The Satan Bump with Penny Lane

special guest on the pod. We talked to her just a little bit ago, but through the magic of editing, we are about to talk to her. Um. It's Penny Lane. She's a filmmaker we really like, and you did a movie we really like called Hail satan Ston. We'll be chatting with her in just a second, but first we wanted to take a moment to just tip our cowboy hats to the yeeha agenda, which we all at I

Call have decided to support sure wholeheartedly. Yeah. The song of the Summer uh from Little Little nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. I am um, I feel like this song of the Summer discourse is mostly dead and buried, but I am willing to exhume it. Uh this year for this song, especially this song coming out in um and on April, particularly the remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. The song has brought people together. The song is old Town Road by the way road circling around, saying it

like it's um like the horses are circling the wagons around. Yeah. I heard someone refer to Little nos X as Little nas and X, and now I can't see that without being like Little Nasonets, which is also as its springs season. Yeah, wow, Little nos X, who may or may not have been a tweet decking Nicki Minaj. I don't care. I love it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, get it, get it, get there anywhere you can. It's also like, that's just like working at Walgreens now, like, oh, from somewhere you

used the internet to try and make yourself money. Welcome. I'm I'm a little less on board with this song

itself than you guys. As you know, I do love a crossover hit, but this it's like I can't deal with the minor key songs down with nine inch nails, fucking fragile, right now is a banger though He's cut the horses in the back and Wrangler on his booty, Can't tell Me Nothing, and the Billy Ray Cyrus remix um, which truly elevates us the song of the Summer because the other reason is that it went to number one on the country charts and then Billboard decided it wasn't

a country song because they are racist. Uh, and that is the reason why. Because there are so many songs on the country charts right now that are totally rap country. Oh yeah, yeah. Rap country has existed for a lot forever. White people do it all the time. There's so much talk rapping, especially on mainstream country radio, which Tess I both secretly listened to all the time. It's all like

getting my car. It's all just spoken like Sam Hunt, Sam Hunt does that Sam like a little girl, and then she came He's like the drake of country is not my favorite at all. But the Little Nazac song, when you hear it, it is like anthemic. It's an earworm. It just brings me down a nudge like I wanted to just lift me up. You know. There's a lot of sad songs about horses. That's my thing. They got to run away front free. I mean, he just wants to ride until he can't know more. I'm I'll allow it.

And I also love that the visual for it on the official YouTube lak Dead Redemption, which just takes it

to another place. I just feel like, I feel like the the crux of the h agenda, if that's what we're calling it right now, is like this reclamation of cowboy imagery for all people, um and like a post digital age, which is it's not like country music is not being popular, it's but this has been a thing I've been thinking about since they were mean to Beyonce at the c m A Awards, because that was right before the election. I remember thinking, like, what the funk

is wrong with people? Why aren't they just like welcoming Beyonce for daging to give country music a bomp on the show? Uh? And they were so mean and racist about it, and I was like, maybe America has a lot of problems we haven't really dealt with yet. And then I couldn't be I couldn't listen to mainstream country music for a while after that because I was like, Wow, if I just think about all these people being racists.

It makes me like, I don't think that it's necessarily the all the artists, but I think it's like a lot of the kind of powers that I went through. It's definitely a bunch of the I went through a period and not just old school people, which is what's weird. Rum and went and again. I went through a period where I was just like any song that had country in it, I would just like replace it with racist in my mind. And that was a fun game to allow me to listen to those songs. A little bit racist. Yeah,

I'm a little bit racist. Whatever makes you racist, that's what makes Yeah. It works, it works, it works out. But um, this is the little no X and Billy race IRUs song has will allow country music to redeem itself. Um by welcoming Little nozas into the country establishment as they should, as they should. I still agree with that. Yeah, they put the song. I believe the remix the Billboard

decided also is not. They still won't put it on the country charts, but it went to number one on the Hot one hundred, so in a way, it's been good for the song's publicity. When they banned that sex pistol song and it made it be a hit. Shout out yeah, shout out jes uh. So I've heard it just playing out of every car I've driven pack. I mean, it's gonna be like the party song, like when they comes on and you're at a barbecue this summer you're

gonna and it's like it's hay back for Post Malone. Yes, you know, also makes stuff that he claims is like sort of country, but it is essentially country rap, which counts the country. It's country. I entered a contest that like landed in my inbox to go to stage coach all expenses, and then immediately I was like, oh, it's so white, but I but I still want to go. I'm just like, oh, what if I get there and suddenly I'm like no, I mean like sun Night called

the stage coach, Yeah, we would go. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it. Also, isn't it funny that, like just a few months ago people saw Stars Born. They're like, this isn't like realistic, this guy wouldn't be popular. Well, this was in Kate Rath's presentation that I was part of a stars Born takes place

in a universe y ninal leven never happened. On One of her tenants was that um that country music would have continued to become more progressive in the non nine in universe instead of the reactionary swing to the right that it made after nine eleven with Toby Keith and all that stuff. Country music would have become more more welcoming. Tessed looking at me like I'm insane because I'm blowing your mind series. And since this has happened, I have

been wondering if this means the universes are crossing back over. Yeah, I think maybe the good universe is trying to break on through. Oh it hurts my brain. I think you just created a neural pathway that did check graph. She's on Jack a m which is my favorite daily morning show podcast. UM and now onto our interview with Penny Lane eight trill trill. You guys, summer is coming. I know while you're in l A and summer is probably like already too much and you're probably melting on the

heat already. But in New York it just got to be like seventy degrees for the first time, and it's incredibly exciting. I love to go to Prospect Park and um, maybe take a little bit of rose with me because I am basic. I enjoy being basic on occasion. And one of the things that is sort of a pet peeve of mine is on a hot summer day, you want to take your wine, your beer, whatever it is, to the park and about an hour in in the sweltering heat because of global warming and other things as well.

