Just Poor, Not Ugly

love that. Yeah, you were saying that you had a weekend, a fun weekend where you took mushrooms and went to a virtual reality experience. It was a virtual reality arcade. It's down the street from where we record Night Call here in New York. There's this and it's very perplexing to me because every time I passed by it, there's usually a group like a Hasidic school group there, But that's like the only large group I ever seemed to see going there. So I'm like, they really got that

market corner in Times Square. It's like midtown, Um. It would not be my personal place to do hallucinogens. I think I think that would probably maybe ruin midtown for me, but I don't know. Some people like an intense experience like that. I had a little bit of a mind warrior. Yeah. I had a friend who remember took mushrooms and went to Body Worlds, which is the My God, the Body Worlds and and the X Games in one day rooms, and I was like, I think the X Games would

be glorious. That sounds fun. This was all downtown l A. So they went to the X Games and then they went to Body Worlds, and I was like, I feel like the last thing I would want to see on mushrooms is a dead body that sliced open, because I would already be having enough thoughts like that anyway. But some people like to lean in to the weirdness. Then can you walk us through what this was? Yeah, this would be a virtual reality, yeah exactly. Oh yeah, everyone

put your glasses on imagination goggles. So, uh, it's two two floors and it's just all these different like I guess we can call them installations, but it's just essentially different games. Um So some of the ones that stood out, or the Zombie Attack game where you are and four other players are defending yourselves from waves of zombies that are attacking you. Oh no, so that was intense. Um, so, yeah,

I'm afraid of heights. They have one where you write an elevator up eighty stories and then you're basically on the edge or like of a of a building with like a plank and so in the space itself, it's just this like board that's maybe like half an inch off the ground. But when you are on mushrooms and you feel like you're on top of this building, I really really freaked out. It was you throw up down eight stories imaginary stories. All right, so this is the

terrible thing. I didn't make it to the end. But even if you do make it to the end, you still fall and then watch yourself fall to the ground, Yes, to your death? Is it always in that way? Who is? Why? Now? Back in that sounds like the cyberpunk future I wanted. Yeah, you go to a booth in midtown and re I did you? Did you get to do any of the ones where you're like sitting in a French cafe watching the rain. When I went to the forty Film Festival a couple of years ago, they had like an oculus.

They had a whole virtual reality section, and the best one was you're sitting doodling in a notebook in a French cafe and it's just like you could go on. I was gonna say, if there's one where it's like you look at the ocean in virtual real? There those some of them are like slow teeth virtual reality. Um we I have a virtual reality friend. I'm going to make her calling with a night call and explain v ARE to us because she has a lot of thoughts

about the field. I wanted to explain what who thought up a fun game where you climb up a skyscraper and die? Well, it seems I can't even get it licensed by that movie The Walk. It seems like it's like, you know how, like the first films were like the train pulling into the station and stuff. It seems like it's like that. It's like, what are what are the things we can depict through virtual reality? Death? Death, a cafe? What else? What else? This is the thing it's gonna shape.

It's going to shape the next hundred years of of VR narrative. Is that we the first thing we went to was like what if we died? It's just all like I guess like maybe it could be non chemical like d MT if you just simulate your own death in VR and then you get to have all the all your brain really sell the chemicals. No, I mean, I'm like, I'm I was afraid of elevators for a really long time, so a lot of the stuff that

they recommended, like exposure therapy. But I'm like, what if you just like simulated your death at an elevator and then it just got you over it forever or it traumatized you really badly? How would you How would you rate the experience? Ben? Yeah, what if this was your post on on Arrowood about air your experience, I would say, don't, um, don't do it, don't take drugs and do it. Uh it was, but I was so exhaust I put my body through so much. So yeah, overall, I'm gonna say experience,

but don't take psychedelics. There were some of the other ones. How many were there? Oh, there's so many? Uh racing ones. Um there was one. Uh you climbed up a mountain that was interesting. Uh. Yeah. A lot of it really was like a workout. Like yeah, you're like, I've had my body through a lot climbing Virtual Warrior. Yeah, it does seem like too much activity for maybe a psychedelic experience where you might just want to like contemplate things

real slowly. Yeah. Oh man, I was so sweaty. Yeah, I'll see my favorite one though, by far as the art uh installation. So what it is is it's just essentially a canvas and empty space that you're in. Oh yeah, and then it's like tilt brush. Have you ever done that? Is it the same thing as siltbrush? I believe so I'm not familiar with tiltbrush. It's a Google thing, but yeah, it's really fun. This week's episode of Night Call is

