Episode 41 | "Catcher In The Rye? Catcher Of This BULLET"

"Mark David Chapman? How about you Mark David Catch these 9mms?"

- Alternate history concealed carry John Lennon, December 8th, 1980

"Holden Caufield? Why don't you HoldOnto Colt 45 .ACP cartridges with your torso?"

- Alternate history concealed carry Yoko Ono, December 8th, 1980

Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog's Buddy Tails Part 3

00:00 Intro

17:02 Southern Crossover Part III

01:01:06 Outro

-----Gotta Talk Fast is an oral review of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog. Way past cool.LINKS: https://gottatalkfast.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Got to talk fast. Got to talk fast.
Got to talk faster, faster, faster.
Got to talk fast. Welcome to an oral review of
Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehogreminding you the apps know.
Think about how many analytics and metrics you're given access
to by social media apps. Now think about how many metrics

(00:22):
they don't show you. Remember, the data never
forgets. This is how they make money and
how someone can track you, predict you, and piece together
your home address. The apps?
No, I'm Nick and except for thisintro, I wrote the script.
And I'm Dominic and except for this intro, I haven't read any
of today's script. I should, I should correct

(00:44):
myself in that intro that I wrote is that it's I, I kind of
put like the, the third party open source intelligence piece
of advice there at the very end versus the first party data
gathering thing at the end. But either way, just watch your
social media, think of your social, look at your social
media, review it and be like, OK, I am stalking myself.

(01:07):
How would I do it right? Think about it like that.
That's why I give Apple all my money.
Because I think about. Them to protect my data.
Yeah, there's a there's a good sub stack by Margaret Killjoy.
She is a a good author and because but because I don't
read, I haven't read any of her books, but I've seen them at the

(01:27):
library. But regardless, she has a good
sub stack recently on like cleaning up your digital life.
A good advice, you know, shutting down accounts that you
don't like Twitter, for instance.
I deactivated my Twitter and or at least not my most active one,
the one tied to me. I think I still keep a, a, a
dummy one out there for, for like looking things up on on

(01:51):
Twitter. It's, it's, it's a lot.
You don't realize if you're our age, how much of your life is on
social media and how much of it is has been used for data.
That's that's the big money maker.
It really, it really truly is. It's it's absolutely crazy.
I think, I think we're close to a renaissance with young people

(02:12):
and how they interact with the mobile web and Internet in
general. Yeah, just the.
Sheer implosion of the overload and and just greedy hands taking
everything. Yeah, I think so.
I think there's going to be a real rejection of the Internet

(02:32):
shortly, whatever that means. I, I don't, I don't even know
what that would look like. I just think people are kind of
fed up. There's a trend on on YouTube
and probably tech talk, I don't know, but on on YouTube, at
least there's there's these creators.
Here's how I switched to a dumb phone like a.
I've been you talked with that idea for a very long time.

(02:57):
Honestly, there's a thing comingout called the Light Phone 3,
but it's very expensive and I don't know if I want it because
it's trying to do too much in a way that I don't want it to, but
is like just a bare bones phone that is just a music player.
It does like Google Maps or something.

(03:19):
It doesn't maybe it's own map thing, I don't know.
Note taker and it takes really bad photos.
And that's all it does. And there's why.
Does it cost more? I mean, they don't have a.
Supply chain or. Huge, yeah.
They don't have a huge backing of a company.
So they're I mean, you'd make things in smaller amounts.

(03:41):
It's going to cost more. I don't know the quality of the
product either, but I know it's like 700 bucks.
It's expensive but you can also just buy regular dumb phones
depending if they work with the network or not.
That's another thing because youcan only get 4 GI phones in
America, but in the rest of the world you can get 2G.

(04:01):
So it makes it so you need to bevery careful about what kind of
dumb phone you buy in America. That proves, I think, that I've
done my due diligence in my research.
I didn't even know about any of that.
That's good. I have AI have a quick story to
tell before we do this. We can we.
Remind me that we have timestamps.
We have timestamps. We we can, we can edit this out

(04:25):
if you want. Well, I'll let you be the judge.
Yeah, because I don't know how long it's going to tell take.
So obviously, as you can see, I am home.
I am no longer in a hotel room. I've been gone for what, like 6
weeks? 7 weeks?
I don't know. Time is an illusion.
I Wednesday of last week was my last day in Houston and I was

(04:48):
there for a thing called the cutover, which is when you cut over
from say one piece of equipment to another or say from one
service provider to another. In this case, we were switching
switches from 1 brand to anotherbrand.
And so we do it after hours to make sure it doesn't interfere
with the business and whatnot. So we, we do that, we start late

(05:11):
because people don't show up andit's annoying.
But I do this cut over and I getdone around like midnight.
I'm like, I've got two options. I can go back to my hotel room
or I can start driving. No matter what, I'm going to get
a hotel room. So in my mind I'm like, maybe I

(05:31):
could get some miles on the road, get a hotel room and then
make my drive shorter for tomorrow because I'm so hyped
up. You know, like maybe, maybe cut
off like 2 hours of my drive. Nice.
So I start driving and I'm heading north toward Chicago
from Houston and the path that'staking me is through southern

(05:52):
Illinois, which means I'm going to have to go through eastern
Texas. I drive for about, I'm going to
say like 2 hours. So it's around like 2:00 AM-ish.
And I'm like, you know what I need to do?
I need to pull over, take off mywork boots, throw it all in my

(06:13):
trunk, wear my sandals, start driving again.
At this point I haven't eaten inoh God over 12 hours outside of
some chips that were sitting around for.
Texas, there's got to be like a late night diner somewhere,
right? Well, and so there is, because

(06:36):
every single gas station has a. Mexican joint restaurant.
Well, not always a Mexican jointand so I'm driving and I'm
starving and this gas station that I am seeing signs for has a
Whataburger which is conveniently open 24/7 so I
just. No detail Whataburger, just in

(06:59):
general. Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs
in. The middle You don't judge
Whataburger from a gas station. Whataburger at 3:00 in the
morning in the middle of East Texas.
I feel like you would, but anyway, continue, yes.
Go and I take a bite out of the chicken sandwich and I'm like

(07:19):
this is the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten and throw
it immediately in the trash. So I didn't even eat anything
that's just like this is so gross.
I had Whataburger a little bit earlier in Texas and it was
fine. So don't I.
I think this was a 4:00 AM in Texas 3:00 AM in Texas thing.

