CATCH-UP 2 (CHAPTERS 6 - 10) - A Daniel’s Nemesis Job Appraisal
HOST:
Welcome back to the Daniels’s Nemesis Podcast, catching up on X, Squared chapters 6 - 10.
[ASIDE]
Wait, will Crunchy … No? Oh, excellent! Gonna be a good one today
[BACK TO SCRIPT]
X, Squared, the novel that —
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
[ENCROACHING OVER HOST]
This video will teach you about questions using the present continuous.
General Notes
HOST:
Let’s have a quick summary of what’s happened, shall we?
Day two, and Crunchy is locked into his own room, stressing the ultimate value of making a good first impression. Hemingway and Mitsuko have picked up a new witness - young boy Bunuel. Bunuel, able to see dead people, can see the ghost haunting their haunt. This leads Hemmingway and Mitsuko to use Bunuel to locate ghosts of the victims and be able to interview them. They want their revenge on this mirror ghost.
Crunchy, however, has escaped from the FIB stronghold. Ambling, lost in London, he goes into a store [OMINOUS SOUND] and accidentally stops a robbery.
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
[ENCROACHING OVER HOST]
Well, I prefer shopping online. I find it more convenient. Firstly, I am lazy, so it’s nice to shop without having to get out of my pyjamas.
[VIDEO FADES OUT]
HOST:
[FADING BACK IN]
— This gives him a bit of confidence, and he feels he can continue with his work experience.
Day three. Crunchy has a dealing with a monster in the mirror, but he smashes the mirror causing the monster to disappear. Crunchy tells Mitsuko and Hemmingway about his success, and using the mirror monster’s example, stands up for himself. They decide to smash all the mirrors in the world, running into trouble early on. And Crunchy meets an old friend.
Holy shit, that summary for five chapters has more in it than I think the entirety of XBook.
Side note. That bit at the beginning of chapter nine with the two alarm clocks. Well, now I have three. It’s true!
So, we have many structural elements coming into play over the last few chapters and there’s a lot of juxtaposition where as the audience, we kind of have to fill in the gaps —
SCREENALYSIS HOST:
[ENCROACHING OVER HOST]
— there’s a lot of juxtaposition where as the audience, we kind of have to fill in the gaps. Where some major event has happened, and we kind of like have to run up to speed to work out where Alvie is.
[VIDEO CONTINUES UNDERHOST]
HOST:
[TO HIMSELF]
— where Alvie is.
Eh? Why does it say that? I didn’t write that. Fucking Crunchy, getting in and fucking things up.
[RECALIBRATES AND RETURNS TO THE SCRIPT]
Act 2, Part 1. Fun and Games. Where our protagonist gets to explore the upside-down world and work out its rules, usually in an entertaining, and not too punishing way.
For Crunchy, this is equating to him working out where his actual place is. Not functioning as part of the team, he goes rogue and has some solo success even if the rewards aren't there. Returning to the team, he learns he can be a part of it as long as he stands up for himself, but that’s not massively easy either. He looks inwards but doesn’t feel comfortable in his own skin or head. Externally, he is shown a representation of himself that is not himself. Basically, Crunchy is playing the dual role of XBook’s Internal William and external Ginger.
And importantly, the thing tying all this up is that he has a crucial piece of information that means that he has to be part of the team whether he likes it or not.
Intriguingly, Crunchy is not the only person exploring the upside-down world. Mitsuko, too, is going on her own little trek. The FIB she has known, pointless investigations typically resolved by shoving a gun in someone’s face, is becoming something else. The claims of ghosts are becoming facts. The people around her are transforming in front of her - Crunchy and Bunuel have mystic powers and even Hemmingway is not the person she thought he was.
From Crunchy’s perspective alone, the upside-down world isn’t too different from our own (excluding reflections that talk back). Between Crunchy and Mitsuko, as an audience, we can see a fuller range of possibilities that this upside-down world has to offer. Has everything been uncovered yet? Of course not.
Both of these stories are about the unreliable narrator.
