Escape Artists

PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on May 24, 2011, 07:53:35 AM

Title: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Ocicat on May 24, 2011, 07:53:35 AM
PodCastle 158: Gone Daddy Gone (http://podcastle.org/2011/05/24/podcastle-158-gone-daddy-gone/)

by Josh Rountree (http://www.joshrountree.com/)

Read by Dave Thompson (http://krylyr.livejournal.com/)


Originally Published in Lone Star Stories (http://literary.erictmarin.com/archives/Issue%2032/index.htm). (Read the story here (http://literary.erictmarin.com/archives/Issue%2032/gone.htm))

He remembers Priscilla in the surf with her sisters.  That image will never leave him no matter how many miles she runs, Prissy wearing not a stitch, gold hair plastered to her back as she paddled the surfboard out far enough to catch the big waves, and then the turn of her head and the silent laugh at something one of her sisters said and Moon Doggie could just make out the silver glint of her eyes and that was it, done deal, he was in love and there was no turning back.

Six leather jackets lay sunning on the rocks.  Moon Doggie braved the crashing waves and found the one he knew was hers. Still couldn’t say how he knew but he knew.  Snatched it up, took it back to his T-Bird.  It smelled like the earth and the sky.  The leather was cracked and ancient.

Moon Doggie watched them throughout the afternoon.  He felt a shiver and a sudden queasiness when they finally started swimming for shore, surfboards abandoned to the sea.  They saw him, all of those silver eyes, but kept their distance.  Wet arms slipped into jacket sleeves.  An eruption of euphoric smiles and then they were airborne, lifted up in a sudden storm of feathers.

Moon Doggie wasn’t the least bit surprised.


Rated R: Contains some funky language, Daddy-O.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: RomaLisa on May 24, 2011, 09:41:30 AM
I was still listening to the closing credits of this amazing story while (finally!) signing up for the Forum.  Wow!  Echoes of one of my favorite books, Gaiman's American Gods, but still with its own distinctive voice and characters, Gone Daddy Gone has me longing to hear more about its universe.  Pretty please?  Thanks, Podcastle and the Escape Artists podcasts, for giving me so many wonderful stories!
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Josh Rountree on May 24, 2011, 01:09:25 PM
Thanks for the kind words, RomaLisa!  Really glad you dug this story.  Gaiman is a writer I love and definitely an influence.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Scattercat on May 25, 2011, 10:32:44 PM
Awesome story!  <3 a proper miffic tone.  I'm amused that the 1950's are now also up for mythologizing, and the blend of the two was intriguing and rife with possibilities.  (I am reminded of one of the most sadly underutilized characters I know, an offhand joke from a couple of issues of Astro City: the Bouncing Beatnik, a sort of 1950's Spiderman agility-based hero, who appears in like three panels ever.)

At least now I know why my thunderbird-themed story got rejected.  It kind of sucks in comparison.  Ah, well.  We live and learn.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Listener on May 26, 2011, 10:51:16 AM
To me this felt like a pretty standard "journey" story combined with a pretty standard "guy captures a mythological creature" story, except that in the case of the latter she's totally cool with it. Then it was dressed up in what I'm guessing* is Kerouac-ian slang/patois. I enjoyed listening to it, but I didn't think there was anything special about it one way or the other.

* Because I've never read Kerouac, or any of the other beat poets.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Anarquistador on May 27, 2011, 11:28:10 AM
* Because I've never read Kerouac, or any of the other beat poets.

You're not missing much.

I share your opinion. I'm not a big fan of the Beat era or that whole Southern California 1960's surfer culture, so this really didn't grab my attention. It was a decent reimagined fairy tale, but I just didn't care for the setting.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: kibitzer on May 30, 2011, 08:50:22 AM
Loved the story, it rolled along just fine with itself, just fine, man! I didn't quite understand the need for it but I don't think that was the point and it ended up quite nicely anyway. Actually I didn't find the beatnik stuff overpowering or overdone, more like an appropriate smattering over the whole.

