Sunday, March 29, 2026

The Yeast of These My Brethren - Episode 148

Print magazine ad for Ironized Yeast featuring a photo of a woman in a striped bathing suit next to a comic strip. A word balloon above the woman in the photo has her saying ‘If men “hate the sight of you”--read this–.’ In the first panel of the comic, two young men run past an emaciated woman in a black one-piece bathing suit. One of the men says, “Let’s beat it__here comes that skinny dame.” The second ad shows the skinny dame seated wearing a short sleeve top with possibly ragged sleeve edges. As she reads a newspaper with a prominent ad headlined “GAIN 10 LBS,” she says, “Men hate the sight of me, I’m so skinny. I’m going to try Ironized Yeast.” The third panel has a black arrow labeled “A FEW WEEKS LATER” pointing towards the action. A smiling woman filling out a bikini, no longer a skinny dame, poses with one hand on hip and the other on the back of her hair. A young man in dark shorts holds her bicep in one hand, saying, “You’re gorgeous since you’ve gained weight!” Two other men in the background run towards them. Across the bottom, large letters read, “THOUSANDS OF SKINNY GIRLS GAIN 10 TO 20 LBS.–QUICK!”
How will Falk take down a bank robber when aromatic, freshly minted heroes keep getting in the way? What’s their origin story? You own some carnival rides? Listen to find out!

The Yeast of These My Brethren, episode 148 of This Gun in My Hand, was punched into shape 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, archives, and would it kill ya to buy my books? Such as Sisyphus, Eat Your Heart Out, available in paperback and ebook from Amazon. Why do they always need irradiated chemicals when the best origin is This Gun in My Hand?!

Show Notes:
1. From the Bible, King James Version, Matthew 25:40: “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

2. Obvious mistake I didn’t notice until after recording. Beer Man says he gained his powers last week. Then he mentions using his powers for three months. Continuity is hard! A no-prize will be awarded to anyone who rationalizes those statements.

Credits:
Music in this episode came from these public domain films:
The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and Too Late for Tears (1949, aka Killer Bait). Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.

Ironized Yeast Tonic radio commercial, vintage unknown, assumed to be public domain.
https://www.oldradioworld.com/media/Vintage%20Commercials%20Ironized%20Yeast.mp3

Sound Effect Title: 22lr Caliber Rifle Shots and Reloading
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/717133/ 

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

Sound Effect Title: Kimmokkeita / Ricochets by YleArkisto
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/401921/

Sound Effect Title: Metal Frame.mp3 by TheBoulder3400
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/636096/ 

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

Sound Effect Title: Hose Sounds.mp3 by JazzyBay
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/JazzyBay/sounds/435052/

Sound Effect Title: Spraying water from a garden hose by meisterjaan
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
https://freesound.org/s/323485/ 

Sound Effect Title: Leather Car Seat 2 by Filmscore
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/830202/

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

The image accompanying this episode is a modified version of a print ad for ironized yeast, assumed to be public domain, date and artist unknown.

Image Alt text: Print magazine ad for Ironized Yeast featuring a photo of a woman in a striped bathing suit next to a comic strip. A word balloon above the woman in the photo has her saying ‘If men “hate the sight of you”--read this–.’ In the first panel of the comic, two young men run past an emaciated woman in a black one-piece bathing suit. One of the men says, “Let’s beat it__here comes that skinny dame.” The second ad shows the skinny dame seated wearing a short sleeve top with possibly ragged sleeve edges. As she reads a newspaper with a prominent ad headlined “GAIN 10 LBS,” she says, “Men hate the sight of me, I’m so skinny. I’m going to try Ironized Yeast.” The third panel has a black arrow labeled “A FEW WEEKS LATER” pointing towards the action. A smiling woman filling out a bikini, no longer a skinny dame, poses with one hand on hip and the other on the back of her hair. A young man in dark shorts holds her bicep in one hand, saying, “You’re gorgeous since you’ve gained weight!” Two other men in the background run towards them. Across the bottom, large letters read, “THOUSANDS OF SKINNY GIRLS GAIN 10 TO 20 LBS.–QUICK!”

