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Guest: Author Alistair Cross
55 Plays1 month ago
Alistair Cross was born in the western United States and began penning his own stories by the age of eight. First published in 2012, Alistair has since released several more novels. In 2012, he joined forces with international bestselling author, Tamara Thorne, and as Thorne & Cross, they write the successful Gothic series, The Ravencrest Saga. Alistair is currently at work on the seventh book in his bestselling Vampires of Crimson Cove series as well as an upcoming release in the Ravencrest Saga with Tamara Thorne.
We talk fiction, cookies, moms, bullies, sobriety, police, UHC, stalkers, addiction, and sobriety. Also, the Ravencrest Saga, the value of community, and why we love technology. An unedited transcript of this episode can be found here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Sponsorship
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
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Speaker
Music
00:00:34
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, leave Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. You can find us on Ko-Fi, that's K-O-F-I, slash Sometimes Hilarious Horror.
00:00:50
Speaker
Supporting the magazine is the best way to support us.
Welcoming Alistair Cross and Writing Journey
00:00:53
Speaker
This week, we have Alistair Cross back with us. We actually had an interview a few months ago, and tech problems kept us from bringing that to you So, if you're hearing this, you'll be delighted to know that we got it right this time.
00:01:09
Speaker
um Alistair was born in the western United States and began penning his own stories at the age of eight. First published in 2012, Alistair has since released several more novels.
00:01:22
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um In 2012, he actually joined forces with international bestselling author Tamara Thorne. And as Thorne and Cross, they actually write the successful gothic series, The Ravencrest Saga.
00:01:35
Speaker
Alistair is currently working on the seventh book in the Vampires of Crimson Cove series, as well as another book in the Ravencrest saga. Of course, that was a while ago. Is that is that out yet, your next book?
00:01:48
Speaker
No, not yet. Okay, cool. So we didn't miss it. Nope. Welcome, Alistair. am glad that you could be here with us again. I'm glad to be here again. who was fun the first time, and it'll be fun this time, whether it whether it works or not. It was fun. Cool.
00:02:04
Speaker
Right on. Well, you know, it's funny because the kids say that now. The kids are like, oh, well, you know, we could just get together with snacks and just talk, but then like not record anything.
00:02:15
Speaker
Right, right. Like, you discovered hanging out. Isn't that amazing? That's what we used to call hanging out. now Right?
Influences and Nostalgia in Horror
00:02:25
Speaker
So as you know, the first question we like to ask is for guests to tell us the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing.
00:02:34
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So let's have it. All right. So it's it's hard for me to recall the first first, but I think, you know, the one that left the the biggest impression on me, I think, was Cujo.
00:02:50
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I don't really know what I was doing watching it, but it it gave me like a it terrified me. And I have like a yeah, like it it scared me really, really bad. It was the it kind of gave me this is kind of funny, but i wasn't afraid of um dogs.
00:03:09
Speaker
But it kind of gave me like a PTSD reaction to those old hatchback. cars How weird is that? That's a weird thing, but it's true. And yeah, but that's the one that I remember being kind of traumatized by, but I loved it at the same time.
00:03:24
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You know, it's weird, weird how that works. How old were you I was probably eight. seven or eight Yeah, I think oh that's probably the precise right time to be terrified by Doodoo. Yeah, exactly. I watched it as an adult and I'm like, yeah, there's a little bit of like a...
00:03:46
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um so you know, nostalgia, nostalgic fear, if there's such a thing as that. But mostly i'm just like, look how happy that dog is. He's not scary. He's having a good time.
00:04:00
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Well, Stephen King says when you like watch a movie again or read the book again, you're not really being frightened by it the next time. You're remembering being frightened by it the first time. Yeah, that's exactly. I'd agree with that. It's like, it doesn't scare me now, obviously, but I remember the fear and it was, uh, it was a, yeah, I'd say Cujo for sure.
00:04:21
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there There's a lot of them, but that's the one that I think really, and I don't know why that one, but yeah. Well, the thing about Cujo when you're a kid is that even if you're kind of an advanced kid who understands that monsters aren't real, they're not in your closet, they're not under the bed, yeah that's a dog. Dogs are everywhere.
00:04:41
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Exactly. Rabies is a real thing. And hatchbacks, they were everywhere. Yes, yes. Dee Wallace, totally. Yeah. ah So that that that, you know, ugly 1970 something yellow car.
00:04:55
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Everybody had and people forget about Cujo is that the reason that that happened was because the rich husband with a nice car didn't give a shit that the wife who drove the kid around had a junker.
00:05:07
Speaker
That's right. That's right. It was. a Yeah, exactly. So you take the junker. A little bit of side horror there. Oh, you're driving my child around? Well, have this piece of pinto that barely starts. Right, exactly.
00:05:21
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right So do do you think that watching Cujo is part of what put you on the path to horror? Or was it the more broad tapestry than that?
00:05:31
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I think for sure that was ah that was definitely one of the you know key things. i was always So i basically what it came down to is I was a really um hyper kid. I didn't have much of an attention span. I did not like you know TV, which is weird because i I liked to read, which is really strange. But I had a really short attention span and I needed – um I guess a lot of stimulation.
00:06:00
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And so, you know, watching horror really, you know, stimulated me. And, you know, now that I say i like to read, I also read scary stuff. So even though I did like to read, it was the same kind of deal where, know,
00:06:13
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I think I needed that. It gave me more stimulation than say like, you know, cartoons or, you know, little house on the prairie or whatever it was. It was, you know, all the rage back then. I don't know.
00:06:28
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Well, there's kind of a sameness to wholesome TV that horror doesn't have because the, one of the main focal points of horror is to surprise you, right. You know, to catch you off guard.
00:06:43
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Whereas Little House on the Prairie, you know, even Nellie, it's like, wow, you're a terrible person. But we totally expect this from you. Yeah, we totally see it coming. Right. Right.
Character Inspiration and Parental Influence
00:06:54
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Oh, yeah. Nellie and Harriet. Remember her mother, Harriet? i see um So the first book that I read by you was actually a mother.
00:07:05
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And mothers are a hot topic with me. ah you know, my first book has ah a mom in it. yeah um Well, I love the portrayal of the manipulative narcissist. um I imagine it's even more poignant now that all of us are much more acquainted with narcissism than we would have been before.
00:07:22
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Right. All of us here in America. um I'm curious to know a couple of things about that. First of all, did the character proceed? Was she inspired by anyone in real life?
00:07:36
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No, we actually, what's interesting is, so so Mother is a thriller that I wrote with Tamara Thorne, and what's interesting is we both had really good relationships with our mothers.
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Our fathers, not so much, but our mothers, we both really you know got along with our mothers and adored our mothers, but we just loved this idea of... I know, this horrible mother figure.
00:08:04
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You know, maybe, I don't know. And we just, you know, obviously,
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but yeah I can't, I can't think of anything that this was really, really based off of other than maybe little stories that we had heard here and there over the years. Cause a lot of people had some really nasty moms. I don't know what that's about, but, and dads, you know, dads,
00:08:28
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And dads are nasty too. you know I know that. But the thing is, there's a lot of nasty mother stories. And so we just kind of thought that this would be a really fun thing to explore. And it was it was it was intense. But the but interestingly now, we actually put in the dedication.
00:08:47
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We dedicated it to our mothers who are nothing like the mother but mother in this book. Because I didn't want anybody to think, oh, they must have, you know. he must really have mom issues. It's like, I really don't. You know, I mean, I certainly wondered when I read it, but honestly, because of the the psychopathy that's evident in that character, it seemed like if if that was based on one of your mother's, that you would be no contact with your mother. And I'm probably reading plenty of of my own issues into that that line of thinking.
00:09:22
Speaker
Because, you know, I've been no contact for my mom since 95 and my book about it didn't come out until 2008. so Right. And that's the thing. I think that if you, you know, that's the, that's the beauty of getting older and, and becoming, I guess, autonomous or, you know, coming into your own as you realize, even if it is your parents, this is unhealthy, this is abusive, whatever.
00:09:46
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And you don't, yeah, I certainly would not have contact with anyone that that was, you know, like the the mother and in the book. if Even if she was my neighbor, I wouldn't talk to her. Right. But see, the thing is, there are people, and we know this, there are adults that never admit that they were abused. They never admit that anything bad happened to them. And they maintain, through adulthood,
00:10:12
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their relationships with the these abusers, I'm going to try really hard not to say the name that I'm thinking of. but I'm sure we'll get to it later. But I did want to bring up something that occurred to me after we talked last time, which is who it is that Prissy reminds me of from literature.
00:10:32
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So first I have to ask you, how much VC Andrews have you read? Um, I not a whole lot. However, I, I i did, you know, grow up on, um, ah flowers in the attic, the, the, the movie. In fact, as a matter of fact, i have been watching Julia Child, the cooking show lately. i don't know why. i I don't know why. It's just for some reason it it caught my fancy lately.
00:11:02
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And she's like baking and she'll put this powdered sugar on things. and And I'm watching it and I'm having this weird reaction to the powdered sugar. And I'm like, I don't know why that's creeping me out so much.
00:11:14
Speaker
Well, not too long ago, for the first time as an adult, I watched the movie Flowers in the Attic and I watched the grandmother putting the powdered sugar on the donuts or whatever, the cookies.
00:11:24
Speaker
And of course it was poison. I'm like, that's why I'm having that reaction. So that's, you know, that's another one I saw when i as was a kid that kind of creeped me out. But anyway, long story short. I'm not real familiar with V. Sanders. I did read the original Flowers in the Attic series, and I also read two or three of a different series. And I can't remember. want to say it's something like the the Landry series or something.
00:11:48
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not sure if that's right. Well, the reason that I asked actually is that the Heaven series, um I forget her last name, um but that series has a character called Kitty, and she is an adoptive mom.
00:12:02
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With the, you know, she's a very voluptuous woman and she has the kind of, you know, she's very performative and is a very different person in public than in private, you know, that whole thing.
00:12:13
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And that's kind of who who Prissy reminds me of, like those aspects. But I mean, those are... huge human archetypes. Like we write about people like that because they exist in the world.
00:12:24
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Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a, that's a huge compliment, you know, and, and we actually got a VC Andrews that Andrew Niederman who writes as VC Andrews, he actually gave us a quote for mother and he said that it reminded that she reminded him of some of his, but he's Andrews characters. And that was like a huge like moment for me that was like, you know, cause yeah, like,
00:12:47
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I wasn't like a huge V.C. Andrews reader, but I'm obviously familiar. And it was really popular when we were growing up. Well, yeah, it was inescapable. oh yeah yeah. In the eighty s Yes. Oh, yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
So to have that, it was like a huge thing to you know to any kind of comparison like that. you know it was a really, really big deal. I'm very flattered. Nice. that is that Wow.
00:13:12
Speaker
that's That's amazing. um So one more thing about that book in particular um that, yeah I mean, i don't I don't mean to like insult you or anything, but the research was kind of lacking. just but mean i know where you're going with this. Dude, the book says that Sausalitos are better than Chesapeake's. I mean, what the hell?
00:13:34
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Hey, yeah I'm only human. You know what?
00:13:38
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I'm only human. You know, I was under a deadline. There was a lot of stress.
Challenges of Writing Series and Plot Consistency
00:13:42
Speaker
No, man, you got to research that shit. You can't just making up nonsense about which cookies are better. Come on. Next thing you know, your characters will be enjoying Chips Ahoy and it'll just be freaking anarchy.
00:13:56
Speaker
I know it was very unprofessional. me that I dropped the ball. i well You know, I always think when I think about cookies and literature, I think about the movie um Stranger Than Fiction, you know, like the the Will Ferrell masterpiece. I don't know if you've seen that or not I love it. Love it.
00:14:13
Speaker
Well, the thing that like the thing that strikes me the most is that he's a grown man and he thinks he doesn't like cookies. Right. Because he's never had a cookie that didn't come from a box in a store.
00:14:25
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And probably, i mean, ah he must not have even had a Pepperidge Farm cookie because Pepperidge Farm, I mean, that that is a solid cookie. It is. like But imagine, though, if the only cookies you've ever had were Chips Ahoy or maybe an Oreo cookie.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, you you might think cookies are stupid. Yeah, they're all right. You'd be like, they're okay. But yeah, I've had a... And as a matter of fact, I mean, that was kind of my my whole thing. I've never been a big cookie person.