SCREENALYSIS HOST:
And we see him fighting the external world —
OTHER PERSON:
Yeah
SCREENALYSIS HOST:
— as well. He comes into conflict with the team wiping his memory. He … err … By hiding his memories or by jumping into … memories that were … were not mapped … in terms of erasing Clementine … it causes challenges for the team wiping his memory to find him. So, yeah, no. He fights back. He fights back in a big way. Not just within his own psyche but with the external world, with the er … the antagonists who are taking Clementine away from him.
[PAUSE]
How did we get to this part?
OTHER PERSON:
[LAUGHS]
Erm, we were talking about, err … Joel as a reliable narrator. Or an unreliable narrator.
SCREENALYSIS HOST:
So, yeah, we were talking about Joel as an unreliable narrator. Now, another factor here is a lot of his memories, we see them as they’re being deleted. So, the world around him is often crumbling away.
HOST:
[SCREENALYSIS VIDEO FADING OUT UNDERNEATH]
What? That’s not right. Where did that come from?
[BACK TO SCRIPT]
So, we have had many structural elements coming into play over the last few chapters and a bad supporting sentence is one —
ENGLISH HELP DESK OTHER HOST:
A bad supporting sentence is one that is not relevant to the main idea, or doesn’t fit into the paragraph as a whole. You can see in the example paragraph that every sentence is directly related to the topic sentence.
HOST:
— is directly related to the topic sentence.
BATEMAN:
Whoa! You’re not supposed to read that! Do you really zone out that much when reading a script? Holy fuck, no wonder we're in trouble.
HOST:
Oh good. A new person. Just what was needed.
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
–And, I’m Daniel.
HOST:
The fuck? I don’t want people knowing my real name.
BATEMAN:
You think that fans of Daniel’s Nemesis can’t guess your real name?
HOST:
A guess is not a fact. I could be bluffing. I have a job to think about, you know!
On the subject of names, are you going to tell me yours?
BATEMAN:
Oh, you know what it is.
HOST:
Yeah, I know.
Well, I wasn’t expecting you to join in. You are a visual monster. This is an audio means. So, this is going to be fun.
Let’s start with the basics. What is your purpose here?
BATEMAN:
I was just having a dig around your old stuff. Podcasts, videos. Some interesting things here.
HOST:
Yeah, going to be a bit critical are you? Here for my benefit?
BATEMAN:
I’m not here to criticise. You're doing well enough of your own accord. I’m just here to show you what could be, instead of you endlessly speculating. Think of this as an intervention, with me as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Some harsh truths, but with the aim of building you back up. Just what a
Psychologist’s Chair
is supposed to do. Let's have a little reminder of where you’ve come from.
Don’t worry, everything we’ll look at is publicly available on the Internet, as you placed it there and know it’s still out there.
DNP DEMO HOST:
[BANGING]
So, this is the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast, ur, tester episode. Let’s see if I can do it this time.
Hello, and welcome to the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast. This is a new series of podcasts in which I attempt to … to claim my throne as the emperor of the Internet. So, what’s going to happen in this podcast? Basically, each week, I’m going to read out a chapter of a book that I wrote … a long time ago. It’s a very cheesy book. It’s … pretty bad if I have to be honest. Uhh ... But it is what it is and … Well, nobody’s ever going to publish it. I’m never ever going to try to finish it. I would just like one day for it to be out there and for somebody else to have heard it. So, what is the book? The book is entitled XStory. Yes. That’s how much of a title I could be bothered to think of it for. And … you know. It’s … Basically … umm. Yeah. I’m gonna read out and what’s gonna happen afterwards, I’m gonna analyse the chapter and … just look at the person I was about ten years ago or whenever it was that I wrote this book.
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
[LOUDER AND MORE DISTANT]
Hi, and my name’s Daniel. It’s pretty easy.
[EDIT]
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
It’s pretty easy, uh, it’s the basis, uh, of our everyday language. It’s probably the most common tense that we use naturally. So, yeah. Errr … Let’s find out more about it, shall we?
