Today's episode of Night Call is brought to you by Roswell New Mexico. Catch the series premiere of Roswell New Mexico Tuesday, January only on the c W. It's to fifteen am in Joshua Tree, California and you're listening to Night Call. Welcome back to Night Call, a podcast Strange Days and Lonely Nights. Hello nineteen first podcast of the year. Start back. We've been doing this weeodcast for about a year,
almost almost a year. It's going to be our birthday in February, the longest year in We should create that wish list not on Amazon, but on another platform of our choosing, so you can send us present. Just to go behind the curtain a little bit. It has been like a very long time since we've sat down and done a podcast. You guys. The Miracle of Banking episodes, um, so thanks for all of your fun feedback, especially for our our holiday specials and various Night Call Museum episodes
and whatnot. Um those were really fun to do, so I'm glad everybody liked them too. Hey, speaking of uh, Night Museum and the Black Mirror episode that kind of inspired it. We're going to talk about Black Mirrors, new interactive episode and bird Box band or snatched bird Box, which somebody made the joke on Twitter that that's the guy who plays Doctor Strange, and someone also made the joke that both of them sound like Victorian names for
female genitalia and bird box. There is something very like unplaceable hilarious about the name bird box, and I kept like searching for a joke about it because it just
sounds like a fake name. Let's talk about that, because yeah, Okay, So what Emily was talking about was that there was a conspiracy, possibly true, that Netflix was seeding some fake memes about bird Box astroturfing, astroturfing bird Box memes to get the bird Box memes to go in and they did get going, They did get going, did and now they're just real and now they're real, and so there was an article, you know, as this sort of became a debate, but there was an article on the Daily
Dot that kind of followed up with it, and like I guess talked to people at Netflix who denied that they had been astroturfing it said that all of the viral content was real and the person who had originally kind of floated the idea that these were fake accounts
that were at least seeding the bird box memes. Deleted their post and because the people who were being accused of having fake accounts were coming back and because they were getting flooded with mentions, uh and said, you know, no, I'm a real person, and I'm just like you know, I don't. I'm just new to Twitter, but I like bird box whatever, leave me alone, right, I just I just created my account two weeks ago specifically just to treat bird box content. But how dare you? I mean?
The argument was very compelling because these were all the mostly teenage looking avatars with like fifteen followers who just created accounts and everything was a bird box meme that then received lots and lots of retweets and likes a suspicious I mean Max read my colleague get New York Meg.
He had very recently published an article, I think around Christmas on kind of the idea of of fakery on the Internet in general and how the real fake it well, that that everything is fake, but also that nobody accepts that anything is real anymore, so everything is the facto fake.
Like we're already at the mercy of the robots. I put that in quotes, but like, you know, the idea that not even a person online, like you have to verify that you're a human every step of the way to do anything on the internet anymore, the idea of being a real person on YouTube, for example, it's more probable that that an edity is a bought on YouTube than an actual person. So like we spend more time trying to prove that we're people. Then yeah, I've all
said the other way around. Lost my innocence about people on the internet, like being who they say they are. I think is like, like most people are who they say they are and are like presenting themselves somewhat accurately, but some people just are not some people use the internet to be scammers. So so here's like the thing
that I am. I I'm still skeptical about the Netflix thing because the other thing that happened with bird Box Bird Boxes just like bird Box the movie itself, I mean, I don't know if you guys watched it at all, it is it is dumb as hell. I really dislike this movie, but it's also just like boring and just kind of it's technically not a quiet place rip off, but it may as well be like because it's like based on a book that came out before a quietlace
blah blah blah. But it's still like it feels engineered to kind of have that effect. Yeah, yeah, it's or like hush or like any of these other things where it's like you can't do one thing with one of your five sentences or whatever. Somebody was saying. That means we're going to get to a movie where it's like, don't smell anything. I hope you die. I really hope
that don't smell it, and it's called don't smell. There's like a ginge eedo about just like a horrible smell that like over the city everything, like a death stench
that comes from nowhere. That's basically the plot of a bird Box, except it's something that it's something that you can't see but that your eyes like taken and then you want to kill yourself, which is like, okay, it's like an interesting idea, but it's just executed so imaginatively anyway, it's not really the point, Like I think that bird Box has somehow become this this kind of container for all of our various anxieties about Netflix and viral marketing
and you know what is real and what is fake on the Internet. Here's the thing. It's like, I didn't initially question that people were like doing bird Box memes and talking about bird Box because they dropped it in such a dead zone. They dropped it for Christmas. That was the whole thing. Was like, it's a prestige movie premiering on Netflix, and you can watch it from home with your family. But it's a lot of people watched it. It is really I just was like, people will watch
it because it's there, you know. Yeah, it's like strategy and watch the thing that like Netflix tells you as a blockbuster event, or go out and spend you know, a hundred dollars for your whole family to see Mary Poppins returns or whatever. Like they did a good job, and more people I think probably stayed home and watch
bird Box than went to see Mary Poppins. Well. I could also see that the argument of these things being real is that if you join Twitter and are a teenager and you have no followers, like you're going to hop on the train of the thing that is being hashed just which gained some traction, so that kind of
makes sense. And also, I mean clearly like the responses of like no, I'm real, I'm real, Deen like, okay, like robots, but it's my first you know thought when Emily brought this up as you know, like an astroids orping thing. But I was like, but why because also Netflix, you know, band or Snatch has been trending a lot, and I was like, but why would they need to do that with Black Mirror. I mean, Black Mirror is
talked about a lot. I don't know to do it, but I feel like this came up in the max Read article, the idea that like all of the trending tags are just like fake and paid for for the most part, and I'm like, yeah, that checks out. That means like, well, it's all just like a con game on top of a con game, Like it's just like a house of cards of like people saying, oh that looks legit, Like I've seen so many kids talking about bird box. So Netflix must really know what they're doing.
