0:17

I forgot how we start the show. Do

0:21

I just introduce myself? Yeah, wow. Did

0:25

we do it last week? We did. We did do

0:27

it last week. It's not even like we did. We

0:29

were late. I think too, so it was more recent

0:31

than typical. Yeah. You

0:34

usually start off with like an energy

0:36

that's pretty aggressive, like, hey skanks, it's

0:39

me, Rachel. So go ahead

0:42

and just try that. Hi,

0:44

this is Rachel McElroy. Hi skanks,

0:46

it's me, Rachel. Hi, it's Griffin McElroy. And

0:49

this is wonderful. This is a show where we talk about things

0:51

that we like, that we're into and is

0:53

good. We're both

0:55

having a little trouble. The show is good. Yeah,

0:57

for sure. We

1:00

are so excited to join you all

1:02

today and to have you all join

1:04

us in the studio. I feel like

1:06

we're opening a sermon right now. If you

1:08

turn your heminals to 420. Say hi to

1:11

your neighbor.

1:13

Say hi to your neighbor and

1:15

shake their hand. And

1:17

I haven't been to a lot of services, but I know

1:19

that's part of it. It is part of it. It was

1:21

always my least favorite part of

1:25

attending church. Touching somebody else's sweaty

1:27

hand. Yeah, there was a prescribed touch moment

1:31

in the program,

1:34

where it's like, we're

1:36

gonna show up, do a few prayers,

1:38

sing a song, now touch your

1:41

neighbor in every direction, in

1:43

all eight cardinal directions. Anyway, we're

1:47

so happy to have you here. And let's

1:49

just get, can we just cut

1:52

out the BS? Whoa. Can we

1:54

be serious now? To quote

1:56

my favorite movie I've never seen, Sully, and

1:59

do a small one. please? Okay.

2:04

Peppermint bark? Okay. I

2:06

think that's what I'm gonna go with. I mean enough

2:10

said. It is chocolate

2:12

with peppermint in it. You brought home a

2:14

big old bag of Ghirardelli beauties and

2:17

you were like, do you like peppermint bark? And I was

2:19

like, not really. And then I ate some and I was

2:21

like, wait a minute. Yes. For

2:23

me it's like it's not just

2:25

the flavor, it's like the textural

2:27

piece. Like there are like hunks

2:29

of candy cane in it. Yes.

2:31

So you're like enjoying this kind

2:33

of fun, like soft crunchy experience.

2:36

Yeah. And it just looks very festive. It does.

2:39

You know, I prefer it

2:41

to a straight up and down candy cane.

2:44

Me too. I don't love, that's

2:46

a lot of peppermint that you

2:49

are sort of assigning yourself to. It feels

2:51

like from a different era, right? Like

2:53

it's like this is before we knew

2:55

how to make, you know, a lollipop

2:57

that tasted like watermelon. Yeah. It's

2:59

like how you

3:01

go to a lot of sort of

3:03

like roadside stops, like

3:05

gas stations in West Virginia and

3:08

they'll just be selling like little

3:10

sticks of honey. And it's like,

3:12

it's not 1940 money anymore. Like

3:15

we have such better snacks. Yeah.

3:17

I'm gonna say coach Craig Barubie,

3:21

formerly of the St. Louis Blues released from

3:23

his contract today. Why is that a wonder?

3:25

It's not good that he

3:27

got fired, but I will miss this

3:29

man a whole lot. Yeah, me too.