00:14:53
Speaker
But um it was probably 10, 15 years ago now. Somebody made like these... homemade peanut butter cookies. They were just regular peanut butter cookies, but oh my God, it was a whole new experience. I'm like, wow, I really do like cookies. So I totally get it. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe it's like the horror. Maybe when you eat a Chips Ahoy, you're remembering cookies that you enjoyed at other points of your life. That's right. That's that's why they seem good.
00:15:19
Speaker
That's right. I love it. So right now you're working on, um let's see. So book six of Vampires of Crimson Cove. That is out now.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, and that that came out. And now I'm moving on to book seven. It's kind of slow going. I got a little bit of a, you know, I'm not very far into it, but it's it's coming along. Well, I need to talk about how it is that you are writing in these series. Like, do you plan these from the beginning? Because as you know, I've been working on a trilogy for some time now.
00:15:51
Speaker
First book was 2020. Second book was 2022. Third book was supposed to come out last year, but it's a political book and I can't keep up with the politics. It's too much for me.
00:16:02
Speaker
Right. so mental health and all that, you know. was Was this, I mean, Vampires of Crimson Cove, was that always intended to be a series? No. um As a matter of fact, um i i didn't want it to be. i I wrote the first one as, you know, just kind of a one-off. And um it, you know, that the first story kind of wrapped up, but it just kind of kept, you know, and don't know, I wanted to revisit and I didn't really realize at the time that it's like, oh if you're going to do, you know, vampire book, people want series, you know, and, and, and series in general, you know, and once I, so once I did the second book and and then the third, and I saw how this really is a whole different animal as far as, you know, um
00:16:56
Speaker
you know, it makes a lot more money. You know, I don't know how to word it, you know, but it it's, it's, you get five, six books into a series and you have people going back to read book one, you know, through four or five, six, so every, every book that I've released in this series has doubled.
00:17:17
Speaker
uh in cells and so that alone is not enough to keep to to do it i think you have to love it and i really do love this series luckily and i just every time i'm finished with one my mind is already going to the next one and i want to find out what happens next and after that and after that um but it's it's a lot harder in a lot of ways than doing uh standalones because in a standalone you you have all your threads, you tie them together, you boom, you're done.
00:17:49
Speaker
With a series, you have you know these character arcs that go throughout. you know You change your main character, but not as much as you would, you know what i mean yeah i mean? Slowly.
00:18:01
Speaker
because that's When I'm writing an actual novel, i find that once I get to like the three-quarter point, I have to start going back to the beginning and like refining what I had written before I really knew where it was going.
00:18:14
Speaker
right And you can't do that with a series. It's already published. You can't go back and change it. And believe me, there are times that I'm like, why? and that's that's one of the the the disadvantages of a series is it's like, you you it's it's a done deal.
00:18:27
Speaker
If you did it and it made sense to you at the time, you have to stick to it. you know There are people that I've killed in it that I'm like, God, why did I do that? But hey, you know. Well, I'll tell you, though, I just got finished reviewing the prequel series for Dexter.
00:18:45
Speaker
Okay. And it's it's basically fanfic. with There's so much retconning. Like, an enormous, unfathomable... Like, if you have a lot invested in especially the first season of Dexter...
00:19:00
Speaker
It's it's going to make you mad. The things that they're retconning. Things like a guy that we know was a serial adulterer now has had one affair that he feels extremely conflicted about. Yeah, I see. Yeah. Stuff like that. It's just like, OK, I don't want to go all like Annie Wilkes on you people, but that's not what happened last season.
00:19:23
Speaker
Have all got amnesia? Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us. This isn't fair. But it's true. And, you know, Annie Wilkes, while over the top, really she was making some good points. She was. She was speaking for all of us because you can't do that because it is a cheat.
00:19:45
Speaker
and And you do lose respect for it. You do. And i've I've read series like that before, too, or seen them. And I'm just like, come on. And you know you you can't you can't do that. you know if if i If I, in my series, and this is true whether I'm writing my own series or the or the series that I write with Tamara, it's like, you know what, it it's it's a done deal. And sometimes it sucks, but this is where being a writer and being very creative,
00:20:07
Speaker
comes out you have to figure a way around it you know oh whoops I i set this up i have to find a way around that a reasonable believable way around it you know right right because if you just have Patrick Duffy in the shower suddenly people aren't gonna I better explain that for young people right see who's the show where they've written themselves into a corner and then just decided to write the entire season off as a dream right right my favorite is I won't name names but there's one author if good
00:20:39
Speaker
very respected and and great a great author there's there's but but but you can always tell when this author has written themselves into a corner because at the end of the book at the end of the big seven eight nine hundred page book poof out come the aliens it was aliens this this author has done this to me three or four times now i'm like enough is enough i'm Were they under some sort of dome by chance? Right, right. it's like you can You can tell. It's like it's it's great to not you know plot your books so meticulously. I'm not a a huge plotter myself. I have...
00:21:20
Speaker
plot points that I know need to happen. I basically, I have a basic beginning, middle, and a few possible endings. I need to have that. Otherwise I mean, I'm going to write myself. Right. Cause you have to know at least what direction you're going in. Right. I don't want to write myself into a corner, but at the same time, I leave it pretty wide open so that I also get the pleasure of, of that organic, you know, discovering the story as I go along, because I love that. That's the main reason I do it. I couldn't do, you know,
00:21:49
Speaker
scene by scene by scene you know this is exactly what needs to happen it just that's not how it that's not how the process works for me but you know when you write yourself into a corner sometimes you just don't blame it on aliens unless you're writing an alien story in which case that's fine but but let us know that it's aliens before you know the last 10 pages the book At drop some hints for God's Mention the possibility of aliens before then. Exactly. Just some hints.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. It's so funny because the third book of my trilogy has aliens. Right. um Well, and the thing is that like I was having such a difficult time. It never occurred to me.
00:22:31
Speaker
that that Trump would be reelected. and I really did not. I just thought so much more of my country than that. I think we all did. We all just kind of went, oh, well, okay.
00:22:41
Speaker
But then, you know. So I'm trying to finish this book, you know, and it's it's very political. And ah things just kept changing and changing and changing. And I said, you know what, look.
00:22:53
Speaker
Here's what I'm going to do. As long as space aliens don't come to Earth and as long as the president doesn't tell people to shoot them, i think I won't have to change it ever anymore. Right. Goddamn. Three days later, trump posts, oh, there's drones.
00:23:10
Speaker
No one knows where they're coming from. You should shoot them. Like, all right, it's kind of hard to not take this personally. this Right, right.
00:23:20
Speaker
Maybe you should just consider writing history. Go back in time. No, that motherfucker is getting shot into the sun if it's the last thing I do. and And it may be. I'm trying to get on a charity thing for health care, and it's not going too well.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah. It's like the only time people think I'm rich is when I'm trying to get some kind of financial aid. And then suddenly it's like, Oh, you have so much. Right. Right. I really don't.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah. Right. and I have a husband that keeps me from having to live in a refrigerator box. That's pretty much the extent of my, my opulence. So, um, getting back to the work now, a lot of people in, in, in a lot of, of milieus, vampire stories are inherently,
00:24:07
Speaker
about addiction and about feeling sort of separated from the rest of society.
Addiction Portrayal in Writing
00:24:13
Speaker
So what is your take on that? um i I would agree. i think that you know my whole my whole approach to the kind of vampires I did is yeah I could never figure out how vampires, you know how you would get bitten by a vampire and then become a vampire that I couldn't figure that out.
00:24:31
Speaker
And then i i couldn't i I never liked the idea of, oh, you drink their blood and then you become a vampire. And so I kind of went the route of like snakes, you know, like venom, you know, so so my vampires have venom.
00:24:43
Speaker
and And if you inject a little of the venom, it is like a drug. It's a lot like heroin and you become a addicted and you become... subservient to this vampire.
00:24:56
Speaker
However, if you know, over time, it slowly erodes you, it slowly kills you, you basically die slowly, you kind of rot and, or, and eventually die. And if you, you know, die from enough of the venom, then that's how you become a vampire.
00:25:12
Speaker
So, wow yeah, so that's kind of my my approach. So the whole, the drug, you know, addiction angle, I i totally, you know, am am on board. um And, and that's the whole, the whole series, my whole concept of vampires is kind of a metaphor for addiction and control, over others, uh,
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Loss of control over yourself. Well, you are a recovered addict, right? I mean, you have, you have over 20 years of sobriety at this point, right? I'm coming up on 20. It'll be 20 years in June, which is amazing. I'm not old enough to have 20 years of sobriety, but I do, but I do. Yeah. i so yeah. So that was, that was, you know, um God, that's kind of where the the concept kind of came from because believe it or not,
00:26:04
Speaker
20 years ago when I was getting sober this is when this concept kind of came to me about the vampires and the you know, leeching the life out of you and and giving yourself completely to this entity, this substance, whatever.
00:26:21
Speaker
So the the concept for the Vampires of Crimson Cove series was kind of born way back in like 2005, which is when I got sober. And I didn't write, you know, the first book until, let's see, the Crimson Corset came out in 2015.
00:26:36
Speaker
two thousand And fifteen that's book one. So was, you know, But yeah, yeah. So I totally get the, yeah. Addiction obsession angle. That's kind of what I'm going for, for sure.
00:26:48
Speaker
Okay. So when you're writing about addiction, what, what aspects of addiction do you think are most important to portray accurately? um I would say the loss of yourself, the loss of who you are, the loss of your morals, the loss of, you know, you know when you when you're an addict, you you do things you swore you'd never do with people you swore you'd never do them with in places you swore you'd never go. um This is it.
00:27:19
Speaker
You surrender your entire soul. And that's kind of that's the approach that I kind of take and in the writing. is you become as a vampire's, you know,
00:27:33
Speaker
supplicant you know ah you you trade your blood for their venom and you become it becomes this symbiotic almost you know uh drug dealer addict relationship this kind of sick twisted symbiotic relationship where you know you need each other to survive you know codependence in the sickest you know way where you're destroying each other when they they string the girls out sure sure exactly same exact thing and i have a lot of prostitution in the In the book, not not it's not central, but it's it's... So there's a theme there, you know what i mean?
00:28:07
Speaker
um And and and you know to to put it you know quite simply, I would say that that's that's a good word for it. The prostitution of the self. That's what drugs and alcohol do. And that's the approach that I take with the vampire venom in the books.
00:28:23
Speaker
That's really interesting because I'm actually... thinking about that in terms of some of my favorite vampire stories, like ah Salem's Lot, I would say, is is like the king of of all vampire stories after, you know, Dracula, I guess.
00:28:37
Speaker
Sure. But yes, yes. Yeah, Dracula. Well, the thing about Dracula is that It set up a lot of expectations that I think people associated with vampires that really didn't have anything to do with vampirism, like living in a castle and wearing capes being called Count. like He didn't live in a castle because he was a vampire, he was a count. right That's why he had a castle. that The whole vampire, that that was just incidental to that. there were Lots of counts with castles back then, they weren't all vampires.
00:29:12
Speaker
right but salem's lot you know has first of all the the main vampires are very you know zombie like they they don't tend to speak as much um they're obviously very slow-witted they have like their memories seem sort of vague but then there's the guy like if you're watching the movies you know the the james mason the donald sutherland the uh I forget his name. You're on Greyjoy.
00:29:39
Speaker
That are, you know, ah helpers. I loved, loved the new Salem's Lot. I mean, I understand that it had issues because they cut almost an hour out of it.
00:29:50
Speaker
But yeah there was so much to like there. So much beautiful cinematography. i I would agree with that. Yeah. I watched it not too long ago. And I i i know what you mean. I felt... I really felt those those cuts.
00:30:03
Speaker
Like I was going along and I was loving it And all a I'm like wait a minute. Wait, how did we get here? But then I'd start getting into... You know what i mean? Yes. it was It was... I liked it. I think I i really did. i i do wish...
00:30:15
Speaker
I don't care if it's three hours. I would have watched all of it. Well, it's supposed to be three hours. Every other good version of it is roughly three hours. Exactly. Sometimes it just has to be, you know, I mean, can you imagine if they would have tried to condense Gone with the Wind into an hour and a half?
00:30:27
Speaker
Impossible. You know what i mean? It's just, you know, i mean, really, i mean, what would it, you know, just take out all the parts where Scarlet is selfish and annoying and there's your movie. Right.
00:30:40
Speaker
And what kind of movie would that be? It's not the Scarlet we know and love. a movie about an angry servant that we're going to pretend is paid fairly. Right? Right?