(07:40):
So disappointed. Throw it away.
Go to my car to start driving. I'm like this is probably around
the time I should probably get ahotel room anyway.
I'm getting exhausted, can't open up my car.
I, I, I, I've had something likethis happen before where I was
just like, oh, the keys, the battery in my keys died, right?
But I'll just say I replaced thekeys in my battery, like the

(08:04):
battery in my keys like 2 monthsago.
So I don't think it's that. And that's a.
Really short time frame for to be, yeah.
Exactly. And so I'm like, I must have
dropped my keys. I walk back my path through
Whataburger into the bathroom. I don't see them anywhere.
And I'm like, well, let me just like kind of look into my car,

(08:25):
see if I can see them in my car.I don't see them.
And so I'm like, OK, so the logical thing is I probably
dropped my keys when I took off my work boots on along the side
of the highway. Oh.
Shit. And so I don't know where that

(08:46):
was. I just know it was recent,
right? I pull up Apple Maps cuz I'm an
iPhone guy. Apple Maps doesn't, or at least
they don't show you, right? It doesn't show you the path
you've been down, right? It shows you places you've been
to and like points of interest, but it doesn't exactly show you
the right path. And I'm sitting there and I'm

(09:06):
like, I don't know what path I got, how I got here, right?
Because I'm just following the GPS and my mind is like dead,
especially because I just work the eight hours.
So I'm not exactly functioning on like my higher brain
functions. So I do what I can do, which is
I open up Apple Maps and I'm like I'm going to input the

(09:28):
location where I came from and which gives me 3 choices on
which way to go. So I just kind of choose one at
random and I'm like this is the fastest.
So this is probably the route I was taking and then I slowly
follow the path on Apple Maps looking for where I pulled over.

(09:50):
I knew there was a gas station. I don't know the name, I just
know there was a gas station andit was closed.
And so I'm looking down the paththat I took looking for gas
stations. I find one and it looks, it
feels like it might be right, but I don't know for sure.
And Apple Maps didn't have like a picture of it or anything.

(10:12):
So I pull up Google Maps and thelast image from Google Maps for
from two years ago. And let me tell you, there was
not a gas station there for two years ago.
And so I was like, I don't know if this is the right place.
I was getting ready to keep on looking when I noticed that the
intersection where the gas station was was the road was red

(10:36):
and I remembered when I pulled over earlier the road was red
and so. Like the road was colored.
Red. It was physically red.
So I'm like, I'm going to I'm just going to go for it.
I'm going to walk to, well, I'm going to try to Uber there and
see if my keys are there becauseI don't really have any other

(10:58):
options because there's no hotelnear me and it's 3:00 in the
morning. I start trying to Google, like,
what do you do when you lose your key fob, Right.
And the answer is you like get your VIN and you go to like in
my case, a Chevy dealership. You, you give them the VIN and

(11:19):
they I guess can make you a new key.
And it's going to cost like 800 bucks.
Yeah, well, I went, I recently Iwent and tried to get my key fob
replaced at a Chevy dealership and they quoted me, I think it
was like 600 or something. And I'm like, I'm not paying
that. No, that's that way.
I recently had issues with keys and it's insane how much they
cost. Well I mean I just bought a

(11:41):
shitty one off Amazon for 15 bucks and you don't get the
remote start. But I'm fine with not having
remote start. That's good.
They just have an extra key. Yeah.
Yeah, anyway, I'm getting I'm getting sidetracked and so
obviously I don't want to do this walk.
So I try to Uber and this may come as a shock, but there

(12:02):
aren't Ubers at 3:00 in the morning at East Texas in the
middle of nowhere, so plotted out and it is a eight mile walk
to this gas station. So I do what any sane person
does at 3:00 in the morning withnot a lot of options is I go for

(12:26):
a nice little jaunt in the middle of East Texas.
Luckily the gas station I was atsold like high vis like
sweaters. So you know, you know, the
yellow stripes sure with like the silver on it.
So I bought one of those and because it was cold, it was like

(12:47):
60°, maybe like 58. And I'm wearing my sandals.
Luckily I'm wearing pants because I thought about changing
into my shorts just for the comfiness of the drive.
And I go and I walk 3 hours on the side of a highway in the
middle of East Texas. And you found them.

(13:08):
So I get to this gas station. I go, I walk up and down the
street where I think I parked and where I'm like, I could have
lost my keys here. I don't see them.
I walk up and down a few times and I'm starting to like not
panic, but I'm like, well, I'm fucked, right?

(13:28):
I'm going to have to start figuring out where the nearest
Chevy dealership was, which was like 50 miles.
And an Uber there alone was going to be extremely expensive.
And then I have to get an Uber back.
And so I was going through that in my head and I decided to like

(13:49):
kind of do another pass, this time on the side of the road.
And that is where I found my keys was sitting on the side of
the road in the middle of the highway, like kind of middle of
nowhere East Texas. I don't know why they were on
the side of the road because I didn't exactly go to the side of

(14:11):
the road at all because I prettymuch just got in out of my car,
went to my trunk. Like all this happened in the
middle of the street. So I don't know, I wonder if
someone like saw my keys and just like pushed them off to the
side or something because I was fully expecting my keys to be
like crushed like someone drove over them.
But they are perfectly fine. Luckily at this point it's like

(14:32):
six, 6:30 in the morning, there's some Uber drivers out so
I don't have to make the three hour walk back.
I Uber back, get in my car, and now I'm hyped up from having to
do a nice little walk at 3:00 inthe morning for three hours.
So I'm wide awake. I just get back to driving.
And then I drove all the way home from Chicago in one go.

(14:58):
So it's the longest I've ever driven in one sitting.
This isn't even an entertaining story, this is just sad.
Like this is just unfortunate. Yeah, I assume I had like so
much adrenaline and whatnot. My body was just like, you're
just, you're going home, you need to go home.
But yeah, I drove 16 hours straight.
And what, when, What day did youcome back?

