What you are about to hear may cause your mother to worry that she’ll be visited by homeland security.

(Intro Music)
Mwahahahaha…. No. (Music Ends)

(Intro Music)
Hahahahaha… No. (Music Ends)

(Intro Music)
HahahaHahaHa… oh, fuck it.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. My name is Corin Deeth III and I am CEO of Kakos Industries. Shareholders, Grace Rule was called away to some important bit of business that she could not disclose to me. As many of you know, she has become the guardian of our anomalous child, Dark Mother Belladonnica. We’re still not any closer to figuring out what has made her so anomalous, by the way. Anyway, Grace has left Belladonnica in my care for the time being. I’m not sure why that is, exactly. I’m assuming that we have a number of other capable caretakers available, but she made it sound like it had to be me. I don’t know. Anyway, Belladonnica is here. She’s startlingly quiet. She is still in the process of being punished for that smoking incident, so she is wearing a yellow, flower print dress. I don’t know enough about clothing to really say more than that. It’s fun, I guess. As a result, she is maintaining the most sour facial expression that I have ever seen, and I have seen some sour faces. I mean, we have an entire division dedicated to innovating more intense facial expressions, the Division of Special Spatial Facial Muscles. They should be taking notes. She just glanced at me and I must say that it is an impressive achievement. I’m actually a little unsettled now. She has taken to painting the studio here. There’s not a whole lot of what you would call “flat surfaces” in here. Mostly sound proofing and whatnot, but she’s making the most of the spaces she can find. Overall, I think the artwork enhances the mood in here. I may leave it up. It has a certain primal, cave-painting energy. Belladonnica has agreed to be quiet for the remainder of the broadcast. I don’t know of any child that could keep that promise, but I don’t know of any child like her anyway. We will see.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from a harsh cough. Um… This is probably going to be one of those that isn’t explained well. It says here that our Division of Viral Media has infected you or someone nearby with this message. Then it says something about small virus antennae. I’m guessing the people in the Division of Viral Media don’t even know how this actually works. We do occasionally just luck out. Not often, but occasionally. Other times, we rip our hair out for decades trying make advances. Our Division of Luck has not made any advancements at all that would help the other divisions. If you are not a shareholder, then this broadcast is not for you. Assuming the coughing has not begun for you yet, you may have time to get away before the virus takes hold inside of you. If you happen to have caught the virus, well then you will fare less well than a shareholder due to vaccination procedures. If you survive, then you will become one of us. You probably won’t. If any of you shareholders out there have a friend that is not a shareholder and has become infected, then you may save their life by giving them a papercut with any official documentation you may have from us. It’s kind of a long shot.

So here’s an update: Belladonnica is still painting. She has taken to drawing crude characters of me, it seems. I know that because she’s pointing at one of them and also pointing at me, dripping paint from her fingers onto the floor. Still making awful faces, by the way. She is remaining quiet, though, so that’s good. A little earlier, she was trying to get into the sound booth, and Soundman Steven had to lock the door. You see, his everyday work attire is a pair of dungarees displaying his swollen, um, well… never mind. Anyway, it’s generally not a good idea to have children around soundman steven. That’s not his fault, though, I should clarify.

We recently had the UltraNudity festival. The UltraNudity festival helped to avoid some of the worst parts of last year’s celebration with the addition of the nudity coaches. It occurs to me that this part of the broadcast might be a little difficult to do as written because there is a child in the room. While I would imagine that brain of hers is capable of imagining sins far greater than mine, in the off chance she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, I don’t want to be the one responsible for introducing her to the words. She just fingerpainted the word “Fuck” on one of my walls in protest. Now… now she’s depicting… well, I’d rather not say. Due to the assistance from the nudity coaches, people at work were not absentmindedly touching their… private parts, nor were they drawn lustily toward one another for… cuddle. We did not have any incidents involving copy machines, nor did we have such a dramatic drop in productivity. Everyone was simply proud to be the human they are in the skin they have, no matter how taught, droopy, loose, veiny, or wrinkled they might be. Then came the evening of the Festival. Again, we had that garden of innocence theme, but people spent way longer reading the books and getting a feel for what the festival was really about before, um… before they, um.. before they did a lot of things, respectfully, but somewhat indiscriminately, with the other party-goers. I have here a whole long description of things I saw, or perhaps did, but I’m not sure I’ve got enough replacement words to actually get this across. Let’s see. I saw people playing “fetch”. I saw a few others “Wrestling in the Greek style”. Still others “Waded in the murky pond water”. There were only a few instances of the “Towering Inferno”. I did see some “bean balling”. Also, there was one notable instance of “Wink wink nudge nudge say no more because your mouth is full”. There were also a couple of people “Ice Creaming” for most of the night. Belladonnica has taken to drawing exactly what Ice Creaming is, even though I wasn’t sure I knew what I meant when I said it. Shareholders… I don’t know. I’m uncomfortable. Anyway, there was then a DJ, and things got… how they get. The DJ did his best to find the musical selections offered up by the new rulebook, but his crates are only so deep.