Uh it is room temperature or warm, it's just a bummer. I mean, it's not going to stop me from drinking the wine, but I would prefer if it was still chili and refreshing the way that God intended. So that is why Broommate is such an incredible new invention to kind of save the summer picnic. Broommate makes super high quality insulated wine carriers, beer carriers, uh carafts, everything you need to bring your favorite adult and non adult all just beverages out in the world with you and keep

them cold and refreshing. It also works for iced coffee just as well. If you're like me, not a big one drinker and more of an ice to your coffee person. You can even bring cold water in it if you just want to stay hydrated and have your water, stay hydrated, be cold. Yeah, it's good to be cold. Just stick some ice cubes in your broommate and you have a cold drink of water all day long. They also come in a lot of really nice designs. Yeah, there are

literally zillions of designs. I got the white and marble carafe and matching cups to go with it, so that everything is matchy matchy, and I know which one one is mine when it's time to clean up the picnic. I got one in kind of a wood grain, which I like. It's a little natural selection, very outdoorsy of you. I love that we're both really into the idea of drinking cold beverages outside. If there's one thing we're enthusiastic

about it, oh my god, having a picnic. Listen, it's about to be like a hundred and ten degrees in Los Angeles. It already is today. I wish I had coffee in my roommate right now. There's nothing more of a bummer than coming back into your car in l A on a hot day and you're only water you left in the car, and it's like boiling hot and also probably filled with B p A toxins because it's just like a flimsy plastic bottle. That's just a bad

it's just a bad summer feeling. But with Broommate, you can keep all of your beverages the exact temperature you want them to be, preferably ice cold, for the next few months. Yeah, if you wanted it to be hot for some reason, it could also do that. I also drink hot tea from it. Yeah, it's it's fully insulated. So right now, Roommate is giving our listeners a special discount of off of your first order when you go to www dot broommate dot com and use our code nightcall.

That's off. When you use our code night call and I g H T C A L l AT b r U M A t E dot com. Don't let the summer heat ruin your drink. Go to broommate dot com and beat the heat this summer twelve nine five, eighteen nineteen. So we are now joined here in the studio in New York with Penny Lane. She's a documentary filmmaker. She has a new film out this week. If you're listening to this, all right, that's right. I'm always in this weird time warper. I'm like, are we this weeker

next week, UM called Hail Satan. It was at Sundance this year and now it's out in select theaters. It is highly recommended my team Nightcall. She's also done a bunch of other films were big fans of, particularly our Nixon. We were big our Nixon fans back in the day and Nixon h guys and like Everyone's Dad, Perfect are Everybody's Dad though? That's um And also Nuts, which is like a completely uh bonkers film. It was so fun that it was also another Sundance thing that I saw

a couple of years ago. So you can't say what it is without describing it so that people know that it's a doctor who implanted goat testicles into human men to cure impotence. The more you know, the more you know. So, Penny, I didn't realize that you had a documentary about more Gellon's. I just found out Molly and I spent many hours back in the day being like, is it real? Is it not real? What is it? So I'm excited to see that next Yeah, one of the less fun topics

that I've covered. Yeah, it's pretty in that film. Either. When did that, um, when did you just like last year, last year. Here, what's it called the pain of others? Others? That's your cue that it's like not that funny. This is also that was like a fountain that was musing mostly like first person YouTube. Yeah, the whole, the whole, the whole film is made up of these YouTube vlogs of more Gillan's sufferers. Yeah, yeah, which I've definitely spent a long time on you, like we all. That was

one of the first things that drew us together. I think I didn't buy a hairbrush recently because the bristles were like rainbow colored plastic too. For people who don't know. Listeners who don't know, could there be anyone who doesn't know? We have we can say what it is. But yeah, well more Gillan's is a very mysterious illness that was discovered or first I guess happened to people about fifteen years ago. Um and the symptoms of the disease are

like out of a sci fi movie. So the main diagnostic is that out of your skin grows multi colored fibers that are made of something too serious that don't burn under extremely high heat. It may or may not move around like little machines they look like little um. Everyone in this room looks really sick right now because a lot too ye describing it. That's the thing is

like people describing it. It's impossible to tell apart from like methanetoma symptoms except we're the multiple colored the rainbow colorow. There's also a touch of like, would anyone think they had this if the Internet didn't tell them it was a thing they could have. Yeah. It's one of those things where you start googling symptoms and then you're like, oh, wait a second, could it be this? Also, Joni Mitchell has it and has talked about it interviews, which I

think boosted it. It's signal a bit. I think I'm having imaginary to see this is unfortunately going to become even more popular in forthcoming years. Womp, No thanks, I'm just I just think it's true. Well, way more fun than that was were the Satanists that we met in Hail State. Hail Satan. Yeah, how do you pronounce it when you actually have to say the name of your your film? I just say Hal Satan, Okay, But I like watching other people pronounce it, like with the question

mark at the end of it, because it's really funny. Well, the question mark is like kind of the crux of the film, right, yeah, sure, because the film is uh so it's about the Satanic Temple, which, as we were discussing off pod, it is very different and we must make the distinction between it and the Church of Satan.

