A Geek History of Time - Episode 312 - White Wolf Part I Vampires and Mass Care Aids

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before but it involves a language that uses pronunciation That's different from Latin it and so you have no idea how to say it properly an intensely 80s post-apocalyptic Schlock film and schlong film, you know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers Okay, so so the Resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low Earth orbit. There is no rational. Blame it on me after.

And you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. Where I am. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No. Which I don't know if that's better. I mean you guys are Catholics. You tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about

That basically just means that I can show up and get fed This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher at the middle school level here in Northern, California And I'm I'm very very happy with the fact that for the last few days I have been able to get around with a notably lower level of discomfort That I've had for a while. I wound up I did something to Attendant in my in my right hip back in June and it's been off and on, getting better and getting worse, getting better and getting

worse. I went to my doctor in August and he said, oh yeah, no, this is bursitis, which was like, thanks for calling me me old doc. That's awesome Got and got an x-ray that confirmed that you know apparently I have I am beginning to develop arthritis in that joint Which is like oh lovely Just you know remind me that my 50th birthday is coming up. Why don't you? But you know it was getting better and then I get worse get better get worse and the stretches He was giving me were doing nothing and I would be it took me Four months basically to finally get a referral to a physical therapist

Went to the physical therapist physical therapist had me do some movements, and you know tested out my mobility my strength went Oh, yeah, no this isn't your this isn't your bursa at all This is this is the tendon for your gluteus medius So here are some exercises you're gonna do and yeah stretching doesn't do shit And I spent four months like doing trying to do these stretches and on the one hand I felt so vindicated on the other Hand I was so pissed like this could have been fixed five months ago, but the good news is I've been doing that and it's working. So I am recovering and hopefully by the time

my new sword gets here in the summer, I will be able to sword fight with it again. So yeah, that's on the good news front from me. How about you, sir? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern, California and I Actually, I'm just going to tell you about this new toy that I got I'm gonna hold it up and hopefully it'll show on the screen

Let's see if I can not so much sadly. Yeah, it's Nothing okay, that's not a remarkable tenfold. Ooh Is that Are they trying to lift it up enough that it'll catch the light the right way? Yeah, no, is that is that card stock like it's card stock and it's of a let's see if you can either you go to this station Yes, so this is free five hours game. Yes Nice. Yes, so the kids don't kids' fire wars game. Yes. Nice. Yes, so the kids don't know this yet,

but they are going to be liberating a space station. And I was like, I'm going to make it really big on that. And then they're going to work their way back to the ship, because William's character is becoming a fighter pilot, and Julia's character is doing the the auto canoning no nice so and Eventually, hopefully I can get her over into the ships too, and they can both be pilots so Bitch Camaro man. That's awesome. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that's a that's a geek dad win right there. Yes, that's yes Freaking cool man. Yeah, so very nice. That's that's my big news so nice. Yeah

So I got a question for you, okay Out of all of the I'm gonna say classic classic movie monsters, uh-huh Which one for you is most I don't know resonates most with you Like are you a werewolf guy? Are you a mummy guy? Are you a vampire guy like what? So like which one do I vibe with or which one like creeps me out oogs me out scares me either all of the above okay? Um I've always dug werewolves for some reason like maybe it's my mammal bias Yeah, I tend not to like Cat type creatures. I don't like predators that are

Dedicated Yeah, but and I understand that several cats hunt in in small packs just like wolves do yeah But yeah, I tend toward werewolves As far as those classic You know like 1930s Warner Brothers. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I guess I would go with that Okay, yeah, okay, and I agree with you Generally speaking I'm I'm more of a werewolf guy uh-huh but the reason I ask that question is because of a werewolf guy uh-huh um but

the reason I ask that question is because over the course of Several episodes I am going to be looking at White wolf games and the various games that that fall under the umbrella of the world of darkness Okay, these are systems. I've ever played so no well they sort of are oh because you've played Scion and Scion involved some crazy math about like you know number of dice number of successes like you know your rank three So you're actually like rolling eight dice or whatever that whole thing Your rank three so you're actually like rolling eight dice or whatever that whole thing

Fucked with my head sure but the but the basic idea behind I have this many dots in this thing and I have this many dots and in this other thing and I combine them to figure Out you know how good I am at something that is that is the storyteller system It's a variation on the storyteller system. Okay, which is the system for? the world of darkness games oh First one of those games Was vampire the masquerade I? Remembered knowing people who played that and thinking wow you're the exact person that would play that There is there there is a bit of a type there yes

