00:00:06
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Elena. And I'm Andrew. And this is a special episode of Morbid, everybody.
00:00:13
[Music] It's special. We have a guest. We do. Yay. Andrew McMahon on the show. You
00:00:30
might know him from one of his several bands. We've got Something Corporate, Jack's Mannequin, or Andrew McMahon in
00:00:35
the Wilderness. That's me. Welcome. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for of those. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of
00:00:41
course. Thanks for being in studio. It's like such a cool place to be. I'm I'm on I'm
00:00:46
honored. So are we. Uh so getting into the questions, I did read that you were somewhat of a child
00:00:52
prodigy when it came to the piano. What drew you to the piano so young? I mean, it's going to get heavy really
00:00:59
quick. You know, I I had a We had like a loss in our family. My my uncle passed away. And right around that
00:01:06
same time, I had a friend's dad teach me how to play a Jerry Lee Lewis song on the piano. And
00:01:13
I'd never I mean, I I had piano lessons a little bit as a kid, but I took the chord that he taught
00:01:19
me and all of a sudden just started writing songs. And that was kind of how I processed my grief from losing my
00:01:26
uncle. And that was it for me. I was like, this is the thing. You know, like writing songs became my my whole like I
00:01:35
would come home from school and I would just sit at the piano until I was told I
00:01:39
had to go to sleep or do something for school or whatever. that. It's been It's been that way ever since.
00:01:45
That's when you know it's meant to be. When it's something that like heals a part, you know?
00:01:50
Yeah, exactly. I just started trying to learn. I got like a keyboard. It's hard.
00:01:54
Yeah, I mean, I think when you're I think when you're nine, it's like a whole Right?
00:01:58
Everything is so much easier. Yeah, you have that whole sort of neuroplasticity or whatever. And And and
00:02:05
I really liked it, right? So it wasn't like I I didn't start going to piano lessons until like maybe a year or two
00:02:09
after that. And and so for me, it was just like constant discovery. And And And like you said, it was like it was a
00:02:16
way to process my world, you know? So I just I I I think I blew past the it's hard part
00:02:23
until I got into like having to study classical music. And then it was like, this sucks.
00:02:27
Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, that's like real hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was I wasn't a great student, but I I sort of
00:02:32
did what I had to to learn how to navigate the piano and and read and do all that and do all that
00:02:38
stuff. But it was always just like a safe haven for me. And it worked out. Yeah. I think.
00:02:44
It's been the only real job I've had to have my whole life, which is which is is a really
00:02:50
a huge gift. I mean, I'm always wondering when the bottom will drop out of that, but But But But yeah, so far,
00:02:55
so good. Yeah. Well, you've been making music since like 1998. Yeah. Well, I mean, since you were a kid, but
00:03:01
officially. Yeah, so Something Corporate, which was like my sort of official second high school
00:03:08
band, we throughout my like, you know, junior senior of high school kind of continued
00:03:14
to get bigger. And I sort of skipped college and and focused on that. And miraculously, we got signed when I was
00:03:22
18. That's incredible. And that was sort of the beginning of of all of it. So I I, you know, Something Corporate did
00:03:29
really well and we we toured a ton and put out records. And And then, you know, I've kind of hopped from like about
00:03:35
every 10 years or so start a new project cuz I am restless, I guess you could say.
00:03:41
And yeah, it's it's been a a journey, for sure. And I've had good fans who are willing to follow me through multiple
00:03:48
name changes. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Something Corporate was my thing in high school. Like
00:03:54
Really? 16-year-old Elena Yeah, 16-year-old Elena was like at every show. What? show.
00:04:01
that's how we connected was cuz I started having fans message me on Instagram. And they're like, you got You
00:04:10
got mentioned on the Morbid podcast. That's so funny to think And And And I like it The first one, I was like, oh,
00:04:15
that's cool. And then I saw another, you know, another few roll through. And then
00:04:18
I was like, who are these people? I'm like, we should reach out to these women. They keep talking about us. And
00:04:23
it And it seemed like they're pretty popular. And then we met at the What What was it? Roadrunner show?
00:04:29
on the Something Corporate reunion. Um Yep. Thanks to Connor. Yes. Shoutout. Connor's a good man. He's a very good
00:04:35
man. Yeah. My tour manager. He's our Gen Z holding down the Hell yeah. Yeah, we we we We like to I I like to bring young
00:04:44
young bucks into the mix and and bring them up. That's always been sort of a a part of our mission. And Connor rose the
00:04:50
ranks from uh from content to now he's tour managing. He's a good representation of Gen Z. He
00:04:57
He is. He is is actually like I'm I'm a huge I hate the whole kids these days philosophy. I I really like
00:05:04
it to me, I feel like it's such a it's such a sign of you're not actually paying attention. And I've had I've had
00:05:11
my whole perception of the Gen Z universe reshaped by Connor and his his people and people we've brought into our
00:05:18
camp. I'm like, no, these guys are actually hard workers and super fun and very fashionable.
00:05:23
They are. Yeah, very fashionable. I'm a I'm a huge fan. You got to meet the right Gen Zs. I'm a Zillennial, so I
00:05:28
like I found her on the cusp. I like to say I'm a millennial cuz, you know, Gen Z gets a lot of hate.
00:05:34
What's funny is like I always rejected the fact that I was a millennial because I I graduated in 2000 and we didn't have
00:05:42
a like a qualification. We were just sort of in this nether group between Gen X and whatever was coming next. And then
00:05:48
I think by the time I was 30, then they started calling us millennials. And I was like, I I denounce this. You're
00:05:54
like, no, I wasn't. Yeah, yeah, I don't like this qualification or designation. I I worked at Hollywood
00:06:00
Video Oh, yeah. in high school. Like RIP video stores. Guys, that's where you could rent
00:06:04
movies. That was where you could rent VHS tapes. And also DVDs. Yeah. My favorite job ever. And I used
00:06:11
to make like cuz we would be able to pick what could be on the screens. And I would make everybody play this one DVD.
00:06:18
And it was like Drive-Thru Records. Oh, yeah. I remember well. And I would make them play it just so we could have
00:06:23
the Something Corporate performance. That's amazing. Like over and over. I had many of my friends uh were
00:06:29
Blockbuster video employees. How lovely. And we used to go hang out at Blockbuster on the weekends cuz they
00:06:35
would just, you know, they'd smoke weed in the back. And And like be And you know, like we're proper degenerate
00:06:41
Blockbuster employee managerial staff. And And uh yes, I do. I I miss the Blockbuster days.
00:06:47
Yeah, it's a good vibe. It really is. One thing I wish I experienced. I remember Blockbuster like a little bit
00:06:51
from being like five and six. But beyond that, no. I mean, the truth is the new model is working better. There were
00:06:58
often times there were no videos available at Blockbuster. But But it was a it was a fun sort of uh snapshot.
00:07:04
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a cozy vibe. Well, going back to the music, how would
00:07:08
you say your relationship with music has kind of changed and evolved throughout all the years that you've been doing it?