People will agree to have their property or their their work or something on on Netflix, for example. So the other thing is that that Netflix. I think it was that day that all this sort of started to happen and or maybe it was a day after but um. Netflix then tweeted out something on their official account saying that UM bird Box was officially like the most watched film a Netflix original release. They had been watched UM on some something like forty five million accounts or something.
Don't also not release their don't release their metrics except every once in a while they'll be like, this was a record breaker for us, and it's like, how were we? Like it would even be specious if it was you know, like they released it a monthly report or something, but but they don't even do that. So that Black mirrors that Netflix now UM and this episode in particular Bandersnatch was is like a standalone movie, interactive kind of hypertext thing. Uh,
it felt like it was about Netflix. Could you also feel that way? I did not do it. I I there's something so do some Black Mirror. Yeah, I will do it eventually, but I do feel less and less like immediate. Gotta watch it about Black Mirror. You should watch this in terms of it being about Netflix, because it's about like a creator making something for like a shadowy company that they're just like, just take the money and make the thing. Don't question why it's happening or
like how this happens. I love Black Mirror, so it did feel kind of like a subversive thing to me, especially. I mean, it probably wouldn't have, but then by the time I watched it, I was thinking so much about the astros, the astros because it like it makes you question the nature of reality. It's more that I just totally didn't think of it until someone else pointed it out, and then I was like, wow, I'm really still so
naive about what you say. You got red pilled, I got we invent like a new one, like purple pilled by it, I got perp I think. But I think the thing that's makes me feel like a tin hat crazy person about this stuff is that, you know, after the person who who got that viral treat about you know that I think these accounts are fake and and brought up like recorded themselves going back and looking at this one person's account and seeing that they had three
followers or whatever, and then they rescinded this. But I'm just thinking, like, Okay, yeah, there are probably plenty of teens who are actually doing bird box memes because, like you said, like hot thing, so I think there are plenty of real bird box memes, but I do not at all. And like this is also from I spent way too much time that morning looking up all these accounts and did find somewhere. It's just like this person
joined this month. All they do is like content about like the found out that like Tide invented the tide POD's Mealy Big Tide to get Tide trending. Well, what's kind of weird about this stuff too, is that the companies that are making the products that I really are and the content that I really enjoy the most are also the companies with it seems the least ethics, you know. So it's hard because it's like I don't need to
have anyone tell me to watch Black Mirror. I last year when we started the podcast, I had like an eye problem that I've talked about and the old The first thought I had was like, but there's Black Mirror, And like I'm gonna how am I gonna watch Black Mirror? You know, like they watched it with your worm eye. I watched it with my horror. I waited until I could open my one eye enough, but I was to
watch it. So like yeah, Okay, so there could be real people making these accounts, but I think that the seeding. I think the seating is you don't have to be thinking like a conspirator conspirator to to imagine that, because I mean, people did that before it was called astroturfing. Like I used to make fake memes about the Housewives for my shitty job, where I just made like where I was like a social media manager for like a
fan site for Bravo shows. Like I just say, like, don't question just crazy fans of bird Box or just making these things because they love it. How dare you question the ethics of a giant company making these things they want you to consume. Yeah, it's like, can't we
just let people have fun or something? But it's just I mean, after a while, the argument becomes moot because there are then enough people actually doing the thing that they were led to believe was a thing to do, possibly by you know, astroturfing or some other means that then it just becomes like the phenomenon becomes real. It's no longer synthetic, but it was why they do it. Clearly it works, Yeah, And I don't know, it just
makes me feel insane. Well, I was going to say, like, I feel like one of the things we always talked about on this podcast, even maybe many years ago, was the idea that like your phones are listening to you, which was totally not mainstream at the time, and like we had a lot of friends who worked in those industries who would be like, no, they wouldn't do that, and it's like, why wouldn't they, And now we all know that they do, and it's like unquestioned, And I
still feel like I see people all the time saying, like people who are like tech reporters and writers saying that this can't be real. But I'm just it's like an Okhams Razor thing. If you I think it was Dave Hill or something who tweeted about I think it was talking about aliveuette cheese and then it's showing up on his Instagram, and like, like the Okhams Razor of that is not like all things, Yeah, oh you like cats and you like stripy socks, so therefore you're like
allouette cheese. No, the like easiest thing to to assume is that like, yes, you have a microphone on your phone, right, because then people would have to think about not having their phones on them all the time, and everybody has just like it within a decade normalized that. I mean also just the thing about Facebook reading private messages, where it's like that would never have even occurred to me.
