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THE FRANTIC FLICKER
"The movie magazine that isn't..."
----Serving nonsense on a golden platter since 2004.----
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Issue #2: February 20, 2004
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www.franticflicker.com
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"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."
-Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin
IN THIS ISSUE:
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==>In Case You're Just Tuning In
==>Superfly
==>All You Have To Do Is Ask
==>The Visiting of the Sponsors
==>Superatomic Giveaway of the Week
==>Whodunnit?
In Case You're Just Tuning In
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My name's Eric, and this is THE FRANTIC FLICKER, an e-mail newsletter dedicated to promoting
weird movies as a lifestyle choice (if that seems complicated, just stick around, you'll get it). We
just started the process of building this giant empire last week with a gorgeous masterpiece I like
to call The Frantic Flicker Issue #1, and this week we're continuing in that fine tradition.
As I write this, it's Friday morning, and the story's done, but I've got a few other things to do in
order to get this sucker out today. I dunno how much insight I have as to how this is going so far,
but I'm plugging away anyway. After all, its superbaaad week at the Frantic Flicker, so that's just
how I'm gonna act. Now let's get on with it.
Eric
Without further ado, the Frantic Flicker proudly presents an original story entitled:
SUPERFLY
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When he was just a maggot, Superfly wriggled from a half-full bowl of tomato soup someone had
left on a balcony. He wriggled across the cement and right over the edge of the precipice itself. He
landed in the hair of an attractive woman with an awful personality who was talking on a cell
phone. As he worked his way towards lower ground, the front part of his maggot body met with
the edge of the phone, and the resulting blast of radiation turned this lowly maggot into a
full-fledged Superfly instantly. He flew away from that cell phone that day with the burden of
knowledge of the fly condition, his destiny forever entangled in the human world.
Generally speaking, there are only two kinds of flies. There are drones, who do everything that
you would expect a fly to do, and then there are dronettes, who are pretty much the same except
that they're girl flies, and a bit smarter. Superfly reentered fly society confidently, but he always
felt like an outsider.
When the drones and dronettes would eat manure, they would buzz over to him, "Hey, dig in,
Superfly, it's wild!"
Superfly would reply, "Nuh-uh. Not me. I'm not eating that crap no matter how much you other
dumb flies like it."
And while other flies were content to pester cows or horses, Superfly prided himself on the fact
that he would only pester humans. He insisted on living in a human neighborhood instead of out
in a field.
One day, as Superfly sat with his girlfriend Sheila on the leather convertible top of a new
Mercedes, Sheila asked him why he didn't pester other animals.
"Baby, cows don't eat pudding. Now let's make with the breeding!"
"But people have newspapers and flyswatters and all other manner of insect repelling devices.
Aren't you afraid?"
"The people in this neighborhood don't expect to have flies. No flies, no flyswatters, no cares, no
newspapers." When they'd finished breeding, Superfly got serious: "Listen, I've got a life
expectancy of thirty days. I'm gonna do what I want. Breed a lot and eat all the pudding I can,
and no jive dronette is gonna stop me."
Just then, the door to the house opened and a dazed-looking young man stepped partway out,
then dropped his keys. As he bent over to retrieve them, the door stood wide open and Superfly
saw his chance.
"Later, baby," said Superfly as he buzzed towards the house. Sheila wondered vaguely if she'd
ever see him again, and headed off to look for a nice warm place to lay her eggs.
Inside the house. Superfly could already make out a faint aroma of butterscotch pudding. In the
first room he buzzed, he saw two humans (one drone and one dronette) sitting on a sofa
watching TV. Superfly knew that the TV would keep them occupied indefinitely and that the
pudding was as good as his.
In the kitchen, Superfly found what he was looking for almost immediately: four parfait glasses
filled with butterscotch pudding and whipped cream, with a cherry on top of each one. After a
quick game of eeny meeny miney moe, Superfly landed on the firm but pliant surface of his chosen
meal and started eating.
Two blocks away, Sheila had managed to find her way into a green dumpster with a closed lid. By
the time she had laid the last of her eggs (in a half-eaten container of lo-mein noodles) she was
very old and tired. Sheila flew to the top of the dumpster and, seeing no immediate way out, she
flew at the closed lid and knocked herself unconscious. She fell back to the cold metal floor, where
she died a few minutes later. Such is the life of a fly.
Superfly had been gorging himself on the butterscotch pudding for so long that he was almost too
heavy to fly away. He didn't even notice the human dronette approaching. But she noticed him.
"Evil! Evil! Evil!" the human dronette shrieked when she saw Superfly. She used one hand to
cover her eyes as she brought the other down to the parfait glass, toppling the dessert out over
the counter and drenching Superfly in his favorite goo.
The human drone rushed in to see what the matter was.
"A fly in my pudding!" she yelped. "How evil!"
"Well, you didn't have to knock over the whole glass, you sick weirdo freak!"
"A freak am I? Well, we'll just see who's a freak!" With that, the dronette grabbed an expensive
omelette pan from the stove and whacked the drone in the head with it.
The drone bounced off of the wall and back down onto the counter on the very spot where
Superfly had been drowning in butterscotch pudding. Superfly was killed instantly, of course. He
may have been super, but he wasn't all that.
The drone raised up with his fists clenched, but he had pudding on his face, and that made the
dronette laugh.
