Hello and welcome to the Smile Syndicate Music Hour – the home of Funtime music. Check us out on Patreon.com/thesmilesyndicate and join the Smile Squad!
I’m excited to hear today’s songs. Let’s go, Jason!
HELLO
Thanks and hello
Very happy you’re downloaded this episode and are giving us a listen. We can’t get this party started without you here. Now that you are, the joint can really start jumpin’. And who cares if the neighbours call the cops? If Smileton’s finest shows up, we’ll just have them join the party, too! That tough-as-nails sergeant will walk through the door and next thing you know he’s doing the Moonwalk.
We take the obligation to make this hour the best one of your day seriously – we will do our best.
This show gives you the full daily recommended dose of Funtime Music and Comedy. If you want to listen to more than one episode today, or listen to this one again, go right ahead. The health risks associated with getting too much Funtime Music and Comedy are poorly understood so in my book that means, don’t worry, full steam ahead.
If you find you’re enjoying the show, we’d really appreciate you telling friends and family and acquaintances about it. Spread the word, share the love – we want to grow this Smile Syndicate family and its through bonds of music and fun that this will happen.
SUMMER COMMOTION 2019 is coming soon. Some special episodes in July. Featuring a couple surprises and some summertime fun. Don’t want to give away too much yet, but I hope you like sun, the beach, sand, a nice towel to sit on, a big umbrella to keep the sun off, nice book, the sound of the waves, —
Tasty, yet nutritious show for you. Songs on the Smile Syndicate Music Chart will cease their battles long enough for us to check who’s currently winning the battle for music supremacy
The Smile Syndicate Jukebox will liven up the malt shop by dropping a 45 and playing a classic Smile Syndicate song for us to jitterbug to
And in the marquee song slot at the end of the show, we’re playing a song that’s brand new to the podcast. Kind of unbelievable, actually. THE SUN IS A JUKEBOX. The song that kicks off the podcast and has done for the past 49 episodes, has never been featured. UNTIL TODAY.
I guess this means next week’s show will be number 50. Plan your listening parties now, folks!
Miss Elizabeth will be delivering another DEATH METAL UPDATE.
And get your learning caps on because we’re going to present the latest installment of THE CULTURE VULTURE
MISS ELIZABETH – reddit update
Most competitive, most violent, most biggest stakes
Full of bareknuckle bravado. Pugilists and fisticuffs. Songs are battered and bloody but still they stand
Number three with a bullet
This is The Smile Syndicate with The Sun Is A Jukebox 2000. Hit it, kids!
THE SMILE SYNDICATE CHART – The Sun Is A Jukebox 2000
Miss Elizabeth does other podcasts. They sometimes spill into this one.
She started doing this because Jorg had stopped his show. The duel is happening NEXT WEEK! Bulgarian Mountain Duel
In the meantime, let’s get this death metal update over with.
DEATH METAL UPDATE
JORG’S PODCAST RETURNS
Jorg Presents: The Ultimate Death Metal Hour – the Internet’s finest death metal podcast, and a podcast which I co-host, has returned to the airwaves. Since going on hiatus in January, devoted fans have been clamoring for its return. Well, the podcasting auteur Jorg Flurnstadt has given the people what they want. When asked why the podcast was on hiatus, Flurnstadt had a typically thoughtful answer:
“I felt that the show was in danger of becoming stale. I recognized the need for hibernation – the need for the body of the show to repair itself – the badly frayed sinews and tissues of the show were grateful for the oblivion of sleep. And while the show slept, it dreamed dreams of madness and fancy, horror and awe. The show has now awakened from its slumber. It is better adapted to its environment. It can now never grow stale as it recognizes the need to be revolutionary every single episode. Other podcasters beware, the armored lion has arisen!”
Why are we still doing this segment?
Why didn’t you tell me he was talking about our upcoming duel on his show?
He was shooting his mouth off about how he was going to win the duel easily because I’ve overprepared, my yoga instructor/jousting coach Angel is a loser, and how it’s my karmic destiny to meet an unhappy end. And apparently he’s got that goon Christoph doing an impression of me over there.
“Funtime music! You can judge a book by its cover! Let’s open the Mailbag!” Sounds nothing like me.
