Return Banter And Theme Song

Craig 0:03

You're listening to Basket Traffic.

Shawn 0:12

Yeah. That's what I'm used to. Don't change things. I'm fucking 50, dude. Fucking what the f you out of your mind?

Craig 0:22

I'm sorry.

Shawn 0:23

Every week I'm gonna write a new song. No, I like the old one.

Susie 0:29

Every week I'm gonna say no.

Craig 0:38

All right. The fall is here. Let's..

Susie 0:43

still hot in here, though.

Craig 0:44

Let's stoker the fire.

Shawn 0:46

It's like Miami in here. It's like seven. Oh my god.

Susie 0:49

Stoker the fire. Yep.

Shawn 0:53

Just got it now. Okay. Well, here we are. Back. Back from summer vacation. It's like, you know, when you go to your elementary school, like you're growing up and you go back to your elementary school? Everything's so small. Everything's so tiny in here. Except for Craig.

Susie 1:10

Yeah. Remembered it being bigger.

Shawn 1:12

Yeah, I thought everything was bigger.

Craig 1:14

Well, it's been what, six weeks?

Shawn 1:17

Yeah. Contract negotiations. Uh yeah. Just in the nick of time. Well, for both of us. Yeah.

Craig 1:24

It was difficult.

Shawn 1:25

Yeah.

Susie 1:25

Yeah.

Shawn 1:26

It was very, you made it very difficult. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for that. But I did get car service. I've got car service now to and from. I got a full hair and makeup team, which is weird because we're not on camera, but that's okay.

Craig 1:40

Well, I'm are you happy?

Shawn 1:42

No, God knows. There's always more? There's always more.

Craig 1:46

Oh, okay.

Susie 1:46

And I get whatever I want as long as I make food before and after.

Shawn 1:50

Yeah, and you're making rice right now. So isn't that great?

Craig 1:52

That's right. Yeah. So what are you what are you getting? Like uh an extra dollar for every follower? Um is it tied to the number of followers?

Shawn 2:00

We're still negotiating with that. I'm surprised you weren't more affected. I was picketing out front for the last three weeks, dude. Banging on the windows at a sign. Your neighbors uh were not happy.

Craig 2:11

No. Okay. Well, I could be I could be worse. I could have you impaled on the front lawn and to make a point, you know, like they call that a human garden.

Shawn 2:22

You just set a bunch of them up out there. No, yeah. Oh, yeah. Pretty intense for a line of uh torturing.

Craig 2:30

Well, what's different about this episode is that we don't actually have we're not coming back from a vacation.

Shawn 2:35

Yes, thank God.

Craig 2:36

So yeah, you don't have to complain about that there, Sean.

Shawn 2:38

No, no, no.

Craig 2:39

We have gone back to work, uh, and that's I mean, yay. Gotta pay the bills. Well, summer is over.

Shawn 2:46

And we're basically rolling into Halloween, is what you're saying.

Craig 2:49

We are, and that's I'm kind of excited.

Shawn 2:52

What's the lineup here for candy this year? Because I'm probably gonna pop by a few times. Different costumes. I'll do some costumes.

Susie 2:57

Oh my god. So I had a candy today, and you know the price of chocolate is going up. So of course it is.

Shawn 3:02

And it's Halloween, so they're gonna jack it.

Susie 3:04

They jack it. Um they've shrinkflationed. I got uh Snickers and it the little are you talking the little bark? So it used to be this big and now it is a one a one little square. It's like they've cut it in half and they're charging you more than what last year for the bigger ones.

Craig 3:20

So what do you need? Tweezers now to open up the pet little wrappings?

Susie 3:23

No, you need 17 to feel like you had a snack.

Shawn 3:26

Like I like Twig, I like the Snickers. And you know what? I don't think they make them anymore, but the little the um little three musketeer bars, you remember those when you were a kid, trick-or-treating? Yeah, I'm don't think they make them.

Susie 3:38

I'm a Twix girl.

Shawn 3:39

Twix is great. I didn't think they don't make the small Twix. They do. Oh. I had three of them. We're getting one of those today. Yeah.

Susie 3:46

They're in the box with the Snickers, Mars, and Twix box.

Shawn 3:49

That's a good lineup.

Susie 3:50

Yeah, just too small. That's a good lineup. Yeah.

Craig 3:52

Sean, do you like Halloween?

Shawn 3:54

Uh when I was six.

Craig 3:56

Yeah.

Shawn 3:56

Yeah. I mean, let's be honest. When you get through the trick-or-treating, and if you don't have kids, especially, you're really not in touch with Halloween. You might go to a few Halloween parties in your 20s and dress up. I have no desire to dress up or do anything. The only way I would say that I would celebrate Halloween now at this age is by watching Halloween things and scary movies and that kind of I like that part of Halloween. Like I look forward to that, the series and the movies that they, you know, promote and come out at that time. And it's a good time for horror movies right now, too. There's a lot of good stuff.

Craig 4:28

Best costume you've ever ever worn?

Shawn 4:30

Probably not a costume for Halloween. It was probably like for a show or something. Yeah. Like, I mean, I can't remember. Remember, you guys were really big into Halloween costumes. Like in your 20s, you were doing the couple Halloween things. Yeah. Like I remember you were crayons. We won.

Susie 4:46

We won for crayons, even though the hats were a bit k.

Shawn 4:49

I they were a little lame.

Growing Out Of Halloween

Craig 4:52

So are you ready for uh part two of Halloween? There's a part one. Yeah.

Shawn 4:57

You didn't you didn't you didn't listen to Well, contractually, I wasn't allowed to listen to anything. And frankly, I'm very surprised that you would go and do a show without I mean, you know, either one of them. Let's be honest. There was some couple things missing from that podcast. A couple of things. Um but I'm sure it was great. Yeah. Um, it's cute. Yeah. Susie, I thought I told you to lock this door while we were here. Are you gonna put a lock on this thing? Did you ever get out of bed in the middle of the night while this wasn't happening and and just there's a light coming from underneath this this door here? You walk in and he's just sitting here in the dark with the headphones on.

Susie 5:35

Yeah. Well, when the editing process at the beginning, when he was learning all about the editing process and it was in here, he was gone for days. And that's when I actually asked, Could you just come and edit out there where I can at least see you? Yeah, so I know that you're still alive. Feel like I'm living alone.

