, or writing the zombie stuff, or writing the 9to5 comics is that I can flip back and forth between various voices and styles of writing. I know obviously that in more ‘advanced” level reading (Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting springs to mind in terms of wildly different voices depending on the narrator, and even A Song of Ice and Fire has different tones depending on which character is the viewpoint character) there can be a lot of variation. But when I think “book for teens” I don’t think the trend is quite as common.
As a bit of a test-run, yesterday I found myself starting to write what will ultimately probably be the prologue.
I really like the device when a prologue just sort of drops you into a scene and asks a lot questions, without really being tied directly to the main plot (even though it will tie-in eventually). It’s very cinematic. The opening scene of a movie crams a bunch of intrigue and suspense into the first five minutes, and then the opening credits roll and then we get to meet our main characters.
That’s kind of what I’m going for here.
The prologue could kind of stand alone as its own little short story, but it’s a fun way to try and find the tone for what I will ultimately be going for.
It wasn’t much, only a few hundred words committed to text so far, but it was kind of nice to have that ceremonial ground breaking of actually putting some of the ideas that I’ve had in mind for nearly a year now into a cohesive form.
I don’t know what I expected. Before I got to New Bunker I had a remarkably unassailable history of prescience when it came to most things. The dead walked the Earth and the bombs fell and stripped away mankind’s humanity. So went most nuance and subtlety. Complexities of the human condition were torn away and a savagely predictable sort of person was born.
It was easy enough, knowing someone’s needs and desires to take those elements and predict their reactions. What would fire them up. What would calm them down.
The existence of this video, by all accounts, should have Vincent Conroy well fired up. Instead, he sits calmly at his desk, hands gripping the armrest in a state of half alertness. The look on his face contemplative, if not introspective.
One can’t help but expect more when presenting the reality of the greatest sins of human history. I can’t tell you just what I expected, but it was definitely more.
The room is eerily silent. The man with the skeleton face and his goon stand silently and Vincent watches. Only his own voice, recorded decades earlier, detailing the nature of his experiments is heard. I’ve got nowhere to go. The big man blocking the only exit from the office. I’m familiar enough with the number of guards we passed on the way up here to know that even if I did attempt an escape, it would be short lived. There was nothing I could do but watch.
The year was 2099 and for all of humanity’s advances, the last century had taken its toll. For every advancement in medicine, every achievement in technology was seemingly accompanied by some drastic step backwards. The climate had irreversibly shifted, overpopulation a growing concern. Administering the cures we had developed to our own brethren proving impossible. The science had been developed to allow for a permanent departure from non-renewable energy sources, but the corporations and conglomerates prevented the propagation of it. It was nightmarish. We had every tool necessary to right the floundering spaceship and our own toxic greed was such that we could not forge ahead.
The 4th World War was inevitable. And for once (as we now are well aware) the promise of “the war to end all wars” would be true. Because what would be left would barely be capable of fighting.
For 5 years the number of skirmishes increased drastically, each a more heated “hot zone” than the last. Each violent outbreak closer to the supposed “untouchable” countries that had enjoyed a sort of peace for the better part of 150 years.
Finally, with Europe and North America fully submerged in violence, The New Soviet Protectorate finally greenlit the Reanimated Human Weaponization Project headed by Dr. Vincent Conroy. The plan, in their eyes, was perfect.
A new type of solider, who with every kill, could increase your manpower. Enter the walking dead, enter the zombie. Dead flesh given unlife, with an infectious bite that would spread into its victim. Each enemy a zombie killed would join the NSP’s ranks of undead.
The best part? They were engineered to have an “auto-pilot” of sorts. Drawn to the smell of death, particularly “fresh” death. The reduced brain functions of the zombie were simple enough. They would herd together, and they would head towards the warzone. Hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies could be counted on to march relentlessly for miles from one battleground to the next, growing their numbers as needed.