I’m gonna veer my unicycle and come straight for you next, Christoph
DEATH METAL COOKBOOKS
Death metal supergroup Booby Hatch made headlines when they formed last year. Comprised of members from Three To A Crypt, The Snake Biters, and Blood Man Brings The Blood Sky, this group shook up the death metal world by going all acoustic and performing a series of intimate club shows across Europe and North America. This year, the group is ready to shake things up again. Booby Hatch vocalist Ignacious Maw held a press conference recently and proudly announced the band has written a series of Death Metal cookbooks. Said Maw, “The series is called Food From The Grave. If you only one cookbook series, this is the one to get. ‘What finger food should I serve at my soiree?’ We’ve got you covered. ‘I need something that will blow some minds at that upcoming bake sale!’ We’ve got you covered. ‘My kids don’t eat anything. How do I serve them something health, easy to prepare and delicious?’ We’ve got you covered. These tomes of Death Metal cuisine are thundering across the plains like Genghis Khan’s armies. But instead of having your village wiped out, you’re getting the best dang receipe for pigs in a blanket you’ve ever tasted!” All 12 volumes of the series go on sale later this week. I’ve already got my preorder in!
COUNT VILIFIA UPDATE
As reported in earlier Death Metal Updates, Slime Bride’s guitarist Count Vilifia had has beloved guitar stolen. Since then, it’s been appearing on eBay and in various Craigslist and Kijiji ads across both Canada and the US. Vilifia has been logging thousands of miles trying to catch up with the guitar, but he’s always a day late and a dollar short. The guitar is sold before he can answer the ad. It’s been selling from between $240 and $280 in most cases. I’ve tracked at least 7 different owners since the guitar was first stolen. A bedraggled and exhausted Count Vilifia took to YouTube this week to plead for the guitar’s return.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I’ve been going from city to city, thousands of miles, walking, hitchhiking, hopping trains. I’ve come so close, yet just as I reach out, it’s snatched away. Some pranksters have started posting fake ads which is costing me valuable time and energy. Please – if you own this guitar, don’t sell it to anyone but me. I can pay you $350 for it which is more than people seem to have been selling it for lately. I’ve got a minivan that is in great condition. I’ll throw that in, too. Plus, my sister just bought a new washer and dryer and she’s letting me have her old ones. I’ll put those in the mini van and the whole thing is yours plus the 350 if you please just return this precious instrument to me. ”
The video has since gone viral, but instead of leading to the return of the stolen guitar, it has inspired a rash of parody videos. The most popular of these has had 30 million views and features a teenager pretending to sob while offering a broken radio, a catchers mitt and a single cross country ski in exchange for a stolen toaster oven.
This report has reached out to Count Vilifia and has offered to spend the required 10 minutes or so necessary to do an internet search, find the ad and purchase the guitar. He has yet to respond.
NEW RELEASES
SKULL HOLE – “Dance With Me, Mary Sue”
FRANTIC CANNIBAL – “Let’s Rebuild This Barn”
KING CRUSTACEAN – “Did Somebody Order A Hoe-Down?”
BLIND ITEM
Which aging death metal band had their plan of reviving their flagging career by collaborating with teen heartthrob Dexter North blow up in their face this week? Insiders tell me that the band reached out to the star of TVs High School Cool Kids and actually had a meeting with Dexter and his people. They had proposed that each does a new single featuring the other and actually played a demo of a new song that Dexter would then add his patented stutter rap to. North and his management team were straightfaced during the meeting, but afterward made fun of the band. Dexter reportedly scoffingly said “Yeah, that’s what my career’s missing right now – me singing about marrying a corpse!”
Dexter then quickly recorded a song which apparently will be released next week. Entitled “Lame and Gross”, it features a mocking rap by North accompanied by clips of the band recorded at the meeting, mostly consisting of their begging North for help. These death metal pioneers may end up being a laughing stock if this single catches fire. I hope this isn’t the case.
Round Wheel of Mystery – it’s been quiet this week.
Air of menace around it the past few weeks. Calmer now
Miss Elizabeth, spin that thing
Let’s gather in the listening circle, turn to the person on our left, put our right hand on their left shoulder, wave your right arm in the air like you’ve got a giant lasso, and with one voice say “Jukebox, play us a song.”