May I describe? Go ahead. Slightly balding, usually tallish, porcely, looks like maybe they peaked in middle school physically, and like, very pasty usually, and really like the sexuality aspect of it and are people you don't want to think of in that way in any way, probably send you emails in character

and prone to enjoying LARPing. Oh, and probably have not one, but at least two different overcoats. Oh, and probably have not one, but at least two different overcoats. Wow. I. OK, that there is there is certainly that stereotype that does go along. Oh, and they probably have a hat that like is reminiscent of the movie the shadow

Man you you had you had to bring the hat thing into it So here's the deal I and now that you've done that I have to get this off my chest So the internet has spent an awful lot of time shitting on fedoras Right, okay, and the thing is The hat that most of those guys wear isn't actually a fedora Okay, because what they're wearing most of the time is a trilby Which I'm a hat nerd on top of everything else and a trilby is Like a fedora only it has a much smaller brim on it Okay, or it tends to have a wider brim a fedora only it has a much smaller brim on it, okay?

Or it tends to have a wider brim a fedora looks better on Somebody with a broader physique a trilby looks really good on a tall skinny guy Frank Sinatra could could rock and did rock a trilby really well, okay? Being Crosby there's photos of him wearing one Fred Astaire. You know But but because of its Shape trill be a trill be has been confused with a fedora And and so all of these guys wearing these hats

Are don't don't have the shape of face or as you've described the shape of body that really goes with wearing that hat. OK. And and and a trilby's are easier to easier to get ahold of and generally less expensive. and the line that that I've heard about Wearing that hat with the wrong head and body shape that has stuck with me is Wearing that hat Makes it if you have the wrong head shape makes it look like the reservoir tip on a condom Yeah, I can see and and as somebody who

owns and Occasionally wears an actual fedora The fedora got a bad rap because of that and I and I need to I need to get that off my chest now Okay, that up. I would point out that the fedora though. It may have gotten a bad rap. Yeah doesn't matter It's I don't care if the swastika was a sign of good good health And good fortune. It's been ruined. Yeah, I basically the same kind of guy so Similar yeah, yeah I think we all just need to move to pork pies and call it good like

Although those have basically been ruined by guys with harmonicas, so why guys thinking they're playing the blues So really maybe just no hats, you know or or maybe like the straw hat or the what were those hats from the 20s? Where they? boaters no no no like it looked like a It's not I don't think it's a straw hat, but like it looks like a very light I'd have to see a picture because there's there's a bunch of stuff that was going on at that time Maybe we all just wear bowlers. I could I could go with that. Yeah You know because if you go out in public wearing a top hat you're asking to get guillotined

So yeah anyway teen um so yeah anyway um we're getting off the subject and it's all and it's entirely my fault I recognize that but um so the the the first game that came out in in the world of darkness was vampire the masquerade okay and I want to talk a little bit about vampires and the way that vampires were Perceived okay in public imagination before we get to talking about the game sure so And now we have to set the way back machine to a long long time ago okay and I there was an attempt by professor

Maxwell on tik-tok who I'm sure you follow yes the classics professor from I don't remember which which college somebody had written into him saying hey what what are the classical roots of the vampire? And he did his level best to, to try to find that. And he came back, essentially he kind of, he said, there, there really isn't a classical route for this. Right. Um, but the Greeks, uh, had the myth of the Lamia. And that was a monster that in very early stories was a devourer of children Right and then in later stories it became something of a nocturnal

Evil spirit that seduced men and then devoured them, right? And so we see kind of a template Of sorts for a vampire, but as far as anybody has been able to really pin down The earliest recorded story of a vampire as we would recognize it today Is written in old Russian? And dates to the early 11th century By the way relatively recent historically speaking. Yeah. Yeah, um by the way a Lamia in Latin Specifically drank children's blood. Oh

Really? Yes Yeah So interesting it's also something for which a kind of owl and a kind of Flatfish were named. I have no idea why But yeah, you know now in it's absolutely sir, you know, yeah bizarre but but it's also absolutely taken from the Greek It literally shows it's a first declension noun and it comes from and then it gives all the Greek letters lambda alpha mu Yoda alpha

And so yeah, and it's just it which is one of the few times where it's like Oh, they just took the word and copied it right over. La mia is La mia Yeah, so there was no there was no no need. Yeah, it's like name Apollo Yeah, it just like oh you mean the Sun. Yeah. Yeah. Here you go. Yeah, whereas in the in the ancient Greek, it was a, yeah, it fed on a man's flesh. That's different than sucking children's blood. Yes. So yeah, sometime across the Mediterranean,

as that word came over to Magna Graeca, the need changed. Yeah. So now the earliest English language speaking reference in media that we find of vampire states to 1732. When reports of vampire hysteria in Serbia and Wallachia, which is part of modern day Romania, and he was a Dracula fan will recognize Wallachia. Yes. There there was a vampire hysteria that had been ongoing by this time and

continued for over a decade, almost two decades after this, in Serbia and Wallachia. And and so word of that reached Britain. And so the first time we hear vampire Mentioned in English media at least that we can that we can pin down and say that's the word It's 1732 and it's in reports of this stuff going on in Central Europe You know, that's also the birth year of George Washington Huh? Yeah So Washington is as old as the English word for vampire. Yeah, that's interesting

