The TV Static Lies 2/3 with Rashawn Scott

[00:00:00] Rusty Quill Presents Push The Roll with Ross Bryant is intended for mature listeners only. Check the show notes for content warnings and please listen with care. Want to get involved? Back us on Patreon and submit your ideas for our improvised games. Your suggestion just might inspire our next Call of Cthulhu adventure. Join today at patreon.com slash push the roll.

[00:00:26] Today's show is sponsored by Die Hard Dice, who is offering our listeners a special discount code to use at their website, dieharddice.com. So just head on over there and use the discount code PTR to get 10% off your order. Die Hard Dice has been great to work with and are genuinely fans of this show, which was super endearing and I appreciate it so much. The dice themselves are really high quality and come with a lifetime guarantee. I'm loving all the awesome colors and hues that they come in.

[00:00:55] And I especially love the little dice tray scroll that I got where it rolls out into a dice tray, but each umbilicus of the scroll is a little caddy that you can put your dice into. It's perfect for packing it down if you need to go to a convention or a friend's house to play in person, which people actually still do. So head on over to dieharddice.com and punch in the discount code PTR for 10% off your order.

[00:01:18] You see into the office, the flickering fluorescent light inside. There's a computer and a television and movie posters up on the wall. From your perspective here on the floor, you see a hand lifting papers off of a desk, like string them aside.

[00:01:50] It looks as though they're looking frantically, pushing the papers around on the desk as though they're looking for something on the desk. And then you realize that they're not pushing the papers around because they're looking for something. They're pushing the papers around looking for purchase because your, as your eyes move up, you can see that what is happening is the hands are scraping across the desk.

[00:02:15] The nails digging into the wood of the desk by the keyboard of the computer. And from your perspective only, you are seeing the hands grasping at the table as they are pulled helplessly into the television. The screen of it is sucking whoever this was inside. And then like the fluorescent lights flicker and then dark.

[00:02:51] Please roll sanity for me. Yeah. It's in this moment. I realized I had a low starting sand. So let's see how this goes. Yeah. Mark Tucker gave this character 40 starting sand. Could be worse. Oh, diehard dice. I love you, but I did fail. I love you, diehard dice. 58 over 40. I'm realizing that I almost never have you roll your sanity loss. I almost always do it for you.

[00:03:20] I'd like to make this your problem. Can you roll a D6 for me? Because you didn't just see something violent. You didn't see something disturbing. Daz, you saw something impossible. Yes. D6 seems fair for this. A five. It's a five. All right. This is bad, Katie. If, if, uh, yeah, this is bad.

[00:03:48] If you were all five in one go, it's. That means that this is a real strain on your sanity, Daz. Oh my God. And I mean, I understand you're a very sane. Appearing person, but you've got a morbid streak. As much of a golden retriever as you may be. You're still fascinated by Hellraiser. And you saw a lot of people. And you just saw something like it's from out of one of the movies that you like, but that can't possibly be happening. Can it?

[00:04:17] Roll intelligence for me and see if you understand anything about what it is that you just saw. I think he saw Poltergeist at a very young age because it was rated PG when they didn't have PG-13 as a rating. So his parents were like, oh, yeah, you can watch that. And like the TV static kind of traumatized him. So this is hitting him a little harder than maybe it would hit other people. Yeah. You're seeing something right out of Poltergeist. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Tucker. I see you.

[00:04:46] I have a high end and a low sand. I see you. Oh my God. I continue to fail. I rolled a 90. Okay. A 93. You want to fail this though. This is when you want to fail. 93 over 80. Wow. Okay. Well, this is a shock, but it does not drive you temporarily insane. Good. But you still saw something utterly impossible. Yeah.

[00:05:13] And when the rest of you come into the room, you see a heap of adult VHSs covering the wide-eyed Daz Typhair and the darkness of the office within. And he still is going to have a big involuntary reaction, right? Because of the five point sand loss. So what you're going to see is him like getting to his feet really clumsily. And he's just going to run into the office and knock the TV off the desk. What? I was using that.