[EDIT]
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
I have one older sibling. A you- an older brother.
[EDIT]
OTHER HOST:
Okay.
[EDIT]
OTHER HOST:
Yeah, that makes sense.
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
Unfortunately, English is a very complicated language sometimes. It comes from French, Latin, Greek. Uh, all sorts of different languages, so we have a lot of irregular verbs.
[EDIT]
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
Well, I like to think of it that, imagine you’re in a restaurant, for example, and you’re having a look at the menu. A waiter comes up and asks what you’re going to have. And you’re sat there, and you’re choose, and you think, “Ooh, I WILL have a pizza, please.”
[EDIT]
ENGLISH HELP DESK HOST:
Uh, so. Um. I hope you enjoyed this video. This is going to be a weekly video. And … so, please come back next week. You can find us on the Yeungnam English Facebook page which, well, you would have found us by now already if you’re watching this. But by all means, please, let your friends know about this. Spread the word. Uhh … Tell all your friends that there’s two handsome guys here, uh, willing to … explain more about the … stupidness of English grammar sometimes.
HOST:
That stuff’s private!! Demo episodes to test proof of concept! You’ve lied, so blatantly.
BATEMAN:
Oh, what does truth mean in this day and age? It’s publicly available to me, as I tear through your computer and internet accounts, so that’s true enough.
HOST:
What's the point in this? To say that I’m not any good because the stuff that I practised on and has never been released is proof that I’m a failure? “Hey, remember that time you couldn’t talk and could only blow bubbles out of your mouth? Doesn’t matter that you were only months old, that shows what you are today!!”
BATEMAN:
Okay, I will play fair.
[INTRO MUSIC COMES IN]
Here. Still available on this very feed, the first thing you ever released.
DNP, EPISODE 0 HOST:
Welcome to episode zero of the Daniel's Nemesis Podcast, Reading XBook, chapter zero: Synopis.
Earnest music there welcoming us to the new Daniel's Nemesis podcast. A podcast where I lay my claims to the throne as king of the Internet.
This is a series of podcasts where each week I read a chapter from a book that I wrote many a moon ago. This book is so amazing that nobody would dare publish it, and the only way to get it out there into the world is through here - the Internet. And basically none of you are going to be listening to this anyway —
HOST:
Why are you playing clips from that?
BATEMAN:
Hey, you chose not to go back and rerecord those early episodes. You are clearly okay with having poor-quality recordings as the first thing people will come across on your serialised podcast.
HOST:
What’s the point in all this?
BATEMAN:
I’m not going to pick apart what we’ve just listened to. I’m going to let you do that.
HOST:
Yeah well, I was… inexperienced back then. What do you want me to say? I cringe when I listen to it.
BATEMAN:
Is that it? Mr “I want people to think of me as this great analyser and deconstructor of texts”? Not going to get much out of you off the cuff, are we? Much easier when you have a script to read, right? But we’ve already proved you can’t reliably read out a script.
XBOOK, EPISODE 14 HOST:
On the surface, it does seem like a fairly redundant-t chapter.
XBOOK, EPISODE 14 HOST TO HIMSELF:
Oh gosh.
XBOOK, EPISODE 14 HOST:
On the surface, it does seem like a fairly redundant chapter.
On the surface, it does seem like a FAIRLY REDUNDANT chapter.
A lot of the main details that we learned from the previous Ginger —
XBOOK, EPISODE 14 HOST TO HIMSELF:
Oh gosh.
XBOOK, EPISODE 14 HOST:
A lot of the main —
A lot of the main details that we learned from the previous Ginger chapter —
A lot of the main details that we learned from the previous Ginger chapter are in here.
I mean, personal details are kept out …
HOST:
You're attacking my ability to read from a script? It’s not as easy as you think! I have the headphones on, it’s weird hearing yourself as you speak!
BATEMAN:
You sucked. I still don’t understand why you leave such awful episodes up, but you’re stubborn there.