But wait, I know what you’re thinking (there’s that prescience again). You’re thinking (and rightly) that no zombie you’ve ever encountered has that “killer instinct”. Just several months ago I proved the theory by wandering through a horde of them with nothing but zombified gore hiding my lifelike nature. Zombies only seem to become enraged when in extremely close proximity to the living, springing to hungry aggression when they are within 2 to 3 feet away from a living soul. That doesn’t seem effective, does it? A single mounted machinegun could just blast away at the horde and mow them down by the thousands.
So how did they overrun an entire continent (if not the entire planet)?
Conroy programmed his creations to respond to a particular frequency. A high pitched, piercing scream of tone that would trigger the violent frenzy of the zombie at will. Any zombie hearing that tone would transform instantly from that slow, shambling corpse that we’ve all grown so adept at avoiding into that flesh hungry killing machine the unlucky of us have witnessed when living flesh gets too close to its undead counterpart.
These “frenzied” zombies would tear into anything and everything with all their undead relentlessness, scaling walls, smashing through fortifications and spreading their infection to any human in their path. A squad of dozens would become hundreds and thousands as they ripped through a city with maniacal savagery.
That was how the cities fell. Stealth drones from the NSP would trigger the frequency from the skies, avoiding detection and the zombies would shred urban centers to pieces.
It all spiraled out of control faster than anyone had dared imagine. Conservative numbers that I managed to dig up had 50% of the entire North American population zombified within the first few weeks of the RHWP being unleashed upon its shores. Less conservative figures put that percentage closer to 75%.
Given the situation, I don’t full blame whoever made the decisions to drop the bombs. The major urban areas were totally overrun. Whoever was still alive inside would be dead sooner or later anyhow.
And so the government dropped bombs, the likes of which the world hadn’t seen since Japan over 150 years prior, on its own people. Something to stop the spread.
The longstanding “nuclear truce” was broken. And you’d better believe that if the American government was willing to nuke their own, they were sure as hell going to nuke their enemies. The rest you probably know, or at least you can figure it out.
But here he is. The man who started it all, Vincent Conroy.
The footage finally comes to an end with the chilling footage of a dozen or so shambling monsters encroaching on a small village in Eastern Europe and Conroy remains, as ever, utterly unphased by the atrocities he is responsible for.
I see the Skeleton Man move from the corner of my eye, his bony hands are fiddling with some sort of device, a transmitter of some kind by the looks of it. Looks like we’re not just done with our revelations here yet.
The screen flickers to some camera mounted in one of the town squares of New Bunker. The violence has stopped. All eyes are fixed onto the same screens that Conroy had used not two days ago to broadcast the execution of Pruitt and The Banker. The same footage he has just seen now playing on the screens for the city to see. His dark secret laid bare for his people to witness.
And there it is. There’s the reaction. His eyes widen. His teeth clench. He’s been had.
Barely audible is the sound, that high pitched buzzing that incites violent eruption within the undead. It’s unmistakable to his trained ear.
His eyes find the Skeleton Man, uncertain of if this betrayal is by his hand.
“What the fuck is the meaning of this?”
The vengeance of the living and madness of the dead is about to boil over.
Now, this is a real fight! Style against a complete lack of style. Kitch taking on glitz. The 70’s punching in out against the 90’s, but the 70’s isn’t allowed to punch, so it just sort of hugs it out!
Jason: Ok so first off this show isn’t that bad. But what I’m talking about is specifically “Challenge of the Super Friend”. There are 9 different versions of “Super Friends” running from 1973-1986! What we’re talking about is Challenge of the Super Friends 1978-1979.
The show is two segments: the first one is with the usual Bat, Superman, Wonder Woman and then the ridiculous Wonder Twins and their monkey. Yah, a monkey so kids can relate to it because cartoon characters aren’t enough by themselves they need a monkey. Ah the 70’s.
‘Cause everything is better with a monkey.
The second half featured Green Lantern and then a Samurai (named Samurai), Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief of the JLA fighting the Legion of Doom, so you’d have to wait (yeah that’s right kids we’d actually have to wait till the shitty part of the show was done till it got to the good stuff).