And now, apropos of (almost) nothing, here's a link to The Three Little Bops (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-_ck7AHKKE).
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Devoted135 on May 31, 2011, 01:36:36 PM
Oh, now I get it! This is one of those times when reading the discussion sheds some much needed light on the purpose/plot of the story for me. Seriously, the whole time I was a little bit distracted because the experiment I was working on took 25% of my brain instead of the usual 15% so I kept feeling like I was missing something. But putting it in the context of 1950's beat makes total sense. :)

I liked the concept that time effectively stood still while they were together, but ultimately I don't understand why that was the case? Is that a reference to something from the mythology aspect that I'm just not familiar with?
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Scattercat on May 31, 2011, 06:18:51 PM
Well, there's any number of old myths in which the hero stumbles out of Faerie or wherever to discover that what he thought was a day was a hundred years or what he thought was a lifetime was a day, etc.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Spindaddy on June 01, 2011, 09:06:09 PM
I thought it was a fun little romp, but I spent more time trying to figure out which fairy tale it was reskinning. I've been racking my brain over which one it was and for the life of me I have no idea.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Scattercat on June 02, 2011, 03:17:04 AM
I thought it was a fun little romp, but I spent more time trying to figure out which fairy tale it was reskinning. I've been racking my brain over which one it was and for the life of me I have no idea.

Most of it was referring to the Native American tradition of bird-people (or other animal-people; I've read deer-based versions, too) who remove their animal skins as cloaks in order to bathe, at which point the canny man can snag the cloak and bind the animal-person to him as his wife.  These stories usually end in tears for pretty much everyone involved.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Sgarre1 on June 02, 2011, 03:25:56 AM
The Orkney Islands Selkie is a similar myth.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: mbrennan on June 03, 2011, 08:21:30 AM
Unfortunately, I've discovered that I am a bad audience for this kind of relationship: the minute he took her jacket, I didn't like him, and her saying later that she would have stayed with him anyway didn't fix it.  (I think I'm too familiar with the source tales, where taking the seal-skin or whatever pretty much means taking away the woman's freedom and agency.)  So I didn't like the protagonist and wasn't invested in the relationship, and then on top of that I just couldn't take the period slang seriously.

Which boils down to: not a bad story, I think, but not one that worked for me, either.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: blueeyeddevil on June 03, 2011, 10:58:45 AM
The Orkney Islands Selkie is a similar myth.

Yeah, my synopsis of this story, when asked, was "The Secret of Roan Inish," with Fonzie.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Gamercow on June 04, 2011, 03:31:00 AM
I liked this story when I was listening to it, and was unaware of the source myths, and things make more sense after learning about them, thanks Scattercat!
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: InfiniteMonkey on June 04, 2011, 04:33:19 PM
The Orkney Islands Selkie is a similar myth.

Yeah, my synopsis of this story, when asked, was "The Secret of Roan Inish," with Fonzie.

Not exactly. More like Frankie Avalon.   :)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Salul on June 05, 2011, 02:33:05 AM
I'm not too crazy about 1950s surfer culture, nor about the storyline either.

But kudos to Josh, because he did an outstanding storytelling job, and that is what kept me listening to the very end.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: blueeyeddevil on June 07, 2011, 10:50:24 AM
The Orkney Islands Selkie is a similar myth.

Yeah, my synopsis of this story, when asked, was "The Secret of Roan Inish," with Fonzie.

Not exactly. More like Frankie Avalon.   :)

Fair enough.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Corcoran on June 07, 2011, 11:58:43 AM
I worked my way up from story one to 92, about a lot of them I wanted to write, but what sense is there to comment on stories long gone.

So I broke free of listening my way to the newest and listen to this story, hoping to give praise .....
but then this.

A collection of words nothing more , an empty story, a main character I could not understand or feel with, this was one of the most useless
stories. 
But I promised myself to write this time, so here it is.

Maybe it is because this story touches some things that are not fantasy but more american, and if, as a foreigner like me, you dont understand
America than the story has no chance to give me something.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Lionman on June 07, 2011, 03:13:11 PM
I like how the story flowed, though it felt a little nebulous, or far-reaching at times.  Not so much that it turned me off to the story, but kept me asking how much disbelief I was supposed to be suspending.  But, when we get to the beach at the end, I found myself well-pleased with the resolution of the story.

Well, that and my first car was a '78 Thunderbird. :-)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Scattercat on June 07, 2011, 08:14:53 PM
Maybe it is because this story touches some things that are not fantasy but more american, and if, as a foreigner like me, you dont understand America than the story has no chance to give me something.

It's definitely a story about a particular time and place.  Personally, I think I could get almost equally behind a story about a similarly vivid decade from another country; it's not like I lived through the fifties myself, so I'm functionally a foreigner there, as well.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Wilson Fowlie on June 07, 2011, 08:50:51 PM
Maybe it is because this story touches some things that are not fantasy but more american, and if, as a foreigner like me, you dont understand America than the story has no chance to give me something.