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they must have like a VR component. Yeah. I think the first of you I saw were so boring that I was like again, but then like yeah, doing stuff like like where you get to just draw or it's like of a freeform thing. It's not so narrative driven. I was kind of into that stuff. You put the glasses on? Is that what makes it VR? Well, it's like a yeah, it's like a whole a masking seperial

basic questions. Do you put the glasses on? Well? I just remembered that I did one at a v N that was a porn one, but it was great because you didn't have to participate. It was just like you were in a room full of people having sex and you just like look around. There was one of those at the forty Film Festival too, where it was the most interesting man in the world add VR thing back when the most interesting man in the world still had

his job. Should but you just like look you you were just at like his party and there was like, oh yeah, I like that. I like the ones where you're just like in a room and you look around the room and stuff all over it. I like when you're just in a room and you look down and you don't have a body. Guys, what about a Frasier VR experience? So people have been writing in with like a lot of Frasier content, including VR, including Fraser himself

feeling everybody rang the night, call alarm. This past week when it was reported by Deadline Deadline Right that that that Kelsey Grammer was trying to get a Frasier reboot off the ground, um, and I my immediate sense was like, this is just a trial to see how much this trends on Twitter. Like it's like going by the reaction that they get. Maybe somebody showed him the memes. Maybe he saw some memes and was like, I am popular on social media. People have been talking a lot about

Frasier for a while. It's not just us, although we are definitely the most prompt we started it. We don't claim as much credit for it as we should. But we were on Fraser wave long before many other people. Uh. And it wasn't because we were like, let's pick a

weird show to like, just we're talking about it. I think probably because Emily is from Seattle and we were like, what shows do we like to watch that are just like well, And at that point I felt like I still hadn't really come out in public with my spiel about like how Fraser is actually really really funny and like the like comedic structure of it. I think it's just like totally joyful. It is. It is. Uh, it is one that I enjoy a lot, and I thought

about a lot. It's like a mathematical formula. It's like watching spu or something. You're like, it's kind of like it's like a farce. It'll come back like three times. It's also just its own flavor. It has flavor unmatched. We like a three camera comedy. But you could have a reboot. Well I do not. I think no, I don't want to. I don't want anything. I honestly don't want any money for Kelsey Grammar. No on that. Yeah, let's it go straight to Camille. First of all, there's

no John Mahoney. He was like he was the Heart and Freeze. But also I read something on Slate by Lily Louf brow Um that was talking about how a re a reboot of Frasier would be like a white collar Roseanne and she I don't know like if she had information on this or she was just hypothesizing, but she was like, so at the end of the original show, he's going to move to San Francisco or maybe Chicago somebody. Okay.

I think, like, because there's something else about the Buffy reboot, you know, where people like this is a terrible idea, and then they were like, no, no, don't worry, it's like a reimagining. And so I saw people being like things that could take place in the Frasier verse that aren't just like a straight up Frasier reboot, because I think we probably all agree that the only good reboot is Twin Peaks. Uh, And it was because it wasn't really a reboot at all of that show. It was

just like part of the same universe. Yeah. So, I mean the one like serious suggestion I saw that I was totally down with was there was like one thirty rock cutaway joke about black Frasier, and I was like, yeah, that's what you should do, is like reboot a show and like change and something about it. Don't just like make it exactly the same show. Yeah. Again, almost like a dramaturgical kind of approach where you're like, I'm restaging display, but why now? And you have to figure out what