3:31

I would say a bummer time to

3:33

be a St. Louis Blues fan at

3:36

the moment. Yeah. We over the off

3:38

season, we lost a lot

3:40

of our faves, including our

3:42

announcer, Panger, got traded off

3:45

to the Chicago Black Hawk. Chicago got a

3:47

lot of good things out of their terrible

3:50

including our favorite announcer, Panger. And

3:52

then we lost Craig Barubie and

3:56

no one's quite sure what old GM

3:58

Doug Armstrong's doing. They are in the booth

4:01

making some questionable decisions. They do, as of

4:03

last night, officially have a losing season. And

4:05

they had lost the last four games in a

4:07

row. But nobody really felt like it

4:09

was the coach's fault because he is the one

4:11

that got us a Stanley Cup. Yeah,

4:13

not four years ago in

4:16

the grand scheme of things and pretty much

4:18

any sport, that's not a long enough time,

4:20

I think, to go without, I

4:22

don't know, they didn't make the playoffs last year. The

4:25

reasoning for it makes no sense to me,

4:27

but it is a strange

4:30

occurrence to see something like this happen where it's

4:32

just like in the dead of night at 11

4:34

o'clock they just put a contract. And

4:37

every single reaction I've read to it has

4:40

been, what the fuck are they doing? Like,

4:42

what are they doing? I know, it's gotta

4:44

be an incredibly unpopular

4:47

choice. I don't know how they're gonna recover

4:49

from it. Yeah, me neither. So

4:52

it's a bummer day, but I did just wanna give a

4:54

shout out. Shout out to Ruby. Just

4:57

a big fucking tough son of a

4:59

gun. Yeah, one of

5:01

those coaches that his only

5:04

emotion is stoicism.

5:08

Stoicism or disappointment? Stoicism is good.

5:10

If you're getting stoic, he's proud

5:12

of you. Yeah, but the

5:14

time he spends, that's why I think we love

5:17

him so much is you hear about all these

5:19

conversations he's having individually with the players and

5:21

the things that he says about them are so like,

5:24

we're working on this and I really believe in

5:26

that. And I think if he keeps doing this,

5:28

like he just seems like a real player's guy.

5:31

Yeah, I will say I started

5:33

watching Blues Hockey in like 2016, 2017, which

5:35

was, they

5:38

were doing pretty good then. And then they won

5:40

the Stanley Cup in 2019. I always

5:42

felt like a feeling of bandwagoniness

5:44

a bit. Cause they

5:46

had a long, long time

5:48

where they did not win the Stanley Cup.

5:51

Yeah, which was their entire run. And

5:54

I know you and like your dad were just sort of

5:57

riding out through that. And I always felt a little bit

5:59

of imposter syndrome. I'm like, did I just come

6:01

on because this is a good hockey team?

6:03

But now that things are starting to fall

6:05

apart, I feel like, okay, this is when

6:07

I can really prove my

6:09

loyalty to the, to

6:12

these, um, you go first this

6:14

week. What have you got? I do. Uh,

6:16

this week I wanted to talk about

6:19

fur that is fake and that is faux

6:21

fur. Faux fur. Faux fur. I wanted

6:23

to say it that what I

6:25

was talking about so that you didn't think I was talking about

6:27

some kind of weird app. That was

6:30

called faux fur. Or it sounds like a person.

6:32

If you would say like, welcome to the poetry

6:34

corner. My poet this week is Jim

6:36

faux fur. Yeah.

6:39

And I would have been like, okay, cool. Tell me more

6:41

about Jim faux fur. I was

6:43

thinking about this because we have

6:46

a gray blanket in our house

6:48

that is a hot commodity. Yes. Um,

6:50

would you call that faux fur? Yeah.

6:53

Okay. A hundred percent. Okay. Uh,

6:56

if you go to this company's website, which I'm not

6:58

going to name because they're not paying us to talk

7:00

about them. Yeah. Uh, that's

7:02

blankets.gov. That's

7:06

you heard about the new minister of blankets by

7:09

the way. Oh my God. Yeah.

7:11

Scandalous. Clown. Scandalous choice. Um,

7:15

yeah, it's, uh, it's just, it's

7:17

very soft. It's very cozy. I

7:20

love you took this instantly in

7:23

a direction away from fashion

7:26

and instead just talk about how

7:28

a blanket made of fake

7:30

fur is good. Yes. Comfy. Yeah.

7:33

Yeah. No, I actually, I'm not,

7:35

I could say that I don't

7:37

wear like any kind of

7:39

fur for some specific reason, but I'm

7:41

just not generally a flashy dresser. Yeah.

7:44

It's not something I understand that

7:47

the, the fur movement.

7:50

Uh, of, of just wearing it for fashion.

7:53

I understand people's, uh, dislike

7:56

of that from moral

7:58

grounds. My. if I'm

8:00

being a hundred percent transparent is mostly

8:03

from aesthetic grounds. I think it's fucking

8:05

wild to walk around in a big

8:07

furry coat. I know. But you know

8:09

you do you but don't like do

8:11

it fake because it's the same. Much

8:13

like the candy cane. Yeah. This is a

8:15

different era. Yeah. I did

8:18

I bought the the boys little faux fur

8:20

winter hats recently too. Oh yeah you did.