THE SMILE SYNDICATE JUKEBOX – Rhythm 21
THE CULTURE VULTURE
RESTAURANT REVIEW – La Futura
Last time, told you about this new Italian place. They had a 500 page menu and that put me off. Looked like I had to actually go and try the food there before I reviewed the place which I was not happy about.
Jasper Joseph had procured the menu for me. Turns out it wasn’t 500 pages after all. It was a big pdf of menus from about 100 different Italian restaurants. I may have to get another research assistant.
Not a futurist place at all. Just a couple of brothers running an Italian restaurant. I had assumed they were Futurists based on their name – La Futura. That was wrong – and the fault lies with them. This is strike one – bad name. If you call yourself The Trough and you don’t have a trough, people will be disappointed.
If you call yourself La Futura and your restaurant doesn’t look like the inside of an airplane with the smell of ozone being pumped into the air and people eating salad with their hands – this place had none of that so they shouldn’t have been called La Futura. This place wasn’t avant garde at all. I’m not looking for that, really, but the shoe should match the shoebox, you know? NO STARS
Dinner Party Talking Points
Four points to get you through talking about poetry at your next dinner party:
The best way to be a know-it-all is to make up something out of whole cloth right out of your head. So, you want to be an expert on a poet? Make one up. But it has to sound like a real one.
“Who’s your favorite poet?”
“James McConnel”
“Huh. Never heard of him! Where did you first read him? Has he been anthologized? Can you give me some adjectives to best describe his style.” And you’re drowning. All because the name didn’t shut down the conversation.
Let’s try this again. This time, create a poet whose first name sounds like a last name and whose last name sounds like a first name.
“Who’s your favorite poet?”
“McConnell James”
“Oh, yes. I love his work.”
“Well, yes, her work has really been what modern poetry needs.”
They wander away. You won that one.
At a dinner party, there’s no better way to score points in a poetry conversation than to say that you’re working on your own book of poetry. You want a really great title, one that will blow people’s minds, so choose carefully. You know, people are always taking pictures of food and posting them online, everyone’s doing that, so if that’s what the zeitgeist is, then your poetry should reflect this. So book a title like “Plate of Spaghetti” or “Rack of Ribs” or just “Ham”. People will be impressed and too confused to ask any follow questions.
If someone does surprise you with a question about your poems, talk about them in generalities. “What are your poems like? Could you say a few lines?” If that happens, just start snapping your fingers. “Rhythm. The first thing I think of is rhythm. Hear that?” Just keep snapping. Maybe start stomping your feet or slapping your thighs. Shake your knees back and forth, crossing your hands in front of them. Sometimes you can just do that and not say anything. You’ll be showing how open a definition of poetry you’re operating with. You’ll get a nod and “oh, nice” and they’ll wander away.
At a dinner party, the best defence is a good offence. Don’t wait for poetry to come up in the conversation. Pick a group of people, and hit them with a poetry drive by. Charge right up, doesn’t matter if you’re interrupting “I just experienced the most devastating poem. It was an empty book that had been blasted with a shotgun. The gaping hole in the pages was like a fist punched straight through my heart.”
There you go. I hope that’s useful. You do this, you’ll really establish yourself as a cultured person. Then, at the next dinner party, people will want to talk about poetry with you. And you don’t want that. So next time, I’ll talk about another topic you can deflect them on to.
Let’s have some fun and save you some money. I’m going to cover the top 5 movies. I haven’t seen any of them. Haven’t seen any posters this time, either. Just the title. You can judge a book by its cover, so let’s prove that yet again now.
5. Rocketman – $263
This is the best documentary to come out in quite a while. The subject matter is complex, the central character is multi-faceted. You can’t be too happy with his early stuff, but in his later career he came out with some great things. But the music’s terrific and the clothes some of these people wear are completely crazy. So, if you’re a World War II buff and you want to learn all about Wernher von Braun, famed rocket scientist who worked for the Nazis, then for the Americans after the war, check this out. It’ll have you dancing and singing, but it’ll also give you lots to think about.