00:07:13
I mean, look, I think you you know, you're an author, so you know. It's like as you
00:07:18
you you start by writing cuz it's just like a reflex. And it's And it's this exploratory thing. And I think the the
00:07:24
biggest shift is that you have to continue to find ways to explore and and make it fresh and make it exciting. So
00:07:30
like I've I've changed processes over the years, right? You know, I think when some of that like oh, I just have
00:07:37
to be sitting at the piano all day. And I'm like, now I have a family and I spend a lot of time on the road. So I
00:07:43
do, you know, I I do little tricks to sort of re-engage myself in the writing process. So I'll write with other people
00:07:48
that I'm really excited about. I I try and always like surround myself with writers that are both older and younger
00:07:54
than me. Um you know, just so I can, you know, like I love having people in the room that are still in
00:08:00
that phase of of writing where they're like hyper creative and and just super hungry. And it keeps me hungry. So I
00:08:08
think that's changed. And then what you write about changes, right? Yeah. So as you get as you get to certain stages of
00:08:14
life and the questions are changing about what is relevant or what's important to you. Um
00:08:21
you know, you have to find new ways in to discuss those things. I I feel like changing projects for me is like
00:08:27
has been a part of that, right? So it's like Something Corporate was like very much about you know, all the things that
00:08:33
you encounter in like high school and and coming of age. It's a lot of makeups and breakups. And
00:08:40
And I I think our industry, like the music business, is fueled on a lot of that. And as somebody who wants to write
00:08:47
and perform and do this till the day I die, you know, I've had to sort of shift my thinking. You know, a lot of
00:08:53
Jack's Mannequin was a I I got sick when I was in the middle of that project. So
00:08:57
I cancer and I was a cancer survivor. I was like, how do you write about that? You know, and and and then, you know,
00:09:03
and then sort of shifting into this next phase, a lot of it's been about keeping my edge while maintaining a
00:09:09
family and a and a life and and, you know, how to look after my kid and those questions that come with fatherhood and
00:09:16
trying to stay creative, you know? So I I think those are are sort of you know, big parts of how you I shift
00:09:23
and and try and stay creative. It's cool cuz you can look back on every stage of
00:09:27
your life and there's a song for it. Or an album for it. Really. Yeah, totally. And I think too, like I've tried really
00:09:33
hard because a lot of my fans have grown up with me. Like rather than making the mistake I think a lot of
00:09:39
people do as they get older in their their artistic processes or trying to sort of recreate their their youth and
00:09:48
still sing about those things. And I I think it's the the challenge for me is like, how do I really talk about what's
00:09:55
relevant to me now and put that in a pop song, you know, and and that can be tricky. Um
00:10:02
but but I think if you strike on something that's universal, it applies backwards and forwards and and you know,
00:10:09
I I I want people who've been with me for a really long time to be like, oh, he's talking to an experience that I'm
00:10:13
having right now because we're a similar age and going through similar things in
00:10:17
life. Um but also if I do it well, you know, you could be 15 and pick up that record and and it will land, you know,
00:10:24
most of the artists I was listening to when I was 15 were much older than I was and somehow their songs were still
00:10:29
connecting with Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's like what you just said, like people
00:10:33
who've listened to you have grown up with you now. So like it's funny cuz when we went to the Something Corporate
00:10:38
concert where we met, it was funny to look around and see like I was like, oh, it's just like a bunch of moms and dads
00:10:44
being like just like transporting back into like Something Corporate days. Yeah. But it's fun because it's like
00:10:50
we've been able to relate to you in the music the entire way through. And you can feel like the shifts, but they're so
00:10:57
smooth because like you're going like we're going into that phase. So we're going to go in there together. Yeah. So
00:11:03
it's just been really nice like even I like last night we were talking about Bluey and I was like, well, we're just
00:11:08
parents now together. It's wild. I You know, I think it's it's like the a task, but I think it's a worthy one and I'm
00:11:15
like I'm I'm super reverent of the fact that there are people who I've been seeing at shows since they were you
00:11:21
know, high school, middle age kids coming out to see me when I was not much older than them. I was 18 or 19, but it
00:11:26
felt like a world apart, right? When you're you're sort of like grown and then you have like a kid in the
00:11:31
audience. Now, you know, now we're sort of orbiting the same life trajectories and and um I really like I I want to
00:11:38
make music for those people who've been in those rooms and I I want them to have
00:11:42
songs that that they can connect to at this stage of wherever they're at. You're killing it.
00:11:47
No, thank you. I try really hard. And it trickles down cuz there was like three generations of
00:11:53
us at that show cuz there was Elena, me, and my little cousin. So it's like all I
00:11:57
started listening to you when I was like six. Yeah. And then still like you're listening cuz my cousin's like three
00:12:03
singing like I woke up in a car. So it does trickle down. Yeah Yeah, well like the shows I went to
00:12:07
when I was you know, the first shows I was going to, a lot of them were bands my my brothers and sisters
00:12:13
three of them are are 10, 12 years older than I am and you know, I went to see REM when I was you know, when I was in
00:12:20
the seventh grade or whatever and you know, when I became a huge Tom Petty fan and like going to those shows, seeing
00:12:26
the young people that are picking were picking up, you know, the Heartbreakers to me to my people my brothers and
00:12:32
sisters ages and older, you know, in in a dream world that's really what you want. You want to
00:12:38
see people across generations connecting to what you do and and and um that's sort
00:12:44
of the the fight I'm in every day is just to to sort of make sure that, you know, it spreads to as as many people
00:12:49
across generations as possible. It does. You're doing it right. My youngest is obsessed with happy. I love
00:12:55
that. She was like, wait a second. He sings happy? I was like, yep. And she's five. So
00:13:01
you're There you go. That's that's the deal, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, finally to transition us into like
00:13:08
our world of morbid and macabre, you have a song with your band Something Corporate called Me and the Moon.
00:13:13
Yes. Can you It's a little more eerie and haunting. It's like not the typical style for you. So tell us a little bit
00:13:19
about where the idea for that song came from, like how it came to be. Well, see like when
00:13:24
we we put out the first Something Corporate record, I think a lot of that music was really reflective of sort of
00:13:29
our high school, post high school journey cuz a lot of those songs were written in that time and that was sort
00:13:34
of the first record we went out and toured the world with and got it noticed for
00:13:40
and then, you know, by that point that I was coming back to write those songs for North, yeah, I was
00:13:46
just in a much different headspace and it was like I wanted to do something moodier and and I it was like the first
00:13:51
time I was I was living in Jordan Pundik from New Found Glory. I was living in his guest room, you know, and and it was
00:13:58
sort of the first time I'd lived away from my parents and and uh and so I had all this freedom just to sit in a room
00:14:05
uh and write all day and I I mean, I would be lying to say I wasn't like smoking a ton of weed at that point and
00:14:13
and just playing the piano and just trying to find new new chords and new new chord shapes and progressions and
00:14:19
and I I got to the this sort of piano figure that plays under that the verses of that song which I was like, this is
00:14:25
so cool. Like I really it felt like a something really new for me and the first words that showed up were
00:14:31
it was it's a good year for murder and It's such a good opening line. I I remember even in that moment being like,
00:14:39
oh, this is going to land pretty interesting in the Yeah, yeah, like punk rock princess to
00:14:43
let's talk about murder, you know. Um but I I was just in love with it and I and it it sort of wrote it itself like
00:14:51
the verses of wrote itself and it became about this sort of idea of like a suburban
00:14:56
mother finally reaching her breaking point with her husband. And you know, I grew up in
00:15:02
a amazing house and by the time I was a you know, in high school, it was like a you know, a lot of like a house full of
00:15:07
women. It was like my sister and my mom and and me and you know, my mom never tried to kill my dad. So there's there's
00:15:15
there's none of that. But like but I I think I could relate to the angst of that just having been you know, my mom
00:15:21
and I were super close growing up and and so it was like originally it was like a courtroom drama. Like the chorus
00:15:26
was like was all about what happens after the the the murder and then I it didn't
00:15:32
fit right and and um and me and the band were on tour in we were in Amsterdam, I think or something
00:15:39
like that. Or no, maybe yeah, we were we were you know, we were in Leeds and ended up meeting up with a couple of the
00:15:45
Drive-Thru bands and went on a very wild sort of psychedelic journey Nice. and I remember I was
00:15:54
following the moon all night by myself through Leeds, England. That was like I was certain it
00:16:00
was calling me. I won't paint the details of what led me to that moment, but but I remember just
00:16:06
going like I just want to go see where this moon is at and I just followed it through the streets It was you and the
00:16:10
moon. Yeah, yeah, totally until I ended up like locked in a in a hotel bathroom and I I had this piece of paper and I
00:16:17
just wrote it's me and the moon and I like Oh my god, stop. That's amazing. The handwriting was it was like cursive and
00:16:24
just kind of like Like super loopy writing the words was actually a part of the journey and and I woke up with that
00:16:30
piece of paper and I and I ended up on a stage where sound checking and I finished the song on stage and I was
00:16:37
like and just wrote the chorus to the rest of the song that day and and yeah, it's been one of my favorites forever
00:16:46
and the fact that fans followed us into that that phase was such a huge thing cuz I was like, are they going to
00:16:53
hate me for taking this hard left turn into 6/8 sort of murder mystery song but yeah, it was
00:17:04
that song was a was a journey from start to finish and still I think like is a high water mark
00:17:10
for the Something Corporate catalog. Yeah. I remember hearing that song for the first time and being like, what
00:17:16
Like excuse me? It was definitely a challenge to fans that to be like, do you want to go here? And and but it gave
00:17:23
me a lot of hope for the future too that it was like, okay, cool. I can I can stretch out and and people will take a
00:17:29
chance and Oh, if we'll go with you for murder, Yeah, yeah. the sky's the limit anyway.