You know that that was going on, and you know that that Facebook is like going you guys aren't on Facebook anymore, this is the thing. But the thing when they made everybody download that for your phone and you couldn't access your messages on Facebook unless you had the Messenger app, my spider sense went off immediately. I never downloaded the messages out because I was like, why are
they having us do this? And I kind of laid off of using WhatsApp to when they bought it, because I mean I had been using that to talk to people like overseas and I was like, I'm not going to have substantive conversation anymore. Like, well, I I was on Facebook and um, a friend of mine posted about like a voice over casting call for a particular learn model of a particular brand of car, and it was
just on Facebook, and I liked it. And then I was like, oh, I still have the microphone from when we did the podcast in the garage like I'll record it, I record it, I send it. I hadn't googled the model of car. I had not like you know, typed it out nothing. Five minutes later I got to target it at for the particular model of car, which I
had never in my life, sir. And it's like obviously this is going on, and then you almost feel like gas lit because you're like, I'm going I have to continue because yeah, Like remember there's that picture of Zuckerberg where it was like his camera was taped over and it was like, yeah, because he knows, he knows, he knows, And they've all been lying the whole time, being like we don't know who can say. But I honestly don't
understand how anybody's I'm sorry tests. I don't know how people are still on Facebook now, like like they call yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. They own their own Instagram, like yeah, if you're on the interior the same thing. I don't know. Jonesy was talking about how we're all robots now and somebody was like, I'm not a robot, and he was like, well, what's the first thing you do when you like and what's the last thing you do? At night and they
were like, look at me, phone, didn't wasn't there something? Phone? Look at me phone? Because I'm a robot calling me birds bird boxes? Um, look you made an organic bird box. Time see a good one today by Dan da Dario. He made an art pop bird box meme. Nice, your your bird box could be anything exactly, just like once a word, it's a funny word. It's really bandersnatch is also a funny word. Vander snatch wins for me. There's no way that bandersnatch is not a pornographic slang word.
There's just no way. Just to Lewis carrollsm that's in which is where we are right now, because I almost you look at the word bandersnatch and there's only true. Maybe that's why he picked it. Takes it one step further though, to feeling like like a black mirror like so many detractors have been saying for years, in which I try to ignore. Is like the radio head of TV shows. Yeah, and yet even though it's based on a thing from Alice in Wonderland and it's Alice in
Wonderland themed, it's very good. Um, I'm enjoyed. Try it. Oh, I still love it, we should do. In Nathan Barley episode Sometimes Yeah, The Only and Best show about the two thousand's, This week's episode of Nightcall is brought to you by care Of. Care Of is a monthly subscription vitamin service that delivers completely personalized vitamin A supplement packs
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those in a really easy to use package. Off of your first month of personalized care of Vitamins, go to take care of dot Com and enter promo code call. That's c A L L one more time. That is take care of dot Com with promo code call. Should we take our emails? Email? Hello, Ladies of the night. First off, just wanted to say I love the pod. Currently binging the archives and can't stop a couple of things. First, a potential guest would be who would be amazing? Is
my friend Vice Cooler. In addition to running the Instagram Haunts of l A and taking group slash friend tours of haunted ghost towns in California and the surrounding area, he's also one of my great Disneyland buddies. A wonderful wealth of haunted and Disney knowledge. By the way, that's like exactly our sweet spot. Yeah, thank you for that recommendation. Come on our show. I saw him in real life
the other day. It wasn't that a person that people thought was you for a while also thought Valley Haunts might be our engineer Roy's wife. Yes, um, although she has delighted but it turns out she has the same name.