Craig 5:55

Vlad the Impaler is a pretty crazy story.

Shawn 5:58

Um, yeah, he's a pretty amazing uh figure. I'm just wondering if we would even know about him if it wasn't for Bram Stoker, though.

Craig 6:06

Well, that's the thing.

Shawn 6:06

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Craig 6:08

Yeah, well, uh what I wanted to ask you is I haven't read Bram Stoker, but I understand you have the book.

Shawn 6:14

Oh, I read it um a couple years ago. It came back into my world from someone else. I remember trying to read it when I was younger, and it was hard for me. It's one of those books like uh Frankenstein that's all correspondence, it's all letters back and forth, oh interesting diaries, journal entries. But but and so I think that might have been hard for me when I was younger, but reading it again, uh, it's a great book. I mean, and and that that sort of style of writing gives it a more grounded reality, like the letters and the so and that was written what, late 1880s? I think it's 1897. Late 1890. I know it's a great year. Um so yeah, no, I mean, it's a great book. I mean, it's one of those books that's is a slow burn, like it didn't take off for years. I'm sure that he died before he could possibly know. I mean, think about there's over 200 productions of of this character. Wow. I mean of Dracula. Theater and and and and the vampire whole vampire industry, because of that, yeah, right, went in all sorts of directions. You're talking theater, you're talking movies, television, video games, everything. Yeah. So it's pretty amazing.

Susie 7:24

I mean, I can't think children shows like they took count dracular.

Shawn 7:29

Yeah. Uh, but I can't think of another literary classic literary character with that immensity. Maybe Sherlock Holmes is on is is is in that that category. I in not classic literature, but Bond, James Bond, you know, that went on to become a huge property.

Craig 7:46

But what I understand too, the the whole, you know, character of Dracula kind of evolved over the years, too. Like Absolutely. There were no fangs in the original Bram Stoker kind of idea of it. In fact, uh the fangs of a vampire was not was non-existent until because from what I understand, they did plays of you know vampires in the 30s and stuff like that. But when you're doing life before that, yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Shawn 8:11

Because it came from Romanian folklore, the vampire, but it was more of a creature. We didn't have the personality. No, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think it's called the stagat or something, and it's more of a peasant sort of creature would would you know kill.

Craig 8:24

Vlad helped in that, you know, Vlad the Impaler uh helped in that process as kind of a leader of Valakia and in his impaling details, which we'll get into, which are kind of gruesome. But what out evolved out of that is this just general idea of the general themes that we know about vampires, which is like, you know, stake through the heart or beheadings. That was it was all effects. Yeah, it was all about the idea of the undead. Yeah. And so the undead coming back to life. And so the only way to kind of ensure the death was to kind of you know, in some cases, they put like sickles uh in the um in the casket so that uh it was a permanent thing that they can't rise again and and haunt you and create great trouble. Yeah. But you can imagine like in the 1700s and the 1800s, you know.

Shawn 9:13

Victoria, Victorian age, right? Like in that gothic sort of well,

Craig 9:17

Because what's happening too is that you have like the printing press that took off in the kind of 1400s, 1500s, but then all of a sudden it's like the industry around printing became a thing. And so people are sharing these stories and and it just becomes and it depends on where you are.

Susie 9:32

Folklore or exactly exactly what is true.

Shawn 9:36

Well, you gotta remember too, at that time, especially the time of of of the book, that occult occults and secret societies were massive, especially in England, right? It was all of this underground sort of stuff happening. So a book like that would have been very successful because of that.

Craig 9:52

Which is interesting because w when you know I started looking into the story behind Vlad and Bram Stoker, uh, some people argue that uh Bram Stoker had no understanding about Vlad the Impaler.

Shawn 10:05

That's correct.

Craig 10:05

And some historians say that, well, no, they he must have known Bram Stoker must have known of this guy Dracula, uh, because uh there were too many similarities about the kind of actual history of it.

Shawn 10:16

So well, he definitely researched it. Um and but uh he's a composite of all sorts of different things because of course a lot of people also said he's based on Henry Irving, who is his longtime friend and some say companion in some ways, who was a uh owner of the Lyceum Theater and and an actor, and he was this tall, long character, and he used to uh very aristocratic. So a lot of them say that uh the personality of Dracula, because you know he didn't know Vlad, of course. So the personality of Dracula came from Henry Irving, which is uh an interesting uh topic in itself.

Craig 10:53

So back to the fang thing. Um the interesting thing, the fangs didn't come out in apparently until like the 1950s or sixties.

Shawn 11:00

Probably Bella Lagosi and the uh universal pictures. Yeah. Those great old black and white. Oh yeah.

Craig 11:06

Because they couldn't, when they were doing live theater, they couldn't have fangs in their mouth because it would prevent them. They couldn't speak. Yeah. So it wasn't until when movies really started taking off that they were able to kind of throw in the old fangs and then work around that technology. And then so, because now we when we associate vampires, we we associate the idea of fangs as well.

Shawn 11:23

It would have been 1931, probably, because I think that's the Nosferatu black and white silent movie that is so famous that was in the lawsuit. Of course, they were sued by Bram Stoker's daughter, Nosferatu. They basically did Dracula, but they changed the names and and made the movie. Uh and so they were sued, and then uh they basically had one print. They destroyed all of them, all the prints except for one. So there was one that we're lucky we got it. But that Dracula, Max Shrecht, bald, you know the figure I'm talking about, had the fangs. Yeah. So that would probably be the big one first one, you know.

Craig 11:58

Before we move on from Bram Stoker's novel, is was there anything that that for you stuck out like any particular detail? I haven't read the book. Uh have you, Susie? No, I think.

Shawn 12:06

Oh, there's all sorts of details in the book. I I wouldn't get into it. I mean, it's very um it goes to all of the uh the folklore that we were just talking about, with you know, the the vampire having to have his own earth from Romania brought to England so he can sleep in it and all this kind of thing. There's all sorts of fascinating details. I think I think that if you want, don't want to read the book and you want to see a movie, yeah, I would say 1992's Francis Ford Coppola's um Dracula is the is the most accurate to the book. Oh, interesting.

Susie 12:37

You should watch that before Halloween.