00:17:35
Like you're good. It's such a great song. And I think now we can go into Dancing
00:17:42
Plagues. Yes. You know, quite the transition because, you know, music, dancing. You do a lot
00:17:47
of dancing on stage. I love to I love to dance. It's part of the whole thing. Uh so we're going to talk about Dancing
00:17:52
Plagues and we're also going to talk about a couple of uh nunneries that just had some stuff going on that I
00:17:58
thought was pretty historic. That's kind of where we're going here. I was raised a Catholic so that I'm I'm
00:18:02
I'm all I'm all for getting into the the nun the nun phase So this is going to we're going to start
00:18:09
way back. This was on Christmas Eve in 1021 CE. Oh [ __ ] Way back. This is where it begins.
00:18:17
So this small German town called Kolb eeked. I looked up all these pronunciations so don't come for me. No,
00:18:23
you always kill the pronunciations. I try. Uh sometimes I kill it the other way, but
00:18:28
um so 18 of the town's residents gathered outside of the church and started dancing. Just started dancing
00:18:33
and carrying on with wild abandon. And the noise from these dancers made it impossible for the priest to deliver
00:18:40
mass. So he went outside and he started to reprimand the group and they were just seeming completely oblivious to
00:18:46
him. Like it wasn't like they were ignoring him. They just like didn't even know he was there. Just kept going. And
00:18:52
and rather than heed the priest's words, which at that time people would heed that priest's words, they just continued
00:18:59
dancing and clapping and leaping and they were forming what would later be documented to be called
00:19:06
a ring dance of sin. Oh, obsessed. Kind of love. I want in. Where do we sign up for the ring dance
00:19:14
of sin? So according to the legend, the priest who was very angry, very incensed about
00:19:20
the interruption and disrespect, quite frankly, cursed them all to dance for the entire year and none of them were
00:19:27
able to regain control of their bodies until the following Christmas. What? Wait, the priest did
00:19:32
Which I didn't realize priests could curse people. So he insisted that they keep going because they had even
00:19:38
started. like, oh, you want to dance? You're going to dance until next Christmas.
00:19:41
Yeah. Wow. And they did. And by the time the curse was ended, the group was exhausted and reportedly fell
00:19:47
into a deep sleep and a lot of them never woke up from that deep sleep. So some of them died.
00:19:52
So, he just straight up killed some of them. Okay, priest. Um can I ask practical
00:19:56
questions about food and and bathroom? None of that. None of that. In fact, many of these dancing plagues, food,
00:20:06
bathroom breaks, like sleep, don't happen. Not necessarily. through it and that's how most of them
00:20:11
die. Wow. There's deaths that come out of these. Are they just like peeing all over
00:20:16
themselves? Probably. It's probably It's reckless. Grins, like whatever is happening there
00:20:21
is a lot. So, some people lived for a year doing this? I guess so or they would join, I think,
00:20:26
maybe. Others would join. Um so, given, you know, how old this story is, obviously, I'm sure there's been some
00:20:34
embellishments. Yeah. Um but according to historian John Waller, there was nothing in the story that medieval
00:20:40
people found hard to believe. Like to be quite honest. They're like, "Yeah, whatever."
00:20:46
Yeah, people probably would dance themselves for a year to death. Uh cuz it was a society that was very
00:20:52
accustomed to assigning supernatural explanations to literally anything they couldn't understand. So, the idea of
00:20:58
such crazy behavior being the result of a curse from a holy man was like, "Yeah,
00:21:03
obviously. Like that's what happened." And as he points out, plenty of sources indicate that this obscure chronicler
00:21:09
may have embellished a real event. So, it there was truth to this. Uh basically, the details might have been a
00:21:15
little bit exaggerated, but that like manic and like uncontrollable dance that they were doing probably happened cuz it
00:21:22
has happened. Yeah. So, the this was kind of the beginning of like dancing plagues being documented.
00:21:30
Now, 200 years later in a German town of Erfurt, looked it up, I looked it up. crazy and bizarre outbreak of dancing
00:21:39
mania broke out in 1247. So, this time at least 200 people are said to have gathered on a bridge. Oh.
00:21:46
And it was over the Moselle River in Maastricht where they danced until the bridge collapsed.
00:21:52
Stop it. And all of them died. Said rock it till the wheels fall off. and they died. And then that was it.
00:21:59
Bridge collapsed, everyone died. That was it. And then there's So, that happened.
00:22:04
How long were they up there for? Does it say? It doesn't say how long, but I feel like
00:22:07
it probably wasn't that long cuz 200 people on a bridge. And I don't think the structural integrity of bridges in
00:22:14
1247 was like something of note. Not quite the same as today. I'm assuming they all just went down, but
00:22:20
there is a second version of this story. So, there is like a little wiggle room.
00:22:25
Okay. So, this one In this version of the story, the same thing happened except everyone didn't die. People died,
00:22:31
but there were survivors. And people say that some of those survivors were taken
00:22:36
to a nearby chapel where they kept dancing. the And this nearby chapel was dedicated
00:22:42
to Saint Vitus, which or Vitus, excuse me, where these people received treatment for their {quote} unquote
00:22:48
mania and many of them were restored to full health. So, they said they went to this specific chapel
00:22:55
and that's what cured them. And they never danced again. Never danced again. It's a flat a flash mob gone wrong.
00:23:00
Flash mob gone horribly wrong. And then a chapel was able to heal any of the survivors. And Saint Vitus comes
00:23:07
up a few times. What what what's Saint Vitus the saint of? That's Apparently, he's like that he has
00:23:12
something to do with dance. Like he has something to do with this and he is able
00:23:16
to He's got brought up a lot. Cuz the dancing madness actually gets translated into being called Saint Vitus dance.
00:23:23
Oh, nice. What is he the Is he a patron saint of anything? Hold on. Let's look. Like wait a second.
00:23:29
I'm excited for this. comes up a lot. Is he a patron saint of of standing still?
00:23:34
Of chilling. Of chilling. So, his name is sometimes rendered Guy or Guido. Was a Christian a Christian martyr, I know,
00:23:41
from Sicily. I know. His surviving hagiography, Obviously. Yeah, that is pure legend. Blah blah
00:23:49
blah. I don't know if he's a patron saint. He's the patron saint of dance. Let's I think we can all agree with
00:23:54
that. that. Yeah, exactly. It is yeah. It is also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of
00:24:00
dancers and entertainers in general. Boom. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks, and
00:24:06
oversleeping. That's sick of him. Yeah, I appreciate that. He does not guide me. I'm oversleeping all the time.
00:24:12
He didn't help the first group that that slept until they died. Didn't help them.
00:24:17
Now, it's from this like second telling of that story that the affliction got the name choreomania, which is Greek and
00:24:25
it translates to dancing madness. Um and that's And now it's more well-known as Saint Vitus dance. So, he gets to He
00:24:33
gets to be named in the affliction. That's fun. Now, over time, the terminology would change a little bit,
00:24:38
but the behavior would be end would end up being called chorea, which is an actual disorder. And it's incorrectly
00:24:46
that like referred to as that because this disorder, chorea, is a disorder of the central nervous system that causes
00:24:52
like irregular like brief jerking moment like movements, but it's not dancing. They meant choreo. Yeah, it's just They
00:25:00
meant choreo and then chorea is not that. It's not hanging with your homies on a bridge dancing until it falls down.