The funny thing is about Frasier. The crux of Frasier is that Fraser and Niles are fancy pants that don't really like any person who met them would think like, how do you have the father you have? But then the father has to come and live with Frasier. And so it's like accepting your parents even though you feel like you've moved beyond them and are a much like

of a like a different world than them. And I feel like you can apply that basic dynamic to so many different kind of us or just like also, people be like, especially if you're Kelsey Grammar and you're like a right wing psycho, why would you be like, oh,

this worked out so well for Roseanne. Well, that's the other thing that I found kind of unsettling about what Slate was imagining was that it was that he had moved to San Francisco and was so um kind of appalled by the homeless crisis that he had been like turned into like a right wing Fox News guzzling guy. And then his son Frederick moves in with him, and then it's like a generation, you know, the next generation repeating the first of all. Frederick sucks. So I wouldn't

even want Frederick in a in a Fraser reboot at all. Yeah, I mean I feel like I would watch a show that was about like Eddie the Dog's Children r I p Eddie Eddie. I don't think we need it. I think I'm just yeah, make more new stuff, make something in that Vein. Don't should be another sitcom that takes place in Seattle, right, making another sitcom that takes place in Seattle. I want reboots of movies, and I want them to be rebooted into TV movies transposed to now.

Like the other day, I was like Heartburn, I'd watch like a weird TV movie of like Heartbook. I talked about her. I want the relationship from I agree, Well that's you know, a star is born, It's gonna bring it bring like how am I going to feel? Emily? Where do you follow the stars born? This will be the second week that we'll talk about. I think we have a feature where we check in with each other

about like each other's temperature. On Stars. It's been reboot It's a thing that's been rebooted fifteen times, and I'm going to protect us on topic. It's one of the great stories of our time. It is. It is, Uh yeah, it is. One could say the only story I'm I'm down for whatever I mean, Like I I like that trailer a lot. Like not I like the trailer a lot. And my new my new theory is that musicals are popular again because it's the Great Depression look. Musical has

been popular since Mulan Rouge. Like, uh right, thank you for knowing. I'm shamed. Um, that's ready for the bos I'm ready for the boss pod. You should be more ashamed if your Mulan Rouge fandom than your is your fandom. Um, I'm not ashamed of any of it. It's all made me who I am. It's part of the wonderful, Like the Phantom of the Opera. Molly, you had been like thinking or talking about Bigfoot, and then some big some

Bigfoot news dropped and Bigfoot was trending on Twitter. And it turns out that it was because um Leslie Cockburn, who was a Democratic candidate for Virginia's fifth district seat, had tweeted a screen grab of her opponent's instagram that featured a really buff Bigfoot with a bar, a censor bar over his penis, and she was like a my opponent has like some ties to white supremacy. B he's he's into big foot porn. Right, So like, first of all,

don't complete those two things. No, don't, because that was what was so weird about it was was like, no, no, shame this person for being a white supremacist. Don't shame the for being into bigfoot port because who cares? Did you guys catch that she's Olivia wild Mom? Yeah, twist.

So I was watching. I was just looking through Hulu because Hulu has the weird movie section, uh, and they have all these like homegrown weird documentaries and conspiracy documentaries that I will sometimes watch, and they had one that was like searching for Bigfoot, and I was like, how about this Bigfoot documentary is like one of those things. I suggested a hundred things to my boyfriend and he said no to all of them. And then I was like, Bigfoot documentary, it come so far out of left field?

He has why not? And then it was like it was made by a company that was called like re Search. It wasn't Researched the book company, but it seemed like it could be. Maybe it was like a similar logo. It was very like this is not a real science documentary, clearly, But it was just interviews with like five people. They were all white dudes in the South who are like obsessed with Bigfoot, and maybe like three or four of them wanted to hunt him and kill him. You assume

it's to him. I assume it's him. They wanted to hunt and kill Bigfoot so that Bigfoot could be scientifically examined. And then there was one who was a scientist who was like, how could we kill this creature? If we found it, we have to like put it in custody to study it. Yeah, why does it take a scientist to be like, don't murder the thing that you were

seeking to find. Well, they were the most logical one, but it was just really long interviews with people where they talk about how they're so obsessed with Bigfoot, and some of it was like that they were like big game hunters and they were like the ultimate prize, but it was all about like nobody knows what's in the swamps,