[00:05:44] Whoa. Something. Daz, calm down, man. My movie. I'm so sorry, but something got sucked into the TV. What are you talking about? Are you trying to scare us? It's like Poltergeist. Remember I told you to watch Poltergeist? Steven Spielberg. I don't know why you wouldn't watch it. But something got sucked into the TV. I saw these arms and they were... Shh. I'm running over. He's talking about this. I'm running over to the TV to pick it up, put it back there and plug my stuff back in.

[00:06:14] See, did I lose my work? I was editing on this, right? Oh, I think we'd put... There's a lot of TVs in here. Okay. So this might be a separate one. There's one behind the... The one that we saw you working on was behind the customer service counter. Was not... You're right. That was out in the front. Correct. Okay, good. This one is now on the floor, but you're kind of cradling it. It's still plugged in, but the screen is now cracked. And it's just showing static. Shuddering and strobing there on the screen.

[00:06:43] Oh, man. The cosmos is a cyclopean infinity of chaos. Infinite branching paths stretching off to vistas in the distance that will drive the mind mad. Shall we shrink in the face of all this? Or will we climb aboard the chaos and ride it to the end, letting chance guide the way?

[00:07:13] This is Push the Roll. We're rolling dice against your Patreon suggestions to create improvised Call of Cthulhu adventures in real time, with themes of eldritch horror, the weird, the transhuman, the transmundane, the cyberpunk, the splatterpunk, the anything-punk. We don't know until we roll. Anytime, anyplace, anything can happen. When you push the roll. You have to believe me, you just...

[00:07:44] Edith? I don't know, man. It looks like you just barreled in here and just destroyed things, but... You know, I wouldn't do that. No, I know. I know you care about the place, and it's just... It's hard to believe. I believe that something... You endured something, but I don't... Yeah, are you sure you just didn't see, like, the guy who snuck in here and got... Yes, I did! Spooked? He's in the fucking TV, Allison! What?

[00:08:13] In the TV. Like, mic TV. Should we try to turn on the TV or something? Ugh. Yeah. There's static strobing on its cracked surface right now, Liz. It's in fact the only source of light in this room. Oh. Everything in here seems... Is occasionally eerily underlit by this burst of static aimed up from the ground. That is apart from the sickly pinkish glow of the adult film area. Ooh.

[00:08:43] But the rest of you are perhaps, like, your wheels are turning now. You saw whoever this was go in the back door. Or... It goes into the bathroom. The bathroom has a door in from the interior of the, uh, video store. And it has a door out to the back alley. So you saw someone come in here. But you just traversed the entire interior of this space. And they're not in here. And that doesn't really seem to make much sense. Unless they made really short work of it. But you heard them in here. Where did they go? Shh.

[00:09:12] Where do you think that guy... Could he be in, like, the walls? Oh my gosh. That is the creepiest thing anyone has ever said, Liz. Is it a guy in the walls? I'm sorry. I don't know. Or maybe, like, up above. Maybe in, like, the ceiling. Do we... Yeah, is it a drop ceiling? Kind of a ceiling? It's got those, like, soft, almost, like, corkboard... Yeah. ...rectangles. Yep. I mean, you can crawl around up there. But you would just, you know... You gotta be little. Like, I did it when I was, like, six.

[00:09:42] Oh. Yeah. It couldn't really bear an adult's weight, you think. This isn't the Breakfast Club. He's in the TV. Daz, I don't think he is. Look, let me just... I'm gonna unplug the TV and turn it off. And it's gonna stop bothering you, okay? No, watch. He's gonna touch the TV screen just to see if his hand goes through it. It's eerily hot. Oh, my God. Feel this. It's... It shouldn't be like... It shouldn't be this hot. Liz! Whoa.

[00:10:13] Hmm. Yeah. It is really hot. For now, I'll ask, can you make a spot hidden in here? Because it does look like there's chaos in here. Like, someone was in here because there are papers and things scattered everywhere. And I'll set out the spot hidden because he's just kind of, like, leaning against the desk now, trying to collect himself. Yeah. 43 under 60. I failed mine, but I'm close. But I won't spend the luck if you've seen.

[00:10:43] I rolled a 2 on a 30. Oh. Oh, amazing. Oh. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Liz. So, Edith, you got a regular success? Yes. Okay. Edith got a regular success. Liz got an extreme success. Edith, you're looking at just a scattering of papers around here. And I bet you spend more time in this room than almost anybody else.