8:22

Yeah. I know that it's hard to think

8:25

of that stuff as faux fur because it

8:27

doesn't really like you know it doesn't look

8:29

like a rabbit or whatever. Yeah sure. But

8:32

that I mean that is what it is trying to

8:34

model with its like softness. Yeah I get that. Yeah,

8:37

it just especially in the wintertime. It just feels

8:40

like a little nice cozy choice. It does yeah.

8:43

faux fur has come a long

8:45

way. I was researching what

8:48

it is because like if I had to ask you like what

8:50

is it made out of like what would you? Wool

8:53

and they sort of

8:56

make super soft and hair hairy.

9:00

A lot of it is

9:02

like acrylic and polyester fibers. Yeah,

9:04

that was my next thing if it wasn't wool it was

9:06

probably acrylic and polyester. Which of course is like

9:09

an oil based kind of thing like I really

9:12

learned a lot about kind of where we

9:14

have come. So in

9:16

the 60s and 70s there was kind of

9:19

a move away from wearing animal fur. And

9:22

this is where you really kind of saw the

9:24

rise of faux fur. So

9:26

faux fur like anything else that is

9:29

made from like polyester or acrylics is

9:31

not exactly environmentally friendly.

9:33

Sure. So there has been

9:35

some focus recently that

9:38

I found pretty fascinating.

9:40

Before I get to that I want to talk about

9:42

specifically the blanket we have downstairs because I looked it

9:45

up and it

9:47

is made from 100% faux chinchilla

9:49

polyester. faux

9:52

chinchilla polyester. Yes. Mm-hmm. This

9:55

company also has other garments

9:57

one made from faux sherpa

9:59

polyester. Okay, that's

10:02

wild that we can specify

10:04

the type of polyester

10:07

animal simulation to that degree

10:10

of granularity. Yeah, it's

10:13

all about kind of like the stitching

10:15

process, the way the fibers are sewn

10:17

into the backing,

10:19

what chemicals are applied to kind

10:21

of give different textures and then

10:23

like whether it's made smoother or

10:26

shinier with the

10:28

chemicals like silicones or resins, like

10:30

there's a lot that's involved in

10:32

creating different types of faux fur. Okay,

10:34

I understand that. Yeah. So

10:37

what I wanted to talk about is this new

10:39

movement I found about

10:41

plant-based fur. Sure.

10:45

I touched a furry plant. Yeah,

10:47

well, the little lamb's ear. Lamb's

10:50

ear, yeah. That's a furry plant. That's what I was

10:52

thinking of. I couldn't name a second one. I

10:55

couldn't name that one. I

10:58

mean, moss is kind of furry. Moss,

11:00

normalized wearing moss like some sort of

11:02

hedge wizard. I like that

11:04

shit a lot. That's the future. That's

11:06

the next Met Gala is people just

11:09

coming out dressed up like fucking Tom

11:11

Bombadil. So

11:13

there is a Paris-based faux

11:16

fur institute, and

11:18

they are leading these like competitions,

11:20

one called OpenFur, which is a

11:23

contest that challenges designers to develop

11:25

sustainable fur using vegetable-based and synthetic

11:27

fibers. This kind

11:30

of became really big in 2020. Stella

11:33

McCartney, who is, you know, like this huge designer

11:35

that most people have heard of, launched

11:38

a new material called Koba,

11:41

which features 37%

11:43

plant-based materials, including

11:48

a polyester blended with corn.

11:51

With corn? With corn. Like

11:54

a corn byproduct. A lot

11:56

of what I've seen in this, what is also called

11:58

bio fur space, It

12:01

relates to corn. There's corn involved

12:03

in some way. It's

12:05

difficult, I think, just for wearability

12:08

and long-term use to

12:10

do a fully bio-focused

12:12

fur, but

12:15

that effort does exist. So

12:17

a lot of what people are focusing now

12:19

are recycled materials. How do

12:21

you reuse plastics and polyesters so

12:25

that it leases doing less

12:27

damage, less impact? I get it, you wear

12:29

your corn coat out on a hot day.

12:32

It just starts poppin'. It starts

12:34

poppin'. It starts poppin' off.