00:30:54
Speaker
But yeah, it's just if they would have done, i would have loved it. I would have really loved it. but Yeah, I mean. If they would have given the, you know. asked a little more it It seems like we're not going to get the full version, that they're not going to you know pay attention to the fan outcry, because the fan outcry has been minimal.
00:31:11
Speaker
you Mostly people have just been trashing it, and that bums me out. That's why the last issue of Sometimes Hilarious Horror, instead of one of my stories I would normally submit, I had ah just a long essay defending the movie.
00:31:25
Speaker
Oh, nice, nice. I'm glad you do that. You know, that's cool. That matters. Well, there are certain things like, for example, Mark Petrie. This portrayal of Mark Petrie was incredible.
00:31:39
Speaker
He was a wonderful character, the boy. actually reminds me of a young version of of H. Oh, nice. So it was, well, and you know, the thing that is most attractive about H and many things are, cause you know, my husband kicks ass, but he is so morally and ethically centered as a person. He always knows what the right thing is to do.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I personally am much more morally ambiguous than that. Yeah. But the thing about that kid is that he's like, well, I have to do what I hate what i can and for my friend. That's my friend. And I made him a promise and I'm keeping it, even if it involves, you know, putting a stake through his heart.
00:32:19
Speaker
Right, right. And when you see a kid like that, the obvious question is, who are his parents? How did that happen? And we barely saw the Petries until the scene where they died.
00:32:31
Speaker
Right. And I'm pretty sure we were meant to see a conversation at the funeral because they are present at the the funeral of the Glick kids. Yeah, they don't say anything.
00:32:42
Speaker
And given that they're the only black family in the goddamn movie, you think you could have given them, you know, little bit more screen time just so you could know them. Plus, the sheriff, I think, is the other big blunder because the sheriff, we see him getting the hell out of town and it is not yet dusk.
00:33:00
Speaker
So he should have been able to get away. yeah And the fact that he didn't means I need that information. i need to know why he didn't get away. Exactly. And that's exactly what, you know, it it really, I feel like it was really well done. I think that there was a lot of love put into it. It's one of those sad, it's one of those sad cases where I'm like, it really just came down to the final, those fine, it just, it, I mean, I'm a complete layman when it comes to, to, to movie making. And I could tell, I'm like, this has been edited.
00:33:29
Speaker
within an inch of its life, it's been cut down, pared down to the bare minimum. And unfortunately it has lost some of the essential ah bridges that are going to gap, you know.
00:33:44
Speaker
And it just, it doesn't make sense to make those cuts. Maybe if if it was getting a theatrical release, which is what we were initially promised, Yeah, that might make sense to say we don't want people in their seats for more than two hours. That's you know, that's a reasonable thing to say. Sure. But the fact that they ended up putting it on HBO instead, you know, like people have a lot. First of all, you can hit pause because it's on HBO. It's right there at home. Right.
00:34:11
Speaker
But. Yeah, there's there's just no reason to cut it. And even in even in the movie theater, even in the, you know, the the movie theater thing, you know, it it's, you know, people who love this.
00:34:23
Speaker
And there are lots of people, obviously, who love this. I mean, they're willing to sit through it. You know what? When was the last time you saw a movie with Brad Pitt in it that wasn't four hours long, you know? I remember going to see, you know, nothing against him. I think he's, he's great, but that's not my point. My point is, is I'm like, if he's in a movie, I have to really think about it because I'm like, it's going to be at least three hours long. I remember going to see seven years in Tibet in the movie theater.
00:34:45
Speaker
I call it seven years in the movie theater. Oh, it was just so, it just went on and on and on and on and on. And I mean, you know, But why is that okay? I mean, people will tolerate Brad Pitt, but I think people, point is, is that people would tolerate a really long version of Salem's Lot. We want it. yeah We've asked for it for a long Well, and I mean, I'm sure part of it is just underestimating horror fans and the passion that we have for the things that we love.
00:35:12
Speaker
Absolutely. That's exactly what it is, I think. But they knew, i mean, i think that it's possible that the way that the two part release of the it movies was mishandled and the way that, you know, they forgot that the cast was predominantly children. And so they didn't shoot everything before they hit puberty, you know, and then they had to go back and CGI things. Yeah.
00:35:37
Speaker
but So, yeah, I mean, I think those kind of problems. Well, because the thing about the kids in Salem's Lot is that because there was so much time in between the the shooting of the movie and its release.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. We know that the kids got a lot older because one of those kids is a t twin and their twin is on another show. he looks much older because, you know, the the the kid that plays... a and Danny Glick is the twin of the kid that plays Homelander's son yeah on the boys.
00:36:09
Speaker
So I'm just mentioning that for readers, for listeners in case, you know. Because, you know, people think the boys is woke, so they don't watch it anymore. Right. Well, and, you know, on then on the on the ah on the ah um topic of little Danny Glick, ah that's another scene that in my mind as ah as a child that I saw that I must have watched, I guess, Salem's Lot, the old miniseries.
00:36:34
Speaker
think it was like 1979. you know not and didn't watch it when it was new. um It was kind of before my time, but I watched really? I watched the premiere. I was maybe seven.
00:36:46
Speaker
ah Really? so My parents were very into letting me watch all the horror I wanted. Kind of irresponsible in retrospect. but but yeah I must have saw it when I was, again, eight, maybe nine, seven, between somewhere between seven and nine. And I don't remember.
00:36:59
Speaker
I was young enough that I don't remember the whole thing. But I just remember little Danny Glick at the window. oh yeah. And boy, creeped me out. Something fierce. So there's another. yeah Pretty much Stephen King's fault, if you think about it. All of this For people our age, though, I mean, that that is a formative horror moment. I don't know anybody who saw that movie as a young kid and was not impacted by it.
00:37:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah. it was true There are people that tell me that it it put them off of horror movies altogether. Like, they didn't watch another scary movie for 10 years. They missed the whole Halloween, Friday the 13th thing, because after Salem's Lot, they were just like, nope. yeah Whereas I was like, i am terrified.
00:37:40
Speaker
I want more of that. I know, which is not weird. But I remember, I remember, and my mom was really, really cool. She, I remember going to, this is back when you had, you know, video stores and I'd go to the video stores. Now it's straight to the horror section every time. and And I, and the movie that I really, really, really fell in love with that. I, I would say is probably my favorite movie of all time, not just horror, but all time.
00:38:03
Speaker
ah Carrie. oh yeah I love that movie. And I remember watching it so much over and over. I would i would rent it and then you had to return it. And then I'd wait a couple days and rent it again. And I watched it over and over and over. I mean, there was a point, I guarantee you, I had pretty much the entire script memorized. I loved that movie. It just did something to me. I don't really know.
00:38:26
Speaker
What? I'd have to analyze that, but it changed things. Well, it certainly put you on a path as far as writing about bad moms because that's... And maybe that's... Yeah, maybe that's right. Margaret White is the gold standard of bad moms because the things that she does are horrible, but she is so sure that she's doing the right thing. That's right. And you know what? not a drunk. She's not lazy. She really just thinks all that wackadoo stuff.
00:38:50
Speaker
and This is an interesting conversation because this is almost like a therapy session because Tamara and I have talked about this. In fact, we talked about it a lot, especially when we were writing Mother because we were both like, because she has some some nasty moms in some of her other books and I have a few nasty moms and and some of mine and we have nasty dads too, but it's just like we're both kind of a little bit baffled as to why you know we both have such great relationships with our moms and and yet this comes out of us and it's it's interesting.
00:39:18
Speaker
But this is an interesting conversation with you because now I'm thinking maybe it's Carrie. Maybe it's, you know, old Piper Laurie, you know, maybe that's where it's coming from. But, you know, there's also the the psychological theory that like if you are raised in a in a good environment that's loving and safe, then you can spot bad behavior. You could spot red flags.
00:39:42
Speaker
and poor treatment and you're not the person that sits there and says oh do I have a right to be upset about this right maybe I'm being ridiculous for being mad no because if you've been treated well it's much easier to say hey that was fucked up that shouldn't have happened this didn't feel good we shouldn't that your whole life is one fucked up thing after another it's like oh I guess I deserve this again so you know because I mean obviously you and I have very different mom experiences. My mom was a narcissist. I say was, she's only dead to me. I promise I i didn't actually kill her.
00:40:17
Speaker
um Well, no, it's, um but if you're raised by a narcissistic sociopath and then you try to go out in the world and do things like have a boss or date, you, you may or may not have a sense of what is appropriate behavior and what's not.
00:40:38
Speaker
Right. You know, like if if you're 16 and your boyfriend calls you a bitch and you've never been called a bitch before, you're going to know immediately how unacceptable that is.
00:40:48
Speaker
Right. But if you've been called that your whole life, then it's not only acceptable, it's cozy. Right. It's like that is familiar to me. i am comfortable in this situation because I understand what's happening. Right. Right.
00:41:00
Speaker
you know And then when I met H and he treated me like a queen, I was like, oh, what's this about, man? I don't i don't even know what's going on here. did you Did you have a hard time trusting that?
00:41:12
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. i i Honestly, I still have a hard time trusting it. Really? Yes. I mean, its I when I got sick in 2022, I was like, dude, you don't have to stick around for this. You've done plenty.
00:41:26
Speaker
You know, you you would not be a bad guy if you called it at this point and said, I'm going to go get a different life with someone who's, you know, not an unhealthy wackadoo that requires constant care.
00:41:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't really require constant care, but at the time I did because you were really sick. You got yeah sick, didn't you? And I was pretty sure I was going to die. And I wasn't really like the whole situation made me depressed enough that I didn't want to do anything about it. You know, the ambulance showed up and they were like, look, you need to go to a hospital.
00:41:58
Speaker
And i I told them to leave. They're like, no, you can't. Your blood sugar is too low. If you go back to bed, you're going to go into a a coma and die. And I was like, you need to get out of my home. I don't want you. Right. You're like, I don't care. I'm done. yeah You know, like, yes, I'm trying to sleep.
00:42:14
Speaker
Can you hold it down, please? And the only reason I did anything is because of that guy, because I realized how fucking mean it is when someone is standing there trying to save your life and you're telling them that you don't care. Like,
00:42:28
Speaker
That's just mean. Yeah. And by that point, I had been in a loving relationship for 20 years and had, you know, I just I had more responsibility to him than that, because that's that's a thing that I say to other people, but had not been saying to myself, which is that if you want people to love you.
00:42:50
Speaker
you have to, you can't make them watch you hurt yourself over and over again. Right. You know, which is, you know, an addict thing too, because that's yeah a lot of times what at addicts end up doing. They hurt themselves.
00:43:03
Speaker
And then everybody who loves you has to just sit there and watch. Right. And in that respect, you are, you know, that whole, oh, I'm not hurting anybody but myself. That's not true. Right. Exactly. never true. It's never true.
00:43:15
Speaker
I'm curious, ah and I hope it's okay if we kind go this direction, but I'm just curious, is is your Are those issues for you? So you're you're your problem is with with with your mom. See, i had ah I had a good relationship with my mom, but my my dad was a whole different story. And for me, um I'm much more trusting of women.
00:43:37
Speaker
I don't have mom issues and I don't have I don't have I love women. Women to me are safe. Women to me are great. Men, a little different.
00:43:49
Speaker
it it's It's a little more difficult, a little more complicated. And so what I'm wondering is, i don't know, you've never said anything about your your your dad. um is Is this, is it different for for for you from gender to gender?
00:44:05
Speaker
um It is. for me Lots to unpack there. I know, right? i know. I'm sorry. No, no, not at all. No, I, um, I would say that I also, and and this is interesting because I had a ah quote unquote best friend going up, growing up a girl I'd known since I was like seven.
00:44:24
Speaker
And so we were like, you know, I'd go stay over at her house or whatever. And then we ended up, you know, going to the same schools and we went to the same undergrad college for a while.
00:44:37
Speaker
um, ah She, um, she's a very troubled person like, like me, you know, we had weird upbringings and I think that's one of the reasons that we hung out, but she was a very mean person and someone who like wanted to be my best friend until like the popular kids wanted to hang out with her. And then suddenly i was, you know, they, they would just all make fun of me and, you know, stuff like that.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah. And, and I, I tolerated it. Because of, I think, what we were talking about earlier, like people who who knew me the boat most and who knew me the longest treated me the worst. And it must have been because that's just, you know, because I was a fuck up and I wasn't pretty and I wasn't thin. And, you know, i just assume that that's how people were treated because I that's always what the world was.