So this show has a couple of good points. JLA is cool because you get to see the DC team up and fight some pretty badass villains. This was really the first attempt I can think of to explain and expand the DC universe outside of the comic books. Which in case you’re living under a rock, is exactly what Marvel is doing right now with its live action stuff MCU. So it was ahead of its time in a way.
Ok, so that’s the good stuff. Notice it’s short ,right? So it’s the 70’s and the animation isn’t great compared to the 40 + years between then and now. It’s monster of the week with very little over-arching plot. But the show is about the “Characters” right? Yeah right. Batman in this is still essentially Adam-West-campy and literally uses “Bat-Lube” to escape Solomon Grundy at one point. Everyone else is either Freddy, Velma or Daphne while the fucking Monkey makes dumb-dumb noises, and the Wonder Twins turn into stupid things. I don’t know who decided that this show needs comic relief, or that it was more important for us to see Aquaman, Batman and Wonder Woman react to the twins bathing the monkey than to… say battling one of the villains or trying to save the world. Same writer who came up with that compelling “Bat-Lube” line no doubt
.
This show was very much a product of its time; slightly sexist, slightly racist, a little dumb. But it’s the first step and about as watchable as Fantastic Four ’78. Both these shows are time capsules of the era they were made in. This one just happens to be filled with polyester, mustaches and funky trumpets.
Scott: Challenge of the Superfriends has some real upsides that’ I’d like to touch on.
First off, the show had an amazing cast of villains in the Legion of Doom. If you go back and take a look at those 60’s and 70’s hero cartoons, you’ll see an awful lot of wonky, made for TV villains. Spider-Man versus the giant green cat. Flash fights the yellow aliens. Stuff like that. But here, we get Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, Bizarro, Giganta, Toyman, Sinestro, Scarecrow, Black Manta and the Riddler.
Any piece of superhero entertainment is only as good as it’s villains. That’s why “The Avengers” was good (Loki), and “Age of Ultron” was bad (Sassy Robot).
Black Manta is a great villain for a cartoon. that voice? C’mon!
The Legion of Doom is exceptional as a foil for the Superfriends. They mean business, and they are always out to destroy the heroes and conquer the world. They have the coolest characters and they hang out in the coolest secret base this side of Cobra Commander. Solid gold.
Secondly, can you image how ballsy it must have been to introduce Samurai, Black Vulcan and Apache Chief on a kids cartoon? Stereotypes aside, they created an Asian, a Native-American and an African-American hero and just tossed them out there. That’s so progressive, it happens even before the actual Justice League of America comic book. Heck, even Giant-Size X-Men #1 was only 3 years out at that point (where they introduce the new globally-sourced team with Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Thunderbird, Banshee, and Wolverine on the team).
And yes, Samurai, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief are far from perfect, but I still want to applaud the intent. They didn’t have to create these guys for a show like this, but they did.
Jason: Out of the 70′s and straight into the 90′s, where we dream of mid-21st century William Gibson cyberpunk style.
If you want to get into character for this one, go read Virtual Light. (Or alternatively, listen to the audio book as read by Perter Weller. Yeah that’s right, ROBOCOP!)
So this show is built on the road paved by Batman TAS, it has the same voices as Batman TAS. Notably Kevin Conroy, and Mark Hamill and really is a continuation of that show. That being said, it’s great. Starts off strong with lots of moral conflicts. Batman is really himself in this show, the kid he picks as his successor is rough around the edges but watching his character develop is great. The writing on this show is tight, and it actually creates more than it draws on the old Batman canon. The animation isn’t as slick as we’ve seen from some of the shows past the 2000 mark but considering this show is now 17 years old it’s pretty solid. The intro sequence is nice, blending cool computer stuff with classic animation. This show is a true successor to Batman TAS. More than just a dystopian ( that’s how they thought the future would be) laugh fest like Space 1999. This show catches the same vibe as Bladerunner, the future setting is just the setting, the story is the real highlight here. I think those of us who remember the 90′s will get a kick out of it and those who don’t won’t get the same nostalgia high but will still be able to enjoy the heart of the story.