00:25:07
hear someone say you're having the time of your life, you correct them. If you ever hear them saying it.
00:25:11
Okay. I'm sure it comes up a lot. All the time. It's very common in my life. Comes up on the road a lot.
00:25:16
Um so, these two early examples were were contained in Germany, but a similar form of hysteria that kind of had like
00:25:24
similar, you know, symptoms to it was known as tarantism. Okay. And it emerged in the 13th century in Italy. And
00:25:31
according to Robert Marth Bartholomew, which I am obsessed with the name Bartholomew.
00:25:35
Same, I love it a lot. Why isn't it used anymore? I don't know. Uh he said, "People asleep or awake
00:25:41
would suddenly jump up feeling an acute pain like the sting of a bee. Some saw the spider, others did not, but they
00:25:48
knew that it must be from the tarantula." Like capital T, the spider? The spider. Okay. Not a spider. Nope.
00:25:56
The spider. The only spider. The only one. They ran out of the house into the street to the marketplace dancing in
00:26:03
great excitement. Soon they were joined who like them had been bitten or by people who had been stung in previous
00:26:09
years for the disease was never quite cured. The poison remained in the body and reactivated every year in the heat
00:26:16
of the summer. What? I I love I love This is amazing. I wish it I wish this still happened.
00:26:24
I know. I feel like it probably does. Maybe we just don't know about it. Let's make it I Flash mobs are actually
00:26:29
this. Yeah, pretty much. They've all been bitten. They have. By the spider. And it happens
00:26:34
in the heat of I like that it like reactivates in the heat of the summer. Like summer we're going to get crazy
00:26:39
with party. Yeah. Makes sense. And it's called tarantism and it's most often um girls and young women are afflicted.
00:26:46
Probably cuz they're like hysteria, am I right? I know. They're they're so random.
00:26:50
Yeah. Uh and that's when it got labeled hysteria when they were like, "Oh, girls
00:26:55
and young women get it? Yeah. Hysteria." Uh like the dancing plagues, there was no identifiable cause of the tarantism
00:27:02
because like a tarantula bite doesn't cause this. You don't say. So, like there's no reason for this, but they
00:27:09
just believed it to be like a mass like psychogenic illness, which is even scarier. Yeah, a little bit. Probably
00:27:16
just a reaction to the times. That's honestly Everybody's probably bored. They're like, In the end, that kind of
00:27:21
is what it feels like it is. We feel depressed and now it's time to wild out. Yeah. It's like a better version of the
00:27:27
the witch trials. Yeah. Like a way better version. better version. The way better.
00:27:32
Yeah. So, the early instances of the dancing plagues were pretty limited in size and scope and they were again like
00:27:39
limited to specific locations, but then came 1374, y'all. Uh an outbreak of dancing mania started
00:27:46
in a German city of Aachen, I believe it is. Uh and it eventually spread to other
00:27:52
cities outside of Germany. So, it's happening. Dancing everywhere. Were they all happening at the same time? Was it
00:27:59
like Some of them were and then some of them would start at the end of the next one and it was just like a continuous
00:28:05
thing. Yeah, like a wave in a stadium. The outbreak of 1374, sometimes referred to as Saint John's dance, began like the
00:28:12
others. So, it was like a small group forming a circle in the town square starting to dance with each other. But
00:28:19
the thing that keeps happening with these is they start to dance and it's like fine. And then they get more
00:28:24
frenzied and it just like loses all control. And that's what They lose control of their senses. They don't care
00:28:31
who's near them. They are like whirling around like looking like they're in like
00:28:35
a state of just like ecstasy. Like it's like a rave. Yeah. Like a straight up rave. I was at a show
00:28:41
like last year. It feels similar. Yeah. [Laughter] Some would dance for hours. Some would
00:28:48
dance for days at a time not stopping. Not not stopping to eat, drink, sleep, piss, anything. Damn. So, there's the
00:28:55
there's the answer. Yeah, there we go. And when they did finally stop, the dancers all spoke of
00:29:00
some undeniable compulsion to dance. And then they would complain of extreme oppression and groaned as if in the
00:29:07
agonies of death. What? And then they would groan until they were swathed in clothes bound tightly
00:29:14
around their waists. What? Well, they're I feel like they probably were aching from dancing.
00:29:20
Yeah. Never take a Zumba class? It's a lot. It is. You know? You need one of those
00:29:25
little roller ball things. Yeah. Just get it all out. Yeah. Or that little machine we have that can
00:29:30
like like get out that thing. a tight muscle out. Yeah, yeah. So, a short time later, the dancers'
00:29:36
pain would subside cuz they would get the roller ball or do whatever they needed to do when they finished Zumba.
00:29:41
And they remained pain-free until the next compulsion came over them and then it would keep happening. Like they would
00:29:46
go through periods of time where they were fine and then they just start dancing a fool again.
00:29:50
Oh no. Did it Was there a Did they say they enjoyed the dancing when they were doing it or was it
00:29:55
I think they were in like a trance. So they I don't think they could even remember.
00:29:58
know. They just felt the pain afterwards. Which sucks. Yeah. But within a few weeks that plague, the
00:30:05
Saint John's dance plague, had spread to Liège, Utrecht, and Tongres. Those places. Those places. And then
00:30:15
further out to towns in Belgium and the Netherlands. Wow. And according to one account, they
00:30:22
danced together ceaselessly for hours or days and in wild delirium. The dancers collapsed and fell to the ground
00:30:28
exhausted, groaning and sighing as if in the agonies of death. And many later claimed that they had seen This is
00:30:35
literally my favorite thing I've ever heard, by the way. So excited. Many of them claimed that
00:30:38
they had seen the walls of heaven split open and that Jesus and the Virgin Mary had appeared before them. Were they
00:30:45
dancing? No. Were Jesus and Mary dancing? That would be fun. I would love. I cannot say.
00:30:53
But the walls of heaven split open during this dancing plague. just have to dance your way into heaven.
00:30:59
That's all. That's it. I feel like that's actually probably true. Yeah. Yeah. That's Damn. It seems like a a reaction
00:31:07
to whatever their whatever their religious and and so yeah, yeah, they're like they're like,
00:31:12
"Okay, we have to chill, but if we just go freak out Hell yeah. and we can we can claim we're we're on our we're we're
00:31:19
seeing heaven. They're like, guys It's a It's a religious pop we're following. They're like, Jesus and Mary are over
00:31:23
here. Like they came and they're like, "Let's go." They're joining this the ring of sin,
00:31:27
whatever it was. if the priest joined in at that point. They're like, "Is this how we do it?" Is
00:31:30
this how we do it? That's how fun mass turned. Jesus and Mary are here, you say? Yeah.
00:31:34
So for the next 100 years, people in Germany and surrounding countries would periodically fall into these trances and
00:31:40
manias. 100 years? Yeah. In 1491 set This is literally my favorite thing ever, by the way.
00:31:47
In 1491, several residents of a nunnery, here we go, in the Habsburg Netherlands
00:31:53
were overcome with the compulsion to dance. But this time it wasn't just dancing. So
00:31:59
there were some that just like were getting their groove on. And then they would also be accompanied by instances
00:32:04
of nun Hold on to your habits. Oh no. They would climb trees and behave like cats.
00:32:11
What? And they would all meow together. Brad. I love this. I hate that this wasn't on film. Climbing up the tree.