00:45:29
Speaker
And it really wasn't until I got to college that. And then after that, discovered the internet that I was like, hey, wait a minute. That doesn't happen everywhere. That was just happening to me.
00:45:41
Speaker
And it's wrong. And there are people who know it's wrong. Because the thing is, that friend, that friend officiated my wedding. Like, that is how long I maintained that type of of and relationship with a person who did not treat me well.
00:45:59
Speaker
And, and, and it was, there was a lot of gaslighting too, you know, because you get that with abusers that you're in long, long-term relationships with. Like they want to tell you things weren't that bad or they didn't really say that or, oh, come on, that's not how that happened. And it's like, yeah, I can see why you'd want to tell yourself that, but bitch, that is what happened.
00:46:22
Speaker
Right. Right.
00:46:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I really, um I tended to have female friendships out of necessity because it was expected of me, but I didn't, I didn't tend to trust my female friendships. It was very rare. um And even now, you know, I have a handful of female friends, but for the most part, the people that I would rather just hang out and watch movies and get high with are are dudes.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, see, and to me, and it's so interesting because to me, it's it's the opposite. And I've had this conversation, you know, with Tamara also. And it's just, it's really interesting to me because I'm i'm i'm kind of the opposite. I just feel more, you know, there was a lot of, you know, you were you were talking about, you know, growing up and I grew up in a small town, really conservative small town. And I'm not like...
00:47:19
Speaker
the rest of the boys, I didn't play football. I didn't, you know, so the bullying we're basically, you and I are basically the same age. So I don't need to tell you how, you know, acceptable and normal it was. I mean, I remember getting just, you know,
00:47:36
Speaker
kicked down the hall and passing teachers and they were just like, me you know, you got know yeah yeah it was no big thing. And it was really bad for a couple of years there and in junior high, really bad.
Impact of Bullying and Finding Balance
00:47:48
Speaker
I don't even know how I did it to be honest. Well, I mean, if we're being honest with ourselves, the only reason that most schools really looked into bullying was that the kids being bullied started shooting up the place.
00:47:59
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. You know, and then everybody was like, oh, this is a problem we should probably deal with. Yeah, it has been. and You know, yeah if girls started shooting people for tugging their bra straps, we would have real dress codes and real consequences for that shit now. But we don't. so But it was it was mainly, um you know, looking back on it, it was mainly the boys that that that were the bullies to me.
00:48:25
Speaker
And so, again, you know, i I don't, I'm in a much, you know, I can deal with men now, but I don't think I could even look them in the eye until I was 30 something. No, toxic masculinity, man, that makes bullying out of control because there's so much fear attached to it.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was ah it was a weird, it was a weird thing. I mean, i I remember, you know, someone more than once commenting on that, you know, a woman you know, being like, what why but don't you look at him? like And I'm like, because he's a dude.
00:49:01
Speaker
You know what I mean? And so, you know, and the and and yet, you know, I talked to Tamara or even you and it's like, Tamara is much more comfortable with with with men. And I'm like, isn't it just it's strange, you know, and then, you know, you talk to somebody who has these, you know, kind of their their trauma comes from, you know, women, whether it's a mother or whatever. And it's like, I i just i I don't understand that women to me are safe.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, see, i if you have a gaslighting mom, what you learn is not to trust what you see. Right. And because I have autism, I want very much to believe that everyone is well-intentioned and that everyone is telling me the truth.
00:49:40
Speaker
Right. But because of my mom, I have to second-guess everything. So when my husband says, you are so beautiful and I am so proud to be your husband, I'm like, okay, what's the gag?
00:49:52
Speaker
yeah What do you want? yeah well When do your buddies come out and start laughing at me? Because I fell for it. you know Right. No, I get it. I do. I really do. um would you how How old were you when you cut ties with your mom? you said ninety ninety five You said 1995? 94, 95, right around there.
00:50:11
Speaker
um Actually, it must have been 95 because I went to Woodstock 94 and we had a big argument about it afterwards because she... ah took my my boots that had the Woodstock mud all over them and she put them in the washing machine.
00:50:26
Speaker
and i was pretty upset about that because she needed to be mean. you know It's another one of those things that she, oh gosh, why is that a problem? but like Bitch, you know you know what you did. and It was probably a ah year after that because actually at that point her husband, I refer to him as my dad. He's not my dad. I called him to dad growing up but he's he's my stepdad.
00:50:48
Speaker
I could not pick my actual dad out of a lineup. I think we traded some emails around like 2004 and he had heard that I was a writer, but when he found out I wasn't rich, he kind of lost interest.
00:51:01
Speaker
Oh, wow. That's that's nice. quite ah Quite a winner. winner um But the thing is, growing up, and I was like, I sort of idolized him, even though he wasn't around. I had really romanticized like that, you know, like, oh, he got to escape my mom. That's awesome.
00:51:23
Speaker
And then when I was, you know, when I was escaping my mom, I was like, wait a minute. I was concerned about leaving the dog behind. right He was not concerned about leaving me behind. So that, you know, you have these realizations later on, like, you know, with my mom being abusive, I had a ah point where I was like, well,
00:51:46
Speaker
I should probably forgive her because she was mentally ill and she didn't know what she was doing. But then when you realize, like, you want to say, oh abusers, you know, they just can't control themselves sometimes. They lose control. But the fact of the matter is my teachers didn't know what was happening. My grandfather didn't know what was happening. My aunt slash godmother didn't know that we were being beaten like regularly or that I'd be like, you know, locked in my room or, you know, just crazy shit like that.
00:52:16
Speaker
So then I had to admit that, like, yes, she could control herself just fine when she wanted to. She didn't think that I was worth that level of control.
00:52:27
Speaker
Well, and sometimes, you know, the way that I've come to reconcile it and, and I mean, even just with people that I've known as an adult, people who sometimes you just have to say, you know what, you are sick, but go be sick somewhere else. Yep.
00:52:43
Speaker
Yep. Because it's destroying. yeah And, and you can really want someone to like get better and have a better life without being part of it. Right. Exactly. Right. And, you know, that's also something that addicts go through, because if you screw people over hard enough while you're using, even though you got better and you got sober, there are those people that will say, that's great.
00:53:05
Speaker
Congratulations. No, fuck on I don't want to see you. Exactly. Off you go, then. yeah Exactly. Like, no, you you won't be house sitting for me anymore. sir Thanks for saying you're sorry.
00:53:16
Speaker
Bye. Right. Yeah. Well, and, you know, one of the 12 steps, if you're, you know, if you're sobering up using the steps, one of them is to just sort of go around and grovel to everybody that you fucked over and admit what you did and listen to what they have to say about it. It's like, I don't...
00:53:34
Speaker
I got so lucky. I got so lucky with that one because I did do I did do the 12 steps and I, I, I'm a total, I'm i'm not a zealot or a fanatic, but I think everybody should go through the 12 steps. I think they're fantastic.
00:53:47
Speaker
But um I got so lucky with that one. Most people just said to me, you know what, that that's fine. Just just stay sober and and we'll be fine. You know what? And I wasn't like a thief or anything. So I didn't owe anybody any money. i didn't, I didn't, I was too, you know, I wasn't out, you know, having affairs with strange people. I was, yes yeah I was not, sex was not the thing. It was not a pretty situation. There was no, none of that for me, but you know, it's, it's, yeah, I, yeah, I got lucky with those, with that. I think it's a step nine. I think that's where you, you go make amends. Yeah.
00:54:26
Speaker
it was it was It was scary, but I'm glad i did it. Well, and I noticed that unlike a lot of people who work the 12 steps, a lot of people sort of replace their addiction with religion.
00:54:40
Speaker
Sure. and And specifically, you know, Jesus stuff. Yeah. Which like, i have nothing against the teachings of Jesus as stated. I think the red words in the Bible are very nice.
00:54:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Oh yeah, but no, I do. i i know I know what you mean. It's ah that replacement of addiction. And I think that you have to be really careful because I don't know that addiction ever really dies. I think it just kind of changes form. So you have to learn how to um
00:55:13
Speaker
control and disperse your energy in a balanced way. Yep. Yep. Because I think it's very natural to quit one thing and go head first into another thing. I mean, even those 12-step programs become an obsession for some people.
00:55:29
Speaker
And that's fine in the beginning, but eventually the goal is you to be a productive member of society. Well, right. Like if you're three years in and you're still doing a meeting every single day, it might be time to...
00:55:41
Speaker
And if you wait, right. I mean, if you, because you need stuff in your life, it's like that experiment with the rats, you know, that experiment where they, they have the rats and they gave them a choice between like food and water versus cocaine. And of course they pick the cocaine, but then if you give them a playground with other rats and it's social and there's things to do and play and and work toward, then they, they don't I mean, every once in a while, there's one that goes for just the cocaine, but for the most part, they they don't.
00:56:12
Speaker
And that's the thing about like, that's why community is so important. And that's why the fascists are trying so hard to break up our communities. Exactly, and you know I've been to, like there are these places, and I'm not judging anybody, I think, you know what, you do whatever works for you, you do whatever you need to do.
00:56:31
Speaker
But when I was early on in my recovery, I would go to these places that would have meetings, like AA meetings, and there would be like five, six you know meetings a day, spaced a few hours apart.
00:56:43
Speaker
And you would see these people and you'd see them there, you know, week after week. And you'd realize that there are these people who are going to meetings and they're just hanging out between meetings, waiting for the next meeting and the next. And it's like all day, every day, they're hanging out, just bouncing from meeting to meetings meeting to meeting.
00:57:02
Speaker
Now, again, I want to be very clear. i I'm not judging that that that you do whatever you have to do. But when I was early on in my recovery, I specifically remember hearing them talk a lot about, you know, the whole program talks a lot about, you know, the goal, you be a productive member of society.
00:57:18
Speaker
And I thought, well, that that to me is not my version of being a productive member of society. So I had to learn. And it's still a challenge because I'm very,
00:57:30
Speaker
ocd And I mean that literally, you know, like diagnosably I'm OCD. And so I have to be really careful about I can pour myself into one thing and just just go, go, go, go. go And so when I quit, you know, when I got sober, it was, you you know, you're kind of looking for something to fill that void. And it could have been it could have been anything. But I really um because of the 12 steps and because of these programs, I really learned, you know, that I'm not that unique. You know, a lot of people are a lot like me. And, and you know, you have to learn to, like I said, kind of.
00:58:08
Speaker
disperse your energy evenly and in ah in a balanced way. Well, and that's one of the biggest things about community is that it teaches us when you listen to other people, you realize that you are not alone. and I mean, that's one of the things we talk about on this show is that people do share your experience, whether you're like late diagnosed with something that you've been struggling with your whole life, or, you know, you self-medicated for a long time and now you want to not do that or, you know, whatever it is, there's someone who's been through what you've been through.
00:58:43
Speaker
Right. There's a, there's a phrase I like to, to, to use for people, it for not people, but for this, this idea that we all kind of have it, I think, and I call it terminally unique.
00:58:54
Speaker
Like meaning, you know, you believe we all have the tendency to do this, that that we're the only, our case is so unique. We're so different. And I don't know if it's the ego. I don't know what it is, but there's something inside of us, you you know, that that tells us that we're different from other people that we're so, and yet if you can get people, if you can get people to open up in a real meaningful way,
00:59:19
Speaker
and you can listen and and and there's trust there, you realize that it's like, we are all a lot more alike than we are different. and And that's a really weird realization. And that's something that I came to much later in life. I always felt very different.
00:59:35
Speaker
And yet I am around people all the time who feel exactly the same way, that they're different. they' They didn't quite fit in. They didn't, you know, even the people that you thought, you know, you look at somebody from across the room and you think, well, you know, they've got it together.
00:59:54
Speaker
No, they don't. No, they don't. Well, I mean, just look at writers. Like we all look at each other based on like who we appear to be online and the work. Like that's how most of us writers know each other.
01:00:06
Speaker
And then it turns out that people i've idolized for 20 years have money problems and people that you know i think are just the cat's pajamas right yeah you know imposter syndrome and stuff right like i don't want to name any names but finding out that certain people have imposter syndromes when it's like shut up i'm trying to worship you literally no trust me i know stop humanizing yourself Tamara and I did ah podcast for seven years.
01:00:36
Speaker
And I mean, we we interviewed people like, I mean, we you know we did Anne Rice, we did you know Laurel K. Hamilton, we did Andrew Niederman of V.C. Andrews, we did Preston and Child, we, you know,
01:00:51
Speaker
Just all kinds of amazing people and there were some of them that we got to know um off the air a little bit and I know exactly what you're saying because these some of these people I'm like I grew up wanting to be you and you're you're lost too.