Shawn 12:39

And you get to see Keanu Reeves in that movie, and the first time he pulls up to the castle and he's like, whoa. Keanu Reeves. That's my only problem with the film. No kidding. But but uh it it in terms of the accuracy to the book and the details that they put in. I think if you're you're not privy to reading the book and you just want to the 1992 Francis Ford Copla Dracula, Keanu for uh yeah, and Winona writers a bit.

Susie 13:05

That's just me. Yeah, okay.

Craig 13:07

No, I agree.

Susie 13:08

Yeah, good to know.

Craig 13:09

The castle, uh Bran Bram Castle. Yeah, Bram apparently has no association to Vlad the Impaler, but it uh in Romania it has become a bit of a tourist destination.

Shawn 13:21

It's huge tourist and and does sound cool. I mean, coming Halloween night must be just a gong show there.

Vlad The Impaler Backstory

Susie 13:27

Yeah.

Craig 13:28

So a little bit about the backstory of Vlad the Impaler. Um, it's a really interesting story. Now, if you remember, if we go back to our previous episode about, you know, Gravelo Princep and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and we talked about that dynamic between kind of the Balkan nations, you know, fighting against the Ottoman Empire, right? The kind of Orthodox Christians and the uh the Muslims kind of going toe-to-toe. So this is kind of like uh we're going to go back earlier in time, back into the 1400s, where Vlad, uh, who is a Christian, who uh sees himself and his father and and everyone basically north being the defenders of Christianity against the kind of onslaught of of the Muslims from the south and the Ottoman Empire, which has just recently kind of captured Constantinople. And the Ottomans are proving themselves to be a very powerful force and not to be messed with. And they have the latest canon technology, which uh Mehmed II will use against Vlad the Impaler. And of course, Vlad the Impaler is a name, a moniker that was given to him after his death. His name is Vlad III, Vlad Tepesh, uh, essentially, and there's a lot of Romanian names which I went across to my Romanian neighbor to get the the terminology, the pronunciation correctly, but even then I was like, nah, I'm gonna attempt it, but I won't get it right exactly. But uh this the stories are horrendous. Like Vlad is this guy who uh has a really interesting kind of start in life. His father, Vlad the Second, was constantly trying to, you know, uh become the ruler of this region of Valchia, which is what today you'd call kind of southern Romania, just kind of north of the of the river of the Danube. And so they made a deal. The Sultan of the time made a deal with Vlad the Second, and it was if you want to sit on that throne and you want my permission uh to rule as a vassal state, as long as you give me money and things like this, you know, I'll allow you to rule. But and I need confirmation. And he said, Um, I want your two sons. And so that's how Vlad, you know, Dracula uh and his brother, Radu the Handsome, basically.

Susie 15:51

Oh, he was in the show.

Craig 15:54

Radu. Yeah, the show that uh the Netflix show that uh is on. It's it's quite good, but the you know, the the Netflix show is interesting because I sometimes wondered if they were making kind of had too much license on their creativity. Like there's a lot of details about this story that uh this history, I should say, that are not totally nailed down.

Shawn 16:14

Like they when they were ha hanging out in the hot tub and talking about yeah, world domination and all that.

Craig 16:20

That was a bit far fetched. That particular detail. Yeah. Uh but yeah, can you imagine? Like you have you, you, you're, you have two sons, and you're like, yeah, I want to be a ruler. So hey, sons, you're you're under you're out of here. You're out of here. You're like under 10 years old. You're gonna be raised by the Sultan.

Shawn 16:34

Someone else. That would make me want to stick poles up people's asses.

The Gruesome Science Of Impalement

Craig 16:38

Exactly. And we'll get to that particular way in which that was took place. So here are these boys, and they're basically being raised by the Sultan. And and obviously and lots of wealth, right? In the in the Ottoman Empire. Like they were, they were actually treated like the brother, the son of Mehmed, and uh lived in the palace. They were trained in Ottoman warfare and educated and learned the language and and studied the Quran and all these things. But the difference is that Radu uh accepted these things, but Vlad could never get around the fact that he was a prisoner. And no matter how well he was treated, he's he was saw himself as a prisoner. So when he got old enough, uh the I think the kind of ultimate plan was was to put him in a position of power in Valachia. And he didn't rule very long. He basically ruled from 1456 to 1462. Uh that was his main rule, and it was during that time period when he took on the Ottoman Empire in Mehmed II. And this is where he becomes famous for his uh impaling. So let's talk about that for a bit. He impaled tens of thousands of people and what he would do is tie uh the legs of these people who were to be impaled uh would be tied to horses. And then the horses would walk in a d you know, in a direction where Toward the stake. Toward the stake. Now the stake was there was a whole science behind this. The stake couldn't be too sharp because it had to be rounded a little bit. Yeah, it had to be rounded so so it wouldn't destroy and cause internal bleeding and speed up the process of death.

Susie 18:32

No, they said the best impalers avoided internal organs. All the internal organs would go out, and it would just make so that you're alive through their body and come out their mouth.

Craig 18:42

Well, no, not their mouth. So they they would if it was a man, it would be through their anus, and if it was a woman, their vagina. And the old idea is that they would grease that pole up too.

Shawn 18:53

Yeah, well, you'd have to.

Craig 18:54

So that would slide through, yeah, I don't know, maybe about halfway, and then that what they would do is then they would upright the pole and then the button and display it.

Shawn 19:04

Yeah, well the human garden. That's what they call it. That's right. Imagine you're on the you're on the number one going to work, and there's just bodies all lined up across because he put them all up and down the roads.

Craig 19:13

And the gravity of their weight would then slowly drive down, and then the poles would come out of their back or their chest, and they're still alive.

Susie 19:24

And so this just really this is his pre premium sort of um type of of torture.

Shawn 19:32

No, it's yeah, he's his best. He's his specialist. It's his brand. It's his brand. It is. I I I mean, there's some people that say that he was tortured and raped when he was first a prisoner, and that he uh he held that against.

Susie 19:45

Yeah.

Craig 19:46

Well, he's estimated it to basically have killed about 40,000 to 100,000 people.

Shawn 19:51

Yeah, he was a busy guy. Yeah.

Craig 19:53

Wow.

Shawn 19:54

Like, oh, what are you doing today, Vlad? Well, I'm gonna kill some people.

