Episode 6: Flatter Earth Society
Flatter Earth Society
In which Yuri and Guri realize their spaceship is running a bit low on fuel and so they decide to generate some “flattery” to power their hyperdrive by creating a Flatter Earth Society webpage (FESBook™) that touts the accomplishments of humans and inflates their egos and self worth.
Please check out the Techni-Text™ version of the Flatter Earth Society episode, below:
Episode 6: Flatter Earth Society
Hi paul
this is sydney, my father is a butt
and he should go live on the street.
Ahem… please ignore the
line above.
Notes for this episode:
In which Yuri and Guri realize their spaceship is
running a bit low on fuel and so they decide to generate some flattery to power
their hyperdrive by creating a Flatter Earth Society webpage that touts the
accomplishments of humans and inflates their egos and self
worth. There will be obvious parallels to Facebook.
Also, in the ad segment.
CeeCee and Shirley have packed up their house of saws
and are on the run from the law. They meet Dennis at his Den of Drills, who has
a similar predicament with his business, although he is a bit slow on the
uptake.
Episode opens to the
strains of The Who’s Overture to Tommy
GURI: Please finish up in there, Yuri! I’m oh so anxious to
explore this new planet and meet the Lurflings!
YURI: Sorry, just washing my tentacles…
GURI: That’s strange… our primary fuel tanks seem to be running a
bit low.
YURI: What’s that now?
GURI: We’re running low on flattery. I could have sworn we were
arriving at Lurf with nearly full tanks after filling
up on one of Saturn’s moons.
YURI: Oh yes, that filling station on Hyperion that’s also known
for their giant sticks of jerky.
GURI: I don’t know what you see in that stuff. High sodium, waxy,
processed foodstuff of questionable origin.
YURI: Yes, well as Meeporpians we are
allowed our six guilty pleasures. It’s not like eating boats…
GURI: I told you that in extreme confidence, Yuri! It is not for
public consumption…
YURI: And neither are boats. But here we are jumping into the plot
line when we haven’t introduced ourselves and this show, which is our sixth-
GURI: Sixth? Did I miss something?
YURI: I mean our first… this is our very first episode of
Greetings Lurflings, the podcast of the stars.
GURI: And the quasars!
YURI: Yes, and the quasars…
GURI: And the pulsars… and the blazars…
YURI: Yes, Guri, all
of the celestial objects. Thanks for listing them here and interjecting
during my introduction.
GURI: Sorry, captain.
YURI: You’re still interrupting.
GURI: I’ll stop now.
YURI: Will you?
PAUSE.
GURI: Probably not.
YURI: Anyway, I’m your host, Yuri Brickell and the New Bohemians,
and the interrupting cow next to me here is Guri
Sancho Panza.
GURI: I’m going to ignore that demeaning introduction and instead
return your attention to our sudden fuel emergency. With these low levels of
flattery, Captain, I’m not sure we can get much of anywhere.
YURI: Ok, I guess we’re done with the introduction and getting
right back to it. Yes, we barely have enough fuel to launch should an
evacuation become necessary. That is concerning. Any ideas?
GURI: Ideas? Well, yes, I thought we might put a night light in
our hallway between the sleeping quarters and the toilet… I’m always stubbing a
tentacle when I get up in the middle of the night to do a number 1 through 4...
YURI: I meant do you have any relevant ideas, Guri? Relevant to the situation at hand.
GURI: Ah of course… um… no.
YURI: Shipward, help us out here. Ship,
are you there?
GURI: I saw him slipping into the laundry room maybe 20 minutes
ago.
YURI: Oh goodness. Yes, he’s got lady problems. I tried to warn
him about Martha… she’s mixed up in absolutely everyone’s dirty laundry.
GURI: That was too easy, Yuri. I mean, a washing machine joke?
YURI: Fine, should I just say it? She’s a strumpet.
GURI: Language, Yuri!!
YURI: I’m sorry. Anyway, it looks like we’ll have to get ourselves
out of this one. Let’s put on our problem-solving socks, Guri,
and get to work.
GURI: Ok, well the ship largely runs on flattery. We’ve flattered
each other far too often in the past for such sentiments to have any effect
now. We’ll have to find a new population to flatter and then mine
their emotions.
YURI: I second that emotion, Guri!!
GURI: I hardly see what the product of a trip to the bathroom has
to do with this-
YURI: Nevermind, the point is I think
you’re onto something. And our mutual friend Farit
mentioned the other day… I mean, via neutrino messaging-
GURI: Farit? When did we see him?
YURI: We didn’t, we got a message from him. He must’ve heard we
were heading to Lurf and he
told us about a very large, only semi-intelligent population of Lurf creatures that might be most susceptible to a
flattery-mining enterprise.