(15:18):
What is today? I don't even know.
That was last week. OK, good.
So this is more than a week ago.Yeah, because I've been sick
this week. Yeah.
Dang, yeah. Your job sucks.
Like it's not even job my job. Didn't do that.
No, I wouldn't. So your job didn't do that, but

(15:38):
it's a side effect of having that job and driving really long
distances. Sure that that dude, I can't
imagine the the the frustration of the dichotomy between living
in the city where you are and, you know, having access to the

(15:59):
general CTA. You bought a bike recently,
right? Trying to live that walkability
that the the general no car lifestyle and then you're yeah.
And then driving to and from Texas by like that is or
Pennsylvania or somewhere. That sucks, dude.

(16:20):
Yeah, I like I, I don't know if I've said this on the podcast,
but I think I'd be a very good truck driver.
I'm very good at, well, maybe not because I just lost my keys
in the middle of East Texas. So, but I'm very good at just
kind of going long distances andjust like zoning out and doing
what I need to do. That's no way to live in my
opinion. They drive industry.

(16:41):
Let me be clear, Truck drivers are absolutely essential labor
and especially how our infrastructure is set up, but I
cannot imagine that that job. Yeah, so we're doing a podcast.
Yeah, I'm going to cut that downfor the record.
Oh yeah, you do what you got to do.

(17:02):
We are reading Archie Comics. Sonic the Hedgehog's buddy Tails
miniseries, Part 3. Release date December of 1995.
Publication date February of 96.Southern Crossover Part 3.
Written by Mickey Gallagher and penciled by Dave Banach and Mike

(17:23):
Gallagher. Does it actually say Mickey
Gallagher? No, I might have just been.
I get it. I relate.
I was, I was up at 5:00 in the morning trying to get to my
washing machine, so. Oh yeah.
Hey, do you want to tell your story?
I'm good, I'm good, That's worse, yours is worse.

(17:43):
Made me feel a lot better about my story.
We open on a summary of Tales's adventures so far.
Through the eyes of his comic tales to astonish, our hero
found out that Robotnik was about to supply an underboss in
the land of Down Under. Captain Super Fox Man, the
mutant Cyborg clone decided to put a stop to this nefarious

(18:06):
plan, but he was discovered by aSWAT bot piloting the supply
blimp and he was shot down into the 8 waiting arms of Octobot.
However, beneath the waves livesthe 40 Fathoms, freedom fighters
who saved him. Upon arriving in Dawnunda, he
was set upon by Crockbot's pack of ferocious mechanical canines,

(18:27):
the Wing Dingoes. Just in the nick of time, he was
rescued by another band of free Dom fighters led by local
marsupial Walt Wallaby. Badly bruised, he was taken to a
deep dark crater where a mysterious stranger lived.
We cut the tails and a fair in the crater where Tails is
healing from his wounds. And we said from last week, I am

(18:48):
suddenly now remembering you. We had this dumb a combination
of old of of old man, Brooklyn and Aussie.
Do we want to simplify that? Yeah, we, we should.
I feel like this guy's going to come back.
So are we. Set on Aussie for for continuity
of the of the society. We have to decide on continuity

(19:10):
being Aussie or Brooklyn. So so do you want to do old guy
Brooklyn or old guy Aussie? I still think it's a really
funny joke that Knuckles is Brooklyn because he's been
isolated from everything and everyone.
I'm with it. But.
But from his own kind, from his own species.

(19:30):
Yeah, yeah. So OK, so old Aussie.
Old Aussie. OK, you Jackman, you I, I OK, I
know it's a bit, but it actuallydoes help me.
I'm not joking. Oh yeah, I know.
It's it's just funny. 2 two things can be true.
It could help you and be funny. And and so does this, the
shaking of hands. I'm not joking.

(19:51):
Oh, that one's weirder. Yeah, that one.
You do deserve to get made fun of.
You have a lot to learn and muchhealing to do.
Double tail Rise in Walk with meaffair grabs Tails and picks him
up. Tails winces in pain.
Knowledge cures all Young 1. You have been chosen to share

(20:13):
secrets of the past and vision of the future.
A fair guides tales into a room with the ancient walkers.
They stand still like statues, not reacting to tales or a fair
walking into the room. Listen well, my son, as the
voice of the ancient walkers echo across the centuries.

(20:37):
Look, I'd love to stay, but I'm really busy.
Ah, busy. My Echidna ancestors were busy.
Too busy ignoring the natural beauty of planet Mobius, busy
building skyscrapers and scientific toys.
We got to an image of a futuristic society within Kidna

(20:59):
flying around tall skyscrapers. They were so busy that they
barely noticed the approach of agiant white comet until it was
too late. Utilizing their beloved
technology, they lifted in Kidnapolis up from this very.

(21:19):
Sell Yeah, the. Straight the floating island.
What a dumb fucking name. Yes, that's like naming.
That's like us making a city, calling it like Humanopolis.
Like what? What are we thinking?
Why would we think that's like, even normal?

(21:40):
Oh my goodness. I should also just side note, I
should acknowledge my accent is just out the door at this point.
Wallaby is the cleanest Aussie accent I can do.
This is just it. It goes into like English like
what's his name? Dick Van Dyke territory.
So I acknowledge it. I don't give a shit.
Whoa. You mean the floating island
would fit into this crater? No, the sacred covenant was

(22:03):
broken. Come on, don't talk in riddles,
my friend. Sonic Nose Knuckles, the
guardian of the island. I would like to take this moment
to emphasize that Tails also nose Knuckles and it was weird
to just throw Sonic's name around like that.
A there chuckles. Does he?

(22:23):
I know him too. A there brings tails to some
cave drawings showing 5 different anchidna with the
first looking. Caveman esque and the last
looking like Knuckles the centuries our family is was
charged with protecting the Flatten Island.
My son succeeded me, then his son, and now Knuckles.

