This Gun in My Hand: March 2023

Friday, March 24, 2023

Speed Detective - Episode 78

Painting from the cover of Speed Detective Magazine. A man with short brown hair grits his teeth while firing a pistol. He wears a blue double-breasted blazer, white shirt, red tie. His arm is around a woman holding both arms around his neck. The woman has red hair, a short-sleeved yellow dress, bright red lipstick. A knife sticks into a patch of the wall near his head where plaster has broken away. Above them is the masthead of Speed Detective, A Speed Magazine, DEC. 15¢, 20 cents in Canada.

Will Falk’s first story in Speed Detective Magazine be his last? Will he find the kidnapped girl before it’s too late? Who killed the chauffeur? Listen to find out!

Speed Detective, episode 78 of This Gun in My Hand, the final episode of season six, was hastened 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 magazine am I most often associated with? The one that fits into the grip of This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. Anachronism! Speed Detective was not published with that title in 1939, the period when This Gun in My Hand is set. Spicy Detective Stories was published from 1934-1942. Pushback from the public got a little too spicy, so they changed the title to Speed Detective beginning with the January 1943 issue. (Also Speed Mystery, Speed Western, and others in the formerly “Spicy” line.)
https://www.pulpmags.org/contexts/essays/history-of-girlie-pulps.html
https://donherron.com/sinister-cinema-holy-spicy-detective-batman/

2. Text of the first commercial comes from a real advertisement for Gulf Hamstery that appeared in magazines and comics in the late 1940s. Please don’t try sending letters to Parabellum City though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Hamstery

3. Look up “police gangs LAPD.” Truth is stranger than my fiction.

Credits:
The opening and middle transitional music clips were 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: Park ambience - mostly birds
License: public domain
https://freesound.org/people/Mafon2/sounds/274175/#

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

Sound Effect Title: Footsteps Dress Shoes Wood Floor.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/allrealsound/sounds/161756/

Sound Effect Title: Wood Break.boaay
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/BOAAY/sounds/520720/

Sound Effect Title: Kicking/Forcing/Breaking Wooden Door
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/160213/

Sound Effect Title: House Front Door Inside 3.wav
License: Public domain
https://freesound.org/people/saturdaysoundguy/sounds/388027/#

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

Sound Effect Title: warpedvideo.wav
By AMPUL
License: Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0
https://freesound.org/people/AMPUL/sounds/29720/

Sound Effect Title: chugging diesel (bus) and rev.MP3
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/CraftyIndividual/sounds/418436/

Sound Effect Title: diesel truck jake brake and air brake.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/nuncaconoci/sounds/555266/

Sound Effect Title: Bus Closing Door
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/am7/sounds/520753/

Music from second commercial:
Music Title: Windy Winds - Intro A
Jay Man - OurMusicBox
https://www.our-music-box.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ourmusicbox/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Sound Effect Title: Flock Seagulls
Recorded by Daniel Simion
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
http://soundbible.com/2193-Flock-Seagulls.html

Sound Effect Title: Lake Waves 1.wav
By Benboncan
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/s/67883/

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail of the public domain cover from Speed Detective, Volume 3, Number 4 (December 1944). Art possibly by Richard Lillis.

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Praise for This Gun in My Hand

"★★★★★ New Favorite!!! This is a SERIOUSLY funny podcast. Yes it’s goofy and slapstick humor, but there’s also a lot of subtle humor that I didn’t pick up on during my first listen through. A great escape that had me cracking up. PLEASE check this one out, I really want them to continue putting out a truly great show that really stands out amongst other comedy fiction podcasts." — ArtGeekMom, 11 Aug 2021 via Apple Podcasts

"Every episode is so unique and off the wall. Love it." — RDJim, comment on Youtube

"Lots of smart writing in your shows...." — Phoenix, comment on Youtube

"is this so cool" — cowabungaa!!!!!, comment on Youtube

"this inspires me" — @eventuallywillbe, Youtube comment on episode 10

"★★★★☆ Subject: not boring. Loop this when your Significant Other says 'we need to talk'. Seriously, it's intelligible when played at about 80% speed. It's better than broadcast TV. No really, RTN would be interesting to meet, for about five minutes."