[00:11:04] Because as the owner's child, you're maybe doing some bookkeeping and just keeping track of all the paperwork. And also, let's be real, probably sneaking back here to smoke out every now and then. Hey, the ventilation in here is subpar, which makes it an excellent place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, you rarely call this the office. It's mostly just referred to as the hot box. Yeah. And not just because of its proximity to the porno section.

[00:11:35] You're going to have to reshelve those, though, Daz. But what you notice is that you look over this scene that you're familiar with, and you see some order in this chaos. It looks as though someone was pulling logbooks off a wall or maybe trying to get into the computer to look at schedules of rentals, trying to find a particular rental date and title.

[00:12:04] It looks almost as though someone was going back through the catalogs that you used to decide what videos you should hang on to, and if they aren't rented, which ones you should try to sell. And you keep logs of this, and logs, too, of your faithful customers will sometimes log their entries, and you can keep track of who's renting what. And it looks like someone was trying to get into those types of records. Liz, you got an extreme success. Yes. You see something that doesn't belong in this room.

[00:12:32] There's a tiny little mead notepad, one of those marble-covered mead notepads that is tumbled out into the floor. Mm-hmm. And you recognize it immediately. Mm-hmm. Because you recognize the name on the front. Ah! No! Property of Keef Simcoe. Oh, no.

[00:12:56] And then I pick it up, and I turn it to everyone, and I say, Guys? Was Keith in here? Maybe that was Keith that you saw, but why would he come in here, and why would he drop his notebook? He was looking for something. Oh, is there any movie or title or anything written in the notebook? Here, let me look. All right. We're going through a book. Yeah.

[00:13:26] Um, at this moment, tring-tring, a customer's coming in. You guys aren't closed yet. Like, hello? Uh, thank you. We'll be right with you in just a second. Check these logs. If there's a movie that he wanted, he may have written it down and he was looking for it. Or look through all the members and see who's rented that movie most recently. I'll go check out the front. Okay. Can I come with you, Edith? Yeah, Des, come with me. Let's drink some water and calm down, bud. I gotta get out of here.

[00:13:55] So, Allison and Liz, it sounds like you're staying in the office and looking over this thing. Yeah. Yes. This, I think, would be a library use or maybe a language-owned role. But if there's some other skill that you'd like to bring to bear as far as your ability to kind of find relevant information in this notebook. I have language Icelandic for some reason. If that, if it's written in Icelandic. Ooh.

[00:14:24] You know, skull. I know that word. Wow. Okay. This really helps you. This really helps run your Bjork fan page. Yeah. Yes. Oh, no. My GeoCities Bjork fan page. I think library use is probably best for me. Me too. Great. I think you both can roll library use. Yeah. I rolled back. I did a 99 on a 45. Oh. Did you now? Yes, I did.

[00:14:53] Oh, no. Sorry. 78 over 20. So that's a fail, but mine's not a fumble. We took all the unlucky dice from Die Hard Dice, so the ones you order will succeed. So what Allison did, I think, was just like maybe almost like pull the book out of your hands, Liz, and start flipping through it.

[00:15:21] But it's, you know, it's the pencil script of a young man, and it's kind of hard to read. I can't read any of this chicken scratch. Do you really like this guy with this kind of handwriting, Liz? There's also like pictures like taped in here. It seems almost like an artsy project kind of book. And as it's passed back to Liz, and oh my gosh, you can kind of like, you can smell his cool water cologne like on this book. Yeah.

[00:15:51] Oh, yeah. It smells really good, though. Okay. That's true. That is true. Scent is such a powerful like sensory, you know, like we have a lot of memories and emotions. Yes, absolutely. I'm going to remember that. Okay. Well, okay. He's mine. So as Allison Cold contemplates the potentials for smell-o-vision in her upcoming film. He is. Liz, what you did is you failed, but you failed by a lot.

[00:16:21] A lot. You got a 99. Over a 40, I think it was? Over a 45. So that's what we call in this game a fumble. Oh, yeah. So that means that something bad happens. To me? Yeah. Yeah. No. But don't worry. Because as I like to say, sometimes a fumble means you succeed, but more so. Yeah. You're thumbing through this notebook.