01:01:11
Speaker
Right. You know what I mean? Not not in a not in a bad way, but we're all lost. But in the bit in the way that we're all lost, we're all kind of broken,
Successful Collaborations and Writing Partnerships
01:01:18
Speaker
I guess. I don't know. I mean, maybe that's kind of strong. Maybe some people don't feel broken, but we all have our problems.
01:01:25
Speaker
Let's put it that way. And yeah, I mean, because like for me, one of my formative horror things is Night of the Living Dead. It was profound for me as a kid. It is still extremely meaningful now.
01:01:39
Speaker
Thanks to the internet, I've become friendly with a lot of the cast, you know, the crew. yeah um And one of the things that strikes me is that, like, Russ Streiner and John Russo, for example, are...
01:01:52
Speaker
regular guys that worked a job and then they retired and they're in the industry and they're just as mad about politics as me. That like having power and privilege and and money and and notoriety, you know, having like a ah well-known name doesn't help for that you know which is no does i used to be very into the night shows like the john stewart the seth myers because it's it's so valid to hear other people just say yeah you're right that's fucked up here's what's funny about it ha ha ha but yes these are very serious issues and we hear you and you're right to to feel the way you feel about
01:02:30
Speaker
Right, right. And I think that we do, I think that we have a natural inclination to, you know, look at these people and go, you know, that it somehow they're, they're not affected.
01:02:41
Speaker
they're They're above it somehow, or they're there. I don't know, but it's no, it's, I, it's really, really weird to realize that some people are human. but's It's like, oh, you're human. Wow. Okay. It's, but it's great at the same time. It's, it's kind of a,
01:02:57
Speaker
It's kind of a double-edged sword. Oh, totally. Because there's plenty of things that I wish I did not know about right people. Right. Right. And it's like, it's not, it's not their fault. You know, it's like, you know, you're just, you're just human, but I kind of thought sometimes it is.
01:03:13
Speaker
i wish I didn't know who Bredy Stinellis was inside. See, I don't know who he is. I don't know anything about him. Well, he's a dick. Should I Well, if it makes you feel better, I tried to read American Psycho. I liked the movie.
01:03:31
Speaker
And I tried to read it, and I was just like, stylistically, this just, ugh, I don't like it. It's a huge issue for me because I discovered American Psycho and feminism in the same year.
01:03:43
Speaker
And those things were very much at odds with each other. ah Yeah, right, right. So you were like, yeah. So to to me, I was just like, it's a little, mean, and I don't know. I just, I had a hard time with it. So yeah, apparently, so he's not a nice person. so Well, my whole thing with American Psycho is yes, of course it's violent. It's not an instruction manual.
01:04:01
Speaker
It is a subversive takedown of a very particular subset of the culture. And that's why it's like this. That's why there's a whole... you know, chapter about Peter Gabriel and Genesis and Phil Collins. And right like there are reasons for this.
01:04:17
Speaker
And I was very into defending it because i was suddenly at odds with all these people that made sense to me on a lot of other issues. I mean, I was at a take back the night rally.
01:04:28
Speaker
And they were reading from American Psycho and talking about how horrible it was and how books like that shouldn't exist. And so I immediately like I wasn't able to get like swept up in feminism because I had to be like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute.
01:04:44
Speaker
The book banners are never the good guys. Be the good guys. but See, this is, this is, and I know I've kind of told you this before, but this right here, this is why I respect you.
01:04:57
Speaker
You are someone who I'm, how do I say this without being, eh, what's, okay. I am so done with the climate, the culture, the politics. I recently went through and like just deleted like 1,700 people off Facebook because I'm like, I am so tired of your opinions. I don't care.
01:05:18
Speaker
Even the ones I agree with, I don't care. i didn't ask. And the main reason for that is is because there is no objectivity. There is no critical thinking. And I don't care what side you're on. I don't care what point you're making.
01:05:33
Speaker
if You need to think critically. You need to be objective. You need to be fair. Even if sometimes it doesn't work out. It doesn't, you know, even if sometimes maybe it makes your side look bad, you know, because let's be honest, it happens.
01:05:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm. the What I'm trying to say is what you just said, that reasonableness, that's what I've always really respected about you. And I hope you never lose that because you are you are outspoken about the things that you believe. in i and And I think it's fantastic because it's well thought out.
01:06:12
Speaker
And just because it doesn't fit into a nice little box that that you want into, to fit into doesn't mean you you can't see it. That's actually really, really rare.
01:06:26
Speaker
it's It's incredibly rare. Tribalism, i don't like. I don't care which side it is. Even if it's the side that I'm on, I'm like, are you thinking? Are you thinking?
01:06:38
Speaker
That's all I ask. And you think. And I appreciate that. And I hope you never, ever, ever, ever lose that. because I hope so, too. Because I got to say, i'm I'm feeling pretty tribal about MAGA versus non-MAGA these days. Sure, sure. But but but not... And that's that's that's great, because it's what you it's what you believe. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it's like, you don't do it blindly.
01:07:02
Speaker
And that's what I like about you. It's... you can back it up. You know what I mean? And what you just said about the whole thing about, you know, um the the book banning versus the feminism, you're like, well, okay, but, but, you know, there's, it's not quite, it's not, there's a lot of nuance.
01:07:21
Speaker
Well, and certainly if you're talking about kids, like I can't think of any reason that American Psycho needs to be in a high school library sure or below. i sure But to say that a a book shouldn't exist, I mean, I wouldn't even say that about Mein Kampf.
01:07:38
Speaker
Because we can't just pretend things don't exist because we don't like them. That's not an okay thing to do. Right. And I remember seeing, i remember seeing you posting about the, the changes that they made to the Roald Dahl books and that, that, you know, kind of disgusted you as well. It should.
01:07:59
Speaker
And yet they, they were, I don't know. There's, like I said, i just, I really respect the fact that you, you know, aren't, there's a lot of sheep and I don't care which side it is or whatever it is. I, I,
01:08:14
Speaker
i
01:08:17
Speaker
Just think. Think critically. Use your head. make your decisions. Because i think in a lot of cases, it's easy to lose track of what you personally is.
01:08:30
Speaker
In the face of what is being foisted on you. Right. You know, like, I don't, for example, think that trans people are having a great time at their best.
01:08:41
Speaker
I think it's it's a very difficult thing to be trans. Even if society were awesome at it, it would, there would still be like medical things and. Right. i mean, it can't. Plenty of things that i don't understand.
01:08:54
Speaker
Sure. that. that I forget where I was going with that, but like that just because i think it's, it's like there are difficulties inherent to it doesn't mean I don't think anyone should be allowed to do it.
01:09:11
Speaker
And that seems to be where our government is headed. Like, oh, well that's not a perfect life. So you shouldn't be allowed to do it. Like, yeah, try cis heterosexuality sometime. It is a pain in the ass.
01:09:22
Speaker
right it's It's not like there is a gender and sexual dynamic that is all smooth sailing. Right. and Because trying to get two people to to agree on like anything significant is well.
01:09:37
Speaker
Okay, though, but like moving on. um You will. Well, this kind of goes back to what we were saying about like meeting your heroes. You met one of your heroes and they became your writing partner. So yes, tell us that story.
01:09:53
Speaker
So when I was growing up, as you know, I loved horror and I remember um going to library by my house and i i went to the, you know, i just went and i was go to the horror section and i remember seeing ah row of books and i remember seeing the name Tamara Thorne.
01:10:11
Speaker
and don't even know, you know, it's like almost like some weird kind of creepy cosmic thing. And I know it sounds really kind of oo out there. But I don't care because it's the truth. I just was, I just kind of zeroed in on this name, Tamara Thorne. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And I picked up a book and it was actually, it was Moonfall.
01:10:30
Speaker
And I took it home. I checked it out, took it home. I read it, loved it, went back. Um, Got another one. Got another one. Loved this woman's writing. Loved her books.
01:10:41
Speaker
and this was And then a few years later, i remember, you remember when the internet was so old that we had dial-up? Yes, yes, I do. I remember going to my mom's house because she had a computer. I didn't have a computer.
01:10:55
Speaker
I go to my mom's house and get on her dial up and, you know, go to, you know, Tamara Thorne dot com and just see if there was anything new out. And I just kind of had this weird. It certainly was not an obsession or anything creepy like that, but but just this interest that that I just I liked her work. I liked her. it's just, you know, i was a fan.
01:11:14
Speaker
And 2012, I got published. um And had a book out there. And it was like, yay, yeehaw. I am a published author. And you know nobody fucking cares because nobody cares.
01:11:30
Speaker
And I thought, you know I don't even know any other authors. And so I got this idea that I would do author interviews on my blog. It was back when I had a blog. And she was one of the first people I asked. So I found her on Facebook and I sent her a private message. And I just said, you know, I do interviews on my blog and I wonder if you'd be interested in doing an interview. And she said yes.
01:11:54
Speaker
And we talked. We did do the interview, but we talked every single day. I don't think, you know, maybe in, in this was in 2012 or 13, we've maybe missed four or five days in all that time that we haven't spoken. And we just really clicked and really got along. And I was living in St. Louis at the time, and I was talking to her on the phone, which is something in and of itself, which is really weird, because neither one of us are phone people. I hate talking on the phone. She hates talking on the phone, but we were cool talking to each other on the phone.
01:12:27
Speaker
And she just said to me, um how would you like to, you know, collaborate with me on a short story just to see. And I, of course, was like, oh, my God. I think that can be arranged.
01:12:41
Speaker
Exactly. And of course, i I actually played it off like really cool. And I'm like, well, you know, let me think about it. Check my schedule. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let me give this some serious thought. i got off the phone and i'm like, of course I'm going to do it. So I waited a respectable day or two or whatever and said, yeah, I've thought about it. And I think we can do that cause she had read, she had read my book and, and, and thought, you know, I had something, which I thought was of course very, very flattering.
01:13:06
Speaker
And so um we sat down, we got we finally figured out how to do this because we're in different states. And it's like, okay, so we work in the cloud on Skype. So we're working together in real time in you know different states.
01:13:21
Speaker
We finally figured out how to do that. So we we sit down to start writing this short story and it became the Cliff House Haunting, which was so huge.
01:13:33
Speaker
We had to cut 65,000 words from it just to get it down to a normal huge size. wow And as soon as that was done, we started the Ravencrest series and then we did mother and then we did darling girls and then on and on and on. And we've never stopped.
01:13:51
Speaker
We've never stopped. We worked together ah five days a week. It's been a little less just the last couple of months because of stuff going on on my side, but three, four, at least three, between three and five times a week, eight hours a day, like a normal job.
01:14:08
Speaker
And we, we work together. We've never fought. And that is so amazing to me. In fact, I was talking to her a little earlier today and we were commenting on something we had seen online, people working together, fighting. And I was and I even told her, I'm like, aren't you glad that never happens to us? I don't know.
01:14:27
Speaker
People just don't work together well, but we do. you know And people say to us, you know you you know you guys have been collaborating for like 10 years and it's been successful. what What's your advice? And both of us are like, don't do it. Because because we don't, it's a fluke thing. it's We both had collaborated in the past and it's not something I would advise doing.
01:14:49
Speaker
When i first encountered you guys online, I was trying to guess the nature of your relationship. People still are. It's like, are they a couple? Are they related? like Well, the way the way she says it, and I would agree, we're too close for that.
01:15:06
Speaker
it would and It would be weird. It would be like your brother or your sister. Okay. we're like We're like kindred. It's weird. It's so strange. But yeah, no, there's no... And you know maybe that's why it works. there's There's no... Our egos are such that we're not in competition with each other. There's no sexual tension. There's no... We don't have these issues. you know Because you know it's for some reason, it's just...
01:15:33
Speaker
fell into place in such a way that it's like, this is what we are supposed to do. And so this is what we do. That's so amazing. It really is. And this is why it's like when people say, well, you know, what's your advice? I don't have any, I don't know.
01:15:47
Speaker
Because to to just go, oh, I want a writing partner. Let me go find one. Good luck. yeah It's just, you know what I mean? It just, it's, it's kind of a freak thing.
01:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, i've I've never had success. And I have tried a few times to write with people. Most people have. Yeah. And it just it's not it's not a good thing. I think, you know, I think Preston and Child, we interviewed them. Those guys seem to get along. But who knows what goes on behind the scenes, of course. but they seem to really get along. They have a totally different. um ah process than than Tamara and I do.