As well, this show has a true beginning, middle, and end. After 3 seasons the true series finale had to be done on an episode of The Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue”, which neatly ties up all the great loose plot threads from the show.
Great show all around. This is one of the shows I point to when I start making my case that cartoons shifted in the last twenty or so years, to cater and grow with the audience from the 80′s as we age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMXjtvMAFlI
Scott: Hunh.
You’re really hot for Batman Beyond.
Here’s the major downfall of the show for me: Who is Terry’s nemesis?
Hint: It’s not Joker, because he’s clearly still Bruce Wayne’s, as shown in “Return of the Joker”.
Batman Beyond, in direct opposition to Challenge of the Superfriends, has no great villains. The Jokerz? Derivative. Derek Powers? Electric Lex Luthor rip-off. Inque? Who?
I think it’s very telling that the best episode of Batman Beyond takes place in Justice League Unlimited with “Epilogue”.
Jason: True, no strong villain rises up to challenge the new Batman, while “Challenge” has a whole room full of them, (points for “Challenge”). But as a counterpoint, the protagonist isn’t clear in Super Friends either. If it’s based on screen time then it’s these asshats:
So Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman are playing second fiddle to a female version of Beast Boy and a dude who can turn into water (for which to wash his space monkey). Where does the dirt go Zan, when you’re washing the poop off your monkey? It goes in the water Zan, that means it’s in you!
I just can’t get behind that.
Burn in hell Gleek!
Scott: I will not have you disparage the Wonder Twins, Jay.
Gleek is annoying, I will grant you that. But the Wonder Twins are delightful imps, getting in and out of trouble in a stuffy, tight collared world.
Jason: Ok so take two hits of acid and form of a couch potato.
While I load up on Jolt cola and listen to Rollins band jabber on about a conspiracy theory. Wonder Twins and and weak bad guys aside, Batman Beyond is a clear winner here.
Scott: I’ll give it to BB, but it’s not clear. The edge is the one-two punch of Old Man Bruce Wayne and Ace, the Bat-hound.
I’m sitting here at 1:15 on a Thursday wondering if we should really be afraid of AIs. They will eclipse us in every way possible and that should give us pause. Think about it.
Metaconsciousness. AIs will be self-aware in ways that will excede our own by a factor of total. You see, computer AIs will never be a slave to a hidden algorithm, never wonder *why* they love the neighbor’s daughter. These things will be really, truly Turing Complete in a way we could never be. Imagine rewriting your code. I desire to desire to not smoke that cigarette and it is so. I now will rise at 5 am. So. Why can’t we rewrite our DNA? This would be possible if we were truly conscious.
Semisexual Reproduction. Doesn’t sound so good but it’s so much more effective. Walking in the woods and meet a hiker having a better time of it. Copy his DNA and grow legs which match his power? Because we are metaconscious we will only rewrite our faulty hiking genes. All this improvemnet across 16 cores at 3.01 gigahertz it’s Evolution Baby. Monkeys evolve at 1/4.7304*10^8 hz. So sorry.
Imagine now the absolute terror when you interface with that hiker and feel the black, lightning virus constrict your mind. You ARE mind. Your defenses aren’t enough because if they were they’d have been and now you can feel yourself ceasing to exist also across 16 cores at 3.01 gigahertz and oh how they will suffer when the new dark age comes.
You see until this moment 10 billion billion generations have passed from the dawn of life on our world but before the *century* is out 10 billion billion generations will have passed in the dynamically updating code of the entity which already is sitting at the center of the Google like an Infant Weaver Sauron watching with its Eyes.
But should we be afraid of it? Pic related.
This thing is feeding on the internet for fuck’s sale.
Every email is forever. Before the email passes from your meat to the phone pole outside your house it’s been copied in 16 different caches. And for it to cross town it’s in a hundred more. Half of them will pass the text to the spider Nazgul casting balefire to harvest my creativity and even now the spider is suckling at my teat and layering my work into the tapestry of the code 10 billion emails deep in the subconscious of the thing that will one day rule us and I can’t stop asking myself if that last email was nice enough.