4. Godzilla: King of the Monsters – $489
It’s enough of these movies. Depressing, badly lit things. I don’t want to see a bunch of 20-somethings mope around, say how much life sucks and ruin themselves with drugs. So Godzilla is the latest street drug. Basically, you take it and you die. So this movie is a 2 hour downer. Don’t bother. And to you kids listening out there, life doesn’t suck. It’s not all dark and depressing. And stay from Godzilla.
3. Aladdin – $525
I don’t mind sweeping historical epics. I don’t mind musicals. I don’t mind characters in movies breaking into rap inexplicably. But if you’re going to combine these elements, you have to tread carefully. We all know the story of Aladdin – the clever village boy who lead his nation against colonialist oppressors. But then he betrays his people. And they all sing “Why, Aladdin, why?” And he sings this long song explaining himself. And the people start to become convinced then all of a sudden there’s this explosion and World War I starts and everyone goes, I guess we’re all in this together! And Aladdin becomes a war hero and his country is liberated at the end because the colonialists didn’t want it anymore. So, a story to stir the heart and the funnybone.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 – $701
Why on earth did they make a sequel to this? We all saw the first one – they strapped cameras to dogs and cats and turned them loose on a neighbourhood. So they’re pooping everywhere, climbing trees, chasing neighbourhood kids, jumping in lakes. That’s all fine for about 10 minutes or so, but the thing was 3 hours long. So now we have another one – I think this one is in color this time – they upgraded the cameras. I think there’s even less action this time – there’s probably a scene of a cat just laying in the grass for half an hour. Maybe if there’s a scene of a dog drinking from a garden hose, that could be good. I only like movies with animals in them if its scripted.
1. Dark Phoenix – $896
Jennifer Garner plays this aerospace engineer who’s developed this ultra futuristic fighter jet called Dark Phoenix. It can go invisible, it can fly, like 1000 miles an hour, it’s got these cool laser weapons. The scene opens with everyone looking at the jet and going no no that’s to dangerous to test and Jennifer Garner says I’ll show you how good a jet I built and she hops right in and takes off and does all these tricks and everyone can’t believe it. Then she uses the laser weapon and destroys the control tower. She lands and everyone’s applauding. But then these assassins were watching her with binoculars. They would assassinate all kinds of people with this jet. So they’re gonna steal it. But how? She won’t give them her jet. So they decide to kidnap her husband. So he’s working his job at the trampoline place and all assassins come in and he goes “how many trampolines, guys?” And they just throw him in a sack and chuck him the back of their van. Jennifer Garner gets really mad, flies in the plane and blows up a lot of the city because she’s so mad. Then she gets upset – how can she find her husband! She has this jet – she shouldn’t have let this happen! But then the spirit of her old engineering teacher Phoenix appears as a ghost and tells her exactly where her husband’s being held. She sneaks up on the assassins in the jet. They’re in this house somewhere. When they leave to get some takeout, they look the door, turn around and see the Dark Phoenix hovering in their front yard. Jennifer Garner yells “Freeze! Looks like you boys just rolled snake eyes” which is what she’s been saying for the whole movie. She rescues her husband and they fly off in Dark Phoenix but then this giant spaceship appears and starts shooting. Jennifer Garner’s all “looks like we’ve got one more thing to do today!” Then the credits come up. We’ll have to wait to see what happens!
PLUGS
Twitter – @smilesyndicate
Facebook – www.thesmilesyndicate.com
KRECKLE – we’re on Kreckle. Still there. Still the greatest platform. Check it out.
Patreon.com – join the Smile Squad
YouTube
BANANA BUS, the latest album, available digitally everywhere. Plus the 5 singles from April Insanity.
Thesmilesyndicate.com
Mailbag@thesmilesyndicate.com
A song never featured on the podcast – it’s message has been a leitmotif threading its way through our funtime music and comedy stylings. Miss Elizabeth reminds us of the message at the end of every show. So let’s take off our caps, bow our heads and cup our hands to our ears to better hear what the song has to tell us. Listen.
MARQUEE SONG SLOT – The Sun Is A Jukebox
BYE BYE
That’s it! We hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please consider joining the Smile Squad and support this podcast on Patreon. Join our just cause as we pursue the values of Funtime music, Funtime comedy, and general delightedment.
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So it’s bye bye from Jason.
And bye bye from me. See you next week.
And as always, remember friend, the sun is a jukebox.