like anything could be in there. I feel like the genre of a bunch of guys who become like obsessed with a beast because or one guy who becomes obsessed with the beast because it represents something symbolically to him is like the most male genre. It is like will It was very male and it was very white, and there was something kind of unsettling about it, Like I was like, am I being prejudiced that I am just

assuming these people are all racists? But maybe not, because maybe there is something least they're just trying to hunt a mythical Like talking about this a lot recently because it's like, you can we're into conspiracy theory, but not from the same point of view as people who like are into conspiracy theory because they're also racist. Well, I don't think. Also, I don't think we believe most of the we're interested in them as I think we're phenomenologists

about conspiracy theory. We enjoy the phenomenon of conspiracies and thinking about how and why they get started and and a little bit of that is like whether or not we believe them or think there's any truth to them

at all. But some of them are true. Like we talked about things that did happen like mk Ultra or like ration paper Clip that are like these things are so crazy they seem made up, but these were all like real chapters in American history that maybe we're covered up at the time, and like Area fifty one stuff obviously like something was happening, was it like space planes? Probably,

but just it's interesting. Yeah, No, And I think I think, I mean a friend of the pot Andrew t I feel like has said several times on his podcast us this racist all kind of conspiracy theorizing, like the practice of being doubter in the reality, like in like consensual reality has given to us by any kind of like

uh authority or governing body or anything. If that's just sort of like your default position, then that's almost always going to lead you toward white supremacy and ultra rightist type politics, which I think about a lot, because I think I think there's a lot of truth to that. There's been some really weird stuff happening recently that obviously like touches that too. Though, like all the stuff was like the twenty three and me and all the genetic stuff.

We knew that and we all called that. Like Karina Longworth came on my other podcast, Molly Sleazy Friends, and I think on the first episode we were talking about it and about how like we thought it was a bad idea because like, well, no, but it's been reported, like, I mean it's been reported Pato, my x podcast partner at the Verge from virgsp like she did a lot of um reporting on that, and it seems like one of those things where everybody was like this is bad.

I don't know it just like it feels so out of the sorry to bother you university anywhere. It's like, yeah, you can't trust these companies. Well even before and me, ancestry dot com and genealogy websites were already super creepy because I don't know, like at one point, um, maybe like eight years ago, I started getting Google alerts that like someone had been just updating my family tree, not someone who was related to me, and they could add I mean any kind of information that they want and

it's difficult to get it removed. So it's like I was like, yeah, I think definition of consensual reality seems to be like up in the air exactly. The practice as it is is traditionally recognized where it's just like for example, not trusting anything science scientific. So in that case, like a of you know, trusted mainstream media source with like like a science desk at a trusted mainstream media source.

It says the twenty three or me is bullshit. But like you know, calling down killing down on something like that, Like that's what I'm talking about, Like people who don't believe science and stuff like that, right, like anti vax people. Yeah, yeah, it all kind of comes. It's hard to be like some of these things are true and some of them are not, but that's how it is. And like, who needs to make up cryptids? There's so many weird animal in the ocean and on the land that are already

so weird and interesting. Yeah, well not if you don't believe science, because all those pictures of understand animals are fake. They're like if we haven't been there. It's like I feel like some of that info war stuff is like a five year old. It's like when you first have the thought when you're like eight years old, and you're like, wait, if I've never been there, does it again? You know, and then they just run with that for their whole laps.

If we want to get back to the Bigfoot thing, I feel like this was less about Bigfoot as a as a conspiracy theory, you know, mainstay or Boogeyman, and more just like, I feel like, in a weird way, this is just um kind of a really really bad example of like the opposite of the whole James Gunn thing, like like throwing some dumb ass misinformation into the air

and seeing what happens. But I feel like it mostly backfired in this case, misinformation being that he was like a serious Yeah, he was seriously into bigfoot porn or bigfoot erotica. So the background on that is so that this guy is Denver Riggleman, and I'm made up right, totally seems like a made up he claimed. He was like, look,

it's a joke. My friends who are in the military have been making fun of me because he wrote like a little silly book about Bigfoot, which was I think was co written um with a guy who used to work at ESPN maybe even Anyway, they put this out and then Riggelman decided he was going to write and self publish a book called The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him. So the whole thing, he explained, was kind of a goof, but he was definitely still

gonna self published. In reason, It's just like, I don't know why it is with these people but I think Emily's right, just just like once you don't believe anything, you're like, oh, it's all connected, and somehow it goes as Andrew two said, to white supremacy for dumb people like the people who actually believe in in Bigfoot and the people who are really like legitimately writing big Foot arotica.