12:37

That's actually, I've just

12:39

imagined, like Fashion Week,

12:41

a runway show, you

12:44

know, some of America's Next Top Model

12:46

walks down the runway, reaches the end,

12:48

and then just, what's that? Pop,

12:50

pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

12:52

So dramatic. So dramatic, the clothes turn into

12:54

popcorn. And then everybody just like scoops a little

12:56

bit off the runway and eats it. That's

13:00

huge. That's huge, that's something, Griffin. There

13:02

is something there. That

13:04

is at the very least like

13:06

a RuPaul's Drag Race finals transformation

13:08

moment. Yes, and more dependable than

13:10

say releasing butterflies. Oh, come

13:12

on. So

13:15

that's faux fur. It's really interesting to kind

13:17

of follow. I mean, a lot of it

13:19

just started with like yarn, you know, like

13:21

back in the 60s and before. It

13:26

was just like, how do you make a yarn

13:28

in a weave that looks more like fur and

13:30

now we're wearing corn. Yeah. That's

13:33

remarkable. That is amazing. I

13:35

just love how you're approaching this, not from a, here's

13:37

a cool way for me

13:40

to get my fur fixed. No. As

13:42

much as it is just like, I love this soft though in a longer

13:44

time. I love a soft blanket. I mean, what I

13:46

could have done as a topic is just soft blankets,

13:48

but I don't know what I say about that. Yeah,

13:50

I know, I know. So it seems faux fur seemed

13:52

to be the best way to go. But I guess

13:54

ultimately what I am saying is I like a soft

13:57

blanket. Okay. All right, you really got down to the

13:59

heart of the matter. Can I see you with a

14:01

yes? It's

14:08

been about a hundred years since we've been to

14:10

a wedding or been invited to a wedding or

14:12

been invited to a party But let's focus on

14:15

weddings. It's been almost exactly 10 years

14:17

since we were in our own wedding

14:19

That's right a special occasion for all

14:21

involved and I gotta tell you I

14:23

really wish Zola had existed We played

14:25

our wedding a decade ago Because

14:28

Zola makes it so easy to sort of

14:30

spin all the plates you need to spin

14:33

To get married when you're getting married. It's not

14:35

just about the big day You see it's about

14:37

all the days along the way and Zola's here

14:39

for all of them You can make beautiful save

14:41

the dates and invitations. You can make a beautiful

14:43

wedding website with a built-in registry You

14:45

can find venues and vendors to

14:48

make the experience even more memorable

14:50

The sheer amount of technological advancements here

14:52

are boggles the mind You can make

14:54

rsvp's with uh qr codes quick and

14:56

easy beep boop bop and then you're

14:58

going to a wedding You

15:01

can have your your wedding website You're gonna

15:03

have a registry you could have fee-free cash funds if that's

15:05

the direction that you want to go Uh,

15:07

it it could not

15:10

be easier start planning

15:12

at zola.com/wonderful. That's zola.com/wonderful

15:17

If you're black you probably love you some paramour,

15:19

huh? Or what about the tv show golden

15:21

girls? Ginger ale daytime

15:24

television don't lie. I know you love at least

15:26

one of them I'm sequoia holmes

15:28

pop culture is and hosts of black people

15:30

love paramour Contrary to the title.

15:32

It is not a podcast about the band paramour each

15:35

episode I along with the special guest

15:37

co-hosts I said one pop culture topic

15:39

that mainstream media doesn't necessarily associate with

15:41

black people, but we know we like

15:44

Tune in every other thursday to the podcast

15:46

that's dedicated to helping black people feel more

15:48

seen Black people of

15:50

paramour is now on the maximum fun network

15:53

Check out the most recent episode

15:55

featuring shard giselle today Throughout

16:01

history, sirens have captured men's attention,

16:03

enticed men with their feminine wiles

16:06

and fulfilled men's primal needs. The

16:08

sirens allure for him. They have not. Unless

16:10

the primal need is I need to be

16:13

smashed on the rocks. Yeah, smash me. Smash

16:16

me mommy. Smash me mommy. Smash me mommy. The

16:19

sirens allure for him. Why

16:22

do we do this to ourselves? Grant

16:24

me baby. Grant

16:27

me baby. So

16:29

yeah, this is my brother my brother

16:31

made for maximum fun on Mondays. It's

16:33

just like that. It's

16:36

just like that's a morgan. There's more

16:38

of that. You

16:47

ready? I think so. The

16:50

Mothman. Oh, have you not

16:52

talked about it? Never. This is something,

16:55

and I don't know if you're aware of this, but I would

16:57

say most people in the country are not familiar with the Mothman.