Uh yeah. And so tell us a little bit just for people who haven't seen the film, um, because I guess that'll be everybody when this comes up, but just about like the basic premise and this group of people that you kind of followed for how long about three years? Three years at the Satanic Temple is a new religious movement that started in basically as a joke like amongst a few people with a sense of humor and like

a political activist bent. And then within months of that sort of initial joke had blossomed into an internationally recognized organized religious movement with hundreds of thousands of members. And so I was like, what, how how did they get from A to B? And that was definitely like the question that I was trying to answer with the movie was, you know, sort of what is going on here? Like is it a joke or not? You know, that was kind of my initial thing and it's the opening scene

that must have been really really early on. Yeah, and I wasn't there, right, So, like if this is a six year story because they got started in I showed up in Yeah, because that was before that was still when it was kind of just a conceptual thing at a movement for to basically like prove a point about religious freedom in America. And uh, it definitely has a different look. It's definitely a little more Halloween Store than how it gets to be later on, although there's always

like a tinge of Halloween Store. The Halloween Store never really goes right right. That's what's great about Satanism. So for our audience, let's do a brief explainer on the history of Satanism. Anton LaVey, Yes, founded the Church of Satan in Penny. Do we know what what does in six right, and also kind of invented the idea of like the media, the using Satanism as a vehicle to like get on talk shows, yeah, and then use it

to your own ends. And so the Satanic Temple, which is not the Church of Satan, the Satanic Temple took that kind of template to talk about free speech and the idea of America being like supposedly a pluralistic religious country and the reality that it is a very prejudiced country, and be like, let's force people who want to have the Ten Commandments as a statue to put up our satan statue. I liked somebody at one point pronounced it. Well.

I was a little upset when they were like, we gave it the abs of iggy pop and like it's supposed to have breasts, but we didn't give it break. That would be overkill. I was totally like, Wow, I must be a real like you know, purist, Yeah, like a purist Satanist. Yeah. I was like, well, if it doesn't at breast, it's not you are not alone. You can go on the internet and find many people who are happy to complain about the lack of breast with you,

the other baffo mat purists out there. When the Satanic feminists break off, I think Night Call is ready for them. Also the crops Um. Speaking of nudity, the Satanic Temple was featuring a lot of the pain in the performance art that a company I think Jack Lash was the Detroit chapter. They were big a male body, which I appreciated. Yes, so Night caall also all for equal nudity, All for

equal nudity. We've been on a neurotic odyssey. I was like, this is we weren't trying to bring Yeah, but documentaries often show a lot more penis than anything else will show. It's right, yeah, it's true for depicting waiting for our distributor to, like, you know, say, when are you planning on blurring out those flopping penises all over the movie? And they were like, what, no, when I was like,

a great, great, good documentary. Better I mean I do kind of like how whenever somebody does say hal Satan and the movie there is sort of a giggle after, Like it's always like everybody can be completely straight faced about the actual principles that the that the temple is standing for because they are very real. Like that's kind of the amazing thing about the film is that what starts off as like a conceptual gag becomes like a very real and like something that everybody is deeply invested

in within the Temple because they are. It's like, I think it's especially interesting like how many you know, kind of people who said they didn't have any anything that they felt that they were not privileged about or like out like another or something. Uh, and then becoming a part of the church or the temple rather, I can't say, um, becoming a part of the temple and suddenly being involved in this struggle. It's like, oh, this must be what it's like for everybody who's not a part of like

the quote unquote majority American culture. Um, they kind of are like Juggalos. They're a little bit Juggalo adjacent insiders, you mean, Like, but yeah, and like maybe in the service of good of just like people that like need to put their energy towards something, and like especially maybe some young white men who would otherwise go in some bad directions to direct it towards like, oh, freedom of religion is good. Well, first a lot of them were coming out of the church like dy, which is like,

of course, but it was fascinating to me also. But then a lot of them also went through some kind of atheist stage, and I thought that was also interesting that they said didn't offer the community that being a part of a temple, being a part of an organized religion offers. And I think that that like that becomes sort of lost. I think in a lot of especially

like debates over secularism and stuff. Is that there are like good aspects to organize religion that like build community and like make you feel accountable to like a group

of people. It's just people crave human connection and groups. Penny, I wanted to ask you what you saw over the course of your three years with them in terms of like the evolution of this group, because it is so new and it was really interesting to see how, you know, it kind of came together and then in a way like they had to worry about brand messaging and all of this kind of like they were using like corporate