That's really weird specific name. Wait, okay, finishing the email. Second, I live in Joshua Tree and although I have yet to encounter any mention of Joshua Tree on the pod, have you guys explored any of the mystery of the High Days Once you get past the l A hipster invasion, it's something of a hotbed of here of mystery UFOs MR. There's crime, meth and probably ghosts would love to hear more on the topic. Happy night Calls. So, Molly, didn't you just go to Joshua Yeah, I just went to
Joshua Tree. Actually went to twenty nine Palms, which is next door. But um, I had not been to the High Desert since I was a kid when we went on family trips there. It is great. It is super weird, I totally agree. Definitely a place you might see some aliens. Um. Also, just being able to see the night sky is crazy. Yeah, it's very clear out there. Kind of makes you be like, oh, we invented light pollution to stop us from looking at
this because it's so overwhelming and cool. Didn't somebody send us something else about an index of of where where like dark spots, Yeah, dark sky, dark sky places. It's it's a thing about like encouraging more places to have less lighting so that you can see the actual night sky. But again, when you do see it, you're like, it makes you very feel very small in a way. That is great. Yeah, it has that weird overlap of hippies
and preppers and alien people. I mean, I feel like the most famous Joshua Tree thing that's probably like falls in that realm is the integratron just like which I've still never actually been in, tried to go like so many times, and what is the integratron? Is like an outsider art thing that somebody made that is like a
sound bath inside. It's like there's no metal in the construction of It's like a dome, but it's all wood, so it like supposedly resonates really like I think it was tuned to the frequencies of Venus or something like that. I don't remember, but you like book. I think the hour a couple of hours? Yeah, is it like bent? Like how do they make without nails? Hold on, it's a dome. It's a dome, yeah, but how do they like a hippie dome? How's it put? I think they
did get the plans from Venus. That's what I'm recalling now, the ancient aliens looking up how they built this thing because I think you like you, you get the wood wet and then you can then shape it, yeah, and then you kind of weave it. It's like how they make a boat is going to be all about building
your own dwellings, um whole earth calores in Uh. Yeah, I I enjoy hanging around the outside of the integratron, which I've done many times because I'm like, oh, I can't go in, but I just like watch people hanging around called the integratron, which is how we feel about it, which is people say, you like get nauseous, Like some people got nauseous because the sound is so intense inside of it because they like do um bowls like those sort of look it's like bird box with your ears,
it is it sounds bad. Don't listen, don't drown in the sound bad. I want to know, Like what the chicken and egg thing though, is about um aliens and paranormal stuff and peppers and stuff and the desert. It's the desert. I mean, I think that the solitude certainly helps and like having so I can't go to the desert. We've talked about this before. In the plod out of the desert, I had to go to the desert um.
I went to Indian Wells, which is pretty close to Joshua Tree, and it was like a multi family thing that I could not talk my way out of despite really trying to talk my way out of it. It was a broad expanse. It was I think in late June it was a hundred and twenty degrees so f y I it was. It was like a record breaking summer heat wave thing. And then I put my hand on the car window as we were driving through, you know, basically like approaching Palm Springs. It was too hot to
touch um. And then he got there and we stayed. They're all of these like weird kind of like affordable RESORTI type things with like multiple pools and water slides and stuff. Yeah, Palm Springs. I like understand the appeal of it, but it is not for me. It's just odd because I'm not like a sun person. So I like bake all day in the sun, in the hot, hot sun, because I feel I don't though inside, like
what's the fun? Why why are you staying inside? It's when you go outside at night and it's still warm and the stars. You can see all the stars and you can like walk around in a bathing suit at night and like get dry and two seconds out of getting out of a pool. Okay. But when we went, I was like, Okay, it'll cool off at night and then I'll go walk around because all day I was like I'm not going out, and I did. But then i'd be like at night, it was a hundred and
twelve pm. I took like a shot of my weather app because I was like, I cannot believe this. And I went outside and was just like sitting there sweating and it was like so dark. But I was like, I see why people do this, but I'm just afraid of my own dark mental speaking. Hot it's not what I want generally, the winter desert. I will say it was amazing. Yeah, well you went in like hot springs and stuff. Yeah, yeah, my friend. My friend picked a place with a hot spring, and then we passed a
place that was called Old Woman Hot Springs Road. But I look, I think I'm familiar with Old Women. Total potential night called Commune. It was like a resort. Somebody bought it and turned it into a resort, but it hasn't been open since the eighties or something. Somebody owns it. It's just like a weird abandoned hot springs resort. And that's where you went. You went to Old Women, we
