Yes, this was a real ad for a real thing, with no entendre intended. And, yes, I have the mentality of a toddler.
Although lines of ad copy such as “Get Big Dick and be envied by every boy in town,” “Become a member of the ‘Big Dick Brigade,’” and “How to get BIG DICK free” might seem like obvious double entendres to modern audiences, they were not read as such by customers of the time.
“Is This a Real Ad for a ‘Big Dick’ Machine Gun for Kids?” by David Mikkelson
Whenever folks are like “Dave, aren’t you worried about AI making your job obsolete?” I’ll just remember this crackerjack spam bot’s best attempt at closing the sale:
SPOILER ALERT: I’m an emphatically Jewish straight cis-gendered father who looks awful in long-sleeved T-shirts/crew-necked sweatshirts.
A handful of seasonally-appropriate tales:
A classic monster story that’s also a quietly feminist story about predators. Short, but full of surprises nonetheless.
The first story in PseudoPod 798: Flash on the Borderlands LX: Words Like Violence
I just sorta love everything about this. Such delight!
“How Lizzo came to play a president’s crystal flute on a D.C. stage”
This is a “frog boil” story, and may in fact be the perfect frog boil story. If you’re woke-ish, then it is pretty clearly a climate change story. But if you’re on the political right, it may actually seem to much more obviously be an immigration story. It could be a cautionary tale about the dangers of group think (although its up to the reader to determine of its more about anti-mask group think, QAnon group think, CRT group think) or privilege or income disparity.
However you read it, the message is the same: It’s a warning against repeating the same old prayer that humans have repeated prior to disaster for Millenia:
I guess it’s happening, but let it happen in some other neighborhood in some other town far away, above someone else’s roof and out of my sight.
Anywhere but here.
Anywhere else.
Also, absolutely terrific monster-of-the-week. So worth your ears and eyes: PseudoPod 819: “Balloon Season” by by Thomas Ha
Holy moly is this good. I generally like horror because it deals honestly with trauma and how we cope (or fail to cope) with it. This is a occult/folk horror film that really grabs ahold of not just trauma, but intergenerational trauma—and also intergenerational mutual aid and support.
Spiral is available on Shudder, the only streaming service worth every penny (at under $6/month).