[00:16:51] It appears at first like a diary. Ooh, maybe he wrote about me. Yeah. An earnest and artistically inclined kid. You can see him complaining about like work at the Jolly Roger. You can see him logging movies that he's watched, that he's rented from you. You come to a page and it's like a pencil, almost like charcoal sketch of you, like leaning on the counter at the video store. Oh, my God. Like kind of in profile.

[00:17:22] It's so good. It's so good. Wow. That actually is really good. I didn't even know he did this. It's kind of creepy. He just drew you without you realizing. It's really sweet, actually. Oh, okay. If you're cool with it, I guess. Yeah. And as you look through, you realize that the back half of the book has another handwriting in it. Ah. You kind of look at this breach between the two handwritings. I'll just give you some things that you see here.

[00:17:47] You look at the last little few pages of Keith's writing and things that are standing out are not possible. It's just not possible. I just can't get it out of my mind. I think I might need to see it again. And then there are just drawings also in that same kind of charcoal hand. These aren't a view. And they're also not a people.

[00:18:16] Like these strange shadowy arms and what look like just kind of these distended forms. And then as you turn into this other handwriting, these are just more dry notes. Asta's boss hasn't seen him. Ask mom hasn't heard from him. School doesn't seem to know. What did he show us?

[00:18:47] Why would he have done it? Could it have been that... Okay. Going to check neighborhood video. No one else can see it. That is what you kind of glean. Then I'll just give you... As you thumb back, there's almost like a dog-eared page. It's not Icelandic. It looks to be Russian. Oh.

[00:19:15] He has written it out in Cyrillic. The... D'Zilly... Leto? That's what you get. And then as you flip the page, you see one more of his drawings. And as you look at it, the room seems to turn around you. The gradations of the charcoal are creating a like magic eye effect.

[00:19:46] As you look at it, the charcoal drawing resembles nothing so much as static. There seem to be like little bulges in it. Writing seems to resolve in it as your eyes kind of cross and loosen. And then you sort of become aware of a face in it. Looking back at you through the drawing. Oh. Roll sanity? All right.

[00:20:13] Oh, I rolled a 10 on an 80. You have an 80 sanity? Yes. Oh my god. Well, you're solid as a rock then. It's just a weird drawing. Liz is very secure. That was weird. It was like a weird man. I don't know. I'm gonna close this. Okay. What do you say? He was like looking for a movie he watched from here? Yeah.

[00:20:43] He was. So do you think this drawing of me means that he was into me or? Yes. I actually do think that. I think absolutely. Wow. Like that is actually something out of a movie. You know, like you find the notebook and he's drawing a picture of you and that's how you know he loves you. We definitely need to find him. Yeah. And just to kind of summarize what it is that you've gleaned from this thing. Sounds like he's missing. Sounds like whoever this was was looking for him.

[00:21:12] And you've got these peculiar drawings. I assume you don't have language Russian or language Ukrainian or... No. It just says, V-D-Zilly-leto? I wonder what this means. If only I had a small device in my pocket I could pull out and type into and it would just give me all the information. Whoa. That was a weird thing to say. It was a weird thing to say. You're right. I get crazy ideas sometimes. Huh. Is old yeller...

[00:21:41] Be honest with me. Is old yeller gonna be too sad for my seven-year-old daughter? Oh, tragic. Honestly. Why don't you try Where the Red Fern Grows? Oh. Still kind of like that sentimental thing but not as, you know, if you want to get a puppy later in life, you're not going to have this bigger conversation. Okay. I just... I've had bad luck the past few movies I've shown them. Let's just say The NeverEnding Story never ended. Oh. Once that horse went into the swamp.

[00:22:12] Yeah. That was my weekend. So... Atreyu. It's, you know, tragic. Or I'd say get over to the Don Bluth section. Have you checked out Rock-A-Doodle? Okay. And this satisfied customer rents Rock-A-Doodle in Where the Red Fern Grows. I think if it's okay, as this conversation is happening, I think Allison, maybe pulling Liz with her, if she'll come with her, kind of bursts through and is saying, Don't we have videos like learn language videos? Oh, yeah.