went to We just passed by. You can't go there unless it's like on a special tour because it's not open to the public, which again I think there's like there's like abandoned things in the desert. Military basis is part of what adds to the UFO stuff and the weirdness. I think that's the real core of the weirdness is the abandoned military basis. Well. Another interesting thing about Joshua Tree, I think like even more so than Palm the Palm Desert is the amount of kind of like uncool resorts
and places to go. There are like, like there are so many ads for just like seniors only. Yeah, but it's like not even the kitschy cool kind. It's like kind of like the Poconos or something out here like um. It also reminds me of um three Women the Altman, Like it's totally that vibe. I was saying to like, people moving to the desert is like the moving up state in New York. You know, people are like, I
gotta get out of here. I'm moving to the desert. Um. But I was treating about moving to the desert, and then a friend of the pod Alana May Johnson, informed me it will be uninhabitable soon because of global warming. Because when he was twenty, I was like, at what point are people going to be going for vacations in the desert and then they're just going to die. Well, people do die in the desert, which is another reason
why it's scary. Like death Valley is legitimately like my parents and my aunt and uncle once when on a hike there where they got lost and then told me about it like weeks later, like, oh, yeah, we totally got lost into it was so hot ha ha, glad we were alive, And I was like, don't do that, No, guys. I'd be really interested though in hearing if there are more night colors who live in the desert. I feel like it's such a divide. Like if I had if I were in my home in the desert, I don't
think it would have the same effect. I think it's leaving the place where you live and then going to a place that feels inhospitable and having that, you know, for me it feels inhospitable. Not for everybody. Some people love the desert obviously, but like, I'm very interested in what the like vibe as a resident. Well, that I think is a whole other thing, because you know, it definitely is a tourism place for like l A people, but yeah, townys and life first there. I'm sure have
different opinions. I stayed at my friend's grandfather's house. He lived in Palm Springs, and he was at the time, like in his late eighties, and that was some like you just I just got a real good peek into that, right. Well, that's also like when you go somewhere and you stay in like a real place versus going on like a vacation. You know, when you go somewhere and you're like, oh, this is what it would be like to live in
this place. Yeah, give us your calls about the high desert, the low desert, the in between a dessert, food desert, any desert at all, and dessert, the food, dessert, food, dessert. I would I would actually really welcome more food dessert calls. I was looking. There was a peppermint high hat cake. I'm sorry, I digress, guys, there was a peppermint high hat cake on Instagram. That peppermin You say that like it's a thing that we're all familiar. Now, I was
baiting you for you to ask me that question. It is a chocolate cake and then the frosting is which I I don't really like frosting that much. But there is like twice as much frosting as cake, but the frosting is marshmallow, so it's like puffy, and then you coat the whole thing in milk chocolate. So it's like I've been thinking about this cake for two It's like a giant like Malla. It's a giant lamar looking thing, but it's but I don't care for the base of
the mouth, like a snowball cake. Yeah, it's like a snowball cake. It looked really good. If you want to look up the Peppermin high Hat cake, I'm sure you'll find the exact one that I was talking about. Tell us about regional cakes, it's something we always as we all know, Boston cream pie is the not a pie, but it's a cake. But it's so good and it's cream pie. I don't know it. It's two layers of vanilla cake with vanilla custard in between, covered with chocolate canash,
and it's the best dessert. There's no other. Did you know what? Everyone knows Boston cream It's like one of the most basic, like like Deli case pie type things. It's so good. I can't think. It's usually right next to the coconut cream pie. Hey, what's up. I'm a longtime listener, first time caller. I was curious what is the Chile industry like in and around Roswell? And do Aliens prefer red or green chili? Or do they go for Christmas? Thanks? Wow, that call came from dalton a
k A sushi Jesus. Thanks interesting food for thought. Um, So we're we in the middle of our conversation about the desert slash high desert. Of course, must discuss the desert when it comes to aliens and the para normal um New Mexico and Roswell specifically. Have you guys been to Roswell before ever? Never know, but I've been to
Truth or Consequences. I've been to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, but I haven't been to And I spent like a few days in Santa Fe and I loved it and it had a lot of that kind of ib also of like I don't know I think I got did I get you guys, um alien hot sauce from from Santa Fe? I I just remember like a lot of hot sauces, a lot of green red chilies. I think
it was green at the time. We're the ones that were everywhere and a lot of um alien memorabilia, and I really liked the combination of all of those things. I would totally we should. I would totally do a tour stop of Night Call in in Santa Fe because I loved it. Yeah, I went there a couple of summers ago and also had a great time. It didn't
it rain while you were there. It rained while I was at like an ancient publo site, and that was like the perfect spiritual Probably sold me on it because she was like, see it's raining, it's raining in New Mexico. You wouldn't you like put your arms out like in Jesus pose and open your mouth and be bathed by nature. We went to like an ancient, ancient place, you know. I mean that's also it is. You're like, there's ancient