Defying The Ottoman Empire

Craig 19:57

Yeah. So the short story is when he's old enough, he takes the throne. And when we get to that point where he takes that throne for those main chunk of years, which is again not very long. I mean, there's legends where he had a very interesting rule ruling style. He was so against any kind of anything like thievery. He saw that as uh not just thievery, like beggars. He he equated beggars as thieves. And uh the story is that he he would bring up all the the beggars and thieves and and invite them into a uh a big feast and feed them, and then while they were eating, he basically like closed, locked everything up, and then burnt the entire place down.

Susie 20:41

He was a slash and burn dude, too. It was impaling and slash and burn.

Shawn 20:45

He had to work with the tools you got back then, right?

Craig 20:49

Well, and this whole region is interesting because if you look at it, there's no ruler that rules this region for any long period of time. It was just like a revolving door, people in and out, in and out, in and out. And it just was and he was just another one. And I think if he was actually politically smart, he probably would have lasted longer. But in the end, what ends up happening, he's put in power, he's supposed to be this vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, he's supposed to, you know, not just pay the Ottomans for the right to rule without interference, but also too, he's supposed to cough up soldiers for the Ottoman Empire. And he refuses to do any of that. Uh eventually Mehmed II gets annoyed with this and he sends uh you know advisors up basically and says, Listen, you here, pay us up, and he impales them. Uh yeah and and so he he keeps doing that and he sends up a little force and uh uh near the Danube and and so he starts crossing south of the Danube and he starts wasting these guys. And then Mehmed's is like, okay, uh I gotta deal with this. This is this is like taking because it's not just this that's going on. The second's got other battles and and and challenges around in his empire. And but he's like, screw this, man. This guy's this guy's gotta go. So he takes some historians say a force of almost up to 300,000 people. It's like the force of forces, right? It's not just army. He's got he's got engineers who can build things and build boats to cross the Danube, or he's got he's got huge cannons, 120 cannons that he's got a hull hundreds of kilometers up north. And all the while, you know, Vlad's got about they estimate around 30,000 soldiers. And what he does with those 30,000 soldiers is bloody impressive. 300,000 people, they're not all soldiers. I think they estimate about maybe 150,000 soldiers. And he's of course bringing himself, uh, Mehmed brings a ton of gold coins and he constantly, you know, gives people gold coins for for their efforts and their bravery and their loyalty and all these things. And he's got Radu with him. And there's all this, you know, questioning of whether or not Radu will stay loyal to the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan, or Or is he like working undercover for his brother? Exactly. And so this is the story of the Ottoman juggernaut of the Empire moving north across the Danube, and then the constant kind of ambush and surprise attacks and very effective. But the r the reality is is no matter how hard he punished the Ottoman soldiers, there were just too many of them. And so after they had crossed the Danube into Valachia, as they head towards the capital, uh Takovishta, I think uh and proper pronouncing anyway. Somebody check that out, right? Exactly.

Susie 23:45

That's pretty good.

Craig 23:46

So he attacked the Sultan's camp. And if you watch the Netflix series, they make it sound that uh Mehmed II was aware of this attack, which is interesting because other sources I've read don't make any mention of that, and that in fact it was a surprise attack. Well the plan was basically for Vlad to go into the camp, go into the tent of the Sultan, kill him right then and there. And the idea is if he could kill the Sultan, he could end the whole thing. Because if he didn't, it was just uh he was on the brink of losing against the Ottomans. And in the end, it was unsuccessful. They they killed tens of thousands of of Janissaries, of soldiers, uh, but in the end, he couldn't get the Sultan. He has to go on the run.

Susie 24:33

He also slashed and burned score. He had scorch warfare. So everything was a few. Scorched earth policy. Scorched Earth, yeah. So everything was lit on fire. So it actually, I mean, he didn't want them to get any food and he didn't want them to have any access, but it made it difficult for his own people. They had no soldiers, yeah. They had no food, they had nothing, and they're they for such a small army in comparison to what they were fighting, um, they lived a long time. They survived on pretty much nothing.

Craig 25:03

When they arrived at the capital, expecting to have a fight there with Vlad, but Vlad had emptied out the entire capital. The castle was empty, nothing. The doors were open, and they all enter and they're all kind of like creeped out by this. Like, where the hell is this? Is it is this an ambush? But he's in the forest, right? He's he's gone. And and it's at that point where they they put Radu into a position of power. He's the new leader of Valachia, and uh Vlad's now on the run. But as they went onto the apparently the other side of the castle, they see the forest, and the forest was cleared. The Sultan saw 20,000 of his own forces who've been impaled by him. And he apparently was so blown away by this, he pulled out his you know, rug and did a prayer right there and was so took a selfie with him.

Shawn 25:55

Check this shit out. I think if you're a a savvy business uh man or woman or an entrepreneur, you should have opened a stick store right next to the castle there, like a pole outlet. Yeah, come and get your sticks, get your palin sticks here. Pre-made over here. Yeah, I know 100%, man. Oh, this is a good one, sir. Yeah, this is the one you want.

Susie 26:16

Jesus, that's a terrible well.

Craig 26:18

Here's to skewers on the barbecue.

Susie 26:20

Skears.

Shawn 26:21

Yeah, that that that'll change that for me now. Yeah, it's an interesting story, isn't it? It's a very dark but interesting story. So you take that historical figure and it sort of grounds the reality a little more of the character.

Craig 26:41

Yeah.

Vampire Movies Worth Rewatching

Shawn 26:41

You know, and then you bring in a few, you bring in the myth of the vampire itself, and you put that to the character, and and then a little bit of this this Henry Irving guy and his personality and his aristocratic sort of it's a great book, it's a great story, and um, I just love going back to it. That's why Halloween is fun to revisit those kind of things. You know, and I was thinking of other great vampire movies in my life. I don't know, like, and you know, I gotta shout out a few. I gotta shout out I one that I didn't initially like when I saw it years and years ago, but that has become one of my favorite movies, which is Interview with a Vampire with with Cruz and Pett. It's actually really good.

Craig 27:20

That's a bit of an oldie now, isn't it? And I know, isn't that funny to say that?

Shawn 27:24

Because I remember seeing it in the theater, and it feels like, you know. Yeah. But it's actually a great film, just like Bram Stoker's in Francis Ford Copeless film. It's very gothic and beautiful to look at. And then I gotta go, I gotta go 80s, I gotta go back to my to my boys and Last Boys, baby. Oh, yeah. That was Lost Boys, great 80s soundtrack.