"What's so funny?!" he asked. The dronette just pointed at his face. The drone started laughing
too, and soon they were jolly friends again. After the drone was cleaned up (they didn't notice the
pieces of fly on his face) they collected the other parfait glasses and went back into the other
room to watch TV.
Later that afternoon, a human drone searching for sustenance came across the carton of Chinese
food where Sheila had laid her eggs. Without benefit of a fork or chopsticks, he did a magnificent
job of making sure that all the food found its way into his mouth. He coughed only once, and this
cough released a single fly egg from his mouth with an explosive force the likes of which few flies
have survived. Thus, when he was born, the only surviving heir of Superfly was named Superfly
TNT. And he lived happily ever after for three weeks.
THE END
I'm not sure if that's the longest story about an insect you've ever read, but I'm pretty sure it's
the longest story about an insect I've ever written. I'm not too fond of insects really. They bug me.
Ah ha ha ha ha. Oh wait, where am I? I've been transformed into a fly and now I have to hop
across the keyboard to slowly depress each letter... this is super.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK
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In this section, I will happily answer any question you might have, whether I know the answer or
not. Just send them to eric@franticflicker.com with the subject line "I have a question.". I
especially like questions about regular school-type subjects, advice, or stuff about movies.
Since we're just getting started here, and no one's had any questions yet, I'll get you started
here myself. For example, I bet you've always wondered:
Question: Who invented the clock, and how did they come up with that idea anyway?
Answer: In the ancient world, there was a civilization called the Loftonians. They lived in a land
called Loftonia, which is now Detroit. They were decent folks and for a long time their government
was decent to them. Then about 330, maybe 335 B.C. this ruler came to power named Frank
Kiddo. Kiddo was an awful tyrant who loved setting people on fire. Kiddo was also a smart man,
and he knew that the people would never stand for being set on fire indiscriminately. So he
hatched a plan that he would have his staff of scientists invent new things that were difficult to
use.
The first thing the scientists invented was shoelaces. Frank Kiddo made a universal decree that
within two days, everyone had to learn to tie their shoes, or else he would have to set them on
fire for slowing down the general progress of Loftonian society. For a month or two afterward,
Kiddo scoured the countryside looking for people with their shoes untied. He found a great
number of them, and burned them up. But still he wasn't satisfied. He needed an idea where he
could burn everyone he saw.
Finally, his scientists came up with the first rudimentary clock, and after a great deal of
brainstorming, Kiddo figured out the perfect way to use it. He made a royal decree and let it be
known throughout the land that on a certain day, a huge convention of the whole of Loftonian
society would take place. The fine print read that everyone in the kingdom would have to arrive
between 4:00 and 4:15 PM, and those who arrived earlier or later would be set on fire.
Since Frank Kiddo had the only clock in Loftonia, you can imagine that he did pretty well. In fact,
he did so well that when he'd burned everyone who hadn't arrived at the proper time, there were
only a half dozen Loftonians left. And without anyone left to protest, he set them on fire, too.
Having heard about this, emissaries from surrounding empires (the Hunkos, the Doodles, and the
Trekkies, among others) were sent to Loftonia to put Frank Kiddo on trial for his crimes. Kiddo,
along with his top scientist / wife, Bunny, fled to Switzerland, where they eventually set up the
first clock-making business.
The point of all this, of course, is that clocks were invented to make you late.
THE VISITING OF THE SPONSORS
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Just a couple of quick commercials before SUPERATOMIC time.
THE SUPERBAAAD SUPERSTORE IS OPEN!
Check out my favorite Superbaaad movies on DVD
and posters and pics from blaxploitation to Bruce Lee!
Check it out at www.franticflicker.com!
EBAY!
I'm an eBay fiend (username mothra911, feedback rating 839 and counting). I've been a bit lax in
my ebay duties lately, but check out what I'm trying to get rid of at:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mothra911&include=0&sinc
e=-1&sort=3&rows=50
Thanks for your patience.
And now, it's time for our...
SUPERATOMIC GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK
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Part of my whole reason for being here is to expose people to cool and/or weird stuff that they
might not otherwise know about, and one of the main ways I want to do that is by giving stuff
away for free.
This week's giveaway is a set of two used videos - the blaxploitation horror classic BLACULA and
it's wonderful sequel SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM! Both are FREE if you get picked! Last week I
didn't even have anyone enter the contest until Tuesday night, so your odds here are
considerably better than winning the Powerball, and you don't even have to pay a dollar!
To win, send an e-mail to superatomic@franticflicker.com. Put your name and address in the body
of the e-mail, and use the SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD in a COMPLETE SENTENCE as the
subject line. Your information will not be used for any other purpose.
The SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD for this week is... KICK.
Visit the superatomic section of the website (www.franticflicker.com/superatomic) for complete
rules, more details and photos of this week's prize. Contest ends Thursday night.
By entering, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older. US entrants only, please.
WHODUNNIT
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Written, compiled, researched, edited and published by yours truly, King Boss Man Eric
Henderson! Thanks for reading it!
The Frantic Flicker is a weekly e-mail newsletter published by Eric Henderson.
The official website is up and running (and quite lovely, I must say), so please visit us online at:
www.franticflicker.com
If you have any questions or comments, I'd be happy to hear them. Gimmee a holler at:
eric@franticflicker.com. If you don't want me to print your letter, let me know.
I'll talk at you again next week. Thanks! Eric
All content copyright 2004 Eric Henderson. All rights reserved, but feel free to forward this e-mail
or link to my home page. Thanks.
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THE LIVING END
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