David Barker Podcasts

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Short shorts and tall tales that document the terror of 21st century North American suburbia. Primary Format : Arts Language : Unknown Also Listed as: City : Toronto State/Province : Ontario User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of David Barker Podcasts Methings.com listings of David Barker Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

Meat There’s a street party in the neighbourhood and Squiggy’s in charge of the barbeque because he scored a gross of ground chuck. But Lenny, his next door neighbour and best friend, can’t make it for the party. Too bad, because this year’s burgers are the best ever. h/t to the Stinky Meat Project Stinky Meat Project :: File Download (17:08 min / 7 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Federal Communications Commission To celebrate the recent US Supreme Court Decision upholding the “fleeting expletive” rule (allowing the FCC to fine broadcasters for even a single instance of a word like fuck, shit, cunt, cocksucker, asshole, motherfucker, dickweed, shithead … you get the idea), I decided to do a podcast imagining a knock at the door early one morning. My podcast has an incidental cross-border issue – i.e. since I’m Canadian, the FCC can’t really fine me. Nevertheless ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marking Boundaries Good nannies are hard to come by, but it’s important to give them some space of their own, as one dog-walking suburbanite learns the hard way.File Download (21:52 min / 10 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Zombie & GriefBot Inc. This podcast features two stories: the first concerns a mental health patient who starts to worry when the patient in the next room suddenly disappears and housekeeping whisks away some bloodied sheets; the second speculates about what might happen when a software giant gets into the funeral business.File Download (22:04 min / 12 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lessons from an Aphasic Priest What kind of a conversation do you get when you force a paranoid schizophrenic to talk to an aphasic? Does it make any sense at all? This is the story of a psychotic – but harmless – man who has been convicted of being a nuisance and is sentenced to do community service at the Centre for Incurable Aphasia (CIA). He’s assigned to a priest who was in a cycling accident and has suffered a brain injury. The priest’s gibberish makes perfect sense!File Download (22:33 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Improvisation on an Earlobe Listen to three poems. The first is titled “Improvisation on an Earlobe” and the text appears on the corresponding post at lifeinthemargins.com. The other two poems first appeared as the November and December 2008 poems for my poem-a-month newsletter which you can subscribe to at davidbarker.ca. They are titled “There Is No Sky” and “Prudence.” File Download (6:06 min / 3 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Beautiful Losers As the title suggests, this installment of Life In The Margins concerns an encounter with Leonard Cohen. The story is told by a neurotic husband who is worried that one day Leonard Cohen will seduce his wife. He arrives home from work one day to find that Leonard Cohen really is sitting in his living room sharing G& T’s with Suzanne, his wife. But seduction is the last thing on the man’s mind.File Download (16:28 min / 8 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Seventy-Two Mohammed and Youssef are brothers who blew themselves up and have collected their reward– eternity with seventy-two virgins– only it’s not quite as idyllic as they had hoped. What’s more, they aren’t alone. One of their neighbours is the reverend Jerry who is also trying to collect on his reward, but as with Mohammed and Youssef, things aren’t turning out just as the good reverend had expected.File Download (9:49 min / 5 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Couch Surfing and The Desiccator This episode features two short shorts. The first is Couch Surfing, about a guy who stays home from work to lie on his favourite sofa and click his remote between the Maury Show and Jerry Springer. But his Karma is off, given that he stole the sofa. He falls asleep, then wakes up all of a sudden facing something a little unexpected. The second story is The Desiccator, about a couple who come home from vacation and notice that their neighbour has left a D27 Desiccator at the end of the d ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Give Peace a Chance It was the best of busts; it was the worst of busts, the day I took down Tony Sarducci. There was once a time when we had such hopes for the man. It was nearly ten years ago now that he made the announcement. “I'm goin' clean,” he said. Even the papers picked it up. Front page news: “Sarducci runs a new game.” He gave us the feeling that anything was possible. Give Peace a Chance :: File Download (14:51 min / 7 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Yeskia 9mm Think dufferent! That’s the motto of Yeskia, the Swedish cell phone manufacturing giant. (It could’ve been “Think different!” but then they’d be just like everybody else.) To break into the American market with their latest product line, they decide to incorporate all their electronic devices (digicam, camcorder, mp3 player, browser, etc.) not into a conventional cell phone, but into something more widespread – the handgun. The result is the Yeskia 9m ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Public Works Why is the grass always greener … ? Why do we always feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses? And who the hell are the Joneses that we’d feel such a compulsion in the first place? Of course, when you dig a little deeper, you find that things aren’t always what they seem. Sometimes, it’s better if you don’t get what you want – especially when what you want comes from envy.File Download (12:54 min / 6 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Everlasting Gobstoppers Willy Wonka loves the Oompa-Loompas and they love him back. You see, they're funny looking: they're short and have orange skin, with rotten teeth and bad breath, and they sing the damnedest song. The first time he ever saw them, Willy's heart brimmed with compassion. It was a sordid business, off-loading kegs from the local brewery and finding themselves (there in the alley behind the Detroit Eatery) the unwilling participants in an impromptu dwarf-throwing contest.File Download (2:29 m ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jack the Giant Killer Doctor Horvath motioned for Jack to take a seat by the round, low coffee table while he settled himself in a swiveling chair in front of the bare desk, and then he turned to face Jack while resting his right elbow on the desk. He tore a marked page from his pad (with the logo of a pharmaceutical company in the lower right corner) and dated a fresh page. Jack’s file lay close at hand.File Download (12:09 min / 6 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sex With Dead People While cleaning a funerary vase from Queen Nefertiti’s tomb, a dweeb of an Egyptologist named Ikky gets some dirt on his collar which ends up on his paleontologist girlfriend’s lips. Interesting things happen between the two of them, but when Ikky suggests that it might have something to do with the dirt, his