I feel like probably come from to polar opposite. Yeah, probably, Well what about Okay, so like maybe the antidote is like and rice vampire stuff, which is like supernatural paranormal stuff that's also like super super queer and pro you know, good things. Mostly, I mean, there's nothing wrong with being into Bigfoot. Obviously Cockburne should have just stuck with him out well, I don't know if he's a white supremacist,

it's just he refuses to condemn them. So even if he's not out with them or something, right, and it is sad to muddy the waters with something as interesting as big foot porn because then all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, and like this guy. Now, all of a sudden, I'm like, what's the deal with this guy? Whereas I just written him? But yeah, I was tweeting like an hour before it happened, I was like, we need more female representation in bigfoot experts as like

a choke. Look what you've done, mom, And everybody was like, hey, Molly, story and can I always tell you guys about this amazing small press book of um Culu porn that I got erotica. It's a lot you can do with that. Most of the stories weren't that good. I've got it a couple of years ago at the Brooklyn book Fest. It's actually most of Yeah, most of it is not that great, and some of it is just like poems, just like erotic poems about Cuthulu. But maybe I'll bring

that on next time. It's called um oh god, it's got this amazing name. It's something like it's like technacles. I can't remember. Yeah, night Call is pro hntai. Yeah, yeah, you don't. We don't think people should be shamed for liking hntai. You like what you like and if you can't, it doesn't seem unethical to like fantasize about cryptids the same way other things that are maybe illegal should be. If you catch my drift, do we want to go

to a dark place to talk about looks? Maxing. Yeah, there's an article in the Huffington's Post by Jocelyn cook Um that Emily forwarded to us and was like, this is horrible, and it was about um looks maxing, which is the it's when in cells go to message boards one of them is lookism dot net, their Reddit boards and other similar boards and talk about making themselves more conventionally attractive, usually through plastic surgery, penis stretching, skull implants,

that fun stuff. Um. Yeah, it's all the fun gamification of like getting into the female mind and tricking a woman into having sex with you, but like a crossed with the insane obsession of like a real self dot com,

one of my favorite websites on me. I mean, this is one of those things where I'm like, obviously, what I would like is for all of this culture to go away, but since that's not going to happen, the idea that like men also have to be subject to the constant self improvement industrial complex too, I'm like, fine, in this context, it's terrible because if you in the article, I think one of the most disturbing things was that people are rating each other. So someone will say, like,

here's a picture of my face. I want a square jaw, and someone will be like, well, you need a square jaw obviously, but you also need a more masculine head. You could do with a nose job. I'm not loving your hair more masculine head. What does that mean? I just they get three D printed implants and put them on the old MR. Okay, so the old m R. A line on this I thought was like, oh, women don't care about looks. All they care about is money. No, no,

it's the Chads and Stacy. I thought they were like, you just get you get a great personality, and then which I have, You get super super rich and you can date super hot chicks. But the idea of like, no, you trick you trick them. No, it's they're saying, they're like, look at Chad, look at Stacy. It's unfair if you're not conventionally attractive, if you're too short, if you're losing your hair, like then the odds are stacked against you.