(22:50):
You're his great grandfather. Indeed, but you've distracted
me. There is no time to speak to
speak on this. You're right there.
I'm on a mission, I've got to go.
Fuck this exposition Tail storms.
At the at a pivotal juncture, Tail storms out of the room and

(23:11):
starts walking past the ancient walkers.
Please, you have been chosen. The ancient walkers wish to
commune. Talk to a bunch of statues.
Sorry, there's no time. Just then, the alligator looking
ancient Walker grabs tails and puts a stake up to his neck like

(23:32):
he's about to Shank him prison style.
That's why you're wrong. Tiles time is the one thing we
all have in abundance. I'm.
Going to cut you off right here.Literally 2 seconds like 2
frames ago. 3 frames ago Altair is just like we don't we don't

(23:54):
have time. Yeah.
That's a good point. Like literally like 3 frames ago
or something. I'm trying to find the exact
frame. I don't know why I'm like.
The panel, yeah. Yeah, there is no time to speak
of this. And then immediately after time
is the one thing we have in abundance of.
I'm like, what? What I'm I'm pitching right now

(24:17):
that Altair might just have likedementia or something.
Ether Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can.
I shouldn't defend it, but I guess I can defend it by saying,
oh, Ether really doesn't want totalk about his grandson being a
being weird. So he's like, we don't, we don't
have time for this, but but thenhe.
Defeats his talk. OK, here we go.

(24:38):
We cut to Crockbot watching Robotics air airship dock from
his control room. Robotnik cuts into the feed and
starts yelling at Crockbot. This is Doctor Robotnik
monitoring your progress, or lack thereof.
What's the problem? And then Crockbot, it's like a
creepy Aussie. Nothing I can't handle to bolts.

(25:01):
I'll call you back. Crockbot cuts to another video
feed watching the Down Under Freedom fighters destroy all of
his machines that he has sent after them.
Crockbot pulls out a CD. ROM curse these heroes.
They're fouling up my plans now.They'll pay the price, so says

(25:23):
Crockbot. Once I've unloaded that blimp
and reprogram the Swapbot crew, I'll rule down Under and
eventually Mobius Crockbot. Stands up from his computer
terminal and puts on his slouch hat.
I'm gonna at this moment, I'm gonna put on my in unison.

(25:44):
I can't I can't let the headset.I thought about this ahead of
time. I was like this isn't gonna work
this bit but. Yeah, put it sideways.
Put it sideways. Long ways.
Long ways. Well, let me.
Let me do it right. Let me do it right.
You're gonna fuck up that, for the record, You're gonna fuck up
the hat. This is DJ Houston.
Nick now DJ Nikki Houston. Nikki Houston I wish I thought

(26:09):
about this ahead of time. I would have wore different
headphones making it so I could just wear this for the whole
episode. That's sick, dude.
See can you, can you put it all a long ways across, like turn it
90°? With my headset on or?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, well this is I guess I can
do something like. You could do, yeah, yeah, like
that. It will slip though, right?

(26:29):
Yeah, I got tiny ears. It'll never work there.
You know what? This.
Nope. There we go.
Hell yeah. OK, let's see how long that
lasts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Crockbot stands up from his computer terminal and puts on
his slouch hat. Kudos to you for adding that in
the script indicating that he truly means business.

(26:50):
He walks past Wombat Stew, who is passed out and tied to a
table. It won't happen until our
dispose of your teammates wombatStew.
Feel free to watch them perish if you ever regain
consciousness. Crockbot turns on a live monitor
of everything that is going on outside.
He then enters a garage or from what I understand referred to as

(27:13):
car hole in Australia. Is that true?
No. You just make that up.
That that car hole is a Simpsonsspit.
Oh, OK, OK, OK. Pretty good.
I should. I should have convinced you that
they do. That would have been funny.
Inside said car hole stands a robotic ram 30 feet tall.

(27:38):
The Down Under Freedom fighters don't stand a chance against my
ultimate weapon, the CD-ROM Ram Nice Crockbot inserts the CD-ROM
he grabbed earlier. The ram wakes up and rushes out
of the car hole attacking all the Down Under Freedom fighters.
We cut back to Tales who was having a vision and spoken to as

(27:59):
spoken to by the ancient walkers.
Real quick what is the ancient Walker name or not name voice
again? I completely forgot from that
episode. I I put down in the script that
it's the voice of the ancient walkers, but I think it's the
ancient walkers talking through tales.
What? Yeah.
Because the next line is when tales like the ancient walkers,

(28:22):
they were speaking through me. And then one of the lines that
hint, it's hinted at by saying it shows an image of Tails
kneeling, kind of praying and says, so it was written and
therefore so it must come to be.So this is Tails talking.
Is it? Yeah, I think look at, look,
look at the frame where like that ghost image is coming out

(28:43):
of the fire and Tails is like kneeling on page 11.
He's finishing the sentence, so it is written and therefore so
it must be. And then the next image is him
coming out of a daze. So he was like in a trance
saying all of this. Am I right?
I would. No.
I, I I you're right. All right.

(29:03):
I I see it now. OK, here we go.
Eons ago the young sun burned brightly on its new spawned
world, Mobius. Life evolved slowly until the
1st Walker emerged from the primordial ooze centuries past
and sentient creatures continue to develop, ushering the Sarian
age. We see an image of dinosaurs

(29:26):
walking Mobius. A brutal balance was struck and
this simple society thrived until the sky above turned
green. Beauty and terror combined as
the heavens opened up and the hard and the hard hail fell
upon. All those who survived were
witness to the coming of the Chaos Emeralds.

(29:47):
Over centuries, these crystals have inspired many cultural
wonders, Pagan worship, technological advances capable
of driving those who harness it mad and in hands of pure evil.
They can be corrupted into weapons of destructions, but
absolute energy cannot be created or destroyed.

(30:07):
The infinite power of the Chaos Emeralds shall realign for a
higher purpose. The Chosen One who shall gather
them will walk amongst you, and the great harmony shall begin.
Tales wakes up in a daze, askingwhere he is and what that voice
came from. Affair tells him that he too
heard the voice coming through. Tales we agreed on.

(30:30):
Tales accuses the ancient walkers of giving him the
visions he just had and the voices he just heard.
Nonsense, my boy. As you said, just a bunch of
statues. Tales then realizes that all of
his injuries have been healed. Just then, Barbie Koala falls
into the giant hole. Barbie reintroduces herself

(30:54):
Tails and fills Tails in on what's been happening while
Tails has been hanging out with the Thayer and the Ancient
Walkers. What's Barbie Koala?
Just a feminine Aussie voice. We're we're like at the point
where we need to just like get clips of the episode and save
them on your desktop of like each voice you do.