speak and these meetings. So what kind of things did you see change within the group and like where do you think they're going from here? I think exactly what you said was the main change, right. I mean, if you look at just say Lucian Grieves, who is the co founder and spokesperson of the Satanic Temple. In the first few minutes of our film, he you know, busts out at the grave site of Fred Phelps's mother and

like tea bags her grave. So he's clearly like kind of a wacky, out there kind of guy who just does whatever crazy thing seems appealing to him a bit anarchistic, like let's bring more chaos into the world, But by the end of the film he has to perhaps reluctantly excommunicate people who are doing things that are really radical and really aren't kind of on message with their their kind of whole institutional idea. So, I mean that's what

was interesting. I mean, you know, the whole kind of basic irony and questionable sustainability of an organized Satanic religion, you know, manifesting into an institution when like kind of your m O if you're a Satanist is that you hate institutions and like don't want to be part of a group, Like how is that going to move into the future? And so watching those conflicts develop over time was was pretty interesting. Yeah, it seems like they handled

it pretty civilly. I mean, I was just looking at Jack's Blackmore's um Twitter, and she is she was excommunicated. She was I think the head of the Detroit chapter, and I think had been good friends with Lucian Grieves for a long time. UM, And it seemed like it was kind of like definitely feelings were hurt, but it was so much more civil than one would have imagined when this is like based on you know, really edgy performance art and like, you know, the kind of building

of this movement. Do you feel like there is a way for them to kind of like keep their message on brand or is that kind of like does that you know, run a foul of like what their whole thing stands for. I don't know. I mean I think that, you know, I separate in my mind the religion of Satanism from the institution of the Satanic Temple. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen to the institution. It's basically how together with rubber bands and like a

lot of whiskey. Like it's just volunteers who are like doing this at night when their kids are asleep and their day job is done. It's not as organized as it looks from the outside. And you know, I think if those who are involved in leadership tomorrow quit, the whole thing would literally fall apart. Like it's not it's not like organized in that. Yeah. Yeah, So they've managed to do a lot with like a little like really no money, no no organizational abilities necessarily, like you know,

just a really incredible message and symbolism. I saw that they were doing Indie Go Go for like a couple of things. But did they are they doing like Kickstarter, Like what are they doing? They literally make like like they sell t shirts, they sell merch Did they make any money when they got sued or when they sued Sabrina the Teenage which for using the bathroom at statue with Yeah, oh my gosh, they settled, so we don't know, right,

like we don't know what happened. That was one of those things where I was like, that's right, yeah, because people were like, they used the statue that seems old, but it's actually so recent old you compare them side by side, there's really no doubt that whoever designed that statue and Sabrina like literally just copied their raft met monuments.

I mean, but I mean, you know, because it doesn't have breasts right right right, it's got those iggy pops or that was my favorite part this kind of stuff. The thing one of the moments that blew my mind in this documentary was the fact that the Ten Commandments

statues were props yes the movie WHOA. I mean, then you zoom in on them like I I guess I never looked at one of these monuments close enough, and they do have so on the tablets, they have a picture of tablets and they are the tablets from the

Ten Commandments. Cecil bea. It was the wildest thing. But then the irony of like pure flicks coming back and like know funding, it's all like the fact that it is like this movie sandwich of just like christianflmaking that that gets Ten Commandments on the lawn of of of

you know, federal and state property. But it's amazing because like, you know, you have Senator you know, Jason Rappert or any number of kind of contemporary politicians with a completely straight face making the argument that the Ten Commandments monuments on government property are like a really integral part of our American history and heritage. And you're like, you know, DM, well where those came from. They came from Bramount Pictures

to promote a movie starring Charleton Heston. Like so within one generation, you know, you've got quite uh what a distance you've moved, right, Well, that's like all the Confederate monuments are pretty right, right, People think they're like from the era, but they're like very recent, specifically built to like and they're built by a generation that wasn't in the war like but has ranticized it, like you know the DW. Griffith generator. Also like none of these statues

are that old. We can knock them all down or you can drive your car into them as we though there is another thing. There was another like statue. It wasn't from the Ten Commandments. I think there was like us,

all this ancient Egyptian stuff buried in the sand. Wait what there was just like a whole set of an ancient civilization that they then filmed on a beach and then they just buried on the stand and so it became like a buried ancient civilization, but from like a movie made in the Can you imagine how many like ten year old kids just got so they were like, look I found but it's still still just as cool.

I mean, so much of the movie just becomes like about these weird mirrors of like what America is or like what people think it is, both on the religious

front and everything else. Uh. The whole dive into the Satanic panic stuff in the eighties, of course, which is like totally what fuels I think what the modern imagination thinks of as Satanism, like I had never had the irony pointed out to me before watching this film that like that was really when the height of like the pedophilia and the church was running rampant and so like

it was completely protection. I think Lucian is the person who says that in the film, but it's, um it was really wild to think about it that way, But um, yeah, I was not. I was not a sentient being during all of that. But I feel like it kind of lived on in a way into the nineties. It was in the water for a long time. I was thinking a lot recently about how there was so much stranger danger stuff, and then if you watch a lot of true crime stuff, you're like, oh, people shoure what We've