Craig 27:43

Yes, you know, one of my favorite. That's yeah that as a vampire movie.

Shawn 27:46

That's a great fun.

Craig 27:47

But I was never really into the vampire genre. Like I never really like, you know how it, you know, the the that TV shows.

Shawn 27:53

You weren't you weren't goth? You weren't no you weren't putting the white paint on and the black clothes and going to fucking nightclubs?

Craig 27:59

Yeah, no.

Susie 28:00

No, no, I wasn't that kind of guy. Never that guy.

Shawn 28:03

Any favorite uh scary movies that you uh try to return to or love or I mean The Exorcist, I mean it's not I I wouldn't call it Halloween because it's it's so universal you could watch it anytime. Yeah, but I mean that's probably the one that fucks you up the most.

Susie 28:17

Scary, super scary.

Craig 28:18

I couldn't do it. I I was just too young, I think.

Shawn 28:20

I uh oh well we'll do it now. Yeah, yeah.

Craig 28:23

I mean I'm I'm embarrassed to say this, but it is true.

Shawn 28:26

Um when I watched it, it scared you so bad you couldn't watch it.

Craig 28:30

In my twenties, I watched it again.

Shawn 28:33

You still couldn't do it.

Craig 28:35

I couldn't be I couldn't sleep alone.

Shawn 28:37

Yeah, my fucking 20. Yeah, I had to I had to um spoon with you then which was really weird. You were away, Susie was away, and he he called me and he's like, I just watched The Exorcist. Can you come over? Come over.

Craig 28:49

It was shit like that. I hate psychological warfare. I hate the spiritual stuff.

Shawn 28:54

Isn't that isn't that funny though that we watch these things to and I I I believe it's to take us out of our moment, our our head, I mean, and like be in the moment because you're scared, you immediately forget things. Uh when I was a kid, I watched the Salem's Lot. Do you remember the Salem's Lot that was on TV in the late 70s, early 80s, somewhere? I can't remember the, I think maybe it was 79. Anyways, classic Stephen King movie on TV, and I would have been like eight or nine, and I am still traumatized today because of the scene where the kid fly floats up into the window and he's a vampire. And I don't know why, but it scared me so bad. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't be alone in a room just like you're talking about. And my parents still talk about this, like they think it's funny. Yeah, they bring it up, they think it's fucking hilarious.

Susie 29:44

Actually, I think that's a parenting thing then because we watch The Exorcist as a family, and I total my total my mom move. Come on, let's go watch a movie, everybody. Yeah, it's uh and it's the exorcist.

Shawn 29:56

Yeah, they want to fuck you.

Susie 29:57

I am absolutely fucking terrified.

Shawn 30:00

They're like, let's get them back for all of that shit.

Susie 30:02

And we there was no going to my parents' bed. They didn't not, no, they wouldn't, they would nope, go to the great trauma. Or go back downstairs, and I'm like, alone, even though I shared a room with my sister. But like I I was like terrified to go to sleep.

Shawn 30:18

I recently went online um and I read a little bit about Salem Slide, and the great thing was that so many people brought up that that 80s movie, okay, 70s movie, and they brought up that scene. Okay. And so I was like, oh my God, I'm not alone. This is a thing. There's a whole generation of kids that saw that and were traumatized by it.

Craig 30:39

What was it about it? It was the outside the window scene.

Shawn 30:42

Scratching on the window, let me in. And it's his friend, and they're both kids, and and it's his friend, and he just floats to the window and he's like, Let me in. And I, for the love of God, I thought I was gonna get a visit from a vampire kid. I it sounds ridiculous, right? But it's just and it's an 80s TV movie. I think it's saying 80s, I think it's 70s, but anyway.

Susie 31:04

I think it helped that we lived in this community that was in the woods.

Shawn 31:09

True, it was scary.

Trick Or Treating Without Supervision

Susie 31:10

It was scary, and like the winter. We lived in a small and things would scratch an isolated community. Yeah, and and and branches would scratch against your window, and then you see that, and then you go to sleep. Like, and the whole Halloween thing um in our community was, you know, ch Rome free. We I love that.

Shawn 31:31

We would go about where we grew up together, Susie and I.

Susie 31:33

Yeah, and we would go as high up in our little community street as your parents would drop you off and then trick or treat the whole way down to the beach and end up at a big bonfire where everybody is. But in the meantime, you're alone in the dark with your just running down, no street lights either in our in our community. Just a pillow, a pillowcase full of candy, running terrified because it's I was great.

Shawn 31:59

That's what Halloween was all about. No parental supervision, no phones, nothing. You were just out there.

Craig 32:05

The timing though, when you think about it, the timing of Halloween is really quite perfect. Like I can't think of a you couldn't put it anywhere on the calendar that would be better.

Shawn 32:14

Yeah, the middle of August wouldn't work, would it? Wouldn't it work? Lights ultimately.

Craig 32:18

November, especially where we live. I mean, maybe that's not true in other parts of the world, but where we live, November becomes too weird.

Shawn 32:23

I was just gonna say in LA, yeah, it's the same every year. Yeah, sunny out. Exactly. Do you remember ET when they're out trick-or-treating and it's beautiful, sunny out?

Craig 32:31

And like can I just remember going to San Diego uh in October? It was Halloween. It was so weird. It was like everything is warm and it's bright and it's sunny out, and but everybody doesn't work though. No, everyone's in their costumes. Whereas here we the the leaves turn, they're falling, and there's this kind of like cool, yeah, you know, cloudy wind that just stirs things up.

Shawn 32:52

Oh no, it's stormy and it's that the that's the one bad thing, though, is you always have to have like a fucking garbage bag over your costume when you were a kid because you knew it was gonna rain. That's right. Spend all this time on this costume and nobody sees it. You got a winter jacket over top.

Craig 33:05

And Halloween is Friday this year. I know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn 33:09

That's for the for the bars, that'll be great. Um, anybody else watched the uh the old Disney Sleepy Hollow? That was one of my favorites.

Craig 33:17

Oh.