Coming up we have the Technology Festival, just like last year. And just like last year, I expect that Thorgonus and Giant Ass Robots to Kick in Your Face will do something mindblowingly pornographic. Last year it was the tentacle monster and the schoolgirl. The year before that, it was some sort of phallic jackhammer monster and what appeared to be a cavern on wheels. Before that it was two, um, human bottoms from Giant Ass Robots, and what appeared to be a, um… two ended grown up toy that, well… we’re just not going to forget it. You know, I might have to make a rule about having children in the studio. This is really making my job hard. Anyway, our new rule book does not indicate a change for this festival, nor additional festivals. It does say that “striped pants are cool at this time.” I don’t know what that means. I don’t really like striped pants. Maybe I will soon. Who knows.

Oh dear, I’ve gotten a letter from my grandfather. Something tells me that this will not be easy to read in front of the child. “Dear Corin, I see that you’ve got a little kid running around there. I knew you could do it. I knew you could bring about a child that would take this company into the future. Well done. I don’t know who the mother is, and I guess I don’t really care, but I have no doubt that she is supremely Evil, and that she was vetted by the executive board thoroughly before being allowed to become pregnant. Anyway, nicely done! The little boy will no doubt make a wonderful addition to the Deeth lineage. Sincerely, Corin Deeth I.” Shareholders, I feel that there is some explanation necessary for this letter. The envelope simply says “Deliver in case of child”. It does not specify that the child in question has to be mine. Really my grandfather should have been more specific on this one. I suppose I can hold onto it until such a time that I do have a child, if I ever do. You see, the pressure to produce an heir is… well, it’s pretty tough to handle. Conceivably, using my position and my natural talents, I could have several buns in several ovens by the end of the month, but that does not an heir make. I mean, the next CEO of Kakos Industries doesn’t have to be my child. My grandfather took over the company by working his way up through the ranks… I think. But there are rules to maximize the capacity of the child for Evil. I have to find someone who compliments my Evil in ways that help to improve on those areas where I am weak. It has to do with combining Evil lineages and whatnot. If I may get personal for a moment, I will say that the board has not found such a mate for me at this time, though there is a list of women who are always appropriate matches because they are just so dark, genetically speaking. My relationships with those women are… complicated to say the least. There is also some question as to whether I could help to make a sufficiently Evil child at all. Anyway, the board said it would be best if I just sort of relax and let things happen as they will, and someday I will produce a contender for the title of CEO, or they will have me murdered and replaced. I don’t want to spread rumors, but I’ve seen the way they look at Belladonnica. I mean, that might give me a solid 20 years or so left as CEO, but the way this child ages… I’m not sure I’ve got that long. I may need to begin undermining her ability to lead sooner than I had imagined. Now she’s pointing at me and drawing a paint-covered finger across her throat. Now she is laughing silently. Cackling. That is frightening. Go to the corner. You’ve been bad. Think about what you’ve done. Scaring me like that. You’re never going to be better than me at leading this company! Oh, who gave her a switchblade? Put it away! Good.

Melantha mailed me a stock certificate from her company. It says it’s a gift for whoever opens the package. The problem for her is that I don’t open my own mail. I’m not sure that such a method of giving away stock would actually affect me were I to have opened it, but all the same, we had to let my mail opener go. He was on an inflatable raft in the Sharkligator moat when we let him go, so I’m guessing things won’t turn out well. I mean, what else could we do? He was a shareholder in Melantha’s company. He could have been a spy! And he’s in charge of opening my mail! I can’t let those secrets get out. In other news, I have heard that Melantha’s first floor is now on the second floor. There’s definitely something weird going on there.