It's definitely a story about a particular time and place.  Personally, I think I could get almost equally behind a story about a similarly vivid decade from another country; it's not like I lived through the fifties myself, so I'm functionally a foreigner there, as well.

Yes, but there's 'foreigner' and then there's foreigner!; because you are only foreign in time, not place (as much), you may not have lived it, but you've seen/read/heard depictions of the time or even satire or parodies of the then-common tropes, and - maybe most importantly - you've absorbed, likely without even being aware of it, the cultural results of that time, the bits that bled into the mainstream with few even noticing. And only a very few of those who do notice are among those who grew up with those bits already there.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: DKT on June 07, 2011, 09:41:48 PM
Maybe it is because this story touches some things that are not fantasy but more american, and if, as a foreigner like me, you dont understand America than the story has no chance to give me something.

It's definitely a story about a particular time and place.  Personally, I think I could get almost equally behind a story about a similarly vivid decade from another country; it's not like I lived through the fifties myself, so I'm functionally a foreigner there, as well.

Yes, but there's 'foreigner' and then there's foreigner!; because you are only foreign in time, not place (as much), you may not have lived it, but you've seen/read/heard depictions of the time or even satire or parodies of the then-common tropes, and - maybe most importantly - you've absorbed, likely without even being aware of it, the cultural results of that time, the bits that bled into the mainstream with few even noticing. And only a very few of those who do notice are among those who grew up with those bits already there.

This week's PodCastle (After October) may prove to be the true test! ;)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: jenfullmoon on June 07, 2011, 10:06:01 PM
I'm not normally into the 50's and am clueless on surfer culture and generally find selkie-skin stories sad, but I liked this story. It's sad but it works.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Wilson Fowlie on June 08, 2011, 10:33:02 PM
This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freed) may explain why MoonDog Moon Doggie didn't want to leave the 50s...
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Ashleigh on June 12, 2011, 09:57:28 PM
I loved this story because of its connection to the aboriginal folk tale. From the beginning it sounded familiar, though it took me awhile to figure it out. The version I knew as a kid was called "The Princess and the Geese" from The Canadian Children's Treasury, and it was one of my favourites in the book; I still think of it often. This version sounds incredibly similar, but seems to use an American bird. I liked this re-telling because it felt like a more grown-up version of the story I loved as a child.

My only complaint is the strong emphasis on the "Americanness" of the story. I almost laughed out loud when the main character said something along the lines of, "We're Americans; we can do anything!" I have no problem with Americans (in fact, when I took a trip down the west coast of the States last year, everyone I met was incredibly friendly and welcoming) but that attitude sounds pretty silly sometimes. Though perhaps that was the point the author was trying to make?

Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Gamercow on June 13, 2011, 01:43:37 AM
I almost laughed out loud when the main character said something along the lines of, "We're Americans; we can do anything!" I have no problem with Americans (in fact, when I took a trip down the west coast of the States last year, everyone I met was incredibly friendly and welcoming) but that attitude sounds pretty silly sometimes.

Silly, perhaps, but absolutely accurate to 1950's America.  There was a definite sense of "We can do anything!" in this country at that time.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Listener on June 13, 2011, 02:17:55 PM

Yes, but there's 'foreigner' and then there's foreigner!;

There's also Foreigner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUG9Gh2vLLI&playnext=1&list=PLC3F421C52FEBFC1E
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Wildfire on June 16, 2011, 04:37:50 PM
I'm not really a fan of 50's America stories, and I prefer stories where I sympathise with the main character (which I didn't here). I also don't know much about Native American folklore, but despite all of this I really enjoyed the story.

So to make someone enjoy a story, and really LISTEN to it, when they have no particular reason to, means it must be really well written. Well done!
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: LaShawn on June 20, 2011, 03:28:35 PM
This story had me from the first word, namely, "Dig."

I really enjoyed Dave's reading of this. I have a sort of love interest in the Beat generation, and I loved "On the Road." even though half the time I had no clue what it was about. I think my favorite part was the black man and how he was also caught up in the magic of it, even affecting his language so that he sounded exactly like Moondoggie, but how he was still eager for change.