[00:22:42] Yeah. Yeah. There's got to be... Like, maybe we have like a How to Speak Russian. Eat it. Yeah. Do we have a How to Speak Russian video? Well, I know there's French language ones, so there's got to be that one, too. To the international section. Okay. We have Dr. Zhivago. I don't think we're going to learn from that, though, Das. We could put on the Russian subtitles, maybe. I don't think we have that version. If only there were menus on the movies. If only.

[00:23:12] Well, that's a weird thing to say. Yeah. Crazy idea. My nose is bleeding. I grab the stepladder to go to the higher shelf where there are more foreign language films and maybe some educational ones, too. Be careful, Edith. That's a rickety ladder. Uh-oh. Roll climb. Roll climb. Oh, okay. Foreshadowing. Do I show everyone also the book? Like, I feel like I'd catch... That's up to you, yeah.

[00:23:41] Yeah, if you want to. Oh, no. What? I'm 84 over 60 for the climb. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't really mean for you to have to roll something. But that's up to Ross. Oh, okay. Well... I'm just fooling. You can climb a stepladder. But it takes so long. It's like my feet are filled with cement. If Liz is showing us the notebook, Ross, would I know... Because I've watched Keith make hundreds of sandwiches. Yes.

[00:24:10] Would I know if those were his arms and hands that got sucked into the TV? Oh. Yes. His forearms are so distinct. His veins really pop. He's got, like, a little tattoo, maybe. Ooh. Of you? It says Liz. Mm-hmm. No, I don't think it would be me. Now that's creepy. That would be so creepy. That you only see through his plastic gloves when he's making sandwiches. That's true.

[00:24:39] I've only seen them through plastic gloves. Maybe that's a penalty die. Um, yeah. In my own head, based upon what we've established, it sounded like you saw this silhouette that did not resemble Keith. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You've also had this notebook where the handwriting in the back half is a different handwriting. Yeah. So I think the arms that you saw were not Keith's, as you recall them. Yeah.

[00:25:00] His sinewy forearms cutting into baguettes and seven-grain loaves and making arm-eaties for all of you. Arm-eaties. So these were just pretty unremarkable arms that I saw get sucked into the TV? Yeah. Okay. Well, it seems like, so Keith watched something from here? Is that what it said, Liz?

[00:25:26] And then, and then like maybe he went missing and someone else started writing in his journal saying they were looking for him? Yeah. And drew these weird drawings. Here, take a look. Mm-hmm. And I hold them up and- Oh. They're like horrifying. Are you showing us the magic eye? Yes. See? There's like a weird thing, but- Oh, weird. I don't know. It didn't bother me that much. It's a sailboat. What?

[00:25:53] But she shows you this staticky graphite drawing. Mm. That at first just seems to be this abstract image, redolent of static. And then the more you look at it, things seem to kind of resolve and churn under its surface. Anyone who's looking at this drawing, roll sanity. I think I would be looking at it.

[00:26:22] I imagine all of us standing in like a semicircle staring at this as Liz holds it up. Yeah, yeah. I'm still reaching up on the stepladder. I don't want to look at it. Okay, great. I think I'm not looking either because I'm holding it out to Allison and Daz. Then Allison and Daz roll sanity for me. Allison, you might want to get this. Oh, yeah.

[00:26:43] And I'm able to think to go get my camcorder and film this image because I rolled a four under 80. Wow. Amazing. I'm artsy, but I'm pretty sane. You now have it captured. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. What about you, Caleb? Daz, Ty Fair. I don't want to tell you. Okay. Oh, no. I rolled.

[00:27:11] Well, it sucks for me because this would have passed before my last sand loss. Does that ever happen to you? Oh. That's how the game works. Ain't it always the way. I rolled a 39, which would have been good before, but now I have a 35. So, 39 over 35. Rats. Well, don't worry. Rats. It's three points of sanity loss. No, don't say that. Don't say that, Ross, because you know I started with 40. Oh, wow.

[00:27:41] Oh, because you started low. Are you already there? I'm indefinitely insane. I have 32 under 40, which is exactly a fifth off of my starting sand. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This is not me putting my thumb on the scale. I really, really and truly, I rolled a four, which I just realized is not a three. It's a two. Oh, that's a two. So, just in case any of the listeners at home believe that I'm totally cruel, I do hold myself to a high standard.