I have news about a new division we have introduced here at Kakos Industries. This is the Division of Utilization. The Division of Utilization’s job is to find new uses for our other developments above and beyond what their current use is. This includes finding new uses for byproducts and scraps, as well as the developments themselves. I am told that the employees at the Division of Utilization aren’t even allowed to use any objects as they were intended. I am told that they have to eat soup with complicated set ups involving electric fans, and that they have vats of human waste labelled “someday we’ll figure out a new way to use this”. They get to work in a number of bizarre and imaginative ways. They also develop a lot of slang in this division because they can’t use words exactly how they were meant to be used originally, creating some interesting… poetry. They are sticklers for use of the word “utilize”, though. For that reason, if you say you’re “utilizing a pen to write your grocery list” around these individuals, they might utilize the tip of the pen to open your jugular, and then utilize the tube of the pen as a handy way to turn you into a blood fountain. They are quite serious about this. And if you had to cartwheel to work, then you would be too. For those of you worried about me using that kind of violent language around a child, please remember that this is America. Nothing I said went above a PG-13. If someone had given the nipple of the character in the story a seductive lick- I mean giving their… chest flower a… um… seductive lick, then I would need to censor myself. Shareholders, I would like to take credit for the MPAA and its stranglehold on our creativity, but I am afraid that they are an Evil not even we conceived of.

Belladonnica is giving me the sourest expression yet. Seriously, I’m worried she might have had a stroke. I know it’s not wise to tell women to smile. Still, I think this is a job for the spray bottle. Bad! Bad! Stop! (Spray bottle sound)

Oh boy… I have word from the “Adult Time” Innovation Division. They write that they have successfully un- um, they have successfully un-screwed-up a few of the participants in their 16-person “happy time meeting”. Others are still combined in unpleasant ways. They have also had no progress whatsoever on creating a… boy part that is capable of carrying on a deep and meaningful relationship. I understand that they are getting quite desperate, and they are considering cloning tiny human brains to insert into the… boy part. Personally, I think that sounds horrifying. It could work, though.

They say that there is no use crying over spilled ink, because everything you own is black anyway. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now! This week, we’re taking credit for raw denim, oil stains, and buying clothing you care about too much to actually wear. If you disagree with anything we’ve taken credit for, and I really don’t know why you would this time, then you can just go away. You’re not wanted here anymore. No one loves you. I’m sorry.

Fujiko Thompson has won this week’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, Fujiko’s nemesis will suffer a sudden and life-ruining downfall. Fujiko has selected the king of the mole people. I see what you’re doing there, Fujiko. Trying to make us show our hand. Trying to make us acknowledge the existence of the alleged mole people. As you know, Kakos Industries has no official stance on whether or not the mole people exist, and it is not for me to say any more on that. All I will say is that if there are mole people, then we will ruin the king of the mole people’s life. Let’s just say that the wheel of misery did spin, and it landed on a space. That space was Full of Holes. If this alleged mole king does exist, then he will be henceforth full of non-life-threatening holes. Just tons of ‘em. They won’t kill him, but they will be ugly and probably get in the way of digging effectively. If he exists. For good measure, Fujiko Thompson will have one additional hole. Its function is as of yet unknown. Congratulations on the win.

And that brings us to the conclusion of this broadcast. Right now, Belladonnica is staring at me intensely as she can. I know people are fond of using the phrase that someone “has fire in their eyes”, but in reality, her eyes have changed colors, and there may be something burning inside of them. We should probably get that checked out. I’m not sure I’m going to let children into my studio anymore. Way to ruin it for everyone, Belladonnica. Oh, shit, where did she go? I didn’t hear the door open. Soundman? He’s been hiding in the back of his booth. He didn’t see anything. Crap. Here are the numbers.

2
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16
4
16
64
256
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1
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4

Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth. The music is also composed by Conrad Miszuk. The introduction is read by Kim Aiello, and the credits are read by Hanna Jones, who prefers the local coffee shops to the chains. Check out KakosIndustries.com for more episodes. There’s also transcriptions if you’d rather read the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at inquiries@kakosindustries.com. That’s I-N-Q-U-I-R-I-E-S @ K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T- R-I-E-S dot com. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on iTunes and Stitcher, and like us on Facebook.

If you’re feeling down after this broadcast, have you considered letting the duck go?