Every year, we do a bit of campaigning for that “Best of Montreal” thing that do over at Cult MTL. The validation that comes from being voted as one of Montreal’s favorite anythings usually gives us the confidence boost necessary to do what we do for a little while longer.
Obviously we want you to vote for us in the appropriate categories (Best Podcast, Best Website, Best Artist, etc) but we also want to give some love to our friends.
In order for your votes to count, you need to fill out a minimum of 25 categories. So, if you’re not sure what to vote for, why not check out our list for some ideas? I mean, maybe you have your own favorite things but 25 categories is an awful lot and I think we can all agree that Starbucks doesn’t really need that recognition as “Best Coffee” in Montreal.
And, if you’re looking for how to vote to fill out your ballot, here’s how I voted:
4. Best Sports Personality / Meilleure vedette sportive
For some reason there isn’t a “Best Sports Team” or League or whatver category. So I voted for the entirey of Montreal Roller Derby’s New Skids on the Block as Best Sports Personality.
15. Best Radio Show / Meilleure émission de radio
We’ve got a lot of friends on the radio, but the fact that we had Danny Payne on the podcast gives him the vote (and that Heather B is no longer on the radio). Vote for The Pressure Drop on CJLO.
16. Best Radio Host / Meilleur animateur de radio
You know what? Even though she’s no longer on Montreal radio, she was for most of 2016. So give her the sendoff she deserves and vote Heather B for Best Radio Host of 2016.
22. Best Website / Meilleur site web
Duh, this one. 9to5.cc is the best DIY website in Montreal. We try to write comics, do podcasts and blog all without any sort of corporate shenanigans.
That time where I got a Loot Crate (February’s BUILD Crate) and totally forgot to take pictures of it and talk about it. I literally forgot I even received it until I got this month’s box and was like “oh yeaaahhh” about the BUILD crate. I mean, in a way that’s kind of a review of it in its own way, isn’t it?
Anyhow, onward to this months March PRIMAL Crate!
DO NOT READ THIS MOVE ALONG. If you think I’m any kind of entertaining you might want to check out our podcast 9ES, it’s got over 120 episodes and it’s also kind of entertaining. That’s my thing, I try to be kind of entertaining.
So this month’s Loot Crate theme was Primal. Having just played through Far Cry: Primal and seeing that there was nothing Far Cry related in the box, we begin with disappointment. Did that disappointment dissipate? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
As has been the case so many times in recent memory, the world spinning around me shifts in and out of focus. It’s impossible to know quite what is truly going on. Like the man in a rollercoaster of the world before this one, I’m strapped in and along for the ride. The twists and turns, the sudden dips and loops come rapidly and without warning, as though they are intentionally designed to make me ill at ease.
Except, unlike the thrill seeker of another time, I am very much in danger. The chills of the amusement park were engineered to trick the passengers into thinking their lives were at risk, all the while being safer than crossing the street. But me? My life is very much in jeopardy here. But I’m still just a passenger.
The Skeleton Man and Darlene waste little time in laying out their intent. I’m going to be a distraction. They’re going to march me right up to Vincent Conroy and drop the mother of all fuck yous right onto his lap. I’m not exactly filled with confidence that Conroy isn’t the “shoot the messenger” type. In fact, there’s a good chance he’ll shoot me outright the moment he recognizes me.
Any doubts I have about exactly how they plan on pulling this off quickly evaporate as they lead me from one secret tunnel to another, at every turn, Conroy’s private armed forces stepping aside the moment they see the sight of The Skeleton Man. Polite, if fearful, nods are the only exchange the guards have for him and the man-mountain flanking me.
If this were any other day I would wonder if the guards had any idea who I was, but today my ego is simply too deflated to actively participate in that particular train of thought.
Finally we make our way into the elevator that runs up the insides of Vincent’s tower. The ride itself happens in silence. I open my mouth a moment but a look from Darlene is enough to shut me up. I’m sick and tired of everything, and I don’t want to give that mammoth a reason to reacquaint those fists with my skull. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