talked about this before. It was just like, oh, people were hitch hiking a lot in the sixties and seventies, and then there was a lot of like don't do that, and someone might ask you to get in their car. You shouldn't go with them. Are you saying that, like stranger danger was like a big oil or like a like a big airline getting a getting cars with strangers that happens, A good story will maybe the next documentary. I was curious about Raper who appears in the documentary

and is just just seems horrible. Um, the Arkansas Senator, Right, yes, the Arkansas Senator. Um. Do you think that he had kind of an objective view of himself? Like he obviously was doing a lot of kind of Facebook live and like, you know, seeming very secure that his position was correct in having this monument put up. What what was it like to kind of be around him and the Satanists and like what what would you have described the vibe

as being. I would say, like he absolutely must be smart enough to know what the constitution says, and he like literally doesn't care. Because when I was wondering, yes, because there are plenty of, um, you know, American politicians who are very happy to do things that are unconstitutional if it'll get them reelected. And that's the category of

person Jason rapertson. Like, they're a lots of people who are super psyched to vote for a guy who like stood up for Christian values, especially against these like Satan bullies, you know, coming from Massachusetts, you know, to tell Arkansas what to do. You know, so it's just good for his politics, and you know, it maybe bad for America

but it's going to help him get reelected. What was the mood like when you were actually shooting some of those standoffs between the Bible folks in the church, because it seems it was mostly just honestly depressing, I'm sorry to say, Like it just felt like so much just wilful ignorance, you know, kind of flying around and in like weird misplaced fear, like people were like throwing holy water at me and like like the little plastic bottle

somebody makes those, Yeah, like the Chinese corporation that's making those little plastic holy water bottles. But I mean it was just crazy, like it's like, you know, it didn't matter like what the Satanists did. There was a kind of a psychosis around like what people thought they were doing that wasn't dissimilar to like the Satanic bandic. I mean, it doesn't matter, like what facts present themselves to you.

You still like really think you know what's going on and it's very upsetting to you and there's just no breaking through that. Hey, what does that remind you of? I don't know. Yeah, I was wondering also, like what did this did you start making this documentary before after the election? Before. Oh so what was that like? Like, um, well, first of all, the Satanic Temple had a huge spike in membership like sign ups in the day after the election,

particularly surprising, kind of like the Trump bump. Oh my goodness. Um, it's just kind of like, you know, it's such desperate times that people are like fine, like what do the Satanists have to say? Like maybe they can help us, you know. Um. But also you know, it did make a lot of things feel a lot more urgent, which I know we all feel in different ways in our lives,

like all around us. But suddenly it was like, you know, looking at the people that Trump was putting in office, and his vice president who's like literally straight theocrat like Mike Parents, like proud to be a theocratic, like has a theocratic like button on his shirt probably um, you know, and like Betsy Divas and other people who are like super not that into the whole secular state thing, and seeing that kind of um definitely put a little more

urgency in the whole the whole, the whole story. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the the kind of way that the discourse, as it were, like works in the film really made me think about I don't know. I guess we're so used to thinking about how this stuff happens online, right, and like how trolling has become like this way of either gumming up the works are getting stuff done. And I think that it was funny because I was recognizing a lot of the techniques of the Temple and be like,

this is like ship posting basically. Yeah, I I want to kind of unpack it a little bit, because yeah, it's it's basically punching up. It's ship posting if you're

punching up. And uh, I mean I was just like losing losing it at the oh god, the baby thing at the the baby thing, because it was just so awful, Like it just looks so like you just know that the people that they're they're intending to push the buttons of are having their buttons put and it just it just felt like, I don't know, I I kind of wonder sometimes about like the endpoint of techniques like that, but also in the moment, it feels amazing to watch,

so for sure. I mean, I think that like the whole question of trolling was a really difficult one to sort of put my final foot down, you know, like I there is an element of trolling that is inherent to Satanism. You have to just accept that's true. Um that you know, part of the appeal of it is watching other people respond to you saying you're a Satanist. They get very upset about it, and that is kind

of fun in a weird way. But for them, I think, you know, there's a point to it, Like, you know, you destabilize someone, you shock and offend them, and then there's like interesting work to be done, you know. And so I guess if you're just like trolling for the sake of upsetting people and saying, look at how I made you upset, ha ha, Now I'm gonna walk away like that doesn't accurately describe the Satanic temple, Like they want to like upset people and then have a long

conversation about it. And that was just like I mean, there is it is sort of like a marriage of doing actions, you know, like occupy or anything like that. I mean, what a lot of stuff that Jecks is doing felt more along that line or more in that. But also get mad if you call yourself a socialist, that's true. Yeah, it's kind of becoming And then you want to have a long talk with them where you're like, let's trap out, let's trap out, friend. It is like

they are making a point. They bring it up early on where they're like, why are people so mad about this when what they should be mad about is like the suppression of child molestation by people in the church for decades. Then they kind of as actually real as opposed to like this sort of magical thing like this

religious hurt my feelings. Yeah, And to draw attention to the fact that America is supposedly a nation with freedom of religion, but it is like default a Christian, you know, themed nation because of all these people like Betsy Divace and Mike Penson, people who are in charge of things, and there's just like you know, state sanctioned in Islamophobia happening all the time, especially now. So to draw attention to these things by using Satanism as a tool is smart.