And why why do they have to have Stacy? Why can't they go for like Maud because they deserve Stacy them as a as a girl. Well, they're saying that even mods are getting more sex than they are, and that it's unfair because even a woman who is less conventionally attracted the eighth grade. Oh wait, you think that this is based on reality. That's that's what we're saying. I'm not saying like, if anything, we're about female in

cell representation. Well, I think the problem with these websites too is that they end up like becoming these like angry echo chambers where people are not only criticizing each other's appearances and making each other more self conscious and

more angry. But it's every so often there's like a thread of you know, and of course it's it, you know, stands the reason that like, eventually we're gonna get so mad that we're going to commit acts of violence, and then there's a community of people who are like right, you know, and so it's it's deeply disturbing because even though I just wanted to be like real self dot com, this is this is the thing, is like I'm all about these fuckers hating themselves, right, but they're like myself

so much I'm going to take it out on it there. I'd rather that money went to whatever that plastic surgeon was than to like some like some Republican vampaigns or whatever that's for example. Um, but I feel like the thing that I think, the creeping thing, I kind of nailed it because I was like, this is still unsettling to me, and like, even even beyond all the horrible, you know, the stuff that's being spewed on the website,

there's something that's so creepy to me. And there is something just incredibly I think triggering, or something about the obsessing overhead shape and head size because of you know, again, one of those things where I'm just like, oh, we're so lucky to have been born just out of this, out of having to be like out of it. We're in it. We're in it. But like we didn't have to be like in selfie culture until we were like

basically teenage humans, you know what I mean. Like the idea of being like a thirteen year old who's self conscious and being like, rate me, tell me what to fix about myself, And then the idea that there's like things you can concretely spend money on they're going to

make you feel better about yourself. It's so depressing because I don't think it will make you feel better about yourself either, we had all of that when when we were kids, though we had I saw I watched I printed so hard on all those MTV Real life's about plastic surgery, where the people were always like, I'm still unhappy, or like then they just wanted to get something else fixed immediately. It's True Life still on. That was so good.

I found a cachet of it once on on their website and it's a good Yeah, it's a good show. But it also I was like everything because magazines have like partnered so hard with all the surgeons and stuff because they can't afford to not take the botox money.

It just got so normalized, and beauty magazines is like, oh, you know, you get you buy this lipstick and then you go get this procedure and those are the same thing, and obviously like people draw the i'ns at different places and like, but I feel I do feel like it's like you shouldn't be allowed to get anything done until you're like an adult, because your face shape is going to change. How different would you rate it from over

tweezing your eyebrows? Very different, very different, very different. I'm throwing this out for the sake of argument because I think that there are a lot of basor modification things. I know, and I think about it all the time because I'm like, where do you draw the line, Like it's like dying your hair does that count? You know, like if you choose clothes to look nice, you like, see, I don't do any of that anymore. Or like what if powdered wigs came back and everybody had to have

a powdered wig. I guess I'm like, I draw the line when it starts costing money, you know. I'm like, if over tweezing your eyebrows, you just buy. It's the money thing. It's the money thing. Because what I've seen that really strikes me as inciduous on O N T. D. And it's like become more normalized in the past few years in a way that really freaked me out because it was like young people being like, oh, I'm saving

up for this surgery. You're like, oh, if I had money, I'd get the surgery and the surgery and a lot of people and the thing I saw that really freaked me out with somebody saying, oh haven't you heard that thing? Like nobody's ugly, just poor, And I was like Oh, that's the worst thing I've ever heard for every reason. So the idea that like there are new beauty standards and only rich people can't afford them, Like I've just

come to really value like real faces. To bring it back to the looks, Maxine, I'm there's still a part of me that really I really have to in in the bombed out reality that we live in. Like I I try to struggle so hard to find the downside for guys having to deal with this, Like I honestly people have to deal with that. I think you're right,

like on some level. But that's the thing is, I'm like, in an ideal world, nobody would have to deal with it, but nobody should have even we're already in this world. I'm fine. There's a part in that article where where one of the guys is saying, like I haven't left the house in in four months because I'm so ashamed of whatever my chin or something, and that's like, would like stay inside. I do think there's something so eugenics

e to bring it, of course. Yeah, yeah, now that's what I'm saying, Like that's the part that really it creeps me out. That's the standard that they're going for is something very specific and something that discriminates against anything that's like an oversized feature, which is like, to me, what makes people like beautiful a lot of the times

like something unique about their face. And there's like a certain face that everybody has now because of this doctor that I'll link you guys to on Instagram who does all the faces of all the young Hollywood people and they all have like literally the same face. And it's so weird because I don't. I'm also just a dumb idiot who doesn't realize what people have had done until somebody shows like a before picture and then I'm like