[00:28:11] And you know Ross isn't lying because he would have lied in the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm teetering on the brink. But I think it kind of, you might see this, Liz, because I'm kind of facing you in the notebook. You're starting to see him kind of break a little bit. I think he's sweating profusely and even like kind of running his thumb along the wound that he got from that metal shelf. Yeah. He's very nervous. Oh, my God. Um, Daz? Are you okay? Oh, my God.

[00:28:40] What the fuck is that drawing, Liz? Oh. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:29:18] Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:29:48] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:30:44] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:31:13] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:31:43] Daz.

[00:32:12] Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:33:07] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:34:03] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:34:41] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:35:10] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz.

[00:35:41] Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. Daz. mnemonic is on there johnny mnemonic yeah three ninjas he saw everything that i recommended i can't believe it oh three men and a baby oh i thought liz just started

[00:36:10] every every day it's a rotation they probably would get so bored yeah if you've been working for the summer perhaps every there's one per week and you're and you're seeing like the um yeah the that he's been ticking off your recommendations in particular das a final pattern is emerging after as you look at this oh my god i thought you forgot about me never keeping track with this high culture

[00:36:35] rather pretentious pull that might vibe with allison and this journey to the center of liz sanders taste you can see that he's also has a taste for the extreme because you're also noticing that he's has rented like hellraiser and faces of death begotten and eraser head

[00:37:00] and these these really kind of like disturbing and eerie films and then all of you can see the last film on this record and it says it right there in black and white the dot matrix printer had a hard time with the cyrillic text but it has it there the zilly leto but then this printout of course has its

[00:37:24] catalog in its english translation it's summer in july ah dad's is so caught up in the he's like faces of death one through four i didn't even know we had faces of death four holy shit this guy is demented summer in july i don't even i haven't seen that he saw mars attacks and he saw twister and he

[00:37:52] saw ghosts those were my recommendations oh those are fun this is such a fun game of like good movies that are still very middle brow yes water boy is actually really good sister act he saw sister act we were gonna watch sister act together oh that would have been cute basketball god basketball and

[00:38:19] then suddenly das is bothered he's like isn't this a tautology summer in july who would say that yeah my god das it is a tautology it doesn't it doesn't make sense is this what's what's upsetting you so much did you see like a clip from this somehow oh have we ever heard this title or seen like russian titles at all here ross what a great question yes you've got you have a international section in the way that like good video stores have they get

[00:38:46] you get really granular with your genres so you might have like a like a blaxploitation section or a giallo section or a um spaghetti western section and you have a like um one that is just kind of like freaks only yes it's by the porn i curate some of those there's there's two signs it's like freaks

[00:39:10] only and like the other kind of freaks only yes if you go back into the database you can see that it's summer in july has bounced between the foreign section the russian section where like so you could see it slotted next to alexander nevsky and uh battleship potemkin but you also might see it uh they're in freaks only slotted next to uh guinea pig or her um some some some really sick stuff

[00:39:40] you also have like we're in the 90s you have things like the leonard malton guide and like yeah books about movies and you know it's the 90s but there's still the internet yeah that's true i was gonna ask with our cool database that we have here could we look up other people who've rented this film because i expect it's just going to be the math department at miskatonic university renting the russian films and is it logged as having been returned

[00:40:07] oh when did we get this yeah that is a good question it is logged as having been returned so we searched by title instead of by customer i love that yeah so yeah you can see that it has been returned so you get the impression that it is here somewhere you can also look at its rental log oh i'm i might have put it back wrong because i just started yeah the translation title sounds like

[00:40:31] it might be a rom-com or like a sweet a sweet children's film maybe yeah uh-oh yeah you look at the rental log and i'll give you for nothing that you you brought up miskatonic yeah you're looking at some of the names you don't quite know all these people like i feel like a intelligence role is often connected to memory why don't you give me an intelligence role to see if you remember any of the people on this log i wonder if that guy who was in here earlier he was into a lot of the same

[00:41:00] stuff i am i wonder if he's seen it his name is albert he's a good no no no the other guy the other the guy that was clearly into allison the guy who i kept thinking should i ask his name and then i didn't he's a member and if he rents stuff you have his contact information in your database oh because i can look up he just rented rashomon okay you guys look at that i'll go look that up yeah mark tucker tried to screw me over with an 80 intelligence but it helps me here