Sunday, March 22, 2026

Episode Archive

1. Skee-Ball Racket

2. The Whole Story

3. Not So Heroic

4. Good Guys vs. Good Gals

5. The Quiz Scam

6. Want To Be Heroes

7. The Only Thing That Stops a Few Bad Apples

8. Zildjian's Pal, Lemmy Jolson

9. Invasion of the Emerald Ash Borer

10. You're Tellin Me

11. Curse of the Bubbe

12. Made in The Shade

13. OnlyPhantasm

14. Naked Save

15. Gun Buyback

16. How Many

17. The Long, Dark Night Vision Scope of the Soul

18. Unboxing Murder

19. Sidekickoff

20. Infern-O-Scope

21. The Vaudevillain

22. Caught Offguard

23. Huckster Racket

24. Consulting Defectives

25. Nick Carper and the Evaporating Arsonist

26. This Gun in My Coffin

27. Hardly Boiled

28. Volumes of Daddy Issues

29. Escape From Greektown

30. Army of Emmas

31. Take A Powder

32. The Highwayman

33. The Land Lord

34. 2 Fast 2 Boggan

35. Crypt O' Knight

36. D is for Dirigible

37. Strikeforce Shakespeare

38. Why We Fight

39. Time-Bomb in a Clock Shop

40. Vivant You

41. Dial M for Merlot

42. Pillow Falk

43. The Roan Ranger

44. Here Comes Satanic Claws

45. Can You Say Falk

46. Who Do You Think You Are

47. Heist Row Maestro

48. All Fashion Police Are Fabulous

49. Newsy Duel

50. The Shady Aviator

51. Flinch Zipjam in the Negative Space

52. Goodbye, Honey

53. Struggle Session

54. Look Out, Moon Featuring Captain Rogers

55. This Frog in My Hand

56. Please Kill Responsibly

57. Cultivating Leverage

58. Dew Drop Innuendo

59. Publisher War Zone

60. Hush, Sweet Zildjian

61. The Boy Who Cried What's That Thing in Ya Hand

62. Can We Talk?

63. Eye Captain and The Wannabes of Tomorrow

64. They Don't Call Me Spy Detainer

65. I Think You Better Come See This

66. Fighter Flight

67. Warner Blunders

68. The Three Stugots

69. Heck's Pantry for the Holidays

70. Domestic Harmony

71. The Ink-Stained Corpse

72. Undeniable Narrator

73. Escalating Pitch

74. Fly Away Home

75. A Gross of Goons

76. Trail of Tentacles

77. In The Clutches of The Cuttlefish

78. Speed Detective

79. Shadow Taxi

80. Second String

81. Any Other Name

82. Out of Ideas

83. Multitracks of Madness

84. Falk Meets Fantomas

85. Sultry, Salty and Desperate

86. You Must Remember That

87. Trailmaster

88. Plan of Attack

89. Parallel

90. Nursery Crimes

91. Dungeon of Suspense

92. Falk's Brain

93. A Match Made in Heck's Pantry

94. Seduction of the Ignorant

95. Ad Space

96. Merch and Destroy

97. How Did This Gun in My Hand Get Made

98. Do Androids Dream of His Girl Friday?

99. Rats in a Cage Match

100. Parabellum City Passes a C-Note

101. World of Whispers

102. Fievel Getcha Ten

103. Violent Vacation with Peruvian Guns

104. Watching the Defectives

105. Spoonful of Lugers

106. Murder at the Job Fair for Dicks

107. No Large Bills

108. Zildjian's Away to Shropshire

109. They Can't All Be Bangers

110. This Gun is My Hand

111. Cut Down in His Prime

112. It Was a Dark and Stormy Reading of the Will

113. Don't Kid a Kidder

114. The PunGent Cleans Up

115. The Assassination of Yip Harburg by the Coward Fan Mail

116. Debut Taunts

117. The Chilling Horror That Grinds and Wiggles

118. Scrapping at the Escarpment

119. Hapless Hack of Gazpacho Gulch

120. Journey Into Fiasco

121. Uniquely Heroic Americans

122. Certainly No Angels

123. Go to Health

124. I Have Her MAC-10

125. This Hun in My Gland

126. A Song of Brass and Ash

127. Clash of the Story Boys

128. Lips That Yearn

129. No Accounting for Taste

130. Shoot the Moon

131. Johnny Got His Gun in My Hand

132. A Very Special Thirty-Eight

133. On Her Majesty's Secret Scamper

134. This Banjo on My Knee

135. Falk Meets Mat Ban

136. The Bitter Tears of Petra Wojciehowicz

137. Gold Dentures

138. Black Cats and Bad Habits

139. Bottle Episode

140. Passage to the Orient

141. Bringing a Gun to a Fistfight

142. When the Revolution Scrums

143. Dead End on Holiday Road

144. Humoresce Anecdotage

145. This Wrench in My Gears

146. On the Gunny Side of the Street

147. The Downside of Uplifting


Mini-Series

Most episodes are meant to stand on their own, but a few are directly connected to each other as mini-series.