00:32:19
Climbing a tree. In a full habit. Like that's all I'm thinking of is like full nun gear. Just like lifting up a tree
00:32:26
and being like, "What?" What the [ __ ] I love it. Um also in this delirium, it gets it gets racy cuz they would
00:32:34
sexually proposition the priest. Iconic. And then it got better cuz the priests were like, "No, no." And they
00:32:41
would call exorcists to be like, "Clearly this demon's afoot." And when the exorcists would come, the nuns would
00:32:46
sexually proposition the exorcists. I'm obsessed with it. I don't know why I love it so much.
00:32:53
Let them live. Yeah. Like And like the people in 11th century Germany, the nuns' affliction was
00:32:59
believed to be a curse, obviously, brought by Saint Vitus. And it was apparently supposed to be in response to
00:33:07
the supposed moral laxity and split from the church of the period. Uh were like, "Now we now we've got our
00:33:14
answer." Here it comes. So that's what that And I guess other su um supernatural suspects in the case that
00:33:20
were brought up were Saint John the Baptist, demons as a whole, Of course. any demon will do,
00:33:27
The hierarchy of demons. and Satan himself. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. The which apparently some of the nuns,
00:33:32
while they were sexually propositioning the priests and the exorcists and not getting any, they were getting pushed
00:33:37
back, they were like, "Well, that's fine because I have also [ __ ] Satan. So Like they were literally being like
00:33:43
Would the nuns would say that? were literally I don't Probably not like that. They probably ended up
00:33:49
saying it. Maybe. They've had relations with the devil. Wow. Basically. Yeah, so they were claiming
00:33:55
it. Like, "Let's go, girls." When it was over, were they allowed to stay in the nunnery or were they were they exiled?
00:34:01
That's a great question. I don't I don't think they were exiled. But perhaps they
00:34:04
were. I feel like when you say you [ __ ] the devil, I feel like that's your time to step out. Steered out,
00:34:09
yeah. I don't think they're going to Find a new path in life. Yeah. I don't think you get like a This is one strike
00:34:15
Yeah. like kind of thing. Now, in the 15th century in German, this is another nunnery because this is
00:34:23
awesome. One nun started biting the others. Mm. Was she dancing first or she just
00:34:29
started biting? involved. Was she one of the cat nuns? That's She was not one of the cat nuns.
00:34:33
This is a different nunnery. Okay. starts biting the other nuns and then they were all like, "Wow, that sucks.
00:34:39
Like don't do that." And then Direct quote. Yeah, they were like, "Wow." Direct quote, on the record. "That
00:34:45
sucks. Stop doing that." And then one of them was like, "Well, I guess I'll just
00:34:49
bite you back." Which like Fair. Yeah. Like if she's still biting you Don't bite me. Bite her back. And one of them
00:34:54
bit her back and then they all started biting each other. Oh wow. And then they were just rapidly biting it. Like all of
00:35:00
them just started biting each other biting the priests. I guess they brought the priests This is not a sanitary time.
00:35:06
It's never a good time to bite anybody, but that's bad. Are they still dancing while they're biting? That's the
00:35:11
question. like dancing may not have been a part of this one. It might have just been a biting Interesting. but it would
00:35:17
be really funny to think of them dancing and biting. Get their groove on. Just great. And every once in a while the
00:35:21
beat drops and they bite someone. Yeah. Yeah, so then word spread about this affliction cuz people were like, "Whoa,
00:35:29
have you heard of this?" These nuns go crazy. And the affliction started spreading. The biting one. Yeah.
00:35:34
Now the biting one's going. We got a lot going on. Apparently nunneries in Sachsenburg and Brandenburg, you know,
00:35:40
Holland, now even Rome. Oh wow. It all biting each other and biting the priests. And meowing. And meowing. There
00:35:48
was meowing as well. Awesome. And it only stopped and this is literally documented. It says it only
00:35:53
stopped cuz they got exhausted. Exhausted of biting each other? Just got tired. At some point you're going to get
00:35:59
tired. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder
00:36:00
how long. I know. How long can you bite someone? I don't know. Write in. More to [email protected]. Yeah, let us
00:36:10
know your experiments. after this airs these plagues begin spreading Cops imagine.
00:36:16
We're responsible. Now, by far the most notorious of the dancing plagues occurred in Strasbourg,
00:36:26
France in July 1518. This is the one that a lot of people know about. Okay. The event began pretty
00:36:32
innocuously. It was just a single older woman just going into the streets into the
00:36:37
city center. Her name was Frau Troffea. Love it. That's how I say it. Yeah. Um she's
00:36:43
walked out and she was like, "Let's do this." And she just started dancing. Said, "Let's dance." Let's go. Yeah, she
00:36:49
was the David Bowie before David Bowie. Yeah, hell yeah. That's where David Bowie came from. He came from a dancing
00:36:56
plague. A nunnery of dancing, yeah. A dancing plague in a nunnery. Canon. That is where David Bowie came from. He came
00:37:03
from a dancing plague. It was Frau. So by mid-August and she wouldn't stop, of course, cuz that's how these work.
00:37:10
She had a plague. By mid-August, hundreds of people had joined her in the town square. Again, a flash mob. All of
00:37:17
them uncontrollable and like the previous ones, the dancers in Strasbourg never stopped to eat,
00:37:23
never stopped to drink, sleep, nothing. Not long after the mania began, quote, "As many as 15 people a day dropped
00:37:32
dead." Oh my god. What a way to go out, though. I mean. It seemed like I mean, there are a lot of ways you could die
00:37:38
back then, but it seems like dancing would have been one of the better ones. I would choose dancing.
00:37:43
It's like real plague or dancing plague? I'm picking dancing And they just kept going. So people
00:37:50
would be dropping dead and they were still dancing. It's not like they stopped and were like, "Pause. Like
00:37:54
let's get this one out." Nope. They just danced. People dropping. Wow. Yeah. And unlike many of the earlier dancing
00:38:02
plagues, which were recounted a lot like they they would kind of change over time
00:38:06
like folklore, this one, this particular one in 1518, was very well documented. Like it's a real event that is very
00:38:13
documented. It's appeared in everything from historical text, news accounts, church and medical documents. It's like
00:38:20
in a lot of things. And according to many of these documents, the women who start or the woman who started the
00:38:25
plague was brought to a church devoted to Can we guess? Saint Vincent. Saint Vitus. Oh, Vitus. My bad.
00:38:33
Maybe Saint Vincent, too. Who knows? Uh a few days after she started dancing, they were brought She was brought to a
00:38:38
church devoted to him and she was cured. Apparently. Well, and this is while the other people
00:38:43
are still dancing. They started They were like, "You You started this. We're going to take care of you, but
00:38:47
we're going to let the others go." Yeah, they're trying to chop the head off the snake and see if it all falls.
00:38:51
she stops. Yeah, she Maybe if Frau stops, no, they all just kept going. Cuz in the days
00:38:57
after that, others started joining more even. Like as soon as her absence was felt, they were like, "We need to beef
00:39:03
this up. Let's get more people in here." So in order to curtail the mania, the city forbade musicians to perform
00:39:10
publicly. Oh, boo. Which like that sucks. Lame. Yeah. Kind of a killjoy. And eventually started taking the dancers
00:39:17
one by one to the Saint Vitus Church to get treatment. And no matter how quickly
00:39:22
they removed the dancers off the streets to Saint Vitus's church there, they were
00:39:27
just replaced by new dancers. People would just show up. Like one leaves, five more come.
00:39:30
Yeah, they had alternates. See, they they had to cancel the musicians cuz they're like, "This is easy for us. We
00:39:35
can just go and we already have an audience." They're like, "Hell yeah, let's go."