— tehipite, 24 Aug 2021 via archive.org, reviewing the unofficial episode zero of This Gun in My Hand, "The Liability of Keiko."

"I like the part where she punches you in the face." - my wife after listening to Episode 12 (I think?), "Made in the Shade"

"Been listening to podcasts for over 20 years. I used to use them to fall asleep. But now the commercials interrupt, so I listen sometimes while tasking. The funniest podcast I know is This Gun in My Hand. It's fast paced and bitingly witty, and produced by... @evilbobdayjob." — W. Town Andrews on Twitter, 25 February 2024

In the Clutches of The Cuttlefish - Episode 77

Black and white drawing of several men under the deck of a large ship, using axes to defend themselves from long tentacles descending the stairs from above.

Will Falk’s death come at the hands of the villain known as The Cuttlefish? Do you like cliffhanger serials? Will there be actual tentacles in this episode? Listen to find out!

In the Clutches of The Cuttlefish, episode 77 of This Gun in My Hand, was massaged 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 will you feel if you plunge your arm into my aquarium? This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. Trail of the Octopus (1919) and The Spider’s Web (1938) are actual movie serials.
2. It’s true that the publishers of The Spider magazine briefly issued a magazine named after his nemesis, The Octopus. In this episode, The Cuttlefish assumes that the magazine went on hiatus, taking a long time to publish its second issue, but a second issue never came. Only one issue was published in 1939 before changing its name to The Scorpion.
3. “The Sinister Ray,” Chapter Five of Shadow of Chinatown (1936) is available on Youtube, along with the rest of the series.
4. In which episodes did you hear about those animal and insect classifications? Mollusks in episode 76; cephalopods in episode 77; arthropods in episode 74; kinkajous in episode 75; hemiptera and hymenoptera in episode 74.
5. It’s possible that an ad for the real Johnson Smith Company’s mail order catalog appeared in The Octopus magazine. It was really located at 6615 East Jefferson Ave, Detroit 7 Michigan in the 1930s. The idea that they offered a mail order training course on biological taxonomy is fictional.
6. That dissertation and its author are legit, and might have been published on microfilm in 1939. You think I’m playing with you? Not when it comes to microfilm.

Credits:
The opening and middle transitional music clips were from The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and the closing music was from Killer Bait (1949), both films in the public domain. The fake commercial music was from the public domain film The Scar (aka Hollow Triumph, 1948). All music used in the episode is modified from the original versions.

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail of a public domain illustration by Alphonse de Neuville featured in 20000 Lieues Sous les Mers, circa 1871.

Monday, March 6, 2023

Trail of Tentacles - Episode 76

Line drawing of an orange and purple cuttlefish on yellow background. Caption reads: "The CUTTLEFISH, a cousin of the octopus, moves by jet propulsion! It takes in water by mouth and ejects it backward through a nozzle!"

Will Falk extract information from the hood without resorting to torture? How would you poison a city’s water supply? Does anyone really call it “Frisco?” Listen to find out!

Trail of Tentacles, episode 76 of This Gun in My Hand, was cuddled 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. How do I make waves? With This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. You thought I was making that up? Image of Funk & Wagnall’s New Standard Encyclopedia 1931, Vol. 18, MAFIA-NEAT:
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images4/1/0617/30/funk-wagnalls-standard-encyclopedia_1_b1f23d1c0f024e3a7b16f727e146d2ad.jpg

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: tug boat horn - sound effect.wav
By komal22moiz
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/people/komal22moiz/sounds/380825/

Sound Effect Title: 40_GolpesConCuchillo.wav
By Lextao
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/people/Lextao/sounds/471808/

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

Music Title: Windy Winds - Intro A
Jay Man - OurMusicBox
https://www.our-music-box.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ourmusicbox/
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Sound Effect Title: Flock Seagulls
Recorded by Daniel Simion
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
http://soundbible.com/2193-Flock-Seagulls.html

Sound Effect Title: Lake Waves 1.wav
By Benboncan
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/s/67883/

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail from the public domain comic book Sparkling Stars, Number 20 (February 1946). Pencils and inks might be by Herman C. Browner.