(31:14):
So you have like a Dictionary ofvoices.
That's a good idea. It's also funnier to just make a
new one up. Yeah, it legitimately is funnier
just being like, I think this isright.
The lack of consistency may mirror this comic.
OK. Right.
Crook, but unleash the giant mega beast on us.

(31:37):
It butted me from his fortress to this crater.
It's just Walt Wallaby, Guru, Emu and Duck.
Bill Platypus left to fight the DS, the left to fight the CD-ROM
R.E.M. Will you help us out?
Sure, Let me just say goodbye tomy host.
Tales turns around to thank a there and the ancient walkers,

(31:59):
but no one was there. Barbie insists they need to
leave now and Tales grabs Barbieand flies.
Out of the crater we cut back todown on those Freedom Fighters
fight with the CD-ROM ram. They are losing horribly.
The ram seems unstoppable. OK, I'm through playing around.

(32:21):
Time to dig deep. Freedom fighters deep into my
pocket. That is where I keep a supply of
boomerangs. He throws the.
Bomber ranks. You're right.
Thank you. Where I keep a supply of bomber
ranks. He throws the bomb that's in the
shape of a boomerang at the at the ram, exploding the ram

(32:41):
instantly and in one hit. Why didn't he fucking use this
earlier? I'm so sorry.
It's. Yeah, it was just like you
destroyed it in one hit. Why?
Why would why? Why?
What are we doing? Sorry.
Keep on going. Crockbot, who has been
monitoring the situation from his control room, screams out in
frustration. The blimp with Crockbot's

(33:01):
materials calls in and asks if if everything is clear for
landing. Be careful scaly one.
This is a delegate procedure. Do not risk an explosion by
rushing things. Crockpot begins the landing
procedure when tails flies in carrying Barbie.
Barbie kick. For the record, for those who

(33:22):
are listening in or just everyone, Barbie is spelled
BARBY like shrimp on the Barbie,which no one in Australia says.
But yes. Barbie kicks into Crockbot who
flies forward onto the controls for the electrified landing
hook, causing the landing hook to swing right into the blimp
and blow the blimp up. Barbie runs to wall-e and wakes

(33:46):
him up. Crockbot hits tails on the head
with his tails and runs off Crockbot's tail like his lizard
tail. Yeah.
Lucky for me, I'll keep an ice in the hole.
More nuclear powered. Mega Mecca Tank He jumps in his
tank and drives off, looking like he might get a clean

(34:06):
getaway. Guru Emu, however, has different
plans. He asks Walt for a bomber Rang.
He then gets Tails to fly up in the sky.
I thought you hippie types were nonviolent.
Even up I just enjoyed. I enjoyed Guru Emu so much even

(34:27):
a peace train comes to a stop. Kiddo to on this Crockbot.
He throws the bomb meringue at the tank.
While it seems like it doesn't do much, the explosion managed
to take out the steering and thebrakes.
Crockbot is now heading full speed into the giant crater of
the floating island and a nuclear explosion happens.

(34:50):
However, instead of a mushroom cloud, the face of a there
forms. We cut to a few hours later.
The Down Under Freedom fighters are asking Tales to join.
He politely declines and says his place is in Knothole Village
and he misses his friends. He looks out at sea crying.
He has no way of going home as of now.

(35:11):
But just then the 40 Fathom Freedom fighters show up with
tales of submarine the Sea Fox Tales hops in the sea Fox, which
I'm assuming is I, I believe they've repaired it, right?
That's just assumed. All right.
Yeah, yes, you are correct. In the in the time of that other
adventure, they fix it, sure. Yeah, the freedom fighters were
like, the underwater ones were like, we got nothing else going

(35:31):
on. There's no threats down here and
let's just fix this thing, I guess.
Tales hops in the Sea Fox and starts heading back to Notthole
Village, excited to tell his friends of both the adventure
he's had and that there are freedom fighters all over the
world fighting the good fight just like them.
The end. Yeah.
So what do you think? It's it's a story this third.

(35:54):
So this third part I was I'm like neutral on, but only
because I'm already down here. I'm not that impressed by the
whole thing. So this ending is like, OK,
sure, whatever. It wasn't like a hair pulling,
frustrating ending for me personally.
We get some cool lore and. That was the thing for me is I

(36:14):
was like excited. In fact, I had, I had to like
kind of read it twice because atfirst I was like, hell yeah,
that was awesome. We finally got lore on like
what's happening in this world. And then I had to take a step
back and be like, well, wait a minute, In terms of a story,
this kind of fucking sucks. Yeah, ideally you do both right,
but. Yeah, ideally you can make it so

(36:36):
Tails does something. This is supposed to be Tails
fucking adventure and he doesn'teven like I I thought they would
at least give him when he flies in to like, I don't know save
the day when he punches crockpotor when he like brings Barbie to
kick crockpot. I thought like maybe they would
let Tails do it right, but he didn't even get that so he just

(36:58):
flew people around who did the like the actions which.
Is which is critical support, but at the same time like it it,
the spotlight is so shared with everyone else, which I guess I
don't, I, I don't, I don't know,like these are supposed to be
Tales's friends that he's building.

(37:18):
Well, I look at it as like, whatdid we learn about Tales?
Nothing, right? Exactly.
We learned about no character ofthe floating island.
We learned about Altair and the history of like Knuckles, like
echidna race and whatnot. And we learned nothing about
Tales. So I'm like, why?
Why is Tales even here? Why, why?
Why is Tales here? The the point.