[00:41:28] because i got a 65 under 80 uh this time great you can see a couple entries here that you are reminiscent of uh yeah yeah since you brought it up there's a there's a name here please say professor rathbone wait that was the 1950s it's it's not professor rathbone i'm afraid it's uh the name is stanislaw voinich and he is a uh a member of the of the mathematics staff at

[00:41:55] miskatonic university and you know that because you succeeded in your intelligence role you remember that he had a nervous breakdown and he's currently on sabbatical and you also recognize another one of the names it's right there it's uh jenny

[00:42:18] lillard das you remember her quiet would always rank kind of odd movies and i just want to track your gaze as you look from the paper with the database of her name renting a summer in july and then follow your eyes over to the cork board

[00:42:41] oh no and see her face as one of the missing persons and i think i'm gonna push my title yeah before his eyes meet the paper i think he's like jenny i i loved jenny if she was over 20 years old yeah you're 28 let's make sure freaks only indeed oh man

[00:43:10] wait so we pick a second title yeah so now i'd like to you know put fate back in the driver's seat so rashaun you're always and ever more a special guest so can you please roll a d100 and let's uh grab another title to inspire the rest of our our session here can do what will the die hard dice

[00:43:34] bring to us this time die hard gave me a 23 23 and of course you can get 10 off at die hard dice by punching in the code ptr at die hard dice.com and a 23 is a title from dazzy i think dazzy might have had our very first title or he and also is that who

[00:44:00] you've named yourself after in this in this scenario oh my god my name's dad oh oh my gosh wow it's kismet i didn't put it together that's wild creepy creepy for the rest of this i'm i am going by dazzy but dazzy he submitted i don't know if it was the very first title but definitely an early title for us and now he's his numbers come up again how lucky wow dazzy will get a 50 gift certificate from

[00:44:27] die hard dice for this title that is so cool the title is oh this our last rodeo oh okay oh oh that sounds like a movie title it does that's good this our last rodeo i yeah i i misread it as this is our last rodeo and then i did a double take and it's this our last rodeo okay great awesome

[00:44:54] cool that almost sounds like a translation of a russian title it does that's just what i was thinking yes you see jenny lillard's eyes looking back at you from the cork board and there's her name right there in the log one of the only people you know who has rented it's summer in july but allison cold it sounded like you were trying to get in touch

[00:45:23] with the young man who was um renting rashomon earlier yeah i started to worry that he's the type of person who maybe would have rented this movie as well so and then i realized i didn't even ask his name because i was excited about movies but that's it so i would like to pull up the club membership info of the person who just rented rashomon today see what it is and then see

[00:45:52] on the list because he seemed he seemed fine he seemed fine you i'm granted the interaction wasn't that long no but it was intense on his end at least i feel like it was pretty intense on his end what an interesting question or interesting thought great um you you look and you see rashomon and you can see the most recent rental patron a club member yeah there he is his name is james le pickey

[00:46:23] james le pickey i bet he got made fun of a lot for that last name when we were kids for sure and then you can look back over some of his recent rentals yeah yeah what what else is he what else is he rented is he rented um it's summer in july oh yeah you look back um over his rental history and you can see much much like you just saw before it seems that james has been tracking

[00:46:50] your recommendations over the past week oh sweet maybe he's kind of cute i guess yeah but but he's he's also kind of like yeah going down some wild hairs you can see uh he's he's rented rashomon of course and remains of the day he already today rented room with a view yeah a lot of classics that

[00:47:13] you've recommended paths of glory citizen kane the big sleep oh a clockwork orange it's summer in july a clockwork orange clockwork orange is so creepy oh yeah he's rented a clockwork orange guys that's not a good sign red flag red flag red flag that is a red flag oh wait you said it's summer in july he's maybe i

[00:47:43] could call his phone number's here maybe i could call him and ask him what's on the movie or maybe he knew keith yeah do you think he saw us all leave and snuck in the back could it i mean maybe he was pretty intense could have been that guy hmm that guy was weird i mean we could we could call him tell him he's got a bunch of late fees and he can't rent anything else at least he comes and pays today