Shawn 33:17

With with the animated, and it's about it's about half an hour long, and Bing Crosby narrated it. Yeah, and it was very scary for it's what what it was. For what it was. The old Disney, it's you can you can watch it. It's on your Disney, and it's just it's it's like half an hour, it's animated, and the stuff with the headless horseman at the end is just so well done. Yes, where he's going across the bridge. And it's just kicking.

Craig 33:39

Actually, no, I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah. Because that later on you get that whole like Lord of the Rings thing, too, scene where you, you know.

Shawn 33:46

That's right with the wraiths. Yes, exactly.

Craig 33:48

And that that just m made me think of that. I was terrified of that, that bloody bridge thing.

Shawn 33:52

Yeah, that's what I mean. I was too. That's my first sort of Halloween recollection of watching something that was Disney, and they did it so well.

Susie 34:00

To leave my street, there were two bridges to get it.

Shawn 34:03

Something to hide hide under.

Susie 34:04

It's just like, oh my god, run! Just run across it, and then go.

Shawn 34:08

Just in terms of Dracula, the character of Dracula, just a few people uh that have played him. So Max Shrek, Bella Legosi, of course, with Universal did all those great monster movies. Christopher Lee with the hammer films in the 70s, Frank Langello, uh, Jack Pallants. Can you believe that? Jack Pallance from City Slickers. City Slickers, the old guy, right? Like, can you imagine him being Dracula back in the day? Uh, you got um John Carradine, Al Lewis from the Munsters. That was the old guy from the Munsters. Yeah. Gary Ullman, who's my favorite. I mean, I think he was the best. Nick Cage, Leslie Nielsen. Oh my god. You got Gerard, Gerard Butler, Luke Evans, Richard Roxbury's great. Um, you got Lon Cheney back in the old day, and then of course you got Adam Sandler and the animated uh animated series that they do, the Transylvania Hotel Transylvania series. So, like there's so and that's not even like I could have done another 20 names. That's just for Dracula. That's not vampires or that's just for the character of Dracula. So here's here's Bram and and and the Impaler. I mean, they would have no idea that their legacy would go on like something like this for centuries.

Susie 35:15

Totally.

Tim Burton And Perfect Weird

Shawn 35:15

I mean, and it's still every year there's a vent there's a Dracula movie being made. Every year they're like so it's like the hottest property, man. It never goes away. And think about we didn't even talk about Twilight. We didn't even talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like it's it's a constant in our pop culture. It's it's a rock, he's a rock star. He's better than any superhero. Look at all the things he can turn into a bat, he can turn into rats, he can control people, hypnotize them. He's got every kind of power you could possibly imagine. He's the coolest. Yeah, yeah, God. I wished I was a vampire. I'll just say another another one of my favorite things about Halloween is Tim Burton. Because, you know, he's really, for the last 30 years, been Mr. Halloween for me, and I don't know if you guys, um Nightmare Before Christmas. I have to watch that. I love that. I love Beetlejuice. Yeah, I love all of the things that he's created for Halloween. Um, I mean, he's just wouldn't you agree?

Craig 36:15

Yeah, he's uh yeah, I'm not a Tim Burton fan, but that's just me. Oh well, fuck. Yeah. But that's not to say that I don't it's not to say that I don't appreciate what he does. Like when I remember watching Beetlejuice for the first time, I was just like I don't get it. Like, fuck me, yeah. Like what what it was like I uh it it's one part scary, but one part it's not comedy, but it is comedy. I don't even know what the hell it is. I guess that's a unique genre that Tim Burton's. I would say it's comedy.

Shawn 36:44

I would say it's comedy and dark comedy.

Craig 36:47

Dark comedy, I don't know. Is it that's that's the thing. Yeah, it is.

Susie 36:50

I just I thought Edward Scissor Hands was pretty funny.

Craig 36:52

I love Edward Scissorhands.

Shawn 36:53

Yeah, I love that imagination. I know what I'm gonna get when I I'm watching Tim Burton. Tim Burton, yeah. Yeah, you're gonna get that stop animation stuff he does, which is incredible. Yeah, that that like the time that it takes to do that stuff, like they did Nightmare Before Christmas, all the stop animation, and the music's great in that movie, too. Your daughters would probably agree with me wherever they are.

Craig 37:15

No, I could totally appreciate it. I also had what's her name in it? She uh Tim Burton really liked to have Catherine O'Hara Winona Reiner. Winona Ryder.

Susie 37:23

Oh, well, goth. They're goth, he's got and Helen Bonema Carter. Yeah, they got married. Yeah.

Shawn 37:29

Oh, yeah. So she's in a lot of his stuff too.

Craig 37:31

Yeah. Yeah. And she's amazing. I mean, she always elevated him.

Shawn 37:35

Oh, she's incredible.

Susie 37:36

With a side of like weird.

Craig 37:38

Well, no, but perfect weird. Like I always like I could adjust.

Shawn 37:41

Well, hey, he traumatized your daughters, at least, right? For you. So with with the uh uh Mars Mars and what's that? Well attack on Mars, Mars attacks attacks.

Craig 37:51

I didn't even know that was a Tim Burton flip. Oh, yeah, that's those are signature.

Susie 37:55

They were fucking terrified. Yeah, they didn't go downstairs.

Shawn 37:59

Yeah, well, there you go. So I don't know, I don't know. That's their movie. That's our Salem's lot.

Craig 38:04

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. And and I couldn't understand it because we never watched it. Well, I know I I I had seen it before. I owned the video, like the DVD, and I think it was given to me, I think, anyway. I didn't purposely go out and buy it. But I remember watching it, and I'm like, okay, there's some aliens and their eyes get all buggy and they, you know, they start turning on, you know, humans and stuff like this. But I'm like, okay, I didn't think of much of it, but when I watched them uh watch it for the first time, and they lost their shit.

Susie 38:36

Yeah, and they didn't do that easily.

Craig 38:38

They were like physically uncomfortable, like they they had to get up, walk around, get out. I'm like, I don't get this.

Susie 38:44

Yeah, it was interesting.

Clowns It And Horror As Escape

Craig 38:45

But it's funny what what what you know everyone has their own unique thing. It's like for me, it was like fucking clowns. I I could never see it.

Shawn 38:53

So you are you have you seen it?

Craig 38:56

I I've seen it so many years ago.

Shawn 38:59

Like the but the new one.