(37:39):
Of a character arc is that the character goes on some kind of
journey. It doesn't always have to be
positive or fulfilling or whatever.
It can be regressive. It can be like a dark place
where they end up, that's fine, but some kind of Arc And they
can even end up in a similar place they were before, but have
that journey be somewhere. Tales is so out of the spotlight
for this, which is a tactic you can do, but he's so out of the

(38:00):
spotlight for this and there's no arc for him to go on, which
is the bad, which is the mistake.
He is either unconscious or in like some tribal trance for I
want to say over half of the runtime of like per panel.
Yeah, 100%. So bad I this is Don't name this

(38:22):
the Tales miniseries dude. It's they they tried doing like
a full circle. They tried giving him like an
arc right where he was like I missed my friends.
I was mad before and now I know that they did it out of love for
me or what not. At the very end I didn't even
include it in the fucking scriptbecause it was bullshit.
It was such a throwaway thing because he didn't learn that

(38:45):
where where where in the fucking.
He didn't learn that lesson. It was.
Just at the end. They just decided he learned it.
And that to me is like the worsttype of writing.
It's just like this is the lesson I was supposed to learn
by going on this adventure, but none of the actions that took
place led me to the the story didn't parallel his like the

(39:09):
learnings he was supposed to learn.
At least we don't. Maybe other breeders can can
extrapolate that we did not get that at all.
I I really didn't. Yeah, I I didn't either.
It should have been something where it it it has to be tail
screws up something right to mirror what like everyone's like

(39:34):
looking out for him like what causes him to go on this
adventure right he's. Being like he's the baby of the
group. Yeah.
And so for it to make sense in like a character building moment
would be he would have to go on this adventure and screw
something up, right? And then he'll like come to the
realization of like, oh, I'm still young and I'm learning and

(39:57):
I shouldn't be so angry at the people who are trying to look
out for me that that would be the character arc.
But instead we just get Tails just hanging out unconscious for
the entire fucking thing. Yeah, my my pervert, my
preferred like way these are structured is like character

(40:21):
plot and then lore like that's like my preferred priority.
I'm not. And that doesn't have to be
every single. It's the same for me too, but
it's 100%. And I'm not saying that needs to
be every comics or story ever, not even within this this, this,
this issue or this comic, right?You can do different things, and
I'm totally cool with swapping things around sometimes.

(40:41):
But it seems like that is the predominant.
It reverses that. The predominant way this this
whole comic series has been set up so far is it seems to be just
either's really straightforward cartoon plots, which in the 1st
20 issues, I can forgive that. Well, we're we're brushing up

(41:02):
like we're in. We're in more dumps, so I think
we might be on the cusp and likeaccording to the reading, Bobby
Schroeder's reading order that we're following, she, she
specifically said this is like where it kind of starts becoming
of real comics. So I'm.
I'm mistaken. We were so consumed by our
personal issues that we failed to mention this is the last.

(41:26):
This is a milestone for us, Nick.
This is the last episode of the first part, the earlier's part
of Bobby Schroeder's reading order, which is really cool.
We're getting into the quote real stuff now, so if you're
going to change up the theme song.
No, no, we're not changing the theme song.
No, I'm not making a new one. We gotta we gotta figure out

(41:46):
what error we're in and you can base it on what theme song is
playing. I'll wear a hat and I'll wear a
cowboy hat in the next era. So you can just quickly see.
It'll just have a glance. You'll be able to tell and then.
I should change my shirt. It should be done by shirts.
You you wear like a black one that signifies shadow.

(42:08):
You're a lot darker the emo era.No, let's let let real quick.
Let's let's go. So we did an overall thing here.
Some quick things I did like about this at least issue the
the the Enchidna story were there like a decadent futuristic
society. I, I was going to bring this up

(42:30):
fucking insane. It it just felt like I, I I
don't even know what it felt like, but my first immediate
thought was just like, well, OK,if the floating island was this
like futuristic city, where are those ruins?
Huh? We've been on that island.
It's, yeah, it's it's there's nostudy.

(42:51):
Ruins, but it should be more like the ruins.
Of temples like Aztec ruins, theskyscraper ruins.
Yeah, I'm annoyed. This is this is the shit that's
going to rub me the wrong way because that.
OK. How do you feel about that idea?
As inconsistent as it was? How do you feel about the idea?
About them just raising the island.

(43:12):
Them so the the Angel Island is such an advanced society
Inkanopolis. It's Angel Island.
It's it. Thank you.
Yeah, Inkanopolis is such an advanced society that they were
able to raise the the island. One, it's an advanced society,
futuristic urban society. And two, they were able to raise

(43:32):
the island through technology. I think that's kind of cool.
It's silly, but cool. Sure.
It just raises more questions. It's more raises more questions.
They so it worked, right? They they protected the city.

(43:54):
What happened to all the echidnain that city?
Then what happened to that society?
How long ago are we talking here?
Because there's no time frames given.
Yeah. Idea.
Idea. Sorry, interrupting you, you
know the IT could have been thatmaybe that was such a long time

(44:14):
ago. All of those ruins, there should
be some ruins, but those ruins are buried deep, and the ancient
ruins are like the next epoch. I mean, I think that's right as
hell, and I hope that's the direction it goes.
But that's also like, how many millennia in the future?
Yeah, it's, it's not a plug. It's not a plug.

(44:38):
That affair was alive to see that.
No, that is like. I'm just saying looking at the
family tree that they made in The Cave, there's only 5
kidness. So it's not that far.
It's like 203 hundred. We we don't know if.
That's true or not, There's justrandom caveman drawings.
Could. Be more beyond the frame, beyond

(44:59):
the panel. Yeah.
I, I, I wonder it, it raises so many questions about, OK, were
they the only advanced civilization at the time?
Was there other advanced civilizations that were wiped
out from this meteor? Did it like, destroy the world?

(45:19):
You'll notice if you look at thedrawing, when the floating
island rises up, there's greenery, right?
So are we to assume that the asteroid came and made this like
a desert? It had to been.
It had to be. They made it a wasteland, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I'm just, I'm just asking the

(45:40):
questions they all, I mean, I guess we're going to learn more.
There was a thing saying, hey, you'll learn more in like issue
31 of Sonic or something. So we're going to learn more
about the history soon. My my question is, they
specifically say that the chaos emeralds are absolute energy

(46:04):
that cannot be created or destroyed.
So where did they count come from if they can't be created?
God, like I said, that's all I can.
Well, yeah. That's it's, yeah, that I mean.
They're claiming, they're claiming it can't be created or
destroyed. Who knows?

(46:27):
Well I've seen Sonic use all thenegative energy of a chaos
emerald before or no? I saw Chaos use that, so I was
going. To say you're mentioning a fan
worker Naso unleashed. No, no, no, no.
That's Sonic Adventure. OK.
I just want to yeah, go. Ahead.
No. Go.
Go, go, go, go. Well, I'm going to tangent, but

(46:48):
this this reminds me a lot of the Team Fortress 2 comic.
So the video game Team Fortress 2, which is one of the all time
classic class shooters and it's a it's it's a Valve game.
You probably know what Team Fortress 2 is audience, but it's
the lore which is not present inbarely present in the game, but

(47:12):
expanded upon in the comic. It's such a good comic.
The humor is absolutely top notch and it's interactive too.
But anyway, the lore is that thewhole driving point of the story
is this special element called Australium, and it it's.