stuff here. There's like extremely like pre European culture colonizing stuff here just everywhere, and it's you know, federal land, so you can go there and it's beautiful. Um. Yeah, there was like we looked over the Rio Grand and there was like a crazy storm came in and just
h yeah. Just nature is amazing. It makes you feel very again, very small in a way where you're like something is in charge, and that also makes you think of aliens because you're like something, You're just like other things are happening all the time that have nothing to do with me, which I love. So they're bringing back I mean bringing back in quotes roswell Um on the c w Oh now it's called Roswell New Mexico, but I think we all remember the w B show from
the late nineties that was just called Roswell. And it feels like the nostalgia wheel is turning and we're back to being into aliens in the same way that we were in the nineties, but now it kind of can take on a different shape and after vampires comes aliens. Right, what are where does zombies fit? Zombies are in love
with zombies? I mean, there are a couple of like zombie teen romance movies that are kind of jokey, but I think in general, there's more longevity to like falling into yeah, falling in love with an alien or falling in love with a werewolf for a vampire a werewolf thing never really well, I guess teen wolf. Yeah, all right, people all open myself up. Zombies are like their bodies are falling apart. You know some people are into that. Most could like Sugar Daddy in the End, All of
Our Bodies Sugar Daddy, Zombie Sugar amazing. Um the seat all but use Roswald New Mexico is interesting. It's more of a reimagining of you know, it's kind of closer to the book and not not really it's not a reboot. So what's really interesting about it is that it kind of places um the story, which is about Liz or Teco.
She's a scientist and she ends up coming home to Roswell, New Mexico following the death of her sister, which um, because you know, there's more on that to follow, and then she ends up reconnecting with her friend from high school, Max, and something's off about Max. Guys, doesn't take us long to figure out that, and his siblings and his siblings
Max's family is uh not not earthly, not of this world. Yeah, and it's based on um this book series called Roswell High School Roswell Highwell hi yeah, um, but the new one is definitely more faithful in some ways to the original books than the w B show was. Uh specifically like more with the characters and uh and just kind of the overall you read some of the books also, right,
I didn't the books? Are you were reading about the books and you know I was reading about Yeah yeah, yeah, you discovered that in the original books the character of Liz Tina and that they whitewashed it for the original show. Yeah, yeah, so that was I was in the current uh Razmo in New Mexico the news show. Um also slight spoiler, but I think it definitely deals with the idea of
aliens and extraterrestrials in a more kind of topical political way. Uh. And you know, also being set in New Mexico somewhat near a border, you can kind of see how that stuff might all come into to play. And um, in the in the original books, Liz had been Latina and now she's Latina again. Uh, that's definitely her. Her love
interest is now a cop. So you know, there's like a lot of stuff that you can kind of play with as far as thinking about like what aliens might mean to audiences, especially like teen audiences or like young young adult audiences today, Like what you kind of kind of import or meeting you kind of assigned to that also shout out to the fake conspiracy podcast on that show, which was my light for me because I think that that's like the other interesting thing about the desert we've
talked so much about, like Coast to coast is when you're thinking about aliens a lot, which you know, sometimes we are sometimes not. But it's like the way that that kind of like curiosity and wonder turns into paranoia is an interesting descent I think to think about, and and especially you know, yeah, and especially in the context of like, you know, imagining what it's like to be in the kind of community that's like, you know, dealing
with paranoia earth based paranoia and supernatural paranoia. Um. But I was really happy that that was included because that's I'm too close to life, man, so to throw it in there always needs to be a guy with headphones and a microphone. That's us where the the chaotic good shout out. Shout out to Courtly for featuring us on the list. Oh yeah, by the way, I'm saying that we were back in Weirder than Ever whist compliments like, it's true, we are weirder than I know, but the
world is younger than ever. It's true we are the lone gunmen. The lone gun people. Yeah, exactly what I think.
What's like, really, one of the things that's really great about the c WS version of this is that it's very timely, and I kind of think it's like more interesting to see these characters as adults and and to you know, have like this history of this person who has been living in Roswell and is an alien, but it's kind of like a revelation as an adult, but he's known, you know, Liz for a long long time,
so it's like keeping the secret. It kind of has a little more gravity of them being adults, and there's sort of more that the story can do with them being adults, and especially is being like a practicing scientific genius, you know that definitely. I mean I was watching the original show and like, you know, the most they can do is like studies themselves in their science lab class.