I think I think so too. And it's also important to say that, you know, like trolling is not the whole thing, Like I sort of made up this number, like ten percent of what they do is really about trolling very inward, It's about personal liberation, finding community, expressing your authentic values, and most of what they do is not public facing, Like they're not running around doing black masses on the streets. They're doing them privately behind closed

doors because it has meaning for them. So, I mean, at the end of the day, you can't sort of wonder. You can't be like, well, how effective is this strategy. You have to say, Look, they're saying nests. They don't care if you think it's offensive. At the end of the day, that's who they are. It's like saying, well, don't they know that people hate Satan. Yeah they do. But like there's also anti Semitism in the world, and no one says, well, why don't Jewish people stop being Jewish?

Since there are some people out there wait Jewish. Yeah, I'm just saying we wouldn't say that. I was very intrigued by the different over the course of the film. The temples and their chapters are multiplying across the country. Um, and we obviously spent some time with the folks in Arkansas and in Detroit. Did you have a sense of like the vibe of like an l a Satanic temple for example, versus a I don't know, in Idaho one

or something. Yeah, it's totally. First of all, it's interesting it goes against people assume like New York City, l A. These are not the big chapters, like you know, because there's almost kind of no need for it, Like you can just walk down the street and be a Satanist kind of no one cares, nobody hairs and it makes you normal. You can wear devil, you can wear a full bath in that costume on Hollywood. Excuse me, Batham May.

But then when you get out to like Arizona or Arkansas, or Texas or Florida, like that's where the really intense, big active chapters really were. Arizona seems really lit. Arizona is amazing. I would recommend going to Arizona and going to any of their parties because they are having a great time. I'm down Field trip. Yeah. I think people really need and crave community, and so if if Satanism provides this community for people that don't want to be in a church but do want to like make friends

and hang out. I also thought the Seven Tenants were just great. I mean it's so early on I was like I will be a Satanist, and the more I learned them where I was like yes, I will. It was a cool little microcosm of this like budding movement where you just saw, you know, over the course of three years as something can take off and like be

really needed as part of the discourse. But also like the kind of inherent problems when you have a bunch of really passionate people who are dealing in the dark arts. And so when you have people I mean, I feel like, you know, it's about Satanism specifically, but it could be about sort of any kind of group in terms of group dynamics and the fact that there's like actually individual people with their own personalities who have to like function in a group. That is a difficult thing to achieve,

it sure is, and especially when you're foundational. Religious concepts are so much about autonomy, independent thinking, challenging authority, you know, rebelling against entrenched power, like I don't know how you're supposed to do the whole like being in church and having like a boss thing. You know. What makes me think about there being not as many people in the

New York or l A chapters. It's just that like even if it's okay to walk down the street wearing a bafflement hat, there or whatever, like you still need that community. And I think that a lot of people, especially people who don't identify with any particular religion of religion or were raised religiously and are out of it, like they are missing that kind of absolutely yeah, that sense of community and interwovenness with a group of people. And you don't get it by being an atheist, you don't.

You don't get that ready made kind of group. And so when you asked me before about the different chapters, like you know, the New York chapter, for example, does a lot of reproductive rights fundraisers in the form of like satanic burlesque shows, but they don't have the same kind of need to like fight the city council or you know any meaning engage in right, but they do a lot more tight like sort of social events, fundraising

events for for causes. Yeah, I mean an as coastal elite, we obviously would love to support people that are in places where things like reproductive justice are even on the table where the Georgia Satanists will join you. Yeah. Uh, you know, just like a little bit at night, call one thing that's nice about doing it this week, get calls from all over the place, and a lot of people it feels like who listened to the show were

brought up in a religion. Um interesting, not me personally, but Tess and Emily you both had a little bit of a bit, just a little bit. Oh, I had a lot of it. But yeah, Penny, Yeah you had a lot of it. How about you? I had like zero? I like whatever the opposite of a little bit is for you raised religious at all? Now? I always just felt like it was so confusing, Like I never I just from the outside was like, what are these people doing?

Like I just don't get it. And I started this particular project, you know, sort of thinking that I was making a film about like sort of making fun of religious people. And then I came to understand that I was making a film about religious people and that I thought it was pretty cool. And that's exactly what Emily was saying that, Like I realized what I had been missing. Frankly, my whole life was you got converted. I almost wish

I had been converted. It I didn't. I didn't become a Satanist, but it did make me kind of yearn for that, Like what would it take for me to put aside my like bizarre psychotic individualism and like join a group like I don't know, I still haven't found the group, but it's making me want to find the group, you know. No, it's like getting over the American nous

and all of us just like an individual man. I will say, Also, we did an Exorcist episode not that long ago around Halloween where Test and Emily both had a lot of trouble saying Hail Satan over. I find it easier after watching the documentary. I'm like, afterwards, it's fine, you giggle, you giggle, and then you remember that really what you're saying is like, you know, f theocracy, and exactly I love it. I think I think it's interesting because I'm like, oh, it's so easy for me or

like Penny to say it totally. No one ever told us not to. My parents were atheists. I just went to a religious school and my excited family was very, very Catholic. So I went through a phase where I was like, you know, the seeds had been sewn and your dad told a story the other night about getting punched in the face by a nun. Yeah, you know that that happened for sure, So maybe I'll convert my parents to Satanist. There we go. That's the next step.