[00:48:06] yeah great i'll call him i'll call him i'll call him okay uh and i'll pull up his phone number and and our store phone you can tell that his rental has come after keith's by by a little bit he's rented it much more recently he's he's renting videos at a at a big clip a real cinephile is james lepicky you have to wonder if he's even watching them or if he's just renting them and then coming back

[00:48:33] and then renting more just to have a reason to come here yeah it's almost like he's finding an excuse to come uh yes a woman answers the phone hello hi yes um this is neighborhood video calling for james the picky jimmy i think one of your rentals is overdue again that's what i'm doing mom

[00:49:03] and then you hear that you hear like another landline pickup what i know i'm and it's and it's his voice huh hi uh james james this is allison from neighborhood video do you remember me um it's okay mom i've got this i've got this uh thank you mom hey um hey this is so weird that i'm calling you i'm sorry i i'm i looked up your number in our system because you're a club member

[00:49:32] yeah and i saw that recently um one of the movies i was looking back at the movies you've rented and i saw that one of them was um was um it's summer in july um you hear like footsteps and you all this time you've been hearing rashomon playing in the background and you hear just like it stops

[00:49:55] i'm sorry i'm sorry what did you what did you say it's it's a russian it's actually a the name is in russian but i can't speak russian but it's translated to it's summer in july is that a movie that that you rented can i talk to you about it of course uh yeah it's summer in july uh it's it's i mean

[00:50:19] it's kind of legendary yeah like like how because uh look don't freak out but we've just noticed that a lot of people who've rented that movie have gone missing so i just wanted to ask you about it uh yeah it has it has kind of a spoony um a spooky reputation yeah well was it spooky what did you see

[00:50:45] and do you still have it oh you've not seen it um oh well i i i don't want to have any any late fees so i i brought it back okay yeah but i i i mean i made copies of all oh wait you made a copy of you don't um i'm i guess i shouldn't be saying that but you want no no no you understand no it's okay you want to build your personal archive right he made a copy of course of course

[00:51:11] my own shh hush das he made a copy edith he's not supposed to do that liz be quiet for a second that's stealing liz edith das be quiet for a second hey it's okay james yeah you want to have your own criterion collection i get it criterion collection yeah you're onto something weird thing to say um they could have a closet and everything hey could you do me a favor i don't

[00:51:40] know exactly why i'm asking you to do this but i just have this gut feeling could you bring the copy you made back to the store you don't have to bring anything else back we won't charge you any fees and i won't tell anyone you've been making copies but i think you should bring that one back here please sure i mean it's it's a creepy movie i understand i i hey james could you could you i'd

[00:52:06] love to see you whoa yeah so but but but you i need you to bring the video but could you understand that i mean as disturbing as it is it is laurenz strugatsky was a genius of course and he was persecuted for the making of this film i mean there are a lot of rumors surrounding it and i i'm sorry and there are a lot of rumors surrounding it what kind of room yeah i'm sorry james

[00:52:34] james james hey james i can you just come to the store please no james of course i would come to the store i mean i i mean we could even meet outside of the store if you if you i'm sorry you keep hearing the tv in the background like turning on we can meet outside of the store um okay yeah sure yeah

[00:52:59] i'll meet you where do you want me to meet you i will come meet you i am i don't know why guys guys i don't know why but i'm just this is really freaking me out i feel like something bad's about to happen maybe we should maybe we shouldn't pursue this yeah maybe maybe we should just let it lay the store's almost closed for the day james james james yes yeah i can meet you anywhere as a matter of fact maybe you should come to me

[00:53:27] hang up the phone now hang up the phone hang up the phone hang up the phone hang up the phone hang up the phone hang up the phone hang up the phone come to me alison no no i need you to come here james okay because i need you to bring the video here And then the last thing you hear. So you're inviting me in? Oh, whoa.

[00:54:10] Thanks so much for listening to Push the Roll with Ross Bryant. You can follow me on Instagram at RossBB. And if you enjoyed the show and want to shape future episodes, find us at patreon.com slash push the roll. Subscribe, submit your title ideas, and help decide where our next roll takes us. Catch you next time. We're sponsored today by Die Hard Dice, who are offering our listeners a special discount code to use at their website, dieharddice.com. That code is PTR for 10% off your order.

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