16:59

I would say that a lot of people in

17:02

the country have heard of the Mothman, but

17:04

do not know about the Mothman. I was

17:06

not at all familiar. You haven't even heard

17:08

of the Mothman? No. Oh wow,

17:10

okay, maybe this is not as big of a

17:12

thing. Well I will also say you don't,

17:17

maybe you're not super well versed in

17:19

the cryptid stuff. No, I don't spend a

17:21

lot of time in that area. Like, you know,

17:23

I've heard of the big ones. I've heard of,

17:25

for example, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, like... Kupa

17:27

Cabra, Jersey Devil. I

17:30

don't know Jersey Devil. Oh, okay.

17:32

Other than it's a hockey team. Yeah, I

17:35

mean that's basically what, yeah. The

17:37

Mothman, I love the Mothman. It

17:40

is a point of pride for

17:42

literally everyone I grew up

17:44

with in West Virginia that

17:46

we have our own cryptid of some

17:48

notoriety in the Mothman. And

17:50

personally speaking, I think the Mothman is

17:52

one of the cooler cryptids.

17:57

Sightings have pegged the Mothman as a

17:59

roughly seven-foot-foot-foot-foot-foot-foot-foot-foot. foot tall humanoid

18:02

creature with great white wings

18:04

and big shining red eyes.

18:06

Okay, I actually like I

18:09

don't know a lot about what

18:11

specifically is pegged as Mothman traits.

18:13

Yes. So that's helpful. It

18:16

gets a little bit confusing. I'm going to try and

18:18

like provide as cogent of a

18:21

sort of like background on the

18:23

Mothman mythos because that is

18:25

a fucking rat aesthetic if you ask me. But

18:27

it's surprising is just how

18:29

sort of like insubstantial the

18:32

origins of the Mothman are.

18:35

So the Mothman mythos hails from Point

18:37

Pleasant, West Virginia, which is just up

18:39

the river from from Huntington. And

18:43

Point Pleasant really reveled in its Mothman

18:45

history starting in 2002. They started

18:47

to host an annual Mothman festival. Yeah.

18:50

That lots of people come to. In

18:53

2003, they erected a 12 foot tall

18:55

metal sculpture of the Mothman like in

18:57

the middle. Wow.

18:59

That is pretty fucking sick if

19:01

I'm being honest. So this

19:03

is the history of the Mothman. November 1966, there

19:06

were a pair of young couples from

19:09

Point Pleasant just kind of cruising

19:11

around and they

19:13

were driving past an old World

19:16

War II munitions plant when they

19:18

spotted a giant winged

19:20

red eyed creature and

19:23

they got scared and it chased them

19:25

off and screeched at them as they

19:27

drove off. And apparently they drove off

19:29

and went right to the press because

19:31

the very next day the Point Pleasant

19:33

Register ran the headline couples

19:36

see man sized bird dot

19:38

dot dot creature dot dot

19:40

dot something. That's a

19:42

good headline if you ask me. This is a real

19:44

stop the presses moment. Like I picture them

19:46

bursting into the newsroom and being like whatever

19:48

you are going to run tomorrow throw it

19:50

away. It's

19:52

like the newsroom you get like

19:55

the red AP news alert like

19:57

guys. Big news coming in for

19:59

Point Pleasant. It did sort

20:01

of make national headlines a little bit,

20:05

not a whole ton. Around

20:07

this time, the Batman TV show with Adam

20:09

West was very popular, so that is, as

20:11

far as people can tell, kind of where

20:13

Mothman comes from. Oh, okay. And not just

20:16

Big Moth. I'm going

20:18

to read here from the Wikipedia article that

20:20

sort of explains the most likely situation that

20:22

happened here. Wildlife biologist

20:24

Robert L. Smith at West Virginia University

20:27

told reporters that descriptions and sightings all

20:29

fit the Sand Hill Crane, a

20:31

large American crane almost as tall

20:33

as a man with a seven-foot

20:35

wingspan featuring circles of reddish coloring

20:37

around the eyes. The

20:39

bird may have wandered out of its migration route

20:41

and therefore was unrecognized at first because it was

20:43

not native to this region. Wow, you

20:46

don't hear that a lot. Maybe

20:48

you do. Obviously, I'm not an expert,

20:50

but Bigfoot, everyone's like, yeah, I don't

20:52

know. I don't know how that happened.

