The Drabblecast

2135: The Year Disco Came Back
by Kevin Bennett

And with a mighty crack the sky opened up! There, sitting on a throne of ivory and omnipotence, was the Lord in all his terrible glory. And God said: "Let there be Funk!"

Music by Norm Sherman, The Cheebacabra, and Fumbata

Closing Music by Mary Stuart

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Uhm ...

I can dig it!

dances like a dancin' fool

Excellent. I especially loved the way the punkers were lampooned. They reminded me a lot of, well, me, once upon a time.
Nothing to be angry about? No problem! Just be angry about nothing.
Priceless advice for all the foodcourt gangstas and tragicly misunderstood emo kids out there.

Wow, that was... Really entertaining. I don't see what made it "B-Side" instead of a normal Drabblecast story, but if it means I get a bonus story in addition to the weekly one, goody for me!

That had a total Simpson's vibe. Insane absurdity based on cruel social criticism, but, in the end, inconsequential enough that you can just laugh at it and not be burdened by having to think too much. Good stuff.

I've figured it out...
"Besides" are the stories which Kendall and Luke cut as not good enough, but Norm really wanted to do! Take THAT, bureaucracy!



No, it really felt like an earlier drabblecast, more amateurish writing methods, but great concepts and of course the drabblecast execution which makes it all a joy.

EXCEPT! I have a bone to pick with you, Norm. That was not the sound of a minigun firing. What has the world come to when a storyteller can pass off the sound of a machine gun as the sound of a minigun? Pretty soon you'll be saying Ni! to old ladies!

Tom the Shrubber.

tbaker2500 wrote:I've figured it out...
"Besides" are the stories which Kendall and Luke cut as not good enough, but Norm really wanted to do! Take THAT, bureaucracy!

Close, actually, but backwards.

Hmm... if he didn't like the story, how'dja get him to produce it? Or is he just that nice of a guy?

There's a lot of whining involved, ego coaxing, and one of us usually has to hire a prostitute...

Donate to the Drabblecast, help pay for our prostitutes.

Wait, a prostitute? There weren't any female voices in the podcast. It was just Norm. I must be missing something...

Mr. Tweedy wrote:Wait, a prostitute? There weren't any female voices in the podcast.

Who said the prostitute was female? rawwr!

Yah, I admit, I voted no on this story originally and we butted heads, so I read it again and still wasn't into it. So we sat on it awhile and I read it a third time and loved it. Who knows. As much as I hate Luke and Kendall, they are, on occasion, worth having around.

tbaker2500 wrote:
No, it really felt like an earlier drabblecast, more amateurish writing methods, but great concepts and of course the drabblecast execution which makes it all a joy.

That's actually a pretty good way of summing up why I wanted to do another podcast. One that could be accepted more mainstream and one that doesn't give a crap about mainstream.

tbaker2500 wrote:
EXCEPT! I have a bone to pick with you, Norm. That was not the sound of a minigun firing. What has the world come to when a storyteller can pass off the sound of a machine gun as the sound of a minigun? Pretty soon you'll be saying Ni! to old ladies!

I thought you specialized in laser guns!? I knew some gundork would come after me on that, I knew it!

No, I agree. If you posted that as a main DC, it would have been panned for lack of writing polish. As a Besides, it's great because it is a, well, B-side.

normsherman wrote:Who said the prostitute was female? rawwr!

Oh, I get it. You are assisted by hermaphroditic dinosaurs. That explain so much!

tbaker2500 wrote:No, I agree. If you posted that as a main DC, it would have been panned for lack of writing polish.

Think so? I thought it was pretty well written. I liked the rapid fire puns and nonsense associations. The breathless over-dramatic style was well suited to the complete stupidity of the plot.

I also thought it had a second, deeper level of humor (if you want to call it "deep," I guess), in that the story has a bit of fun with Biblical language. The language of Biblical prophecy (especially Revelation) is always heavily symbolic and things are never what they say they are. I mean, it talks about Jesus killing people with a sword that shoots out of His mouth while he rides a horse out of the sky. It sounds totally tripped-out... if you take it as a literal description. If you take it as symbols describing something that cannot be described literally, it makes sense. Soo... This "prophet" has a vision of God calling forth Disco and Punk to cause a catastrophe that ends with a new order being established by the Last Man Standing... Lots of stuff that makes no literal sense... I'm left whimsically musing "What is the real meaning of the sharpened keytar? Who is the Disco Warrior and how will we recognize him when he appears?"

Meh, that angle's probably only fun if you're me, but I thought it was fun to hear a faux prophecy written in faux prophetic language. That hits a couple of different buttons.

This story was awesome. There isn't anyway to critique it. It is the base instinct people married to a genre of music feel towards people married to another genre. Showing that no matter what we do, we love to become opposing tribes.

I think Tweety nailed it. The story, I thought, was very intentionally setup like if God had sucked up John the revelator and showed him an even more bizarre vision than something with whores of babylon, 4 horsemen, leviathans, seals and trumpets.

normsherman wrote:I think Tweety nailed it. The story, I thought, was very intentionally setup like if God had sucked up John the revelator and showed him an even more bizarre vision than something with whores of babylon, 4 horsemen, leviathans, seals and trumpets.

Tweedy/Tweety did in fact nail it. It is set up to be like Revelation. This is even more evident when you can read it. Some times you have to explain things like this to Norm, so I'm glad you picked up on it right away, Mr. Tweedy.

tastycakes wrote: This is even more evident when you can read it.

That's why I think it worked better in audio and was hard to get through in print, because it was written in a Bible-esque fashion with insane run-on sentences, one after another starting with "And..."

I missed the "woman without a checkbook" line the first time I read it too. I think your dad was working on our deck at the time, making a lot of noise with the sander, and I couldn't concentrate.

Yea the checkbook line was hilarious, but, ahem, totally sexist and I don't approve of such things.

How many submissions do you guys get??

We probably average about 3 feature lengths and 2 drabbles on a solid day. Which, b/c we're all kind of lazy can accumulate pretty fast.