HOST:
I didn’t know what all this was to become. I thought about going back, rewriting and re-recording that early stuff. But then the episodes would be out of order. And what would I be doing? Writing in a manufactured first act when the original recordings already function as a natural first act? So, yeah. Babies blow bubbles. Now I spew shit. So, what?
I do better when I have a character to play!
BATEMAN:
Really?
ENGLISH HELP DESK COOL GUY:
How can I decide? They are both rich … Super Rich! I don’t care about fighting crime. I don’t care about fancy suits or weapons. I just want to have their money. Batman has a nice car, so maybe him. But Iron Man can fly in his suit, so maybe him. Who cares? I will be super rich. I won’t fight crime, I’ll just lie in bed all day being rich. [60’s BATMAN THEME TUNE]. Rich Man!
HOST READING CRUNCHY:
I loo— [COUGH] I look confused. Mitsuko jumps in with her helpful remarks … with her helpful remarks … with her helpful remarks. Mitsuko jumps in with her helpful remarks. With her helpful remarks.
HOST:
Well, the first character, he’s … I could move around. Use gestures, facial expressions. They were videos, and … it’s acting!
BATEMAN:
This is an audio means. I’ve taken the visuals away, and yet he still sounds more genuine.
HOST:
Yeah, but …
BATEMAN:
William, Ginger. They sounded more real than Crunchy does.
HOST:
Well, they were based on parts of me!
BATEMAN:
And Crunchy isn’t? Wasn’t the whole point of Crunchy that you could just do Ginger again and get away with it?
HOST:
Well, he changed.
BATEMAN:
Did he? Or did you change? Or rather, did you not change?
Think about your life right now. Divorced. In an unfamiliar country that you grew up in. A crappy job. Struggling to connect with the people that you work with. You’re distanced and isolated from the people in your old life, and you’re outside, looking in on your new life. Yeah, you do better when you play a character, as long as that “character” isn’t you. It’s nice to pretend you’re someone else because, well, they aren’t you.
In this whole project, there are only two times when you feel super removed from yourself. The first is when you are reading a script even you don’t understand.
XBOOK, EPISODE 7 HOST:
Back to action, Ginger is kind of like Bruce WIllis in Die Hard. John McClane was a reluctant hero. However, there, the analogy is not clean. He had a family to save. Everyone else he saved along the way was a bonus. Reluctant or not, he has motivation. This is where we get into Micro vs meta narratives. Sometimes it’s easier to relate to a character who saves the world when they really want to just save a couple of key people. Someone who sets out to save the world seems more distant. The micro-narrative makes us care more as we can be more attached. The other 7 billion plus people the hero saves is just a nice extra. So, what was Ginger’s micro-narrative? A shark? Okay, so there’s the issue with Dee.
BATEMAN:
Could it be that you become so distanced from the words coming out of your mouth because you are confronting your own self, your own half-thought-out ideas that ramble on and lead to nowhere, and you want to hide from yourself?
HOST:
I got better at writi—-
BATEMAN:
The second is when you read Crunchy.
Crunchy isn’t a character based on you like Ginger was, or William - Crunchy was you. You put more of yourself into him than you ever did with any other character. And when you returned to the UK, it’s like you stepped back into him. I mean the timing is almost perfect. He was written just before you left for Korea, and now you read him out upon your return to the UK. As if you left his costume in Heathrow, found it upon your return, and it was too snug a fit to take it back off.
HOST:
I’m not at all like him. He’s not liked by anybody. People send me happy birthday wishes on Facebook! He’s obsessively worried about everything, I just worry obsessively, so I can’t even begin to imagine why you think that.
I was an Assistant Professor! Pro-fess-or!
Crunchy can’t even be trusted to keep his underwear in his bag!
[GETTING WORKED UP]
But, I would like to move on, please. Y-You promised to build me back up.
BATEMAN:
Okay.
You recorded your actual classes, didn’t you?
HOST:
Not those. Those students deserve their privacy.
BATEMAN:
Oh, they will be protected. I’m only interested in you. Let’s look at when you were comfortable in your own head.