I started to see it. It's weird how I switched flips and then all of a sudden you see it. I feel like, are one of the things that change your face the most, which is why I'm a little surprised at how common it is, because I think, like a lot of other things are a little more subtle

or you don't recognize them right away. But like it blows my mind that anybody tries to get away with like saying no, I don't have anything done like you're just because it's just so obvious, Like I think it's like even just the tiny and I feel like it's its own look and that's fine. Yeah, and that's fine like when people go for it. It's when people try to convince you that it's just like, oh no, I

just got appeal or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So as all the ways, if you have a night call that you want to share with us, you can give us a call at one to four oh four six night and you can also text us at that number now or send us an email at Nightcall podcast at gmail dot com. Any of your questions, experiences, theories, whatever you got, We're

here for you. And so a while ago we were talking, I mean, we definitely did several episodes where we talked a little bit about UM, shadow people, nights haares, just this general phenomen amanon of waking up in the middle of the night and having sleeper prolysis and having you a shadow we figure standing over you, UM. And we have a email from a caller or emailer who has UM who has requested that he remain anonymous. But um,

this is it, right, Hello, Nightcall. In an older episode, you expressed some interest in various flukes of sleep, and that interest prompted me to write because sleep and I have a strange relationship that may interest you. I regularly

experienced night terrors and exploding head syndrome. For me as an adult, night terrors involved vivid fantasies of a creature either shrouded in black or precisely resembling my twin brother sneaking into my bedroom brandishing a knife to stab me, while I can only lay their conscious but a mobile screaming and futility for someone to help me. The feeling is very difficult to describe. A night terror is the most horrifying and panic inducing episode I have ever experienced

as an adult. They are just awful. Um. He goes on to talk about exploding head syndrome, which I've never heard of before me. Exploding head syndrome is for me an interesting consequence of being overcaffeinated, in which case, when I try to sleep, I immediately hear a low, loud, static laden burst of noise that would be deafening if

anyone besides me could hear it. The sound is completely innocuous and not associated with any external source of potential noise, like nothing has to fall off a shelf at night to produce the noise. Etcetera. It only exists in the space between my ears. The existence of exploding head syndrome and the and in the academic literature is highly debated, but I'm writing to let you know it is real, has apparent causes, and it sucks. Do you all sleep

well and if so, how and why? I would love to know how you sleep because I am terrible at it. Thank you so much for this email. This is I've never heard of exploding head syndrome. I was fascinated by this, so I I this kind of reminded me of like one thing I've experienced a little bit that I did not realize was a thing until I heard it. Um. I heard it talked about. I think it was on

this podcast called twenty thousand Hurts. It's about different sounds and there's like this kind of music in your head that a lot of people can hear before they have a sneizure. But I experienced it sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep, and it's like kind of like your brain doing a remix of every sound you've heard over the course of the day. UM, synesthesia. I don't think so. No, It's just this sort of like it's almost like ringing in your ears, which is what the

exploding head syndrome sounds. Kind of like it's related to ringing in yours, Like sometimes if you come back from a concert, like the ringing can be really really loud. Like there's a really good Oliver Sas book that's just about auditory and visual hallucinations and I like had to stop reading it because it freaked me out too much and made me feel like any of those things could It's happened to me at any time. But I forget

it's called but totally recommend it. And I feel like this kind of goes back to the VR thing in a weird way. Uh yeah, are you guys insomniacs? Do you sleep well? You don't know, especially not lately. It's been like a billion degrees Emily, that's the worst. He's trying to sleep and heat is awful. Um. I require a lot of things to sleep well, but I UM, I will fall us. I will always fall asleep. I have no problem falling asleep. Sometimes staying asleep is harder

for me. I'm a big Like, I'm really into falling asleep when I'm stressed out, Like I I can fall asleep so easily. When I'm stressed out, it's like the opposite of I think, how like I just a little call. Sometimes when you have a lot of work, it's like, well, I'm so tired. I had insomnia for um, like about ten years, and I did I had. I tried lunasta UM for a long time, but I had a side effect, which is in some people it creates a bitter taste in your mouth all the time, so even when you

breathe air, it tastes like super bitter. So I couldn't keep taking it was horrible. And then I did thailand al pm for a super long time. Um, I did that. Of taking Thailan al pm. It's bad for your liver, so I would think. So yeah, I was taking it in high school. Um. And then I tried lunasta was during college, I think, and right after college I tried again, but I still had the bitter thing. But um, it was in high school so I wasn't drinking, so I was.