20:54

Well, Bigfoot, you could probably just say there's

20:57

a lot of, I mean, bear or just

20:59

a big guy. Big furry guys. A big

21:01

furry guy, right? But that description

21:03

of that bird is like, yeah, no, that's exactly what

21:05

they said they saw. I don't

21:07

like that. I don't

21:09

like that this bird exists. I'll say that

21:11

right now. I don't love the

21:14

fact that I don't love ostrich or

21:16

a tall flamingo. I don't like or emu.

21:18

I don't like when a bird is bigger

21:20

than me. Okay, no,

21:23

that seems fair. That's scary.

21:25

I think that is sort of

21:28

a deep in my bones, genetic

21:30

kind of dinosaur survival

21:32

because humans and dinosaurs walk

21:34

the earth at the same time and they're so

21:36

scary. The dinosaurs had to find them off at

21:38

the big club, eat them like

21:41

a big steak at a movie theater.

21:43

And the side of their car falls over. The side of

21:45

their car falls over from how heavy the steak is, yes.

21:48

So I think that that's still in my bones. When I

21:51

see a big bird, I'm like my great,

21:53

great, great, great grandpa saw

21:55

the lost raptor, you know, and

21:58

Bob's your uncle. It's

22:00

a great history lesson we just gave there.

22:02

Yes. So where things in

22:05

the Mothman Mivot, there's some more sightings that

22:07

come out after that because it's in the

22:09

newspaper and now more people are seeing the

22:11

Mothman. Where things

22:13

kind of take a turn for the bizarre is in

22:15

the following year, the Silver

22:18

Bridge, which is this big suspension bridge

22:20

that connected Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio

22:22

just across the river, collapsed,

22:25

killing 46 people. It

22:27

was a huge tragedy. Wow. It

22:32

resulted in the establishment of

22:34

the nation's first national bridge

22:36

inspection program. Yeah. Because it

22:38

is one of the most fatal accidents.

22:42

And thank God that exists. Yeah, fuck yeah. There's

22:44

not a time where I drive over a bridge

22:46

and I'm not like, this doesn't seem safe. So it

22:49

makes me feel good to at least think somebody is

22:51

in charge of that. And

22:53

that person is the Mothman. So given

22:55

the proximity of these two events, big

22:57

sort of national stories that

23:00

happened in an otherwise pretty small town of

23:02

Point Pleasant, West Virginia, they started to kind

23:04

of be connected. Oh my God. The

23:08

most notable connector of these two events

23:10

was an author named John Keel, who

23:13

in 1975 wrote

23:15

the Mothman prophecies, which

23:17

is a pseudo investigative

23:19

look into the Mothman

23:22

and also aliens and

23:24

also psychic alien

23:26

telepathy powers and also

23:28

prophecies. It is a profoundly

23:32

wild ride that

23:34

in 2002 they made a

23:36

movie out of starring Richard

23:38

Gere called the Mothman prophecies. And let me

23:41

tell you when this flick came out in West

23:43

Virginia, it was a big fucking deal. This

23:46

is like We Are Marshall all over again. We Are

23:48

Marshall was a bigger deal by

23:50

several magnitudes. Yes. And

23:52

this came out in 2002. This

23:54

was this was like everybody. So you

23:57

remember this like I remember seeing it

23:59

in theater. I was I was I would

24:01

have been a young 15 16 years old. Yeah, I guess

24:03

yeah And

24:05

it was pretty scary stuff man I mean

24:07

if features a bridge collapsed and killing

24:09

many people at the end of the film is

24:11

scary So what is the hypothesis

24:14

here that that the Mothman broke

24:16

the bridge a basic print? No,

24:18

so this is important

24:20

It's important. Okay. The Mothman is

24:22

basically the mythos as standardized

24:25

the Mothman is a herald of

24:29

tragedy that Mothman much like the

24:31

silver surfer Approaches

24:33

planets pre-galactis like hey straight up. It's

24:35

about to get bad. Well, it wasn't

24:38

like him with big bolt cutters They thought like

24:40

he had sabotaged. No, he's not fucking Dennis the

24:42

Mid National

24:44

bridge you understand though how like That

24:48

would make more sense to me than the

24:50

idea that he is a prophecy This is

24:52

what's cooler to me about and this is

24:54

why I like about the Mothman mythos is

24:56

that he is not some monster going around

24:58

Fucking killing people indiscriminately for telling upcoming event.

