Cultivating Leverage - Episode 57

In a hidden temple, chanting cultists debate whether to serve pincers hot or cold, which candles to use for their bloody rituals, & how to maximize suffering over the next quarter. Can Falk infiltrate their ranks & work his subtle methods to bring them down? Listen to find out!

Cultivating Leverage, episode 57 of This Gun in My Hand, was pinched by Red-Hot Rob Northrup. This episode and all others are available on Youtube with automatically-generated closed captions of dialog. Visit http://ThisGuninMyHand.blogspot.com for credits, show notes, information on how to subscribe, and to buy my merchandise! That’s right, you can now buy hats*, shirts* and tote bags* to show your devotion to This Gun in My Hand. Just order a paper copy of one of the books available on my website, unfold it over your head – you’ve got a hat. Or tear out the pages and sew them into a stylish t-shirt, cape dress or tote bag. Or if you like NON FUNGIBLE TOKENS, I have something right up your alley but way better. No coal mines will have to be exhausted to fuel computers to maintain the blockchain for this unique digital item – but you will have a valuable, one-of-a-kind digital item. No one else has it. It’s an ebook called Little Heist in the Big Woods and Other Revisionist Atrocities by Robert Thomas Northrup. Buy one now and you’ll be the first and only person to have a copy. You can tell everyone you have the only copy in the world. What could be more unique than that? This Gun in My Hand!

* That’s a damned lie.  

Show Notes:
1. I first heard the chant “Owa tagu siam” from wacky morning deejays on CKLW 800 AM radio, probably 45 years ago. Say one word of it at a time and ask someone to repeat the phrase after you as you until they get the hang of it. Then tell them to say it faster and faster until they realize they’re saying, “Oh what a goose I am.”

2. Let’s assume Brother Zogall was lying about closing a deal with Papa Jim’s Botanica, which is a real shop in San Antonio. They’ve sold voodoo and occult supplies, religious statues, etc. by catalog for decades and later on the web. (Remember, kids: The audio and text of This Gun in My Hand are works of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)

3. The National Rifle Association began hunter education courses in 1949. Clearly the NRMA is a totally different organization in a different world and different timeline than ours, dear listener, because This Gun in My Hand is set circa 1939.

Credits:
The opening music clip was from The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and the closing music was from Killer Bait (1949), both films in the public domain. Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.

Sound effect title: bustle in the pub
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/organicmanpl/sounds/403285/

Sound effect title: Guests-at-party.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/Mickael_Leroi/sounds/402131/

Sound Effect Title: footsteps cellar.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/gecop/sounds/545030/

Sound effect title: Gun Fire
By GoodSoundForYou
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
http://soundbible.com/1998-Gun-Fire.html

Sound Effect Title: "Destruction, Wooden, A.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.org
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Sound Effect Title: explosion_big_03.ogg
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/derplayer/sounds/587198/

Sound Effect Title: Rockfall in mine
By Benboncan
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/60085/

Sound Effect Title: Bricks/Stones/Rocks/Gravel Falling
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/iwanPlays/sounds/567249/

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail of the front cover of Mystery Tales, Volume 3, Number 4 (March 1940), art by John Walter Scott. Public Domain.

Please Kill Responsibly - Episode 56

The gun lobby hires Emerald Ash Borer to solve their image problem. How many people will get shot as he brainstorms ways to reduce gun violence? (Spoilers: it's not zero.)

Please Kill Responsibly, episode 56 of This Gun in My Hand, was knocked off a shelf by a cat, who was set loose from a cage by a piece of twine tied to a broom handle, which was pulled by Rob Northrup. This episode and all others are available on Youtube with automatically-generated closed captions of dialog. Visit http://ThisGuninMyHand.blogspot.com for credits, show notes, information on how to subscribe, and to buy my books, such as Little Heist in the Big Woods and Other Revisionist Atrocities. What sets in motion a cascading series of events, leading to the desired outcome? This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. Faro was the most popular gambling card game in the Eighteenth Century United States. For a good time, read Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America by Herbert Asbury, or any of his other books.

2. “Ballistic blankets” are real and have really been offered as a solution for school massacres in the year of our lord 2022. Who needs to write satire when reality is as sick as ours? After the May 24, 2022 murder of nineteen children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, a former FBI agent on the teevee suggested hanging bulletproof or bullet-resistant blankets on walls of schools, which could be used to block windows.
https://www.newsweek.com/ballistic-blankets-children-shot-maureen-oconnell-fox-news-school-uvalde-texas-1709955

3. In the edited-for-television version of Repo Man (1984), much of the cursing dialogue was overdubbed with phrases like “Flip you, melon farmer.”

4. Rube Goldberg graduated from UC-Berkeley in 1904 with a degree in Engineering. He passed away in 1970.

5. The tasteless opinions of these characters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their creator, Robert Thomas Northrup. 

Credits:
The opening music clip was from The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and the closing music was from Killer Bait (1949), both films in the public domain. Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.

Sound Effect Title: Mount Moganshan Insect Chorus
By: RTB45
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/people/RTB45/sounds/325321/

Music Title: Flight of the Carpenter Bee
By Steven Arntson
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://archive.org/details/Bildungsroman-7512

Sound Effect Title: Car_motor_Sound.m4a
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/Blizzard123/sounds/504633/#

Sound Effect Title: Old FM radio tuning by sielxm3d.mp3
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/deleted_user_3667256/sounds/319846/

Music and voice clips from the following public domain works: The Phantom Empire, Chapter Two (1935). The Shadow radio show (1940), Bold Venture radio show (1951), Lux Radio Theater ("Sing, You Sinners," 1940), Crestablanca radio commercial.

Sound Effect Title: 38 Caliber Gun Shot 5x
Recorded by Mike Koenig
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
http://soundbible.com/375-38-Caliber-Gun-Shot-5x.html

Sound Effect Title: Real Colt 45 M1911 (shot)
By Carmelomike
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/people/Carmelomike/sounds/255216/

Sound effect title: Gun Fire
Recorded by GoodSoundForYou
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
http://soundbible.com/1998-Gun-Fire.html

Sound Effect Title: Toy Gun 7
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/giddster/sounds/434720/

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail from the cover of the public domain comic book Guns Against Gangsters, Vol. 1, No. 1 (September-October 1948). Art by L.B. Cole.