The ministry has begun. Um, well, thank you so much for coming by, Penny. This has been so awesome. Thank you. It's super fun. A huge fan of the show, so it's fun to be here. Awesome. Thank you so much. We're huge, huge, Thank you so much for coming back someday. And especially I think what you're doing, which is making documentaries that are really like about politics and satire's very important, especially right now. Everybody see Hale Satan. Yeah, April seventeen seventeen,

that's a Friday, April seventeen, Halee Satan. Yeah. You can even go on for twenty and Hale Sate. So you could check out our other films as well, check out our Nixon, check out Nuts. They're all great. Um, but they know you think about the more movie. I know we have to depress it. We have to get on that. That's our next thing. Um, all right, thanks so much,

Thanks guys. All right, we wanted to take a couple of night calls slash emails because we know it's been a second and we are sorry, but we're ready to get back into our mailbox. Here. Uh, we have a great one from Joe who writes us Howdy nightcall. I felt in kind to write you, gals, and I wasn't sure what until I remembered something interesting that I had written about in college, and it's perfect nightcall fuel. Have

you ever heard about the occult origins of chiropractic? D? D. Palmer, the man who invented chiropractic, was originally a magnetic healer who claimed to have cured a man's deafness through chiropractic adjustments, which the man fully corroborated. From there, he went on to find the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, which is still strong today. In a letter, Palmer wrote that he came up with the idea for chiropractic from the ghost of a medical doctor, and then he wanted to

turn chiropractic into a religion. The entire thing actually caused a divide in the chiropractic field, which kind of still goes on to this day. A professor at my university actually wrote a book about chiropractic and how it connects to populism and metaphysics. The entire thing is absolutely wild, and I wonder what is the night call take on chiropractic and other kinds of alternative healing. Thank you for reading a happy night call from Joe. Wow, what a

great call. Such a great night call. I love it. Um. I had no idea about any of this stuff. I knew that people had said that Cairo practic is I guess what the discipline is called was quackery, but I didn't really know why. I knew that people were like, it's not real medicine. It looks like real medicine, but it's this other thing. I thought it was sort of like massage therapy or something where it was like not technically a doctor, but like it's still good for you

and feels good. Well, it's like alternative medicine, but it doesn't fall within the realm of Eastern medicine. So it's like hard to like because I feel like a lot of that stuff gets othered because it is Eastern medicine. But this is just like Western but not official, official, official, like medically right. But also I'm like, Eastern medicine is real. This is like somebody made it up, right, I mean,

Eastern medicine is a discipline. This is like uh on Elizabeth Holmes of well, they just like crack your I mean, I don't know, I've I I dated somebody once who went to a chiropractic a couple of times. I don't really they just crack your back, like so what. I don't like people do that on there. I I'm personally am like completely I hate cracking anything in my body. I also feel that way. I love to crack it, but I not even your knuckles so good. I can't snap.

I have to say it. The other day, I was cracking my neck and I was like, I could have a horror movie where the only horrific scene as a person stretching and you hear like crack, crack acking, and just hear crack, and then it's like that's it. That's it. Ropractic horror. Yeah, I know, that's actually a really unexplored genre there. Telling me also about like corn flakes like Kellogg was like a weirdo. Oh yeah, all that stuff just things that are like we accept as ram crackers,

the antim Yeah, I mean, I I don't. Yeah, I don't have any experience of this or second hand experience of this. I have done. The only kind of Eastern thing I've done is um as I've done some acupuncture, but not regularly enough where like I know some people who do it all the time and they're like, it's like a life changer. I have my life before and after a certain I think. I also think acupuncture is real, although I've never had it done, but I would totally well.

The crazy thing about acupuncture from when I was doing it, and I did it because I had some weird thing with my hand where I started to just be like overtaken with pain and one of my hands and it wasn't ever since we saw Madonna getting naked acupuncture and a body of evidence for her cycle. But like I, so I went in and I just had it done on my my hand and then some on my back on my shoulders because I've always had a lot of

tension there. And the crazy thing about it, at least where I did it, and I have no idea what the standard is all at all, is that they would put like a kind of heater over me. And I don't know if it was the heater or if it was acupuncture, but like I sweat so much, like it wasn't enough heat that it should make me feel like I was an assauna, but I was like I was

sweating like I was an assauna. It was just a little heat, so I wouldn't be chilly, um, but I was like like pouring sweat, and I was like, there's something weird going on here. I don't know what it is, but like maybe that you're filled with needles under a heater. Maybe I don't know, but I thought totally relaxed. Otherwise, I was just like, did your hand feel better? That's the real question. Yeah, I did it for a boat

to uh two months, and it felt uh. I felt like I would say, fifty percent better after that, and then kind of faded away after that, and I have I'm reminded of it because it actually came back like a little bit recently and I'm like, oh, do I

need to go back? But so many of these things rely on the placebo effect, right, being a psychologically powerful thing, because I feel like if you went to a chiropractor and you thought your back was going to feel better and then it did because you thought it would, you like the laying on hands can be you know sometimes like it is like people someone feeling around and there things are going to pop back into place. I would guess you can tell I think people the human touch.