But you know, when you have adult characters, and like there's also a doctor that she also knows from high school who's sort of like trying to investigate the aliens, and there's there's kind of more possibilities for the show. And of course everybody is very good looking because it's a c W show, so that but in that. I mean, they're there's the like, you know, it's not subtle, but
it doesn't really have to be that. You know, Liz is the child of undocumented immigrants, and she comes in like it kind of opens up where she's stopped at the border and questioned, and you know, the first scene is like an ice detention scene, which is like it really shows you where the show is going to go
from the get go. And I liked that they were kind of just so upfront about it because I felt as though, you know, rather than kind of like stringing you along and having it you know, it's just to like put it out there and and have it be like this crisis that's also is very you know, true and relatable right now. Um, and it's like it's not
just a metaphor exactly. Yeah, you have the people who are like the conspiracy theorists but are also like the aliens in quotes are going to take our jobs, which is like literally what the past guy says. Yeah, um, but yeah, it's it's super interesting and I really definitely it's I find it really weird that the you know, previous show whitewashed Liz when like why it's like the
present catching up with the original exactly. Yeah, yeah, because there's so much more you can talk about then, like you know, the stuff that her family is going through mirrors what the aliens are going there. It's just like it makes so much sense. And that was originally from
the book. So I'm glad that they brought that stuff back because I also love when people, you know, take a show of you know, doing something like kind of bringing in like the like really most horrible things that we're dealing with right now and just kind of talk about them. It's nice and like riff on them. And especially with with with genre stuff. I mean, I think
that we like a nightcall. We love sci fi and Twilight Zone type stuff because it's a way to talk about serious things, you know, kind of in a in a more flexible and kind of fun way and you know, really blow out some ideas and there's definitely that feeling to it. Like I mean, it's obviously it's like a prime time soap on the c W and it has you know, all of the fun of that, but also is you know, addressing a lot of actual contemporary issues in not a preachy way and like kind of a
fun genre you way, so yes, exactly, totally. Yeah, but yeah, well, did you guys have any favorite alien or paranormal related things that you were into in the nineties when it was when it was all the rage. I mean I
loved Independent Stay, Yes, I loved Independence Day. I'm very much identified with like the stripper who just goes to the roof with her friend from the strip club, who just goes to the roof to stand on the roof with the other people in l a and be like, yeay aliens, Yeah, yeah, I think right now, especially like people would love for the aliens to come because things are bad on Earth and it would like make sense
in a way. I mean, I don't know why anyone would visit Earth now, Like it just seems like why not, Like you had all this time when things were going pretty well, but if the aliens came down, wouldn't you be like, oh, yeah, okay. That's kind of why I
like rivals so much. It felt like a like an interesting, like different angle on why aliens might come here, that they could be benevolent or like just sort of you know, truly altruistic beings that don't think with their egos the way that human beings do, so we can't even necessarily analyze the like anything that way the aliens might come,
but like we won't even we can't comprehend. We were also talking about because there wasn't an article in Life science about how the Drake equation which setti people search for extratrustrial intelligence if you don't know how you know, uh that that that's sort of been the equation that kind of like like philosophical way of thinking about the odds of of alien life being something and the odds not only are there being an intelligent civilization somewhere in
the universe, but also the odds of us coming in contact with it. And I think, like nobody knows what the actual you know, number or some of the Drake equation is, but it's obviously like meant to kind of
communicate the fact that the chances are slim. So I think, like the idea of an alien coming to Earth and or interacting with high schoolers and we're falling in love, it's like such a kind it's almost like it's almost like a religious experience because it feels so like the odds are so uh small or something, or it takes so much faith to even like idealize something like that. Well, I read so this article in Life Science was by um an astrophysicist named Paul Sutter, and I thought it
kind of breaks your brain. The Drake equation. He was basically saying that it's useless because you can figure out the you know, percent chance of all of these different variables, like is their life in the galaxy on what planet? Like will it be intelligent life? But if you're missing any category, like if you don't have, you know, any kind of idea of whether something is possible in one category, then it nullifies the entire result, basically because there's so
many variable variables. So I think, what's like interesting about the idea of, you know, kind of imagining what would happen if aliens came to Earth is that it's either probably it's like you have no there's no way of figuring out if it's probable improbable, or what it would look like no matter how much you know about it, until you figure it out, so you can take you know, you can have something like arrival where And that's to me like seems that the most like but like also