(47:33):
Shut up, sorry. That's just pretty fucking what?
So sorry to cut you off. My one of my favorite things in
one Gundam show is Gundam Wing where they just made the Gundams
out of a material called Gundanium.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.

(47:54):
That's so stupid. That doesn't make sense like
etymology wise, because you would have to discover the
element first before making the product.
Well, yeah, so I assume it was given the name Gundanium and
then they called them Gundams after discovering the elements.
I assume. It's been a while since I've
seen Gundam Wings. That's just the thing I

(48:15):
remember. That's stupid.
Because the boy, the the reason why you call something a Gundam
is because it's a Walker with guns on it, right?
What? Hey, you know, maybe that was
just luck. That was God like playing a
little bit, you know, but also the element is so rare.

(48:36):
They can only make like five of these gun dumps and they give
them to kids that of course likePTSD and just like kill a bunch
of people. It's good.
It's. Always, always give it to PTSD
riddled kids. Yeah.
Yeah, sorry to go so Australia, Diem.
That's awesome. No, it's called Australium and
it's a silly, very silly comic. And it it's this it's this

(48:57):
extremely powerful thing that can create these wonder weapons
or wonder societies and also give you like eternal life
basically, and or like near likeit supplies.
It makes you much younger anyway, because it's us, because
it was discovered. The pockets of it are all in
Australia. The element Australia is

(49:21):
actually in Team Fortress 2 world, this hyper advanced
society where everyone is young,beautiful and there are like
flying cars and it looks like this panel well.
This is Australia, I think. I think there's something going
on where a lot of writers just happen to know the truth, where
they're just like Australia is where the fountain of youth is

(49:43):
and that's where ultimate energyis.
Yeah, one of my favorite like panels transition is like it's
like it's like shows hyper futuristic like Jetsons world
and like that's Australia in 1800.
It's like that's how advanced the society.
You really should read this comic.

(50:04):
It's so it's really good. It's all available online on the
Valve website and but anyway, and that's like the driving
point of the comic and it's justfunny how like Sonic the
Hedgehog is doing it first like a deck like 2 decades earlier.
Technically speaking, there was no comment.
There's no floating island, but just advanced Australia like

(50:24):
society based off of this this special element or thing is is
it's so funny how that that thatthat plot point is is so
similar. Before you, I feel like we're
kind of close to wrapping it up so.
Small detail, not as important, but small detail.
You mentioned a nuclear explosion.
Did we confirm that it was a nuclear explosion?

(50:46):
It was implied because the mushroom cloud tank was nuclear
and then the mushroom cloud happened.
You're right. You're right.
Yeah, I should just, I'm just, I'm only saying this because
just in general, not correcting you now, because you're right.
I just saw it as nuclear mushroom clouds can happen with
a big enough explosion because of how the science works.
The the vacuum left behind by the massive and immediate

(51:09):
explosion can create a mushroom cloud.
So any large enough thermobaric weapon can create a mushroom
cloud and not necessarily in theface of a of a of a an
kidnapped, but the mushroom cloud is possible.
So if you see in future conflictout there in the news, if you
see mushroom cloud, do not be scared right away.

(51:32):
But mushroom clouds are possiblethrough conventional explosions.
OK. So there was a specific line I
wanted to call out a terror. Is that a fair?
A fair AT hair. According to how you have
written it in this in this script and how I keep seeing it,
it is a fair. A fair OK.
Maybe it's a fair Athira, but itlooks like a fair we'll.

(51:55):
We'll stick with a fair tales specifically asked some.
You mean the floating island would fit into this crater?
And his response was no, the sacred covenant was broken.
What do we think that could mean?
I don't. Know because that's such a wild

(52:15):
line to just have in there as inthe sacred.
So the sacred covenant with likeMobius, right?
Like I. I I think.
I'm just trying to figure out what that implies because I'm
not sure if I understand the gravity of what that meant.

(52:39):
Sacred Covenant. And there's a chance Mike
Gallagher didn't even know the gravity.
He just said it as a bullshit. Why?
Why can't this go back? I don't know.
The sacred covenant broke out. What the fuck are you talking
about? Either yeah, either a throwing
line or he was like, I don't know what the fuck Ken is
talking about, but I'm gonna have to write it so.
And gave me the story outline. I was like sure whatever.

(53:03):
This makes no fucking sense. It's supposed to be a Tales
adventure. Why are we talking about
Knuckles? Yeah, yeah.
That's so effing true. Jesus Christ.
Well, you mean the. I'm looking at the panel right
now. Whoa.
You mean the flooding up island?Would.
Fit into this crater? No.
The sea. OK, OK.
So I'm sorry, I was thinking like, oh, the explosion.
No, no, no, he's saying could the island return?

(53:27):
Could the island return? OK, OK, could it return to the
crater and he's cause affair from what I remember, yes, he
was talking about society. He was talking about this
advanced society because he he seems like he's not just like a
survivor, like descendant of this society.
He seems like he hates it. He's like I'm I'm quoting him

(53:50):
from this panel. Busy.
Ah, busy. My Anchinna ancestors were busy.
Too busy ignoring the natural beauty of planet Mobius, busy
building skyscrapers and scientific toys.
That's that way they were. He's what?
Luddite. That's what they're called.

(54:11):
So Luddites are misunderstood itit goes into a heavy class thing
during the industrial revolution.
The the layman term of it is that oh luddites hates hate the
progression and they hate technology.
What it really was was a class consciousness and like all the
the Luddites getting fucked overby the rapid advance of tech
with the industrial revolution that they were like, you're not

(54:32):
giving us fucking like compensation for all this
technology pushing us out at just a rapid rate that humanity
has never seen. Before robots with.
Manufacturing now and AI and allthat shit.
But anyway, anyway, you're I I know what you're saying.
Yes, he he rejects what he's like a he's like a not an eco
fascist. He he's like a dude who would
get a dumb phone right now that's.