SOONGSIL LECTURER:
Alright, I’ve got one more thing to do, and we’re going to do this very quickly. Umm … So sales incre— Oh, sorry. We use prepositions and conjunctions. Prepositions are words like “to”, “from”, “between”. They show some kind of relationship in time or space. Whereas, conjunctions join words or ideas together. And we use these to add data. However, if we’re using … ummm … a total change, then we use “of” in a noun-phrase. So, for example, “7.68 to 10.63”, this shows a range. But, if we want to show the total decrease, that would be, er, 7.63 minus 7.68 equals 2.95, 2.95 million units, so we can use “of” to show a total change. “Sales have increased sharply from 7.68 to 10.63 million units between 2016 and 2018. This was an increase of 2.95 million units.”
HOST:
What are you saying? That I should go back to teaching?
BATEMAN:
That’s your choice. But you can’t deny you did pretty well over there.
So, let’s dissect what we just heard. You were prepared. You sat for hours, days working all this out, mentally building a script in your head, signposting it with PowerPoint presentation markers. What you were doing was no different from podcasting. But you allowed yourself to be a teacher, not a podcast host. You didn’t let the odd filler word or “umm …” bother you, though as a bad habit, try to stop that!
You let 15 years of experience standing in front of classes, with prepared plans, take over. The knowledge that if you didn’t nail the first class, you could make adjustments and improvements in the next class until, by the end of the day, you had a perfectly flowing set.
Now, you stand in front of a microphone thinking that it matters. It doesn’t. You stand there thinking it has to be perfect. It doesn’t. You set your standards and expectations way too high, and then do nothing to get there. Podcasts, for the most part, are casual things, listened to casually. But you don’t want DNP to be casual. You want awards.
You sound like Crunchy. He demands the world notice him, yet what does he have to show the world? But you’re older than him, more experienced than him, know more of life than him. So, why do you still have nothing to show the world? Why are you still like Crunchy?
HOST:
I AM NOT CRUNCHY!
[SMASH, PUNCH, BANG]
BATEMAN:
Got that out of your system, have you?
HOST:
[ACTING CALM]
Nothing to get out of my system.
BATEMAN:
Let’s be Ghost of Christmas Alternative Present, shall we?
HOST:
Sure, put the dick into Dickens. His first name began with a C. You know what this is, don’t you? The C Word?
ALTERNATIVE DNP HOST:
[A NOT-SO-GREAT AMERICAN DJ ACCENT OVER “INTENSE” MUSIC]
The Daniel’s Nemesis Poddy. The Show You Know Is a Go.
Crunchy, dweeb-lord himself, thinks he can take on a robber by himself. But he’s only work experience. Surely he should be needing help? But this is a guy who takes advice from a monster. If your reflection started talking to you, wouldn’t you think it was crazy? And if you haven’t already, leave that 5-star review. Because we only deserve the best. Tell me, chick with shaved head and guns? Attractive! Hmmm.. She’s Japanese? Marry me now! That’s one shotgun wedding I will happily partake in.
HOST:
But that’s so soulless! That’s all surface-level stuff! Where’s the analysis? It’s just repeating what people know.
BATEMAN:
And that’s all people want. That podcast is listened to by 42,000 people regularly. You get 25? Up by ten from this time last year?
HOST:
But that’s not me. All that other shit - English Help Desk, Screenalysis, that was me pretending to be something I wasn’t. Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast is when I feel free, when I get to remove masks.
BATEMAN:
But no. You have no personality. That’s who you really are. You think swearing is the same as personality? Sound effects make up for your friend-deficit?
Fine. You don’t want to be soulless. But you know what professional podcasters have? Preparation. They know what they want to say, they don’t just blankly read from a script. And they can talk. Why? Because they’re out socialising, engaging, and using that part of their brain so that they can activate it when they are in front of a microphone.
You overthink. Way too much. Not just in what to put in a script - don’t get me started there! But you overthink how you speak. You are listening to every syllable wondering if you have enough diction. People understand you every day. You talk with non-native English speakers professionally and have done over the last 15 years. Your speech is fine. Listen to me, I’m your voice but heavily filtered. I’m still understandable. You overthink because you are unprepared and inexperienced. And so you disengage from what you want to say.