in some ways the least fun because because you know, you don't get to have adventures with the piece for you gonna be a little weird spore and a rock, yeah, the spears. I mean it's fun to think about in a way, but then it's it's hard to really make a storyline out of that. I mean story I like all the storylines where they're just like the humans are exterminated immediately, and then it's just like what happens after that when there are no humans? Like that's how I
think about it. I'm like, we shouldn't get to go to other planets and like the that way, we'll leave a decent planet. If anyone else finds it later, it's too late, man. But I feel like humans think and then we'll be gone and it will go back to nature so fast. Right. But I think one of the things that's fun about the New Roswell New Mexico is that it's the idea that, like, there's a person who's
an alien. I like that idea because, um, I have a family friend who you know, he's never heard of like all of these things that everyone's like, he's there's just a little slight difference, and it's fun to be like, see an alien is he and like reason noble people, you can kind of keep the conversation rightly because it's like, but that long Mork and Mindy kept up, That's what I'm saying, Morgan Mindy was Honestly, I don't think I
could rewatch Mork and Mindy. But at the time, I was like, I talked about this one once on Twitter with Emily Nuspam, who was also apparently a Mork and Mindy super fan to the extent that she wore rainbow suspenders to school to really yeah, because I was just like, because Mork and Mindy was a Happy Day spin off, I feel like I've talked about this before and I was just like, isn't that weird that it was a Happy Day spin off and also that the idea of
the show about just a woman with an alien boyfriend, it was so popular for so long, but now it just makes sense. It's just so interesting to see what people like what you kind of superimposed the idea of aliens onto in different times, Like I feel like the idea of having an alien boyfriend feels very seventies just because of like I don't know, Avid Bowie or something who would want an alien boyfriend, or just like if you're a girl, a misunderstood girl, you're like, who would
be my boyfriend? Like from another world? And that's totally what the I think the nineties Roswell felt like like to me at least, And I was kind of going back and watching some old episodes and it's very much about being weird or being an outsider and and you know, having a secret and stuff like that. Wait, can we answer the red or green chili question? Yeah, we got to answer that. What do you guys think to aliens like red chili or green chili? Or do they prefer both?
Which is known as Christmas style? Oh, I like Christmas. I'm gonna go with green chili. I'm going to go, in particular with the Hatch chili. I I think I've expressed my opinions on Hatch Chili's before because there they pop up at this one grocery store in Los Angeles. They feature them for like three months and they just stink so like I I like chili's, but you can overdo a chili And I was like, these don't belong here. Nobody buys them. I've never seen anyone because they like
it's too much. You're going to a grocery store and everything has chilies in it. It just seems like weird because there's no real reason for it. Never seen anyone by these chilies from this grocery store. Is just you don't want to You think the aliens are gonna come alien plants. I think it's to entice the man. And that's why all has a specific smells. Because I was gonna say green hatch chilies, because who doesn't like green hatch chilies? But I guess this is where the diversity
of opinions. I personally prefer green chili um, but I'm gonna go Christmas style because it's the best hot take. I think the aliens, well, you know, a little of everything is always the best. Wouldn't the aliens like to experience all we have to offer? I don't know. Hard to imagine a green or gray gray bean into into chilis in general and spicy things in general. What do you think they eat like soil? And I don't know. I think they searched the galaxy for the spice, tasty flame,
the spiciest bits. I think they eat corn. What if the aliens come and they're like, oh, we're here to do our diners, drives, diners, and wait tests. Are you suggesting also that there might be like the entire corn conspiracy might be to feed the aliens? When okay, I'm back on corn again. I love okay anyway, but yes, so Roswell New Mexico will be premiering January CW Tuesday at Central. This was a great episode, guys. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. Also Test is wearing one
of our own merchuts. Yeah. I didn't have time to really like get Ready, and I was like, I may as well represent. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of Night Call. If you have questions, comments, want advice, have a favorite dessert, Have ever been to Roswell New Mexico and want to share a story about encountering alien life, please give us a Night Call at two four oh four six night or a night email
at Night Call podcast at gmail dot com. Also, if you'd like to celebrate our birthday in February, please come out to gold Diggers Bar in Los Angeles that Molly and I d J with DJ Ghost dj Emily, which we all love. Yeah, gold Digger is an awesome bar. Last time we brought a pumpkin pie and ate it all. This time, we'll bring up Boston cream Pie. We will maybe Emily will be there though more excitingly, and I'll be debuting my my new actual DJ name SO and
some amazing vinyl from Japan. Yes, February Vinyl February five, February fifty evening. So come out Sport Night Call. We'll probably have some shirts to sell, and we'll be very happy to see you. See you night next week, everybody. This week's Nightcall is brought to you by Roswell New Mexico. Catch the all news series Roswell New Mexico Tuesday at eight Central only on the c W or any time on the free c W app