Hardly Boiled (episodes 27-31)

The Cuttlefish (episodes 76-77)

Dungeon of Suspense (episodes 91-92)


Unofficial Pilot Episode

The Liability of Keiko (Sept. 7, 2020) - Before I wrote and posted the first episode of This Gun in My Hand on October 14, 2020, I made this one-shot audio drama, a brief exchange between El Hornet Verde and his faithful valet Kato, I mean Keiko. 

You might also enjoy The First Kato, a non-fiction biographical piece about Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto, the voice actor who originated the part of Kato on The Green Hornet radio show.


Thursday, March 12, 2026

The Downside of Uplifting - Episode 147

An etching of a farmhouse with trees to the sides, a cart or wagon in front of it, and a mountain or hill rising behind and to the side. The lines are dark brown and all the background is pale custard.

Will Falk survive a journey through the gentle but confounding borderlands of the Tealight Zone with a bloodthirsty villain on his trail? Will they put him in gaol? ¿Qué onda, güero? Listen to find out!

The Downside of Uplifting, episode 147 of This Gun in My Hand, was lifted upside down 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, archives, and to buy my wholesome books, such as Sisyphus, Eat Your Heart Out, available in paperback and ebook from Amazon. How do I say goodnight? With This Gun in My Hand!

Show Notes:
1. The creator and narrator of The Waltons, Earl Hamner Jr., got his big break in Hollywood when one of his scripts was accepted for The Twilight Zone. I swear I didn’t find that out until this episode was half finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Hamner_Jr.

2. The actor Will Geer was a bisexual communist who pled the fifth in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 and somehow managed to come back as the wholesome Zebulon “Grandpa” Walton in the 1970s.
https://travsd.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/will-geer-queer-communist-and-as-american-as-apple-pie/

3. For more stories about Half-Pint stealing a Native American baby and her Pa stealing gold, read Little Heist in the Big Woods and Other Revisionist Atrocities by Rob Northrup. Available in ebook and paperback at
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Heist-Woods-Revisionist-Atrocities/dp/B0DPDGW52B/

4. Juan-Boy gets mugged in Wheeling, West Virginia in season one, episode 20, broadcast Feb 8, 1973. I mean, if there had been a tv show called The Wholesomes, that’s when it might have been.

5. Other more or less wholesome tv shows I love are Cranford, Return to Cranford, and Lark Rise to Candleford, which are not mentioned in this episode because they were covered adequately in Episode 108, “Zildjian’s Away to Shropshire.”
https://archive.org/details/tgimh-108-zildjians-away-to-shropshire

6. For the record, I didn’t copy the exact audio of harmonica and xylophone notes from any tv show. I recreated it with an actual harmonica (one chord, not very difficult) and one pre-recorded xylophone note. Took me twenty minutes of manipulation to sound more or less right.

Credits:
Music in this episode came from these public domain films:
The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and Too Late for Tears (1949, aka Killer Bait). Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.

Guest starring Melinda as Abuelita (Esther Wholesome)!

Sound Effect Title: G17-03-Barnyard with Chickens.wav by craigsmith
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/438149/ 

Sound Effect Title: R24-06-Barnyard Ambience.wav by craigsmith
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/479606/ 

Sound Effect Title: Footsteps on gravel by Joozz
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/people/Joozz/sounds/531952/

Sound Effect Title: Xylo N&D 72 C4.aif by beskhu
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/273879/ 

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

Sound Effect Title: Crickets.wav by ItsTheGoodstuff
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/656116/ 

The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail of a public domain etching print titled “Landscape with Six Single Trees and Three Small Farm-Houses” by Augustin Hirschvogel (1503-1553).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Augustin_Hirschvogel,_Landscape_with_Six_Single_Trees_and_Three_Small_Farm-Houses,_NGA_37108.jpg  

Image Alt text: An etching of a farmhouse with trees to the sides, a cart or wagon in front of it, and a mountain or hill rising behind and to the side. The lines are dark brown and all the background is pale custard.