You want to remove masks, you want to be authentic, reading from a script. Authenticity is hard. Authenticity is also earned.
Radio hosts practice links until their timing is second nature. Podcasters probably spend hours just talking to themselves until they are comfortable allowing a stream of words to pass through their mouths knowing that it makes sense, and is leading somewhere.
People can imagine hanging out with them, even if it is only an illusion of who they really are.
They are authentic because, trivial as what they say may seem, that’s who they are in that moment. They are engaged with what they are saying, regardless of whether they actually agree with or care about their words. Their authenticity is in making others believe that’s who they really are. Years are spent crafting an idealised version of themselves, and so much effort is put in that they actually believe that’s who they are themselves.
Even you, as an “Assistant Professor”. Yes, it was all an act. You didn’t believe in all that education shit the others talked about. You just liked the sound of your own voice until you started believing you were a teacher. You started identifying as a teacher. And when the students laughed, that just encouraged you all the more. But hey, you created that idealised version of yourself, didn’t you? Even though you knew what you were teaching was bullshit.
You are inauthentic now, because you don’t know who you are, and you don’t know what to tell others about who you are. Nobody engages with you on social media, not because of your lack of presence, but because they don’t know who they are engaging with, and you don’t either. Nobody engages with you in real life, in your workplace, in your neighbourhood because they see your physical presence, and that is literally all that you allow them to see. When you were a teacher, people saw the teacher and engaged with that.
Now you are a “I used to be a teacher, ummm …” You don’t know who to be, so people don’t see anything to connect with.
HOST:
But, there’s something about me, right? I mean, we do small talk in the office where I work now. People who actually know me keep in touch. Even this podcast, those who like what I do come back week after week …
BATEMAN:
They hear your scripts. They like your scripts. They come back for that, I guess. But they don’t engage further, because you haven’t demonstrated how they can engage.
HOST:
How can I do that?
BATEMAN:
I have here plans and drafts for the XBook season. There was always supposed to be a plotline where OG DN deletes your script so you have to improvise and it goes badly validating OG DN’s belief you are a bad host and undermining you in that section of the story.
You never did it. You were too afraid. You let fear get the better of an interesting storyline. You let fear stop you from opening your mouth and letting honest words come out of your mouth. You didn’t want people to hear you.
Don’t let that happen again.
WHO IS IT THAT YOU WANTED TO BE BEFORE SOMEONE TOLD YOU WHO TO BE?
Because whoever told you to be yourself was a fucking moron.
Success means only allowing people to see the slither of yourself that is controlled. Failure is when they see too much.
So, go on. Start building up that “authentic” version of yourself. Open your mouth, speak in that slick American way. See what comes out.
HOST:
[PUTTING ON A PERFORMER VOICE]
I … Umm ... Hi, er, this is Daniel’s Po— [STUMBLES] … Hi, this is Daniel’s Podcast. [PAUSE] Today, we’re talking about … Today. Chapters 6 to 10. Hi, this is Daniel’s Podcast. Today … Today, we’re talking about … Today. Chapters 6 to 10.
BATEMAN:
[OVER MUSIC]
You know what you need? A bit of inspirational pop to get your groove back.
Remember the fun side of it, like when you were a teacher, switching off your mind, and letting instincts take over. Fake it til you make it, and more importantly, you believe it.
HOST:
No.
[MUSIC ABRUPTLY STOPS]
[DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES]
Crunchy, you’re back! Where the hell have you been?
CRUNCHY:
[IN DISTANCE]
Stand-up comedy course.
HOST:
But you’re not real!
CRUNCHY:
[APPROACHING MIC]
That’s the great thing about this pandemic thing you had. We can do things online.
Doesn’t matter if you’re real or not then. Pixels on a screen are just pixels on a screen.
HOST:
But … You’re not real!
CRUNCHY:
You’ve given me a lot to think about. Seeing myself like this - very objectively, well, you were right.