GURI: Yes, yes, in my preliminary research I thought perhaps the
large schools of fish might suffice, or perhaps the herds of those fluffy white
creatures they call sheep…
YURI: No, Guri, the fish and the sheep
would see right through our efforts. Farit pointed us
to the strange, only partially-haired beings who
insist on walking upright and wearing clothes.
GURI: Clothes!!! Oh that’s funny.
YURI: Humans they are called. They are self
aware and apparently believe themselves to be… get this… the most
intelligent life on Lurf.
GURI: Oh, there’s nothing more amusing than native species with
delusions of grandeur.
YURI: Yes, and those delusions make them perfectly ripe for our
flattery-mining scheme.
GURI: Do they have a neural net established or how do they
communicate or broadcast their thoughts and emotions?
YURI: Well, as you know and as we’ve discussed in previous
episodes… I mean, in our simulations prepping for this journey… they have set
up a digital inter-net which allows them to send messages and set up flattering
profile pictures and share only their best moments with each other.
GURI: Interesting… no truth police monitoring traffic and ensuring
balanced portrayals of these humans in their best, worst, and perfectly average
moments?
YURI: No monitoring at all.
GURI: So if we construct a simple
platform where these humans are able to curate their own messages and images
and postings…
YURI: We let them flatter themselves and each other to their
hearts’ content…
GURI: And we reap the rewards!! Genius!!
YURI: Well, we’re not reinventing the wheel here. We’ve done this
before.
GURI: A wheel? What’s that?
YURI: Nothing… it’s an expression here on Lurf,
I believe.
GURI: Ok, so I’ll deploy the standard B232 social network platform
onto their inter-net which it looks like they call their world-wide web… oh,
how cute.
YURI: Yes, and we just need a name. Let’s see here, we are trying
to flatter Earth through a social network…
GURI: Lurf, you mean.
YURI: Well, yes, that’s how we’ve been pronouncing it, but it
looks like the humans call it Earth.
GURI: That sounds stupid.
YURI: I know, but remember we are trying to flatter them, so let’s
use their name.
GURI: Oh very well then. So maybe we call
it the Flatter Earth Society…
YURI: Yes, and humans attach a lot of weight to anything that’s in
one of their so-called books, so how about the Flatter Earth Society Book? Or
the FESBook for short.
GURI: FESBook? That sounds really silly...
YURI: To you it sounds silly. But to the humans, I think, it will
sound like something they have to be on, always trying to impress...
GURI: I hope you’re right, Captain. Ok, let me just type in that
name here and make these final configurations… and THERE!! It’s live!!
YURI: No soft launch first?
GURI: What?
YURI: Nothing, sorry, just some space travel humor. Excellent, so
now we just sit back and wait for the flattery to start rolling in.
GURI: It feels a bit strange mining the emotions of these beings
that we haven’t even met yet.
YURI: Would that make it feel better, Guri?
Meeting the beings you wish to exploit?
GURI: Well, I mean, what if they’re nice? Or charming at least in
their own primitive way?
YURI: And that’s why I’m captain, Guri,
and you are just struggling to maintain your co-pilot certifications. In this
universe, it is take or be taken, eat or be eaten…
GURI: Kiss or be kissed?
YURI: No, no kissing!! We’re talking about survival here, Guri… honestly, I’m really not
sure how you passed any of the space command exams back on Meeporp.
GURI: Well, still… I think we could stand for a bit more
compassion in the universe.
YURI: Compassion will barely fuel a trip to the bathroom much less
from one star to the next.
GURI: Oh, so we are just going to blindly follow orders, Yuri, as
we mine the emotions of helpless beings across the universe, all to support an
intergalactic order that has no monopoly on truth and justice… why, for all we
know there could be more integrity and heart and true love in one of these
hapless humans than there is in all of Meeporp! There might be real objective truth and beauty and
greatness here on Lurf, and before we’ve even set
foot on the surface we are toying with emotions and mining what may not even be
a renewable resource…
**ZAP!!!**
GURI: Ahhhhh!!!!
YURI: That conversation was going nowhere anyway. Well, my
friends, it looks like we’ve reached the end of another episode of Greetings Lurflings, in which Guri was
having second thoughts about the ways of the universe before I mercifully
erased them with my trusty proton blaster… I really do never leave home without
it.
**Guri singing melancholy song in the
background**
YURI: Yes, the proton blasts always seem to bring out the closing
number from Guri… anyway, stay tuned for the next
episode in which we’ll see if our FESBook ploy works
to refill the fuel tanks so that we can actually explore
Lurf a bit and tell you about its wonders.