01:16:19
Speaker
um But it's it seems to work for them. And you know there are those people that it it works for, but it's it's really, really rare. There's so much. I mean, and then you get into the business side of it. Well, I did more than you. blow but People fight over these. They squabble.
01:16:35
Speaker
She and I are just like, we have the same vision. you know um We just do everything 50-50.
01:16:44
Speaker
i know You know, the Thorn and Cross royalties, If shit was going on in my life and she kind of carried the weight in that last book because I was going through shit that I can't handle or vice versa, who cares?
01:16:56
Speaker
Who cares? 50-50. Because we're together every day, talking it out, brainstorming it, writing it, working it. Wow. That is so awesome.
01:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, we have the same vision, same goals, same vision, not a lot of ego. We love the writing. It's not about being important. It's not about being smart. It's not about
01:17:20
Speaker
selling. it's not about it's It's about loving what we do. And we have our sensibilities are similar enough that And maybe it's because i I read her when I was, you know, ah kind of a budding writer. I don't know.
01:17:34
Speaker
But our sensibilities are similar enough that we love the same things. You know, we write the same kind of quirky shit that we think is funny that a lot of people don't think is funny. But we think it's funny because, I mean, you read Mother, but it's like we were cracking up.
01:17:48
Speaker
There's shit in that. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's hilarious. It's not really hilarious, but it is to us because we're sick like that. you know the The potato salad was definitely hilarious.
01:18:00
Speaker
I think that the, ah to me, one of the funniest things was the, like the hair necklaces and the the bone jewelry. That's so sick. And yet we're like, oh my God, this woman is sick. This woman is so sick. And we think that's hilarious because, you know, that's the kind of thing that makes this work.
01:18:18
Speaker
Yeah. But there's never like, ah you know, and even in our solo, you know, books, it's like, can I borrow one of your characters? You know, and sure. And, you know, I'll be like, you know, kind of help me write him a little bit because this is your guy. i don't want to, you know, and she's like, ah you know him.
01:18:35
Speaker
Just go ahead. Wow. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. That is amazing. And to to go back to the beginning of of the of this this subject to to have this be someone that I grew up reading that I teethed on that I, you know, totally admired. Yeah, it's amazing.
01:18:55
Speaker
It's one of those things that I'm like, oh, wow, dreams do come true. They really, really do. You know.
Stalking Experiences and Personal Security
01:19:00
Speaker
Um, life is never ideal. Life is never perfect. But, um, if you put your, if you set your mind to something and you put your time and your effort into it, things will just, things come the way they need to come. I don't, I don't know how to explain it.
01:19:16
Speaker
Wow. Right on. You know, I will actually want to move on to another topic. um I'm aware that you have had issues in the past with stalkers.
01:19:27
Speaker
um Yes. This is something that that I've dealt with a little bit. i When I first started doing phone sex, I had a stalker. um MAGA boys get a little fixated on me every once in a while. but you know Well, they have short attention spans. The kind of thing that lasts a couple of days and when they you know they cross a line and I'm like, look, fucker, I'm calling the FBI.
01:19:47
Speaker
then then they just go away because, you know, they're cowards. um Yeah, of course. But but what what was your experience like with that? um There's two of them, actually. um One was online and it was a man and we met on MySpace way back in the day.
01:20:07
Speaker
And he was
01:20:12
Speaker
and just friendly and then
01:20:16
Speaker
At some point I drew back because I'm like, oh, he's interested in things that I'm not interested in. ah So I shut it down and he did not take that rejection well at all.
01:20:29
Speaker
And he cyber stalked me for a couple of years. It got bad enough. We had threats and finding out where I lived. And this was back in the day when I was really stupid And I thought that I wasn't interesting enough. Nobody's going to bother me. And I'd put any, you know, I'd put whatever I wanted online where I lived. Oh, look here's a picture of my car with its license plate on it. You know, here's my nieces and nephews. Here's, you know, stupid shit that I would never do. Now I'm extremely private now because of these experiences. But this is what I did when it was new to me. And I didn't think, you know, I was under the illusion that you had to be, you know. Well, i think most people's.
01:21:09
Speaker
idea of internet security is based on nobody giving a crap who we are. Exactly. Exactly. This was before I had even published anything. You know what I mean? This was before any of that. And I was under the illusion that you, that in order to, to get a stalker, you had to be, you know, rich or famous or super good looking or whatever. I don't know.
01:21:30
Speaker
I'm like, I'm nobody. It turns out that when you seem ah attainable, yeah that, you know, that's, that's what happens to a lot of load because Aurelio Voltaire also has a lot of,
01:21:42
Speaker
like issues with stalkers i don't mean to like call him out personally or whatever but because he is sort of a uh you know like a c-list celeb he's kind of low-key he has a day job in addition to doing the things that he's famous for yeah people do get fixed and plus he's approachable yeah you know he's he's low-key enough that if you find him on threads You make a comment, he'll see it because there's like 15 comments, you know?
01:22:10
Speaker
Right. so it's Yeah. And so, so I, I just was, I was just, you know, not, um, you know, anyway, it got bad enough. He, he stalked me. I moved to Facebook. He found me there on and on. And when I finally ended up going to the cops because the threats were really bad and he was, how unhelpful were the cops?
01:22:32
Speaker
Um, pretty unhelpful. But um what basically what ended up happening is I shut everything down and I changed my name.
01:22:42
Speaker
I don't go by my real name and I don't put my real name out there. um And it's it's great. because It worked out great because, you know, for writing, it's, it's but yeah, i I don't say what state I'm even in.
01:23:00
Speaker
If people ask me, I mean, we did the radio show. And if that's one thing that I'm like, I will i will lie. I'll lie at the drop of a hat. You know, where do you live? Oh, and whatever comes out of my mouth comes out of my mouth. No, no. And that might sound super paranoid, but I'm telling you, it is not. No, it isn't.
01:23:17
Speaker
it and then And then the second one was a ah ah woman and real real life in the 3D world. um I met her also online, but she was local and she really, you know,
01:23:33
Speaker
I was published and writing then. And she thought that I was, she was a little bit older than me and she thought I was so cute. And um I reminded her of Jensen Ackles, which I don't know. I know, but she, but that's what she said. Oh, you remind me of Jensen Ackles and oh, he's so, anyway, dude, but like that show and that fan base. Yeah. I don't know what it is, man, but some of those people seem yeah really nuts about it. Like, yeah like it's a psychopathy. Yeah.
01:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and this was when, you know, I had, I now have long hair and I don't, I'd never looked anything like him. But the point is, is for whatever reason, she, she thought I reminded of Dean Winchester's but specifically, and she kind of fixated on me. And like I said, she was local and I found out that she had this.
01:24:19
Speaker
really unhealthy obsession with Jensen Ackles. And when she met me, she kind of just moved, transferred it onto me. And this one was real. This one was. Well, because again, you're, you seem attainable and local. And and that's the thing is that when and someone is fixated on someone who is like, like if, if you approach Taylor Swift and online and she doesn't answer you, you're much less likely to be like, well, why not?
01:24:45
Speaker
Well, why not? What do you do? You know, she's got stuff going on. But if you're the guy down the street, right that's all that's a whole different set of circumstances. And so I have learned to be very, very, very elusive, not very even communicative. And people are like, oh, well, you need to be more. No, I don't.
01:25:03
Speaker
No, I don't. I'm here to write books. And if you're interested in my books, you can read my books. but I don't need to be your buddy. I don't need to be buddies with people I don't know, even if they, you know, But anyway, so this woman, this was physical. She she she knew where I found out where I lived. she She, yeah, apparently you can go online and find these things. It was insane.
01:25:24
Speaker
And so she was a real physical threat and it was scary. I may be a man and she was a woman, but it was scary. And I ended up moving. I left the state, which was a stroke of luck. I didn't leave because of her, but it was the timing was perfect.
01:25:39
Speaker
And this is when I moved to um St. Louis and I didn't tell anybody. I didn't post it, but it was the damnedest thing. I had blocked her number and on on the road somewhere in Kansas on my way to to a Missouri, my phone rings and it's it's her.
01:25:58
Speaker
Where are you going? How did you get my number? And I said, I don't know. I don't know. Creepy, creepy stuff. Anyway, it would have been really ugly um because i had a home in where I was moving from. And it i had I had a renter and this woman knew where I lived and I was so worried about so many things. But um I'm going to say this and it's going to make me sound like a horrible person and I don't care.
01:26:20
Speaker
I got super lucky because she died. ah Oh, Jesus. Yeah. She had a heart attack and died. Thank God. Well, don't terrorize people. know? i've I've never felt... I mean, when I looked her You are allowed to feel good when your abuser dies. i always i always would check online to to see is she has she has she found me. I'd look her up on Facebook. i'd look One day I Googled it. I didn't see anything. Couldn't find anything. Googled her name.
01:26:51
Speaker
Came across her obituary. And I laughed...
01:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have horrible of a person I am. But I did. I don't think that's horrible at all. I think that is a celebration of your freedom from someone who was hurting you for selfish reasons. Like that's that shit's not OK.
01:27:12
Speaker
Yeah. and And I want to I want to, you know, I really glossed over it. But this went on for a couple years. This went on for a while and it was, it was it involved people who were close to me. it involved my home. It involved there.
01:27:26
Speaker
I've really glossed over the top, but yeah. No, no, man. That's the thing is that let's let's not gloss over it. Let's point out the fact that a stalker Simply by knowing who you are and where you live and telling you that is terrorizing you.
01:27:42
Speaker
Yes. Their goal is to make you feel unsafe where you live. That's exactly what the goal is. It is not about sex. It is not about Jensen Ackles. It's not about being cute. It's not about being so interesting.
01:27:55
Speaker
I actually had a woman say to me once when I was going through this, I told her what was going on and she said to me, Oh, I wish I had a stalker. Oh, Jesus. i even I couldn't even speak to that woman again. i mean, i was just like, are you serious? There's a line of thinking that like, maybe it should be flattering that someone is investing that time and energy in you. But it's not because it is not when it happens without your consent.
01:28:20
Speaker
It's not for you. It's for them. And furthermore, how much does it have to do with you? Do you really think you're special? Because let me tell you something. The only reason it wasn't Jensen Ackles is because I came along. She couldn't get to him.
01:28:35
Speaker
If I would have died first, she would have moved to someone else. It's not about me. It's not personal. They don't care. They don't even know who you are. It's not about you. It's about a sickness in them.
01:28:45
Speaker
And this is one of those cases where, yes, you're sick. Go be sick somewhere else.
01:28:52
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Yep. I just, I don't have any, I don't have any compassion for it. I don't have any, I, to me, that is very much a choice. You, you, you decide to to do this to someone and, and you, it's not flattering. It's not fun.
01:29:08
Speaker
And it's, uh, it, it, what you said, encapsulates it perfectly. The goal is to make you feel unsafe. They thrive on it. They love it. That's what both of them did.
01:29:19
Speaker
I know where you live. I saw your sister at the store. Oh, I saw your niece. Oh, I know. i have your license plate number. I got your number. i got your blah, blah, blah. You know, this is all meant to make you walk around looking over your shoulder. What are they going to do?
01:29:37
Speaker
You know, am I afraid? It's to feel powerful. Right. Now, physically, I'm bigger than this woman. I could have taken her down physically. That has nothing to do with it. I'm like, first of all, I'm not going to beat your ass in Walmart. I mean, I don't know what, with where wherever you approach me, it's beyond that. It's insane. It's like, what are you going to do?
01:29:57
Speaker
And who are you going to do it to? You know what I mean? Or is is someone innocent, someone that i I care about going to get involved because that's how you figure that's how you're going get to me? Yeah, it's scary. It's not flattering.
01:30:09
Speaker
And when I hear, I hear people talk about, you know, stalking and it just, yeah, yeah it's, it's not positive attention. It is not positive attention. It's it's not even personal.
01:30:19
Speaker
No, it's it's terror disguised. it's It's just a big ball of gaslighting that's yeah supposed to look like fandom, but isn't. I know from fandom. I have been a rabid fangirl at many times in my life. Oh, I know. Me too. I'm like, you know what? You know who I love for some reason since I was eight years old? I love Stevie Nicks. I just love her vibe. I love her style. That's an excellent choice.
01:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, I just, I love that woman. I've seen her in concerts. i You know what I mean? If I ever met her, I would be so respectful. There is no way I would ever do anything.