I would take Thailan al pm every night, and then eventually it was like what am I doing? Um? And then I was. I did hypnosis, I did Valerian tea, I did um melatonin, I tried a bunch of things, and the only thing that worked is I realized that a lot of my insomnia was related to allergies. I would I'm like allergic to dust and allergic cats and allergic dogs. I have like all of these things in my house. And I started taking half a dose of Venadril before bed. And Venadril's the best, but it also

is like safe if you're pregnant to take occasionally. I didn't take it all the time when I was pregnant, but I took unasam, which is safe for pregnancy, but occasionally take a benagell, but that that was the only thing that helped. Like, I still take bena drill almost every night. Wow, I've always been a night owl. Sometimes I've like fully given into it. And it's pretty depressing to be on the opposite schedule of everything. Really, it is, because the first few days you're like, I'm fine. At

first it's exhilarating and then it's depressing. Um well, guys, speaking of self medicating, I just wanted to touch on on Sharp Objects, the mini series on HBO that we've been watching in various capacities. I've watched the whole thing. You guys are a little bit behind. I haven't watched any of it, so I'll just ask you guys about it because I'm familiar with both of the like the main creative forces behind it. But everybody talks like this

on it. It's such a whisperration. I was watching it and my boyfriend kept and turn it up and I was like, it's all the way up. This is just what it's like. Even when they snap at each other, they like this, stop that, What do you do? What are you doing? It's so like everybody isn't a cool Kivin's character from Big Little Life. Yeah, and yeah, it's directed by the same person Bigottalize, and I personally don't

know that that's the best person for it. People saying I feel like their style is very like slipstream and naturalistic, and like I kind of what I really want this to be is like more camp, more like less less naturalistic and more sort of like leaning into how melodramatic and can't be it is because the book is very

melodramatic and that's what makes it good. But it's about Amy Adams is a journalist who goes back to her hometown of wind Gap Missouri, which is apparently a real place, and has to investigate a story about like neighborhood kids, neighborhood girls are getting killed by somebody, and she goes and stays with her creepy um and her creepy lolita ish younger sister in their creepy house, and she has this very loving newspaper editor who's like, you have to

get the story and also work through your own demons. Um so not that loud, he doesn't say it. That's like she really needs to work through her demons. To his his compassionate wife, and they're both like, gee, we hope she works through them. This thing moves so slow, it moves I want to like it, and I'm sticking. I'm sticking with it, but holy I mean I was tapping my fingers on the coffee table, like, actually it

is some slow TV. You know that. It's interesting too, because the book is like really well paced, and I think Gillian Flynn is a master at like putting really good cliffhangers and things, so that all her books are just intensely page turning. You have to get through them, and this it's like I feel like it could have

been like three episodes instead of eight. I thought it was three and the when I found out it was eight, because I was like, man, they are really in this groundwork and just taking time to just be in this environment. So I've kind of shifted to enjoying it the way I enjoy Bloodline. I mean, the thing that makes this show intensely watchable to me is Amy Adams, who I just enjoy watching. She's great, and she just drinks so much.

And they showed me I was I was like, I'm getting that she's an alcoholic, Like, I don't need this, I don't need mini bottles. And in the car every time you see her she is drinking vodka out of like a water bottle. It is delightful. Well, guys, this has been a delightful podcast. If you guys have if our listeners have suggestions for good summer shows, please send them our way at two four oh four six night. You can also email us at night Call Podcast at

gmail dot com. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook Nightcall Podcast on all but Twitter, we're Nightcall Pod there. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe, rate and review and we'll see you all next week. Bye. Bye, goodbye,