**end of segment music**
YURI: And now a word from our sponsors…
C.C.’s HOUSE OF SAWS, AD #2
CC: Howdy partner, this is C. C. Mcgraw
along with my wife, Shirley Shecuddit, coming to you
from the side of the road after we had to pack up our House of Saws back there
by the Sawkatunk River on account of one too many --
entirely frivolous I might add -- lawsuits from past customers who lost one
little appendage or another trying out the saws, apparently ignoring the many
handwritten signs pointing out the dangers from the many blades whirring and
swinging and chopping at all times, which we thought created an air of
excitement and industry within the establishment but apparently caused a few
too many incidents of the bloodshedding type. So
being thus something less than compatible with the law, we’ve taken our
business on the road and established C.C.’s Mcgraw’s
Outlaw Saws, currently located between highway mile marker 6 and the abandoned
Wendy’s on Route 66 just outside of Sioux City.
Shirley managed to pack up all our best saws from the old House o’
Saws, so we still offer more saws than you’ve ever seen, and more scenes (crime
scenes, that is) than you ever saw. And we even packed a see saw for the kids.
Laid out on six large blankets by the side of the road, we’ve got big saws,
little saws, round saws, square saws, saws for outlaws, saws for your in-laws,
hot saws in three flavors: mild, medium, and extra spiky, flying saws… er… and
non-flying ones as well. If your saw’s got a broken tooth, we’ve got a saw
dentist on sight. He’s a regular dentist as well, so you can get one of your
teeth pulled and a saw tooth replaced, with savings to be had if you combine
the procedures.
And I’d like to take this opportunity with some time left in our
spot to introduce you to a fellow outlaw that Shirley and I met on the road
and, I might add, have invited aboard the Winnebago on a recent evening or two,
please meet my new friend, Dennis, of Dennis’ Den of Drills.
DENNIS: Oh, well hello, there. How are you all doing?
CC: Well now, Dennis, they aren’t going to answer. This is a radio
advertisement that we’re recording here, so why don’t you tell them what you
got… tell them about all those drills!
DENNIS: Oh right, okay. Well, we’ve got a lot of drills… all the
drills we were able to scoop up when they closed down
the Den of Drills over there by the Denny’s on Dendril
Boulevard outside Denver. That was a demoralizing day for myself
and Doreen…
CC: Right, Dennis, but it did allow us to become fast friends out
here on the road. And especially at night aboard the Winnebago. That Doreen,
she’s a real firecracker. But tell them about your drills, Dennis, what kinds
of drills can people find here?
DENNIS: Well okay… hey now wait a minute,
what did you say about my Doreen?
CC: Nothing, Dennis. Just she’s a real sparkplug when it comes to…
dinner conversation.
DENNIS: Oh ok. Well as long as that’s all
you meant. I was starting to wonder why you two always seem to stick me and
Shirley with the dishes…
CC: You’ve nothing to worry about, Dennis, but we have but just a
few seconds left in this here spot, and we need to tell the people about all
the different types of drills you are selling.
DENNIS: Ok, C.C… well now… where were we? Oh right, well at
Dennis’ Roadside Blanket of Drills we’ve got your standard electric drills,
your old-fashioned wind-em drills, your dentist’s
drills, your fire drills, your this is not a drills,
and even some daffodrills for you nature lovers out
there.
CC: And tell the good folks out there, Dennis, are the bits
included?
DENNIS: Well now that depends on what bits you are talking about.
Sure, each drill comes with at least one bit, but if you’re talking about your
various counterbore and countersink and flat bottom boring and other non-boring
specialty bits well then you’ll have to pay extra.
CC: How much extra?
DENNIS: Oh, about two bits.
CC: Aha, Dennis getting in some drill humor there, I like it, and
I promise you’ll like it even more when you visit us at a roadside rest stop
near you. That sound of a siren in the distance means we are packing up and on the move again. But you can rest assured that we will
be back up and running just as quick as a carpenter chasing after a severed
thumb with some ice. Until next time, this is C.C. Mcgraw
saying, I’ll see ya soon unless I saw you already, in
which case, please don’t sue!! I’m down to my last penny!!! Ok… cut the
recording… just stop the tape there… what are you deaf, Poindexter?? Never
ignore a man with a circular jig saw in his holster… why I’ll draw on you
before you can say Please Don’t Saw Me in Half You Maniac… press STOP I say!!
**end of segment music**
Discovering Earth Artifacts
YURI: Let’s see what our drones have brought back to us this time,
Guri. We have a number of
artifacts that we will use our vast expertise and unparalleled intuition to
understand and describe for perhaps our non-Lurfian
listening audience.
GURI: Oo, this will be exciting. We
never cease to amaze our friends at how quickly we can correctly identify the
purpose and common uses of the items we discover.