01:30:53
Speaker
I'm like, no, I wouldn't even go up and be like, oh my God. I'd just be like, i would I would just be like, you know what? You are, you know, a big part of, you know, she is, she's, you know, creatively, she, she was one of the reasons I wanted to write. I loved her lyrics. I loved the, you know, she, she, her songs had imagery, you know? Yep.
01:31:11
Speaker
And something I could hold on to, you know, my, as a kid with no attention span, you know, she'd sing about things that you could see in your mind and that, you know, plus she was kind of spooky. Well, and the older i love you get and the more, you know, about the world and about her life,
01:31:26
Speaker
the more you realize what a goddamn queen she was. I mean, the whole... and Right. And I would never ever... I just really like her. I really like her. I've always really liked her. Love her vibe. i I've always kind of had a crush on her. and It's like a crush, but it goes beyond a crush. She's fantastic. I think she's talented, amazing.
01:31:43
Speaker
I don't wish... to terrorize her why would i do that because you are not broken in that particular way and no i always i always think of silver spring which is such a great song and just how she's you know she has to sing it right there with lindsey buckingham just standing there being like yeah this song is about an asshole and that asshole is me Yeah, you want to you want to hear an interesting thing that note since you brought that up? Please.
01:32:16
Speaker
The woman who was ah stalking me, she knew. i was Stevie Nicks fan. She would post on my page on my page of Facebook every day that live version. I'll follow you down until the sound of my voice will haunt you. You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loved you.
01:32:37
Speaker
Like, no, that's not. um point Pointed things like that. That's like people that play every breath you take at their wedding. It's like, first of all, you don't even understand what this song is about.
01:32:48
Speaker
And let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. There are certain there are certain things that when I was younger, before I had these experiences, never bothered me. um things like that, like that song, every breath you take, God, it creeps me out.
01:33:01
Speaker
It is. It really creeps me out. I'm like, it has a good beat. It has a good, but if I listen to it and even the tone of his voice, I'm like, no, no, no. It's a different experience now. band, the police in general,
01:33:14
Speaker
a lot of their songs are just wackadoo songs. It's like, right you know, you're singing along, singing along. And it's like, wait a minute. Is he singing about a sex doll? Right. is.
01:33:25
Speaker
Yeah. i Right. But yeah, I'm not even, I'm, I'm totally able to separate art from artists for the most part, I think for the most part in most cases. So I don't think or care yeah I don't think sting or whoever wrote that song is a creepster. And even if he is, i I don't care. It's a good song, but I just, when I hear it, it has a whole different meaning to me now.
01:33:49
Speaker
Now I'm like, nah, it just makes me a little uneasy.
01:33:55
Speaker
Well, it's, it's not a love song, I guess is the takeaway. Yeah. You also, ah remember you telling me this and a little bit, but you have experience with stalking too, because you were, but as you said, a phone sex operator, which, whoo boy. Well, and that was, imagine it was back in the day. So we had, you know, I was doing it on a landline. Right. Very easy to find someone's address.
01:34:24
Speaker
If you have it on a landline, And at the time, my phone was in my ah boyfriend slash fiance slash abuser's name. And um but so he started calling every day asking for my boyfriend by name.
01:34:41
Speaker
And then, you know, at at first I was just like, yeah, fuck off. And I'd hang up or whatever. And then finally the boyfriend was like, well, let me talk to him. And and he threatened to kill him.
01:34:53
Speaker
And so the kind of boyfriend that he was was not well suited to those kinds of of threats. So he was, you know, he he dealt with that threat by like driving to his parents' house and bringing back a shotgun and and Naturally, right? Well, i see where you're going with that, but I'm of the opinion that most conflicts are not improved with with crossfire.
01:35:17
Speaker
Gunfire, right? that that te Yeah, I'm more of a de-escalator, I can help it. So... But yeah, and i I ended up calling the police because I was still a young, naive white person who thought that the police's job was to help people.
01:35:34
Speaker
Right. Whoops. no And, you know, I explained the situation and the cop just stared at me and he said, well, what do you expect me to do about it? was Wow.
01:35:46
Speaker
Okay, let me ask you that same question. A man I don't know just gave me my own address and threatened the life of me and and my partner. What am I supposed to do about it?
01:35:58
Speaker
Because, you know, and and he basically, the cop was like, well, if they make it onto your property, you can shoot them. You know, what if I want to leave my property? i might need groceries or laundry done at some point.
01:36:13
Speaker
You know what's really messed up? And I don't mean, I want to get back to this, but I just have to inject this while I'm while i'm thinking about it. When I went to the police, and this is for the guy that was stalking me online, the police weren't super duper helpful, but they did tell me, they said, you know what, we can trace it. We can find out where he is and we can basically do a cease and desist.
01:36:36
Speaker
It ended up not needing to happen because I ended up changing my name. But my point is, why were they more helpful with me? with this cyber stalker who actually ended up being in a different country, come to find out.
01:36:49
Speaker
um But you, they're just like, what do you want me to do about it? That's messed up. Well, yeah. Yeah. be Well, the I mean, i the thing that that galls me about it is that if the cop had showed up and I was smoking weed, he would have been, he would have done something about it.
01:37:09
Speaker
Right. You know? And, and the thing that always kills me, cause once I made this realization, it just blew my frigging mind. Cause people talk a lot about like criminals and people, how people get treated when they're arrested and you know, all that there. But,
01:37:23
Speaker
The thing is, if I go to a store and I try to walk out with something I didn't purchase, I'll be arrested. If I work at the store and I show up to the cops with evidence of wage theft, like paperwork, evidence, absolute 100% proof that my boss is commit committing wage theft, they're not going to arrest my boss. Right.
01:37:44
Speaker
They're going to tell me to get a lawyer, even though it's theft. It's the same frigging thing.
Police Ineffectiveness in Stalking Cases
01:37:49
Speaker
Yeah. So... Yeah, i've I've become much less like the more I've lived in the world. I've actually never had a situation where I've called the police to help me and had the police show up and improve the situation.
01:38:03
Speaker
Like that's literally never happened to me. They've always either done nothing or they have aggravated the situation. Right. right ah Well, when I was a teenager, um my friends came to pick me up for a ah ah school slash church event. and And my mom had just beaten the hell out of me for something.
01:38:24
Speaker
And so when they came up and saw the aftermath of that, they were like, you know what? We're sick of this. We're going to the cops. And my friends went to the cops and told the cops that I was regularly being beaten. The cops came to our house and they made a big to do out of it. It was like two cop cars with flashing lights showed up for this in a little neighborhood where you could hear people next door because the houses were just that close together.
01:38:47
Speaker
So they made just a big showy to do of it. separated all of us, questioned everybody. And they asked me, like, are your parents hitting you? And I was like, my mom does. And they asked if I was afraid of what would happen after they left. And I said, yes. And they said, would you like us to take you out of here?
01:39:04
Speaker
Would you do you have any interest in a foster home? And I was like, as long as my brothers are safe, yes. Because, you know, they weren't getting it as bad as me because she hated my dad and they had a different dad. She was married to their dad.
01:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. So. You know, the dynamic was pretty obvious in hindsight. and But, uh, the cops left me there. They told my mom everything I said, said I needed therapy, and left my ass there.
01:39:31
Speaker
And at that point, I should have known enough not to trust cops. But the way that my brain worked then, i was like, oh, I'm, they don't believe me, again. They only believe her, again.
01:39:44
Speaker
and you know, uh, But that that kind of started my journey of the cops, like, just not helping and not, like, you know, as far as I knew, it was movies and TV where cops actually help people.
01:40:00
Speaker
Right. And, you know, doctor shows are the same way. It's like, I've never gone to a doctor that's like house. That's like, okay, we're going to get to the bottom of this. Right. No, they're like, well, you sound like you might be lying, but have you tried losing weight?
01:40:14
Speaker
What? What a fascinating idea. Losing weight. No one's ever said that to me before. Thank you. so glad this costs $300 and a copay.
01:40:24
Speaker
You know, it's true, though. You have to you have to figure. i i totally I'm totally with you on on the cop thing. um I've had some good doctors. I'm not going to lie.
01:40:37
Speaker
I've had some good doctors. A few. ah Well, you're a man. They probably believe what you say. Maybe. Maybe maybe that's what it is. But I'm with you. Maybe. Seriously. but But I have had some good doctors. but i'm But I'm with you on the cop thing. I'm like, I actually started out so naive you know when I was young. And thinking, you know, well, they're good. They're doing their job. but I have come to the point in my life where I, hate to say this because it just makes me sound ugly and i just don't like them.
01:41:06
Speaker
I don't have legal problems. I don't have a criminal record. I've never been in real trouble with the law. It's not about that. I just don't like them. It is just through, you know, for 20 years. I mean, my God, I have been pulled over for the stupidest shit. And, oh, have you been drinking? Do I look like I've been drinking? Oh, it smells like pot in here. Well, why does it smell like pot? I don't smoke pot. Leave me alone. i have been so bothered by the car. You wouldn't believe that I have copsters. Oh, I have cop stories.
01:41:35
Speaker
And I have an absolutely pristine record. Absolutely. I'm a law-abiding citizen. I swear to God. They're just annoying.
01:41:45
Speaker
Not a fan. I'm not a fan. Yep. Nobody's blaming you.
01:41:52
Speaker
But at the same time, there must be good ones out there. There must be. i'm I'm sure that there are cops that are well-intentioned that, that mean well, but you know, it's kind of like the Nazi thing just because you're not doing it yourself. Well, yeah. I mean, if, if you see shenanigans and you don't do or say anything to stop those shenanigans, then you might as well be shenaniganing yourself.
01:42:18
Speaker
Right, right. You know, I mean, that's that's the thing that, like, you have an elevated responsibility to do right and to stop wrong. That's the whole job that you have. That's why you get to shoot people at work if you need to.
01:42:33
Speaker
So because you get to do all that, you have a much higher standard for, you know, buckery and, you know, We know what we're saying. We don't have to go on and on about cops. I know. One more thing, though. And the abuse of power is really what I see a lot of. That is the problem. And it's like, you do not need to pull me over, yank me out of my car, search my car, talk down to me, bully me. I literally...
01:43:08
Speaker
go ahead, search my car. I literally have nothing to add. I don't even smoke pot. I don't like it. I literally nothing. And I'm like, these guys, I've so many times, so many times. don't it's maybe, maybe the doctors, you know, believe me because I'm a dude and maybe the cops are harder on me because I'm a dude. I don't know. But I'm like, I have had a really, it's just, oh, and I love it when you're like stuck at a ah red light and they turn their, they come and pull up next to you and sit there for a few minutes and turn their lights on and go through it They're not going anywhere. They're just like, I'm like, come on. Well, but like you have long hair.
01:43:43
Speaker
Long hair means pot. If you're a grown man, maybe, maybe, maybe. i don't know. I just, I just have had a really, you know, even starting, you know, when I was young, when I had, when I had short hair, you know, but yeah, i just, I don't know what it is. They just, and I mean, like I said, it's abuse of power. And I think that there are not very many people are, you are good in positions of authority.
01:44:06
Speaker
I think you have to be really careful who you put into a position of authority, especially when it's something like the law where you can be aggressive and you can lie to people legally and you can push people around.
01:44:19
Speaker
um i think it takes a certain type of person to be good with that kind of authority. And i unfortunately, i think that most of them are not. Well, no, and it's very much a job where the people that seem the most gung-ho to get those perks and privileges are the people who should least have them.
01:44:38
Speaker
Right. But I feel that way about a lot of gun culture, but it's also an issue of like... you know, there's not a news story that says plane landed at destination safely.
01:44:49
Speaker
You know, we, we hear about the bad ones because they're bad. So there's probably plenty of decent ones, just like there's plenty of decent Christians and a couple of loud assholes giving everybody a bad name. Right. Right. I mean, this is the, this is the thing. And this is, this is that, that balance that you have to find because it's like, I, i agree. I'm, you know, yeah. um But then when do you get to the point where like, I don't know,
01:45:12
Speaker
as far as i I read the numbers, police presence doesn't make a neighborhood safer. Like things that make a place safer are everyone having enough people, not being desperate people, not being cheated people, not being like angry and furious and frightened all the time.
01:45:29
Speaker
Which is common sense. What do you do when you're desperate? What do you do when you're scared? What do you do when you're in need? You know, it's common sense. Well, and that's why the fash are like,
01:45:40
Speaker
tearing everything up right now because they're making everyone like prices are going to keep getting higher and they're just haphazardly firing people and removing protections from the most vulnerable people so then i mean there's going to be plenty more luigis where that came from well and that's the thing you know and that's a really nuanced thing right there too i had to look into that to be like what's going on with this and i'm like boy that's ah that's a mixed bag well Well, but I mean, I told you I got sick in 2022. Everybody knows that I was in the hospital for 17 straight days.