00:39:39
I know. They were like, "We can really get big here." This is our spot. They're like running around the dancers
00:39:44
being like, "Listen to my demo." Like get a record deal out here. Now, in the decades and centuries that
00:39:53
followed this, dancing plagues continued across Europe with significant events occurring in the 16th and 17th centuries
00:40:01
in Switzerland and Italy. And there hasn't been like a really documented case of dancing mania in a lot of
00:40:07
centuries, but tarantism, which is like thought to be kind of similar, has been documented in Italy as recently as the
00:40:14
1950s. Oh, [ __ ] So. So, remind me, tarantism, it isn't dancing, but it's just sort of like
00:40:22
Okay. it is kind of dancing, but it's like a little different because they claim it's
00:40:27
from a spider. Okay. Like you get bit by a tarantula, which I didn't even know they had tarantulas in Italy. That was
00:40:33
news to me. I don't think I knew that, either. I don't know where I thought tarantulas
00:40:36
were. Australia. I think everything's Australia. Period. I can attest to Joshua Tree. Oh
00:40:42
my god, they're there, too? There was actually the last Jack's Mannequin record we al- almost named
00:40:46
tarantula mating season because we because we because we actually we rented a house in
00:40:52
Joshua Tree during tarantula mating season, and they were everywhere. Yeah, yeah, and I don't I mean, I don't
00:40:58
care for spiders, and big ones I care for less. And so, if you ever want to go get some tarantism,
00:41:05
I recommend Joshua Tree around October, November. That So, they were Were they like in the
00:41:11
house? There is I I wish I could find this video cuz there's a there's a video of me and two of my bandmates
00:41:20
running around the house screaming in like a high-pitched like trying to chase a tarantula out of the house.
00:41:27
How big? I mean, bigger than my hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're huge. Yeah. No, I'd just start crying and never
00:41:34
stop. Yeah. That's the thing, I don't cry easily. No, you don't. start sobbing uncontrollably if I saw a
00:41:40
tarantula. Yeah, 100%. I'd cry easily. And in my house, I'd never sleep in there again. It's my understanding
00:41:45
they're not that like I don't know that the big ones are that bad. No, I don't think they really do much.
00:41:50
Yeah, but but they they don't They don't look They don't look like any anything you want to spend time with. It's
00:41:56
unfortunate for them. I know. I feel like up close, aren't they really cute? Like their faces?
00:42:01
are kind of cute with like a magnifying glass. I never found them cute. You're like, maybe. He said, "Actually, no."
00:42:06
my thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's in in Australia, the huntsman spiders. My TikTok has figured out that I hate them,
00:42:14
but that I will watch a whole video about one, so it just keeps giving me huntsman spider
00:42:20
videos. And apparently, you can hear huntsmans walking down the hall. No, they're so big.
00:42:26
And I was like, that's all I need to know. I can't ever go to Australia. Not for me. Ever. I'd die. And people
00:42:31
have like house huntsmans where they're just like, "Oh, that's just like Leroy."
00:42:35
No. He just lives here. He takes care of the bugs. I'm like, "Who takes care of him,
00:42:39
though?" Like who? He's lawless. You get like you're like, "He takes care of like the mosquitoes." I'm like, "I
00:42:47
what?" I'd rather get bit by a mosquito than live with Leroy. But like, I can't You
00:42:51
can't look like that, though. Oh, I can't. I cannot. So, yeah, if you ever want that, go to Joshua Tree, apparently
00:42:58
during mating season. Yeah. Uh now, people obviously blamed all these manias on either the spider or the devil and other
00:43:07
supernatural [ __ ] for all the dancing plagues, but lots of religious intervention was obviously brought in to
00:43:12
treat them. You know, exorcisms and the like. And in cases where the dancers This is interesting. So,
00:43:19
cuz this is kind of very like um like regional. So, it's like they would do these things where it's like the the
00:43:25
treatments for it were very regional to what they were thinking or believing in that place. But when the dancers were
00:43:31
foreign, like not of that area, the regional cultural differences would uphold the belief in demonic possession.
00:43:38
So, like it would always go back to demonic possession. But according to Robert Bartholomew, {quote} "The behavior of
00:43:46
these dancers was described as strange because while exhibiting actions that were part of the Christian tradition,
00:43:52
other elements were foreign." And he points to one account that says, "In their songs, they uttered the names of
00:43:59
devils never before heard of." This strange sect. How do you know what they were?
00:44:05
What? So, what do you How do you know they're devils, too? Maybe they're gods. Maybe they're angels. Yeah. Maybe
00:44:11
they're friends. Well, if you're dancing, the devil has to be a part of it. Several devils have to be a part of it.
00:44:19
Now, demonic possession was really the main suspect in the beginning, but in later plagues, the cause of the mania
00:44:26
would often be attributed because of obviously, we hear it in like the nunnery, into it would be attributed to
00:44:31
immorality and sin, particularly those in which the dancers were overtly sexual or predominantly performed by women.
00:44:41
One description read, "They indulged in disgraceful immodesty for many women during this shameful dance and mock
00:44:48
bridal singing bared their bosoms, while others of their own accord offered their
00:44:53
virtue." Oh, honey. these ladies are out there just being like, "Come and get it." Ruining the
00:44:58
streets. Showing ankle. Showing ankle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What is offered their virtue, though? What is the
00:45:04
What is the Literally showing ankle. Yeah, they showed their shoulders or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like,
00:45:08
"Do you want to hold my hand and dance?" And they're like, "Holy shit." You got to go to a nunnery where you can
00:45:15
start meowing and propositioning priests. Yeah. Now, in later years, such as, you
00:45:20
know, the dancing plague in Strasbourg, like the really famous one, the events were frequently kind of attributed to
00:45:26
madness and hysteria as a whole, especially when they were begun again by girls or women. Historian John Waller
00:45:33
says that there is considerable evidence that suggests the dancing plagues and the possession epidemics of Europe's
00:45:39
nunneries were in fact classic instances of a very different phenomenon, mass psychogenic illness, which is way
00:45:46
scarier to me. Yeah, I don't love that. Like if you're telling me a the devil came and made me dance, I'm like, all
00:45:51
right. That's fun. Like that happens. But like mass psychogenic illness? Ooh. What is
00:45:55
that? So, what's the definition of psychogenic illness, then? So, that's really like where the term mass hysteria
00:46:01
comes from where they can't pinpoint it. It's like In the Salem witch trials, they tried to blame it on like ergot
00:46:06
poisoning, like fungus on the on the like wheat wheat. Essentially. And it's causes, you know, some kind of food
00:46:13
poisoning that then leads to this like wild illness that everybody just Like psychosis. You're hallucinating or
00:46:19
something. Yeah, I think it's like It's like group think. Like I think it's really just You've seen instances of it
00:46:25
where like you can get people to do insane things if you just make it a group effort. And again, there wasn't a
00:46:31
lot to do back then. So, why not dance? Yeah, there really wasn't. And in the majority of cases of dancing
00:46:38
plagues, the years you were touching upon this before, the years immediately preceding the events were usually pretty
00:46:46
harsh. There was famine, natural disasters, social and political upheaval. In the case of Strasbourg,
00:46:53
there was a little thing called the Black Plague that was right before it. Right. So, it can be viewed as kind of
00:46:59
like an extreme reaction of like stress relief, like a reaction to trauma. trauma reaction. Yeah. So, we're all
00:47:05
going to start dancing soon. Like, you know, you can play the piano or you can start dancing uncontrollably for years
00:47:10
at a time. Yeah. Whatever works for you. Whatever whatever you feel. Report back.
00:47:14
Let us know. Uh but that yeah, that's my little my little my dance into And this is what the movie
00:47:21
Footloose was based on. That's the mic drop at the end of that, friends. But yeah, so if you start
00:47:29
dancing in the streets, people might start joining you, and then you could all die together. Yeah. So.
00:47:34
Don't take it to a bridge. There's that. Yeah, don't do that. Avoid bridges. Yeah, 12th century bridges are
00:47:39
are not the place to go. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so my question is did men ever participate in the dancing
00:47:46
plagues? They did. Yeah, they did. That's what makes it so funny. They're like, "Well,
00:47:49
women started it." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we just get blamed. Shut up. Yeah. I think And I don't even think it was
00:47:55
always women who started it. I think it was just like there was a lot of women. Yeah, especially in that in that era,
00:48:01
they were like, "We'll blame the We'll blame the ladies." If we're going to blame, it's either the devil, ladies, or
00:48:06
a combination of both, you know. And then in the nunneries, obviously, it was just it was all ladies. And the
00:48:11
devil. And the devil, yeah. Yeah, of course. They were having relations with the devil.