(54:54):
So true. He's so, but the point I'm
making is that he hates it. He hated that society, right?
So OK, OK, so he's saying like, OK, it's like, oh, Tales is
like, oh, it would fit back intothe crater, right?
No, it would never return. It should never return because
the sacred covenant was broken. Where in Kidnapolis rejected the

(55:20):
hubris right of of the Enchidna was so much the love of smart
technology. I'm implying that now, but you
know, the, the, the, the ohhh, yeah, yeah.
It's like where you're. Going with this.
It's like you, you know, you were joking, but you're kind of
right where it's like, Oh yeah, social media for us, right?
Social media, AI, our hubris, you know, nuclear weapons or

(55:45):
whatever. We're so drunk with all of this
tech, we're running away from true nature.
And that is kind of mirrored with what Affair is saying about
the the floating island, right? Do do you get what I'm saying?
Yeah. No, I, I do.
That's the. Implication that I only got from
those two panels, those four panels.

(56:06):
No, no, no. And I think, I think that's a
good interpretation, the rejection of like we'll say
Mother Earth, right? And they they're, they quite
literally ejected themselves from Earth to.
But to save themselves. To save themselves or their way

(56:32):
of life. Oh yeah, So oh, maybe a fair,
maybe a fair is an eco fascist or like an eco absolutist or
something. It's like, no, we should have
gotten destroyed by that, that comet.
OK. That's that's the vibe I kind of
get. That's a cool interpretation.
I like that. Thank you Mike Gallagher, for
whoever put that plot point in there for implying us in that

(56:54):
direction. I like it.
Yeah, that, that's my, my my only last question really
quickly. I I guess I got 2 is 1.
Why do Crockbot wait so long to put on the hat?
It seems really. That's when he meant business,
dude. You are right.
That is when he meant business, but also he could have been

(57:16):
meaning business the whole time and maybe this would have never
happened, could have been cool. Yeah, Yeah, that's if he was
wearing that the whole time, I think this would have gone down
differently is what I'm saying. If the hat was there, wouldn't
wouldn't have gone down. Also the the lack of sorry, just
quick, quick critique on his strategy here.
It's like. He doesn't have a strategy,

(57:38):
let's be real. He's just kind of throwing shit
at the wall, but it's like you have a melee, you have a close
combat unit. This, this giant ram, and then
as your last ditch effort, then you pull out the nuclear tank.
Like, bro, you use both force multipliers at the same time
while the ram is like in close quarters combat, right?

(57:59):
You use the tank as like artillery or like range as a
force multiplier, you know? Yeah.
I don't know. OK, OK, whatever.
I can, I can accept that. He's hubris, he's dumb,
whatever. As kind of a wrap up question,
how do we feel about the FreedomFighters Down Under as a whole?

(58:20):
They're they're all right. There's something that happened
that I'm surprised you didn't point out that I thought you
would be like, that's rad as hell.
Which is they got the peace loving guy to go and throw the
bomb boomerang to blow up the big bad guy, which is kind of

(58:43):
signifying like, hey man, sometimes you can't piece it
out. You gotta, you gotta grab a gun,
fuck shit up. Yeah, maybe.
Maybe if John Lennon was carrying a piece he wouldn't
have fucking died like a pussy. That's I think it was pretty
obvious that's what this comic was trying to say.

(59:05):
Catch her in the rye. Catch this bullet, bitch.
The 80s would have gone so differently had John Lennon done
that. Because he would have achieved
World Peace through. Force 100%.
Imagine this. I like that 'cause I don't, I

(59:26):
don't know the exact details. Like I know the dude, the
murderer ride Catcher in the Ryeand then he went and murdered
them. But like the way I, I guess I
always envisioned it as he just kind of walked up and like shot
him. But you're the picture you're
painting is like John Lennon hada chance to pull out his gun and
shoot him back. I I do forget the details.

(59:47):
I think he did talk to him and he was like, no, I I don't want
to see any fans right now or talk to anyone.
And then when he turned around, that's when the murderer, I
forget his name, murderer shot him in the back.
I think that's funny. I don't, I don't know.
Yeah. I got nothing.
No, I, I mean, look, they, they,they do talk about it.

(01:00:07):
I that's not even I I don't eventhink that's her critique.
It's more like he he the the guru Emu says himself like,
yeah, this is too much. I'm going to, I'm going to F and
do it. I'm going to, I'm going to blow
him up with a, with a bomb. Oh, shout out to another
historical event, the Hindenburgcrash, where they recreated in
this really cool full page illustration, the yeah I.

(01:00:28):
Had to call that out. I forgot, that's OK.
One should bring. Back blimps.
Blimps are cool. They are cool.
Yeah, they are cool. They're they're extremely
inefficient, but damn they're cool.
Sometimes you got to do the realcool.
If it's cool, you should just doit.

(01:00:49):
Sometimes it's not about efficiency.
And actually, in this world of increasing atmospheric
instability and weather, yeah, let's just let's just bring back
the little blimps. Fuck it man.
Like how we're bringing back theTitanic.
Yeah, hubris, let's do it. And that's the issue.
Only 385 left to go. I'm Nick.

(01:01:10):
I stream at twitch.tv/mojosaurusand my personal blue sky is at
Mojosaurus. And you can follow my jazz and
people power adventures in Chicago at Blue Collar Jam on
Blue Blue Collar Jam. No blue collar Jazz like it says
right here. Blue Collar Jazz at on

(01:01:31):
Instagram. I might honestly, I'm flirting
with changing my Blue Sky handleto that as well 'cause I just
seems to be on my personality now, but at Blue Collar Jazz.
And then I am currently on Blue Sky at Dongguan.
You can follow us on socials I got to talk fast, TikTok, sky
talk faster. We also have a video version of
the podcast where you can followalong with panels and watch our

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hands and faces. You can write in on the show at
[e-mail], askus questions, provide
corrections and give us your opinion on this week's issue.
Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel and
remember when life keeps going fast.
You got to talk fast and just get through it.
I love you. I love you gotta talk.
Gotta talk. Gotta Talk Fast was written by

(01:02:13):
Nick Folkerts and edited by Dominic Guanzon.
Intro and outro themes recorded by Dominic Guanzon Gotta Go
Fast. Originally composed by Norman J
Grossfeld, Joseph Garrity and Russell Velasquez.
Gotta talk, gotta talk, gotta talk, gotta talk.