CRUNCHY, CHAPTER 8 EXCERPT:
But I’ve also taken the time to think about what I want to do with my life. In truth, there are not a lot of options open to me. I’ve never held down much responsibility in any job I’ve ever had. Never needed to exercise my brain too much. But I think I could change that. Find a course that I want to do, and get qualifications. I believe myself to be useless, but I’ve never believed myself to be stupid. As to what course, and at what level, I don’t yet know, but the idea is appealing as it would give me a chance to stand above the crowd a little. Not a lot, but enough to get the ball rolling. I think I’ve said before that a lack of confidence has been one of my biggest enemies, and this would be a great way of tackling that, after all, the point of a course is to get things wrong, to learn. In other words, to stop being afraid of making mistakes, and stop being afraid of asking questions for fear of showing my ignorance. It is all a learning process, and then, one day, I’ll be getting things right and people will be asking me things.
CRUNCHY:
As you said, or rather, I said - it’s a bit confusing when it’s all meta, isn’t it - that a lack of confidence has been one of my biggest enemies, and doing a course would help me.
Well, you, I, we were right. So, I did a course. Even managed to get some mic technique down. You had me sounding so shit before. I think you’ve been setting me up.
BATEMAN:
Well, look at that! We have our Ghost of Christmas future. Everybody else is upping their game. Why aren’t you?
CRUNCHY:
Oh, who’s this then?
HOST:
Not important.
CRUNCHY:
Doing your recording? Let’s have a look at the script. Oh, alarm clocks.
[READING EXCERPT OF SCRIPT FROM THIS EPISODE WITH EASE]
Side note - that bit at the beginning of chapter 9 with the two alarm clocks. Well, in my real life I have now graduated to three of the fuckers[CROWD LAUGHTER]and I can still barely wake up.[CROWD LAUGHTER]I genuinely sleep through the first 45 minutes to a whole hour of alarm clocks ringing. [CROWD LAUGHTER] When I sleep, I sleep deep.[CROWD LAUGHTER] It takes my cat chewing my face off because he’s demanding breakfast to get me up.[SUSTAINED CROWD LAUGHTER] Like most people, the first thing I do before even getting out of bed is to look at my phone. Rather than social media, it’s so I can turn off the fifty or so alarms that I have set. [SUSTAINED CROWD LAUGHTER]
[IMPROVISING]
And then I have to do the same on my other device. And the other one! [CROWD LAUGHTER] If I had a super power, I think it would definitely be waking up in the morning. [CROWD LAUGHTER] I mean, not even Batman can do that. [CROWD LAUGHTER] He works at night. I’ve had students that have got up earlier than Batman. Lazy motherfucker. [CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
BATEMAN:
I’m just showing you a way forward, that’s all. Be suspicious if you want. But look around you. Look at what is actually happening. I can’t make that up.
Fine, you want to stick to scripted drama. You know what you could do? Read Syd Field.
HOST:
NO!!!!!
BATEMAN:
I was wrong. You are not like Crunchy. He grew. Are you going to let him win?
HOST:
[IMPROVISED AND TALKING FAST]
Welcome back to the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast. Today, we’re going to be looking at chapters six to ten.
So, it’s been a bit of an interesting ride, Crunchy has been through the mill a little bit. First of all, he’s been locked up, but he managed to escape with some help from that mysterious child. Then when he was out and about, he stopped a robber, all by himself. Can you believe that?
However, it’s not only Crunchy who’s been having some interesting adventures. Mitsuko too. Her world is changing under her eyes. First of all, the little boy Bunuel, he can talk to ghosts? And not only can he talk to ghosts, but he floats in the air as he’s doing so.
And Hemmingway. As far as Mitsuko is concerned, Hemmingway is changing, he’s not the person that she believed he was. Who is he? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out today in the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast.
And remember! Leave that five-star review. We need all the help we can get to get pushed further up into the iTunes chart so that more people can see it, and you are the one that can do it.
Anyway, back to today’s episode … [FADE OUT]
[END CREDITS.]