Craig 39:00

But I walked out, I stopped watching. I had I didn't want anything to do with it.

Shawn 39:04

It's it's the new one, it's very good and it's very scary. Okay. Yeah, the one that it's on Netflix right now, you can watch it. I can I might watch it tonight. It's very well done. But it is if you don't like clowns, then I wouldn't go near it, dude. Right. It is it is so good. Uh Skarsgard, is it uh Bill Skarsgard, who also played Nosferatu in the new Nosferatu movie. So there's a connection there, but he plays Pennywise in it. And yeah, there's some visuals in that that are incredible. So if you want to just take yourself, sometimes I want to go there because I'm so caught up in my fucking mundane, stressful life. You know what I mean? I'm so tired of my complaints in my head and my that I I want to go, shut up! Watch a scary clown, asshole. That'll take you out of there. Fuck meditation.

Susie 39:56

Let's try something different.

Shawn 39:57

And and it just you jump right out of there, go, ooh. Yeah, yeah, it's well done. That's a great, great movie. And there's a new show coming out about dairy and it and all that uh on HBO. And so there you go. October 26th.

Craig 40:10

Have you ever seen it?

Susie 40:12

No. I I didn't love the scary movies uh either, but um but now I appreciate more get me out of my mundane book.

Shawn 40:21

There's some good horror films now. It's actually a really golden age. I mean, if I can use that, I don't know, but for horror movies right now, like they're they're big business because people aren't people are going to see horror movies because of the time we live in. They they want to see horror movies. They don't want to see comedies. They don't want to see like they won't pay, like they they don't they don't get made.

Craig 40:41

Rom coms are dead, probably.

Susie 40:43

They'll wait for those they'll wait for those to be streamed.

Landlines Made When A Stranger Calls

Shawn 40:45

Well, most of them just go to streaming now, comedies. Like they don't even get released in a theater, which I hate. I'd love to see comedies. But horror movies are big business because they go to the younger people. Interesting. And but they're really well written right now. Um, you know, with a lot of the stuff they're doing, they're they're big. With the Jordan Peel stuff um and the grindhouse stuff, and so yeah, and Nasferatu, which came out, I guess, a couple years ago or a year ago. That was huge. I mean, it was massive. How about um the calls coming from inside your house? Well, that's that okay, great. Yes, right?

Craig 41:19

I watched that with one of the most quotable lines of all time in horror history. Yeah, yeah. I watched that with I think with my mother. I was I was like glued to her, but so glued to the TV because it was genius.

Shawn 41:31

And then when you a babysitter, because that that's when a stranger calls, right?

Susie 41:34

Yeah, that and so I babysat. I oh oh sorry, did I mix the movie?

Shawn 41:38

No, it's called When a Stranger Calls, yeah, yeah, isn't it?

Craig 41:41

No, it's I think you're right. I always always thought it was called the babysitter.

Shawn 41:45

Uh no, I think it's called When a Stranger Calls, and it was you're right in the seven late 70s, early 80s.

Susie 41:50

Early 80s, I think.

Shawn 41:51

Yeah.

Susie 41:51

Because I was already I was babysitting.

Shawn 41:53

She's tracing the call, babysitting, like you were.

Susie 41:55

But that's the part, and there's no parents there, and the kids are sleeping, and so I like I would never watch anything like that.

Shawn 42:01

Have you checked the children? Yeah. Have you checked the children? Yeah. That's the over and over again.

Craig 42:07

So if for those people who don't remember ever having landlines, but you know, landlines were really interesting because you know, you could pick up a phone and then another room, you pick up the phone and you can he listen in, you know, you sometimes do that. You're like just quietly listen to someone's conversation. You but but you always felt that it was just, you know, you're safe within your home. And so when they said that exact phrase, like, have you checked on the children? The babysitter looks up the stairs, and then like a door opens and you see the light from that room. I that's what I remember.

Shawn 42:43

And it was like, oh I can't remember the details, but nowadays you just what star 69, the guy right away. That's his cell phone to be ringing upstairs. That's right. Oh shit, I didn't mute it. That's right. Oh, fuck, you FaceTime, you do whatever.

Craig 42:56

I mean, it's not the But you don't have that with cell phones, like like the cell phones that you know the whole, you know, that's what I mean. It's all safe, safe.

Shawn 43:02

You can't pick up on a line, it's just you had to get somebody to trace the call, right? Like it was a big operation.

Susie 43:08

And you didn't ignore the phone, the landline when it rang. Well, that's the other thing. You wouldn't pick it up. You picked it up, but now nobody picks up. I don't answer that. I don't know that number. I don't know who that is. Text me. Yeah.

Shawn 43:20

Text me. It would be all tax nowadays, it'd be if you check the children.

Craig 43:23

So the thing is, like, uh no surprise, you're you're a cinema guy.

Shawn 43:28

Um he call me? A cinnamon guy? What does that mean? Is that some weird thing?

Halloween Firecrackers And Roman Candle Wars

Craig 43:35

No, cinema, cinema guy. Okay, so you're a cinema guy. Uh so the Halloween and these movies are are are your world. For me, uh what really every time I think of Halloween was a kid, it was it was firecrackers and fireworks. And that's the shit that I got into. And we would go into, we would go downtown to Chinatown and go buy those bricks of firecrackers. You know, the ones that you know in the red package. Oh, yeah, and they And you lit them and then it would just you know cause a chain reaction of explosions.

Shawn 44:04

That week of school was was like that's all you would hear.

Craig 44:07

That's all you would hear. And that's and and it was all about, you know, because it was illegal, but you would find a way, oh, I've got a guy, you know, and you'd buy it and you'd buy it. So if you had a a brick, I remember them calling them a brick of firecrackers, you were like the coolest dude on the planet. And they were totally different from fireworks, you know. You can still get fireworks today. I don't think you can get firecrackers anymore.

Shawn 44:29

What about the Roman candle wars up at the the school on the field? Yeah. I mean, how stupid is that? Yeah. Oh, you know shooting off fireworks at each other. It's still the garbage can lid. You'd have a garbage can lid and a Roman candle, and you'd go, This is the best night of my life.

Craig 44:43

I know, big freaking ball of wax, burning wax coming at you.

Susie 44:47

It still happens down here. People down here, there's lots of firework displays.