25:01

He is foretelling upcoming events So the the

25:03

basic premise of Heels book is that the

25:05

Mothman is an alien with psychic powers Who

25:08

arrived in point pleasant has appeared all over

25:10

the earth and done these sorts of like

25:12

foretellings in the past but granted? Many

25:15

people living in point pleasant

25:17

visions of the future early

25:19

edition early edition style There

25:22

is a similar bit of mythology that

25:24

gets folded in here of a UFO

25:26

sighting that happened like two weeks before

25:28

the Mothman Hit the scene in

25:30

a town called mineral Wells, West Virginia where

25:33

this guy just driving his truck down the road

25:35

encountered a Flying saucer and

25:38

a human like entity calling itself

25:40

injured cold Approached this

25:42

guy and just kind of shut the shit for

25:45

like And

25:47

how these two are associated is

25:50

somewhat undetermined, right? But

25:52

given again the proximity of these two

25:54

events. There's people who are like well

25:56

injured cold is the physical manifestation They're

26:00

both aliens, et cetera, et cetera. But that

26:02

is the big distinction, I think, between this

26:04

and a lot of other, like

26:08

a lot of other cryptids. Yeah. Is

26:10

that the Mothman will hit you up and

26:12

say like, hey, stay

26:15

frosty out there, maybe avoid this bridge

26:17

on this specific day in 1967, and

26:21

I will catch you on the flip side. That

26:24

is very cool. That really appeals to

26:26

me as like a quantum leap enthusiast.

26:29

That like the Mothman is

26:31

just going around trying

26:33

to put right what would potentially

26:35

eventually go wrong. Right. And

26:37

he is also worth noting, a flying

26:40

red-eyed giant. Like there's so much about

26:42

the aesthetic of the Mothman that I

26:44

think kicks complete ass. And

26:47

I just, I love how much Point

26:49

Pleasant has invested into this story and

26:51

how much ownership sort of West Virginians

26:53

feel about this cryptid. Who,

26:56

yeah, not Bigfoot, not one of the

26:58

big heavy editors. I

27:00

think if you give the Mothman a chance, then

27:03

you'll fall deeply in love just

27:05

as much as I have. And feature him

27:07

in your actual play podcast one day. And

27:11

yeah. Is this an

27:13

actual play podcast? No, I mean,

27:15

the Indrid Cold was a character

27:17

in Amnesty. The Mothman was a

27:19

character in Amnesty. So I tried sort of

27:22

to tie this two together. I

27:24

just like the Mothman. Well, yeah, no, good guy. are

27:28

talking about? Yes. Collette

27:30

says, my small wonder is when on

27:32

rare evenings, the moon comes up just

27:34

looking enormous. I'm talking vast, like several

27:37

times larger than it usually does. I've

27:39

never understood why that happens sometimes. What's

27:41

splendor? Hmm, I wish I

27:43

could answer that. I'm sure there's a very clear.

27:46

I can answer it. Okay. It's just

27:48

an illusion. The moon is the same size. When

27:51

a moon is full and it does hit

27:53

your eye like a big pizza pie. Yeah. That

27:55

is a more, it is also an illusion. Because if

27:57

the moon is big, if the moon, sorry. If

28:00

the moon is full and near the horizon, it

28:02

seems huge. But if it's higher in the

28:05

sky, your eye doesn't have as many things

28:07

to compare it to. Oh.

28:09

That's all it is. Wow, thank you.