01:46:14
Speaker
And the whole time I was there, first of all, H and i argued for over a day, like over a full day in between me telling the ambulance guys to get out of the house. Actually, I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't call them ambulance guys. They're paramedics.
01:46:28
Speaker
And that's a skill. they're They're far more than just driving an ambulance. They're saving people's lives. Right. Right. But, but the point is we argued and I mean, he was the, the angriest I've ever seen him. Like he actually made a fist with his hand and like shook his fist at the ground. He was so frustrated because he kept saying, you need to go, we need to save you. And I kept saying, there's no reason to spend the money.
01:46:52
Speaker
You know, I'm pretty old. We don't have any kids. There's no reason to spend thousands of dollars keeping me alive. And, uh, That's horrible. And all these people said, well, you remember the post. All these people were like, oh, it's not about the money. Just go, just go.
01:47:07
Speaker
And it occurred to me, i didn't do it, but it occurred to me to tag every single one of those people when we got that bill, because that bill, the first bill we got was $149,000. Wow. It was more than a fucking house in this neighborhood. Like I live in Ann Arbor. Houses are expensive here. And I still could have bought a house for the amount of money that they charged me to be in the hospital for 17 days.
01:47:34
Speaker
And guess who my insurer is? It's UHC. So when I was, I just remember waking up that day and saying, hey, they shot our insurer. it was like, not going to ask why. Right, right. Exactly. No, it's like, well, you know what?
01:47:53
Speaker
They kill people. When you tell someone they can't have the care that they need, despite the fact that they're paying, that's what insurance is for, you're killing people.
01:48:06
Speaker
Except it's legal. It's like the wage theft. You can't go to the police and say they wouldn't allow us to get this treatment and now my person is going to die. They're not going to go arrest them. Because society is set up in such a way that that's an absolutely acceptable way to kill people.
01:48:21
Speaker
Right, exactly. It's true. It is. And I think the insurance issue is one of the most.
01:48:30
Speaker
Well, it's it's just killing us for profit for already rich people. That's that's all it is. It's a it's a fucking broligarchy bullshit that every other civilized country in the world does not have to contend with.
01:48:42
Speaker
I know, and i to me, I'm like, you know what? I think you go, you get the medical care that you need. um they They have to treat you. And when that bill comes, Oh, well, what are they going to do?
01:48:55
Speaker
That's my attitude. What are they going to do? Send you more bills? Put a frowny face by your name? Well, that's the thing. It's like we don't even have anything they could take. We don't have a car. We don't have a house. and furthermore And furthermore, they couldn't even do that.
01:49:10
Speaker
They could not take your house. or your I mean, there's all kinds of you know what? All they can do is push you around and bully you and try to intimidate you. You get the care that you need. They have to help you. And if if they, and then, like I said, when you get that bill, oh, well, because if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. You can't get blood out of a turnip. And it pisses me off when I hear stories like that, because I'm like, it's not fair.
01:49:31
Speaker
It's not right. But you know what? They can't do anything to you.
01:49:37
Speaker
Well, I don't think like right now I'm in a situation where I can't get admitted to see my doctor because you can't do the online check-in if you have an overdue balance. Okay. And you can't really just walk in and like, if you need to go to the emergency room, the emergency room has to take you.
01:49:54
Speaker
Right. But they don't have to admit you. Like if you don't have insurance and you can't show them that you can pay, they don't have to admit you. It's it's a crapshoot. It's You know, hospitals that have a charity program. Like I went to U of M hospital, so I was the most fortunate that I could possibly be that I went to a ah very good hospital, but also a hospital where where they say, like you said, you know what, we're just going to do it and we'll work the rest out
Healthcare Challenges and Technological Aid
01:50:19
Speaker
later.
01:50:19
Speaker
Exactly. Because they had a charity program. Well, we're trying to get back on the charity program because they want to do a thing. ah to my heart so it can work right because it turns out if you have apnea from birth and it's not treated until your 30s, your whole body didn't really get put together right.
01:50:37
Speaker
And it's going to fall apart way earlier than it it would have otherwise. So when you were sick a couple years ago, was it I can't remember, it had to do with that, didn't it? Or was it? Well, it, I had COVID. It was COVID, but it had but it hit you hard. It knocked my heart out of its rhythm.
01:50:53
Speaker
And I was in AFib for months and I had no idea. Wow. The only reason I know when I'm in AFib now is because when I got out of the hospital, my buddy bought me an Apple watch and he was like, here, now you'll know if your heart is turning on you.
01:51:08
Speaker
Right. Like, okay. Okay.
01:51:11
Speaker
And, and ah you know, last November, that's what happened. My heart rate went over 140 and stayed that way. And I was trying to go to sleep because I didn't feel well. And my watch was like, no, get up.
01:51:23
Speaker
Your heart's bad. Get up. Your heart's bad. And it just kept going off. oh my gosh. Yeah. So my Apple Watch probably saved my life. Thanks, Tim Apple. I know, right? Gotta love technology. I actually love technology for the most part. I mean, I'm a fan of it, and it but it is, again, a double-edged sword because it seems like if somebody wanted to find me knowing that I'm wearing an Apple Watch at all times, they probably could. course, my phone probably does the same thing.
01:51:52
Speaker
ah right i don't turn location on on my phone because, you know, I'm no contact with my family, and every once in a while I feel paranoid that, like, You know, if somebody threatens to kill you enough times, eventually you're like, what did they do? I know, I know.
01:52:09
Speaker
All right. So we're actually getting to the end of our two hours and I want to make sure we discuss what the best place is to start if someone is completely unfamiliar with your work.
01:52:21
Speaker
Well, if you um it depends. if you If you like standalone novels, um I have a Dream Reaper, which is like angels and demons and very Faustian concept. If you like murder mystery and ghosts, there's Sleep Savannah Sleep, and that's kind of like a paranormal murder mystery.
01:52:42
Speaker
um that's probably my cleanest book it's my least horrific although there's plenty of horror but it's a little more straightforward murder mystery paranormal and if you like vampires you start with the crimson corset and you can work your way through um as far as the collaborations if you like gothic horror that's kind of like it's you know kind like kind of our spin on gothic romance it's like Rebecca plus horror.
01:53:08
Speaker
That's the Ghost of Ravencrest. That's the first book in the Ravencrest saga. Otherwise, the rest are standalones other than Spite House. If you like haunted house stories, we have a three book series called the Spite House Chronicles.
01:53:21
Speaker
It's Spite House, Spiteful Creatures, and oh, sorry, Spite House, Spite Island, and Spiteful Creatures. And you can find me and everything I do at my website, which is alistercross.com. And coming up the 12th, March 12th through the 19th, I have a big sale coming for my Vampires of Crimson Cove books. So if this gets aired before then, then you can check it out.
Tech Tools for Promotion
01:53:49
Speaker
And if not, then that's okay too. That's it. Do you have a link, Trey? I have what? A link tree. I don't even know what that means. Oh my gosh. No, you have to, you have to do that. I'm just plugged for link tree.
01:54:04
Speaker
Um, it free i don't yeah no, it's for like, if you have, um, you know, like an Instagram, you're only allowed to put up one link on your profile. So it, it allows you to make a link that goes to all your other links.
01:54:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Like a link tree. I get it. Nice. Apply named. Yeah. and And they're great because of, you know, that you can set it up with like if you want your social media, if you want to do like all your different book series as a separate link.
01:54:33
Speaker
So it's it's helpful in that way. um Right. I'll check it out. Plus, I mean, get with the times, Grandpa. I know, right? I'm like, Linktree, what is this? What is this sorcery you speak What's the World Wide Web?
01:54:50
Speaker
I'm a surfer.
01:54:53
Speaker
I know, right? Seriously. When people used to say that, I'm surfing the web. yeah Surfing the web. And I don't know wow that what they were talking about. You couldn't surf on dial-up. It was like, no, there's nourf was like waiting for, yeah you couldn't even watch porn in those days. It took forever. Oh no, man. I remember like setting up a trailer to download and then going to bed.
01:55:16
Speaker
ye Because in the morning, if no one called on the phone, you would have it. As long as nobody called. because so Right, because there was one landline and no one had friggin' cell phones yet.
01:55:28
Speaker
Like, maybe you had a pager, but... Okay, so it is time for the Mad Lib. I hope you are ready for some nouns, because I need one, two, three, four, five, six singular nouns.
01:55:40
Speaker
Six singular nouns. Okay. um Human lampshade. Like made from human flesh. at I know what a human lampshade is. Human lampshade.
01:55:53
Speaker
ah um Let's see now. Mattress.
01:56:04
Speaker
Doorknob. All right. You're looking around the room. I am. um Okay.
01:56:13
Speaker
Can I be vulgar? You're on my show. What do you think I'm going to say? No. Please watch your language for the kitties. Horse cock. damn kitties. Wait, what was that?
01:56:24
Speaker
Horse cock. Horse cock. All right. Go on. ah Porn channel.
01:56:35
Speaker
You know, i used to have a buddy. I've had, well, I still have a buddy. the that He's been on the show, actually. And every time we would play Mad Libs at my party, he would say dead hookers every single time. That's a good one.
01:56:47
Speaker
Well, it it is. I mean, you know, it's best if there are no sex workers present, but. the Yeah, it's probably not very nice. All right. So one one more, one more singular noun. and Ouija board.
01:57:03
Speaker
All right. And now I need plural nouns. One, two, three, four of them. No, wait, five. One, three. Five plural nouns. yeah Dead hookers.
01:57:20
Speaker
All right. um
01:57:25
Speaker
So, yeah, four more.
01:57:28
Speaker
This is boring, but books.
01:57:31
Speaker
Termites. Termites. And I'm not looking around the room anymore. I hope not. Goodness. You've got books in there. That'd be really weird. um um ah And bald men.
01:57:48
Speaker
all right. You know what I'm sorry. I need one more plural noun. Okay.
01:57:55
Speaker
Wiretaps.
01:57:57
Speaker
All right. I need an adjective.
01:58:02
Speaker
Sweaty. Sweaty.
01:58:06
Speaker
A number? 76. um Another adjective?
01:58:15
Speaker
Sexual.
01:58:18
Speaker
And another number? 12. Nope, I'm changing that to 69. I know, right? I had to. There's no way around it.
01:58:29
Speaker
um Okay. yeah I almost said it anyway. I kind kind of figured. I kind of figured. All right. So so this is called sleepover shmeepover.
Humorous Mad Libs Game
01:58:41
Speaker
Okay. Okay. The sweaty thing about sleepover parties is that even though you're supposed to sleep over, chances are you and your dead hookers will catch fewer than 76 winks.
01:58:56
Speaker
Oh, dear. Yikes. It's always the same. You promise your mom and human lampshade that you'll go to bed before 69 o'clock.
01:59:10
Speaker
But instead, you stay up until the crack of mattress. god The next thing you know, you're waking up to the smell of fried doorknob and scrambled books emanating from the horse cock.
01:59:29
Speaker
dude There it is. but After breakfast, you change out of your termites, pack your bald men, and stumble into your parents' porn channel when they will come to pick you up.
01:59:45
Speaker
If you are like most wiretaps your age, you'll be so tired you'll want to take a sexual nap the minute you get home.
01:59:56
Speaker
Which gets a Ouija board thinking. Maybe they should call them wakeovers instead. Wow, that might be one of the best libs we've had to close the show out in a while.
02:00:10
Speaker
So, my goodness. Thank God for horse cocks and dead hookers. That's what made it. Well, you know, i mean, and the Bible barely mentions them.
02:00:21
Speaker
ah It's true on
02:00:25
Speaker
true. God. But they do mention them. i'm I'm pretty sure that... ah Yeah, I'm going to look that up later on a discreet browser.
02:00:36
Speaker
um Right. Dude, thank you so much for being here. i am so glad that we could do this. This was a lovely interview. And um I want to remind listeners that we'll be back ah next week.
02:00:50
Speaker
We have new shows every Wednesday. And that if you want to support us, which, oh my God, why wouldn't you? ah The best place to do that is at our coffee. That's KO-FI slash Sometimes Hilarious Horror because supporting the magazine is also supporting the show.
02:01:07
Speaker
So we will see everybody next week.