Craig 44:52

And uh, I mean, they're not No, they're not, there's no wars going on, though. Yeah, not like the old days. And I remember we'd get these uh because we're not out.

Susie 45:00

Well, fair enough.

Shawn 45:00

Yeah. I was like Vietnam, man, up there, dude. The field. Because I know I was there. You were there.

Susie 45:06

Field right over there could be happening. That could be happening.

Shawn 45:09

And it will be happening. This Halloween, I'm there. That's why I said Friday night. Bring it on. I'll be standing in the middle of the field with a garbage can and a Roman candle.

Craig 45:18

But we would experiment and try different things, like we get the screecheroos. You remember the screecheroos? Yeah. Right? You lie there. Those the ones that screech? Yeah, those ones that screech. Right, yes, I do remember those. You know, and then and and then but that's right, that's the better sound. And I but working on that one. What you would do is you would bring a hammer or or or find a rock and you would pound the screecheroo, and and so you pack it down. And so instead of screeching, it turns into basically a mini bomb. And you that's when that's when that's things get messed.

Shawn 45:51

Do you have all your fingers?

Craig 45:52

That's right.

Susie 45:53

You got burned this year.

Craig 45:54

The number of the amount of pain I've received, but I never I was so afraid of the screech room after being at Pound because it would it was like uh what did they call them? The M or those M8.

Susie 46:06

I wasn't as into fireworks as you someone did the firework display at the bonfire.

Shawn 46:13

I would just go to the dances we would go to try to hook up with chicks.

Craig 46:17

I didn't do the firework display. Well, there's Craig in the corner of the forest pounding screecheroos.

Shawn 46:22

And if Vlad was around, he'd he'd stick a Roman candle up your ass. That's right. Light it off. Oh man, that's brutal.

Susie 46:29

Miss your organs and blow your head.

Full Size Bars And Getting Older

Shawn 46:31

The good old days, candy, fireworks, then all of that stuff is Bonfires and banking. I'm gonna sound like the old guy now, but all of that stuff's gone pretty much. Well, and the candy's still there, I guess.

Craig 46:41

But not the candied apples.

Shawn 46:42

Remember, we used to get those like before the razor blades.

Craig 46:45

Yes, that's right.

Shawn 46:46

Even if you got a razor blade, I eat around it.

Craig 46:49

So we liked to go trick-or-treating in the British properties. Oh, because you got all the good shit. Oh, they would sell that not sell. They wouldn't have the full chocolate, full-size chocolate bars. Yeah. Not the minis.

Shawn 47:00

And the British properties, they would hand out caviar. Like, like, and you'd be like, oh, thanks. Is this beluga? Oh, wonderful.

Susie 47:07

And a sparkling finish to cleanse your palate.

Shawn 47:11

Fresh aged brie. And anyways. Craig's favorite. Well, I mean, now we just gotta sit back and uh and and let the kids handle it. Yeah. And that's where I'll be sitting here watching children. Does that sound weird? Yeah.

Craig 47:27

Now as I get older, I you know it's fun for the first little while when the kids know trick or treat.

Susie 47:33

How long you got? How long do you think?

Shawn 47:35

You're answering the door, right? There's no way he's answering the door.

Susie 47:39

20 minutes of fun.

Shawn 47:40

Yeah, I'll do it once. And then he's like, oh, okay, I'm done. I'm gonna go.

Craig 47:44

And then I get grumpy.

Shawn 47:45

Here's an idea. Why don't you guys impale a bunch of stuff on the lawn, dude? I think that's what we're gonna have to do. Like a bunch of mannequins and like and like do the Vlad the Impaler themed thing. And then Craig, you can educate them about it when they walk up.

Susie 47:59

Yeah.

Craig 48:00

Yeah.

Shawn 48:00

Just an idea. Great idea, actually. Let's start impaling tonight.

Craig 48:08

And I'll give them a lesson. I'll have a microphone. That's what I mean.

Shawn 48:12

We can just open up the window and do a podcast and have them come through. Let's do it. We can do the candy right through the window here. Well, that would be that would be fun. Now we're going, dude. Let's do that. Let's do uh what are you doing? It'd be like an open house uh podcast, and uh there you go. You can't get a better experience.

Craig 48:32

I think that's a great idea.

Susie 48:33

We could try it, it would be fun.

Craig 48:38

Are you happy with your pay increase?

Shawn 48:41

Yeah, we're still gonna go over those numbers because you know, I'm not sure. It doesn't check out.

Susie 48:46

He got a pay increase.

Shawn 48:47

Let's be honest, we don't get I got a cup of coffee.

Susie 48:50

Yeah, hey, and a sip of gin.

Shawn 48:53

I did get a sip of gin. Very, very true. Good to see you guys. Good to see you too. All right.

Susie 48:58

That was fun.

Shawn 48:59

All right.

Susie 49:00

What would Dracula say?

Shawn 49:02

I have crossed oceans of eternity to see you. I don't know.

New Theme Song Fight To Close

Craig 49:24

Okay, we are recording and I'm gonna play for you. We're not gonna ent in intro it as our song, but I want to play it for you. Okay. Just to tell me it's a little bit different.

Shawn 49:36

Uh so this is a new opening song?

Craig 49:40

Yeah, well, we're what I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to play around with a new theme song for my this other podcast that I want to do. Um thank god. But uh I don't know what what I did it I also thought, you know what, I could use this for this one.

Shawn 49:57

Yeah, we'll see.

Craig 49:58

And well, that's a thing. So I what I think but I think it's great you're branching out.

Shawn 50:06

No, I hate it. I can't remember the old song right now. So I I can't remember. Yeah.

Craig 50:18

Anyway, the idea is that it it it's a it's a backgrounds theme song, you know, where you can talk over it. Yeah. Don't know if don't know if it'll work.

Susie 50:27

It's lighthearted.

Shawn 50:28

Little I like, I mean, I think it's good that you you made it, but I think it's a little mellow. Yeah? I don't know. That's a thing. That's bad. That's the shit. Yeah. That's what I'm used to. Don't change things. I'm fucking 50, dude. Fucking what? You out of your mind?

Craig 50:48

I'm sorry.

Shawn 50:49

Every week I'm gonna write a new song. No, I like the old one.

Susie 50:55

Every week I'm gonna say no.

Shawn 50:59

Hey, move your basket.