28:12

You're welcome. I ruined things

28:14

for Colette, I worry. I

28:16

mean, it's still pretty. It's still cool. Yeah. It's still

28:18

cool. I do like that too. I feel like it

28:20

is something I note 100% of the time. It

28:23

is a full moon and we are outside and see the full moon

28:25

100% of the time. I'll be like, look at that big

28:27

beautiful moon. I feel like that would really warm

28:30

the hearts of people in the past who like

28:32

can't fathom the amount of technology we have, but

28:34

to know that people still talk about the moon.

28:36

Yeah. That would be nice to know. The

28:38

off moon. I mean, a lot of people. Look

28:40

at that sunset. We still talk about the sunset. We still

28:42

talk about the sunset. All the time. The

28:44

moon doesn't get as much credit as the

28:47

sun does. You're

28:49

just opening a whole new topic. Thanks,

28:53

I'm into Mothman, the moon. Crystals,

28:56

baby. Who knows? Who knows? We'll talk

28:58

about it next time. Thank you so

29:00

much for listening to the show. Please

29:02

send us your small wonders at wonderfulpodcastatgmail.com.

29:06

We, things have been slowing down there and that's our

29:08

own damn fault for not plugging that email address. Just

29:10

a few sentences. Just a couple sentences. One to two

29:12

sentences, please. If something that you're into will talk about.

29:14

This moon is good, I like it. Moon is good. Big

29:16

moon, good. Why? I don't know.

29:19

I like it though. Thank you to Boann and Augustus

29:21

for these four themes on Money Won't Pay. I'll find

29:23

a link to that in the episode description. Thank

29:27

you, Maximum Fun. Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, of

29:29

course. Thanks, Maximum Fun, for having us on the

29:31

network on maximumfun.org. Check out all the great shows

29:33

there. And while you have

29:35

your internet browser open, go to

29:37

bit.ly slash candlenights2023 and

29:40

secure a ticket for our

29:43

streaming spectacular. We

29:45

have a pre-taped candlenights holiday

29:48

special for you that has so much

29:50

stuff in it. You're gonna witness

29:52

a real performance on my part. You're

29:55

gonna witness some interpretive dance on

29:57

my wife, Rachel McElroy's part. be

30:00

seen to be believed. It is amazing. I

30:02

fell in love all over again. Oh, thanks.

30:05

You can get a ticket. It's just

30:08

10 bucks and all proceeds

30:11

go to an organization in Huntington

30:13

called Harmony House, which goes to

30:15

help people experiencing homelessness. It's an

30:17

incredible organization that we've been working

30:19

with for a very long time

30:21

now. And

30:24

this special is very, I mean, special to

30:26

us and we work really hard on it.

30:28

And it is genuinely touching

30:31

every year to see how many people

30:33

come out. Yeah. So again, bit.ly slash

30:35

candle nights 2023. It's this Saturday, September

30:40

to September. This Saturday, December

30:43

16th at 9pm Eastern time. Come watch it. Gavin,

30:50

you can't happen multiple times

30:52

a year, you know, you guys made the

30:54

rules. I think it's possible. It does take

30:56

a long time to make this. True. So

30:58

I think we say that it can't, but

31:01

it will be available for video on demand

31:03

for a couple of weeks afterwards too. If

31:05

you're not able to make it that Saturday,

31:07

you're somebody that does things on Saturday night.

31:09

Sure. Like a person, like a cool guy.

31:11

That's it. Thank you so much for listening.

31:13

We'll be back next. We

31:15

will be back next week.

31:17

Probably the week after that we will take off.

31:19

Yeah. Our kids will be home and we're just

31:22

going to be wild now playing with all our

31:24

new toys and stuff. But next

31:26

week we'll be back and we'll talk to

31:28

you then. Thank you and have a good

31:30

week. And weekend. Go look

31:32

at the moon. Go look at the moon right

31:34

now. Well, actually, I don't know. It may be waning.

31:37

Later when you have a chance to look at

31:39

the moon. Yeah. When you hear people talking about how

31:41

big and nice the moon is, take a moment

31:44

for the moon. Consider the moon, please.

31:47

That should be our signature sign off now. Consider

31:49

the moon. Consider the moon. I'm

31:52

not sure what that means. It doesn't

31:54

have to mean anything. It does sometimes.

32:00

I can't lose

32:02

my own soul My

32:05

own soul Can't

32:09

lose my own soul

32:13

You can't lose my own

32:15

soul I

32:17

can't lose my own

32:20

soul I can't

32:22

lose my own soul