Maybe no totally, but just like that's the thing with massage and like a completely non sexual way too. I feel like it gets it goes there all the time, but like I don't know, I remember having like a long dry spell getting a massage and it's like, oh, yeah, like it's sort of nice to be in close proximity with somebody, not in a sexy way at all, it's just like oh, another human, Like that's yeah. Also though,

if you ever want to have a fun time. I don't know if this is going to be the case with any place you look at, but I was looking at chiropractors a while ago. My husband had like a back problem and I was like, oh, I'll figure out what it is, like I'll be a doctor who figures it out. And I started looking at chiropractors on Yelp, and like the bad chiropractor reviews sure make you be like no, thank you, not gonna on this because you're just like oh, and then I could and then it

was like so horrible and so much worse. Yeah, I don't think it's like I don't want to let a stranger crack my back, but I I I'm telling you that you guys should start cracking your It's amazing once you. I don't even know how to well you. Just if you want to crack your neck is a good feel like you probably side. Yeah, maybe I should not be advising a bunch of people you're supposed to do it. I think you're supposed to stretch, but when you stretch,

it's gonna crack. That's all you do is like stretch and then jerk, and they want you to do it all slow. Or maybe we all have arthritis from sitting in front of computers for like five thousand years, which is what I personally, we're looking down at screens. I also my crazy theory. Yeah, it's my craziest theory. I haven't said on dit call yet. I think maybe, boy,

I think all antidepressants might be placebos. Oh interesting, um, but that have something in them that makes you addicted to them, so you can't go off them because you have There is very fascinating article on antidepressants in the New Yorker. I think this current issue right now that kind of tracks this woman's going on and off of about like ten different antidepressants and like anti psycho psychotics and stuff like that, and I think that there's something

in them. I don't know what it, what it I mean, Yeah, but it's definitely Uh, it's an industry for sure. There's something in them and they can't tell you what it is. Just to me what signals that it might be pseudoscience because they're always like better, but they're like, no one can prove it work that way, it sounds a little bit like machine. Yeah. Um, I take them because I can't stop. But that's how they get you. Who wrote the New York article? Is it Rachel Aviv? I can't remember. Oh,

it is Rachel l. Vive. That's my friend's wife. Okay, we have time for one more night call. I'm we're working our way through the backlogs, so if you haven't heard your nightcall, stay tuned. We'll we'll hopefully answer it soon. This one comes from Jewel Hi night Call. I'm emailing from the glamorous state of Rhode Island, or, as I

like to call it, the New Jersey of Boston. I'm currently spending time volunteering at my public access station and writing my own public access show, which brings me to the question, do you have any gems? Of public access TV that you have fond memories of, either flipping through channels or finding it on YouTube. I'm curious if anything has stood out to you. Thanks for the great podcast.

Best regards, Jewel. I love public access. My favorite public access show is Francine Dancer tell Us on l A Public Access, which is this woman she would do belly dancing and it was just like a half hour of her belly dancing. Her name was Francine Dancer. Sometimes she like takes some clothes off, but never the full thing, which is part of what makes the show just riveting. Like maybe this time I loved that show And where was that? That was? In? L A. L A had

some really good public access people. A lot of them ended up being on Tim and Eric and the guy was like a ventriloquist dummy. They kind of like scraped all the good public access people, um except for maybe Francine Dancer. I don't know if they got her. She's my favorite. And the Unarious March of the Planets, which is when Unarious the UFO religion would buy up time to show their propaganda, which is amazing, Oh my god, can we get that put on? They were like a

like a guy started a UFO call. It's you know a lot of stuff where it's like the rapture, the aliens coming, and then um he died, his wife took over. There's all. I used the picture of her being the Empress of the planets for a call J for DJ night maybe. Yeah, they have like a center in southern California.

We should go too. But they had this thing. It was just like these nine or eighties or nineties videos that's like a parade where each person is a planet and they hold the sign of that planet and they wear these amazing robes. It was the best. That's awesome, true Hollywood weirdos, great stuff. My dream is that UM Nightcall has a weekly public access show. Yeah into our podcast, Yes, and Collin Sleazy Friends, which was the show that I

took the title mall Yeah. Collins Slezy Friends was like a public access show where a guy would just interview porn stars and comedians in the valley. It was awesome and they sold shirts for it at video And my great regret is never buying the shirt, you know, the

Collins shirt. That's the vibe. We're always aiming for public access project that I've never seen but my husband grew up watching this was on the student channel at u n C Chapel Hill, and there was a student run and soap opera that ran for I think like decades um and like a new class would always take over and continue the story and it just went on and on and on. I love that idea though, like I would totally do that if I was in college. Again, thank you so much for joining us this week. We

will be back next week. But if you have any thoughts, questions, comments about the occult cults, public access food, whatever erotic odyssees, please give us a call at two four oh four six night. You can also drop us in email at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com and if you'd like to follow us on social, we are a Night Call podcast on Facebook and Instagram and Nightcall Pod on Twitter. And make sure that you rate, review and subscribe. If

you're enjoying the podcast, we will see you back next week. Bye,