Good story, and great reading, Dave!
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: stePH on June 20, 2011, 07:35:35 PM

Yes, but there's 'foreigner' and then there's foreigner!;

There's also Foreigner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUG9Gh2vLLI&playnext=1&list=PLC3F421C52FEBFC1E

And, of course, Foreigner:

(http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4001.jpg)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Spindaddy on June 22, 2011, 06:00:30 AM
I thought it was a fun little romp, but I spent more time trying to figure out which fairy tale it was reskinning. I've been racking my brain over which one it was and for the life of me I have no idea.

Most of it was referring to the Native American tradition of bird-people (or other animal-people; I've read deer-based versions, too) who remove their animal skins as cloaks in order to bathe, at which point the canny man can snag the cloak and bind the animal-person to him as his wife.  These stories usually end in tears for pretty much everyone involved.
Well, in that case I'm glad that it stopped where it did. :)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Rough Week on June 22, 2011, 06:21:14 PM
Since Dave included my thoughts on The Hortlak in the feedback segment of this episode, I wanted to add to the discussion of this story (and others). My prior comments were somewhat of a rant, and it'd do PodCastle a great injustice if the one comment I shared was so negative, when overall PodCastle is such an outstanding podcast, with wonderful stories and excellent narration and production!

I liked this story, it was a very enjoyable ride. I especially liked the characters. Moon Doggy was a good protagonist, with a good mix of motivations. He was basically a good guy, and just wanted to be with the one he fell in love with. But he's done some things he's not proud of in pursuit of that, and fights with fear and uncertainty. Which of us cannot say that about ourselves? And Prissy is an interesting character. Captured and wings clipped, but still returning love. Her balance of knowing she needs to make drastic changes to restore a natural balance, but being laid back about it and wanting the best for Moon Doggy, seems to fit well with the California surfer vibe.

Dave did an awesome job at the narration; I don't know who could have done this particular piece better. He played the "surfer dude" theme well, and I greatly enjoyed listening to this one.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Mav.Weirdo on July 10, 2011, 07:46:26 PM
I'm not a fan of this story, for the same reasons I didn't like "California King". The California Fantasy subgenre doesn't really speak to me.

Sorry Dave, I don't mean to pick on stories you read. I don't have any problem with your reading, it's the editor's fault for choosing the story. Oh wait...
 ;)
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Leslianne on August 02, 2011, 08:32:56 PM
I may just be bringing personal issues to bear here, but I have to agree with Mbrennan- I couldn't like Moondoggie. I feel like the author was directing us at several points to the idea that he's kind of well-meaning but gormless (he'd grown a goatee and read Kerouac, so he knew about freedom, but what did that have to do with Prissy?), but I can't get over Moondoggie's tacit understanding that because he loves her it's okay that he steals a piece of her and keeps it locked away. And because she doesn't fight back it means he's entitled to keep her forever. And the fact that she cares about him too doesn't soften that relationship dynamic enough to make me sympathetic to him. I spent a lot of the story hoping he never found her, and she got to go home without ever having to see him again, but she didn't seem to have any agency in that either. It was just her going along with an abduction by her original world, the same way she'd gone along with him.

Also, I thought the story with the swan sisters and their dresses was a European story?
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: stePH on August 16, 2011, 03:00:35 AM
Yawn, daddy, yawn.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: Unblinking on October 24, 2011, 01:54:04 PM
I guess I didn't really get this one.  I've never understood the fascination with road trips, or road trip stories, so I'm probably just not the target audience on this one.

I tend to like Manic Pixie Dream Girl type stories, but the ones that are really effective are the ones where I can really fall into the character's mind and I feel a bit like I've fallen for the girl myself.  In this case, I didn't really get her appeal, and so the relationship and the road trip chase didn't really get me worked up. 

His stealing of the jacket did put me in mind of Selkies as well, which made me root for the protagonist even less, forcing her as he was.


I worked my way up from story one to 92, about a lot of them I wanted to write, but what sense is there to comment on stories long gone.

Plenty of sense.  I like reading people's comments on stories, old or new.  I don't know about anyone else.  :)


Maybe it is because this story touches some things that are not fantasy but more american, and if, as a foreigner like me, you dont understand
America than the story has no chance to give me something.

It might be something more geared towards Americans but, as an American, I didn't really get it.  Then again, I also don't like baseball, and apple pie is near the bottom of my favorite dessert list.
Title: Re: PC158: Gone Daddy Gone
Post by: justenjoying on January 09, 2012, 06:06:21 AM
I loved this from beggining to end. An adult fairytale about love, and the fear of change. It's weird, pycadelic and awsome. I really enjoyed everymoment and it stayed as vividly in my mind as that day on the beach.