00:48:17
Was there any documentation of whether or not they were having fun? Oh, they were having fun.
00:48:22
It seems like it seems like it feels pretty awesome, to be honest. They were sliving.
00:48:27
Like especially in the nunnery scenario, I'm like, I think they just got bored. And then they were like, "Let's see if
00:48:32
these Let's see what we can get out of these priests." Like Let's climb a tree. some vows. I'm sure there were some hot
00:48:38
priests back then, so they're probably like, "Let's see if we can break some vows."
00:48:42
Yeah. Stroke the ego a little bit. When that didn't work, they were like, "Bring
00:48:45
on the exorcists. Let's see." Have a little fun. Yeah, and then they just gave it up.
00:48:49
Well, it's an easy out, too. It's like we can just claim that it was we were possessed, but we're having a great
00:48:53
time, and there will be some recourse, you know, we'll get back to normal eventually, but
00:48:57
We'll have our memories. Exactly. You can just leave the nunnery by saying you [ __ ] the devil. Yeah. Honestly,
00:49:03
the easiest way out. Actually. Easiest way to leave the nunnery, I got to say. That's That's how I get out of most
00:49:10
social situations. If I don't want to be there. Sorry, I can't make it tonight. Book signing's not going to work
00:49:16
tonight. I slept with the devil. I [ __ ] the devil. I got to go. My bad. I love it. All right. Well, this is a
00:49:23
weird shift now, but we're going to play some would you rather. Please say it's dancing plague related. It's not even
00:49:29
dancing plague related. I just Would you rather [ __ ] the devil climb the tree climb the tree and meow,
00:49:34
you know. I should have put some of those in there. Yeah. But you can both answer cuz I
00:49:38
didn't read these to you. So, would you guys rather be haunted by a ghost that only you can see or hear whispers that
00:49:46
no one else can hear? I'm going with the ghost. There's something about whispering that you can hear that feels
00:49:51
really ominous. At least they can be like, "Oh, there's my friend the ghost." Hopefully. Is it a friendly ghost? Do we
00:49:57
know? It's It's up in the air. Okay. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's your ghost.
00:50:02
I'd rather cuz in general I'd rather I'd rather be able to see it. If it's just whispering, I'm that that's
00:50:08
a that's another level for me. That'll drive you mad. I would definitely rather ghost cuz
00:50:12
whispering would drive I am very like you know I have misophonia. I get very annoyed with certain sounds over and
00:50:18
over again. So, that would piss me off. Like I'm just like, "Shut up." Whispering's on your list?
00:50:24
Ooh, constant whispering I think would make me crazy. I think it would make a lot of people
00:50:29
crazy. Misophonia or not. But seeing a ghost every now and then would just be like, "Okay." Yeah. You'd never feel
00:50:35
alone. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. You could tell them the big events in your Just call them my imaginary friend.
00:50:40
So you're like, "Oh, hey, you're here. Let me tell you something cool that happened today."
00:50:44
I think I agree with you guys. I'd take the ghost. All right, number two. Would you rather
00:50:47
live in a house that rearranges itself every night or in one where the doors occasionally lead to other dimensions?
00:50:54
Oh, two. Other dimensions. Yeah. Why? Rearranging my house every night would send me into orbit. Uh I
00:51:02
just nope. I'm a like comfort creature. You are. That would annoy this and I'm I'm a control freak. Mhm. Waking up to
00:51:10
having my house rearranged every morning would Would no sign off. But another dimension, let's go. Yeah,
00:51:16
I'm I'm there with you. I'm I'm like a I'm very type A and things are where they need to be.
00:51:22
And they're staying there. And they're not yeah, they're not moving. Don't touch them. And also like let's see
00:51:26
what's in the other dimension. I'm curious. I'm going house rearrange cuz I can put it back. I don't want to
00:51:32
go to I don't know what these other dimensions have in them. What if there's nuns meowing and trying to [ __ ] priests?
00:51:37
What if I fall in and I can't get back into my house to rearrange my furniture? You can't rearrange it every day cuz
00:51:42
it's going to get rearranged that night. Yeah, that's a lot of work. I know, but
00:51:46
dimensions are scary. It's bad to your floors. It is bad to your floors. That's that's real. If it's
00:51:51
a really if it's a really good interior designer who's rearranging the house, maybe it's a good
00:51:56
Yeah, see this is my scenario. It is. Yeah, you're like like that's a really nice new
00:52:01
configuration of the living room furniture. That helped the feng shui. Excited to
00:52:05
see what you do tomorrow. No, I that still even that wouldn't work for me. I'm too much of a control freak.
00:52:12
I'm sticking with it. I I believe in you. Thanks. All right, number three. Would you
00:52:16
rather live in a world where every book you open transports you into its story or where every movie you watch traps you
00:52:23
inside its universe until the movie ends? It's kind of like the same thing. Yeah,
00:52:27
I mean I think the longer the longer trip in the book is probably less of a vibe.
00:52:36
Depends on the book, I suppose. I can handle two hours in another world pretty easily. I've I've worked my way up with
00:52:41
psychedelics. [Laughter] That's the I've always want like every time I read a book, I'm always like,
00:52:59
"Ah, like take me with you." Like I just want to jump into the book, but now I'm thinking about it and I'm
00:53:03
like that's true. That would be a long a long Well, with some of the books that you all are reading for this podcast, I
00:53:09
would imagine those are not worlds that you want to spend a lot of time in. No. I'd like to pick and choose which books.
00:53:16
Definitely choosing the books. Yeah. If I'm jumping into every book I read, then that's a problem.
00:53:20
Same thing with movies cuz we watch [ __ ] up movies a lot. I don't want to go in some of them. That's true. It's a
00:53:25
hard choice. I think it's the I'm going to go with yours. The time crunch is what I if I know I have a finite time.
00:53:32
All right. That'll make me feel better. I like it now. Yeah, I got that. I was thinking cuz
00:53:37
when you're reading, you're kind of like making like your own visuals. So, it'd be kind of cool to see that. I haven't
00:53:42
done psychedelics, so that would be my way of doing it. That's the surprise for this episode. I brought some here.
00:53:50
Don't get the wrong idea. These are occasional. Yeah, that's a hard one. I think the
00:53:59
only like cuz again, I I've always wanted to jump into a book. Yes, I love books. But again, it's the time. I got
00:54:07
that. Cuz I'm also that way with like like everybody who listens knows I like I'm not good in social situations. So,
00:54:13
like going out but like out of social situation out, I always like to know There's an end yeah.
00:54:20
I need an end to it. So, yeah. I think the movie. Yeah, I got that cuz then you can pick like hour and a half, two
00:54:25
hours. Yeah, like I'm not going to jump into a Yeah, I'm not jumping into like You're
00:54:29
only watching short films from here on out. Exactly. Or I probably I probably would
00:54:34
jump into a Harry Potter Potter movie, actually. That sounds awesome. Which one? Yeah.
00:54:39
I'd jump in all of them. Let's go. Yeah, I love that. Definitely that just that cemented it for me. All right, last one.
00:54:45
Would you rather live in a world where night never falls, so it's basically just like eternal daytime, or in eternal
00:54:52
night where you would never witness the sun again? Obviously daytime. Nighttime.