girlfriend laughs it off. Rubbish! And to prove how ridiculous Ikky’s theory is, she puts some dirt on his lips that comes from an Allosaurus she’s preparing ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Henry John Henry is a legend that pits humanity against the dehumanizing forces of technology – in this case the dehumanizing forces of a fancy schmancy lawn mower. Rick and John square off in a suburban lawn-mowing competition to see whether muscle and a good push mower can even come close to the efficiency of a top-of-the-line gas-powered mower. John Henry :: File Download (9:41 min / 4 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Letter from Nigeria Ever get one of those scam letters or emails from Nigeria? Who hasn’t? They’re the ones that ask for money to help administer the estate of some dead general who has millions locked up in a Swiss bank account. But what if … ? Here’s a story about someone who answers one of those scam letters – with unexpected results. Letter from Nigeria :: File Download (5:37 min / 3 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Model Abuser Ever run into someone who has difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction? Like the guy who believes everything an advertiser says about a product. “It’s the real thing. For a fresh clean scent. There’s no life like it.” Here’s a story about an encounter with such a person. A Model Abuser :: File Download (6:09 min / 3 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Metro Police, PCU Can political correctness go too far? Or are some people just such assholes that extraordinary measures are justified? Read a tale where special measures are used to deal with just such an asshole. Metro Police, PCU :: File Download (7:38 min / 4 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Alien Rednecks Here’s the story behind unexplained crop circles – as told by a redneck from a farm in the American midwest. Alien Rednecks :: File Download (19:20 min / 9 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Name is URL People who come late in life to the internet should proceed with caution. Terrible things can happen. My Name is URL :: File Download (8:46 min / 4 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Obituary What if you woke up one day and discovered that your obituary had been published in the newspaper? How would you deal with it? What about the person who was responsible for the mistake? How would he deal with it? This is a story about saving face. The Obituary :: File Download (9:55 min / 5 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website shock and awe we the implicated we the intricated we the strand and bolt of fabric woven tight like mother's love and screaming child ... (listen to the whole poem) shock and awe :: File Download (1:20 min / 1 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Beetles Nowadays we live in a global economy, which means we also share one another’s insects. Bugs from one part of the world sometimes aren’t suited to other parts of the world. This is a story about how things go wrong with the Asian Long-Horned Beetle. Keep a close watch on your children. The Beetles :: File Download (9:27 min / 4 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Book Environmentalism is a huge issue – perhaps THE issue. Certainly it’s a huge issue from the environment’s point of view. We should be careful; the environment might be plotting its revenge. The Book :: File Download (7:00 min / 3 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Unmoved The ceiling fan above doesn't turn. It waits on a switch that never trips. The snow outside sits cold and white. It waits on a sun that never shines. The world is a head with empty sockets spinning itself into nothing and nothing stirs me as I lie on my bed and see how the ceiling fan above doesn't turn. ... (listen to the whole poem) Unmoved :: File Download (1:48 min / 1 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Green Pill Ever have to pee when you’re riding the subway? What happens if the train gets stuck in a tunnel when you’re sitting desperately holding it in? This is one person’s account of a bladder emergency. The Green Pill :: File Download (6:53 min / 3 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The colour-dappled lie Do you wonder what I do now I'm gone away from you? Do you imagine how I live with the freedom that you give? Do you stand alone and gaze at the brightly whorled haze from my spackled palette knife that paints a lustrous life? Or do you look with clearer eye past the colour-dappled lie to the worn concrete greys of my empty days? Or do you call me back to you in a soft and pastel hue arguing the virtue of what passed for love? Though I wish to lie with you it is the lie I must undo. Only wh ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Age of Radicals When I was a teen it was inconceivable that I might find radical tucked in the folds of an old man's face. Now in my forties (though with a boy's libido) I see in the mirror how the first lines crack my youthful veneer. From mid-day the dawn light looks the same as the dusk. Which explains why old fogies spend so much time counting change at the check out: they're protesting something. Age of Radicals :: File Download (0:32 min / 0 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Pike The thing about a pike that makes it doubly cruel is the way its shaft can sway when it's blown by ridicule. ... (listen to the whole poem) The Pike :: File Download (1:08 min / 1 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Do Not Speak Do not speak I cannot listen Do not beckon I cannot watch Do not summon I cannot answer Do not rail I cannot wince I want only to curl myself on the floor and feel my ribs pressed to the tiles. I wish I had their hardness. I wish I were ceramic. Do Not Speak :: File Download (0:31 min / 0 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shitting Whitman My standard poodle ate Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass in ropey coils on the lawn) I stoop and wrap my fingers around warm Song-Of-My-Self turds. She winces at the stanza that she squeezes from her anus. Do I constipate myself? Very well then I constipate myself. I am large. I contain multitudes. And I wonder if Whitman had to work so hard to get his words out in the first place. Shitting Whitman :: File Download (0:34 min / 0 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website columbines columbines betray last year's scattering of seed by straying from the well-kept bed and springing unruly from the lawn i want to tear them out and bring order to my jealous yard maybe I should collect crystals and arrange them neatly on a shelf but the suggestion prompts your laughter bursting through the spring air the columbines are beautiful with downcast gaze and slender neck they have their infidelities but i will tend them still columbine :: File Download (0:35 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The 7th Commandment sometimes we desire what we cannot have but unable to extinguish the desire we fan ourselves into a roaring flame and so we rage and we flare but consume nothing from this god utters forth the usual useless shit then obedience comes not from love but from its failure we draw on god's teat like sucklings on an ashen nub The 7th Commandment :: File Download (0:35 min / 0 MB) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website