00:54:58
I had a feeling you would go that way. Yeah, nighttime for sure. Yeah. I need the sun. Like I'm
00:55:04
I need the sun. It's the California in you. Well, yeah. Well, I was born out here. I actually was born in in
00:55:09
Massachusetts and moved across the country, but getting to California now it's like if I
00:55:14
when I tour in the wintertime, it's it's not good for me. If if it's dark for a long time, I lose
00:55:22
I lose my mind. See, and we brought you at the perfect time. It was sunny this morning. A little bit. When it glistens
00:55:29
in the snow, so it's pretty nice. amazing walk this morning. I was like I didn't feel cold and I I went and got
00:55:34
coffee. I was like, "Okay, this was cuz you told me you prepared me. You're like
00:55:38
there's no sun out here." And I was like, "I can handle that for two days." But two days is like my limit. And the
00:55:43
sun was like, "I'll come out for you." Just welcome to Boston. Cuz we have not had sun for weeks at this point. Yeah,
00:55:50
it's been dark. The sun doesn't like me very much. Sounds like you don't like it
00:55:55
either. And I don't like it. We have like a mutual disrespect for each other. Yeah,
00:55:59
I'm way too pale for the sun. I don't do well in it. Elena carries around a parasol in the
00:56:04
summer. Yeah. Really? Like a old girl parasol. I do not want to get burned. I don't I don't want and I don't want
00:56:09
wrinkles. Yes, and you're good. You know? It does we we have a mutual disrespect which became a respect. Do
00:56:17
you have a parasol collection? I only have one. You should have a collection. I should.
00:56:22
that idea. I also like a big wide-brimmed hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like good morbid merch.
00:56:31
Parasol feels on brand to me. Mikey, write that down. Like he's already already done it. I got it. You also feel
00:56:39
like you're in a like another era when you carry around a parasol. Totally. Which is fun. I have a lot of admiration
00:56:45
for a parasol. Like when I see people out doing the parasol thing, I'm like I couldn't do it. Even when it rains, I
00:56:50
don't carry an umbrella. I'm just like, "Whatever, just get me wet. I'm fine." But but I the commitment to you know,
00:56:56
good skin and but I love the sun too much. I'm like I will look like a like a beat-up leather shoe
00:57:03
within the next within the next 10 years and I'm fine with it. I'm like when I see those guys on the beach and I'm just
00:57:08
like, "Yeah, that guy that guy did it." I'm like I'm like maybe you don't think this is
00:57:13
good-looking, but I'm like I don't I want to just look like a shoe. Yeah, I'm I'm fine with it. Yeah. Yeah, I just I
00:57:21
don't do well in the sun, either. Like I don't like hot. Like as soon as here I don't like hot. Like I as here, it's
00:57:30
like as soon as it gets in the 60s, I'm like this is my perfect weather. I can live in the 60s fall all day. Yeah. Like
00:57:38
I like that kind of sun. I feel like in the fall it's like a like a muted sun. I don't know. It has a
00:57:43
different vibe to it. I don't know how to explain it. No, I got that. And then as soon as it gets in the summer, it's
00:57:48
like this harsh sun that like I hate the look of it. I just don't like I don't know what it is. It's too bright for
00:57:53
you. I'm the opposite. I'll go to the desert in the middle of the summer when it's
00:57:58
like 113° and I'll just be in heaven. That's where we go. With a little folding mirror. No,
00:58:03
no, I never did that. I toured with a band once. The singer actually had one of those.
00:58:08
We'll never say who. Uh they're great and he he's great, too. But but I I remember walking outside and being like,
00:58:14
"That dude's doing like the grandma on the porch thing with the with the reflector."
00:58:19
You see like you don't think it's real. Yeah, I was like this is like this is a level of
00:58:23
commitment to tanning that I've never even imagined. But but I get cold so easily. I get cold very easily. Yeah,
00:58:31
and I'm just like I and I it's my least favorite feeling is being cold. Really? And my least favorite feeling is being
00:58:37
hot. Yeah, I'm I'm the opposite. I'm like hot I can handle. But not when I'm sleeping. Oh, I
00:58:43
have to be freezing when I'm sleeping. Me and my husband get in fights all the time. I've been turning off the heat
00:58:48
lately. He's like, "Stop doing that." It's like 60° in this room. I'm like I am the fan.
00:58:53
John's like, "Why? It's February. Like what I'm like, yeah." It's the science backed that you sleep better when you're
00:59:00
cold. It's true. It's true. Yeah, I don't I my thought process about it is that you can only take off so many
00:59:08
layers Yeah, you can add so many more. peel my skin off. I could, but I'm not going to.
00:59:13
Uh you can put on I mean I guess I could. I'm an autopsy technician. I know how to
00:59:19
flay back skin. Could you bring yourself to do it, you think? Absolutely not. No. I thought you
00:59:25
were going to say absolutely. I was like, "Whoa." Not to myself. To a dead person I can. Well, yeah, you you have.
00:59:31
Yeah. But I'm like We should have just done a turn. I like it. I'm like, wait. But, you can't take off all the layers
00:59:38
to get cool, but you can put on all the layers to get I I mean, it's a it's a sound logic. It's just one I don't
00:59:43
follow at all. It's okay. We diverge here. That's fine. It's like we got the office, we have parks, we have all the
00:59:49
things. This is where you diverge. It's okay. We'll just be friends in different
00:59:54
continents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just stand in the middle of you. I like both.
00:59:57
I came to you in winter, so here we are. That's true. That's how we know we're friends.
01:00:01
Exactly. That's the last one. I pick eternal night cuz I'm a night person, but I I still like the sun, so I'd be
01:00:06
like a little bummed, I think, but Yeah. But, you know, yeah. I just also love the night.
01:00:11
Well, yeah. That's what I That's how I feel. Did you watch Night Country? Did you Did you I did. I have not. I think I
01:00:17
could vibe. That was Yeah, that it was great. It was. It was really good. But, even me, I was like, this is
01:00:21
horrible. It can't be dark every Every episode is dark every episode. It's when like it's that part of the country that
01:00:28
it like goes into night for 3 months. Oh, I think I would thrive. I think I would do okay. Yeah. Not me. Yeah. No. I
01:00:35
would be I It'd be over in one season for me. Yeah, I would be in a desert. Yeah, yeah, I
01:00:40
would have I would have lost my mind. There's also like a a reverse of that that happens where it's like 3 months of
01:00:46
light. That would kill me. I've been to Alaska when it it was in that that period That would be bonkers. It was it
01:00:53
I mean, it was it was hard to sleep Yeah. for sure, but it was pretty cool to go outside when it was like 2:00 in
01:00:59
the morning, and it's like, oh, it's daytime. Yeah, I mean, it would be like dusky, you know, but it was it was
01:01:05
it was pretty cool. That would I feel like that would like [ __ ] up your circadian rhythm.
01:01:09
It totally does. Yeah. The other way would, too, obviously. So, that wouldn't be great. Yeah, you
01:01:15
got to be strong to live out there. Damn. Yeah. Do you live out there, anyone? Write in.
01:01:21
Lots of emails coming I know, suddenly we're really calling for emails since we said
01:01:26
Well, that was fun. That was fun. that. Thanks for inviting me. I had a blast. Thanks for coming. Thanks for
01:01:30
coming We learned a lot. Oh, and check out the Dear Jack Foundation. If you want to say
01:01:34
anything about that before we leave. Uh yeah, I mean, so Dear Jack is uh it's a nonprofit I started years ago on
01:01:41
the heels of my survivorship with leukemia, and and so we advocate for adolescent and young adults, so people
01:01:48
15 to 39, which is like a for years has been a really forgotten demographic of of cancer patient and survivor. Um and
01:01:55
so yeah, we build programs for for this group specifically. We do retreats for um couples that are entering
01:02:01
survivorship, and we also do a wish-granting program for uh for young adult cancer patients. So, um yeah,
01:02:08
please just go to dearjackfoundation.org if you want to learn more about what we're doing, or if you happen to have a
01:02:13
friend or be going through the cancer journey yourself. Um We have a lot of support services and and ways to kind of
01:02:19
link up with you and try to make the journey easier. Hell, yeah. I love it. So, go check it out.
01:02:24
Yeah. Perfect. And you guys, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep weird, but not so weird that if you
01:02:32
haven't already listened to something Corporate Slack's Mannequin and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, you don't
01:02:36
check it out. [Music] [Music] [Music]