So and it's it's in these stories that the anglophone world was introduced to the Eastern European lore of undead blood-sucking creatures mm-hmm Now the hysteria had started in 1725 and there were two very well documented cases in which one of them, and I don't have the names here in my notes, but there was there was a case of there was a there was a man who had died at age 62 and He had been reported to have shown up and visited his son and

like you know around dusk or something and he had asked his son for food and his son Obviously kind of freaked out was like I don't know who you are Obviously kind of freaked out was like I don't know who you are But get the fuck out of here sure sure and then the son was found dead the following day and and Different reports talk about you know his his blood having been drained or what have you okay? and then there was another case where a And then there was another case where a young man, a soldier who years before had apparently been attacked by what was rumored to be a vampire had died and people in and around his village had begun dying mysteriously. And so these these two cases are are are we're investigated by authorities

There's documentation of them like a lot of whole lot of stuff from official sources was written down And then this led to a kind of coming and going of these waves of Epidemics of vampire attacks Going on often in rural communities Sure in the the Austrian Habsburg kind of territories, okay Now just real quick. Let me pull it back a couple of centuries from there. Yeah Yeah, so you said 1732 is first mention of it, but it goes back to 1725

Yes, the hysteria started in 1725 as far as we can tell. Yeah, so you said 1732 is first mention of it, but it goes back to 1725 Yes, the hysteria started in 1725 as far as we can tell. Yeah, so How does this differ enough from like William of Norwich? The little boy that was kind of the first considered to be the first blood libel in English hysteria like right because blood libel has been going on since like the eleven hundreds in terms of I would say white people freaking out but I mean I mean Christians people freaking out yeah yeah anti-semitic as hell and so like that that goes all the way back to like the mid eleven hundreds so I'm just curious like that pre-dates actually doesn't predate

I was gonna say I was gonna say it predates William the Conqueror, but I got my dates mixed up Yeah, but it's it's within I want to say the first or second kingship that come off a him Eleven yeah, yeah, it's very early yeah, Easter of 1144 so and Then you start to see shit like yeah, I'd say the third okay I'm trying to remember whether that that might have actually been during the anarchy Trying to remember when when the anarchy I gotta look that up now cuz that's definitely nuts and in in a circumstance

Like the anarchy that would have been Yeah, the anarchy was going on that the anarchy started in 1138 okay and ran through 1153 so That's when that sits in that time. Yeah, yeah, so that's Stephen and Matilda fighting over control of the country. I was going to say Stephen. Okay. Yeah. So, okay, so you got that and then you start to see that shit happen like as a precursor

to just about every crusade as well. Like it was like the warm up fight. Well sometimes a precursor and sometimes as like the opening act Maybe I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily say precursor You know because you know urban got up and gave his speech and write the the massacres occurred as the as the crusading Movement you know got going sure So I mean we can quibble over the semantics on that but like right I get I get your point And the thing is there's no

clear indication in these stories that there was any kind of Religious or ethnic kind of paranoia, okay So it was not like children being sacrificed for sacred rights or anything like that. It was just Wanton devouring. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It is interesting though that like it's children. It's Bloody it's it feels, you know, it's it feels like it is absolutely pulling on a thing that's already a known myth Yeah, there's a so I yeah, I think there's like if we could get a Psychology But like if we were to you know talk to a

Psychologist or psychiatrist about it. You know I'm sure there's there's you know all kinds of you know subconscious themes of you know bloodsucking being tied to vitality and life force and children and you know sense and the symbolism involved in all of that and you know I mean also like looking at like rural anti-semitism and then start noting where it's located like you said Eastern Europe, so that's kind of a crossroads of multiple kinds of Christianity the funny thing there and and this is this is Sort of a hot take based on based on my understanding of the demographics sure The the extent to which the rural population

Would have had anybody to target to be anti-semitic Because because generally speaking what we see or at least what what I what I have seen in in all the sources i've i've gotten You know i've studied has been that the massacres and the and the you know discrimination against all the all the shit that Jewish populations in Europe had to put up with was very heavily urbanized it was

Tending tending to happen in in towns where there was an established, you know ghetto that they were required to be in. And the number of Jewish people living in rural circumstances in these territories, my understanding is it was much lower as a percentage, if that makes sense. Understanding is it was much lower as a percentage if that makes sense Yeah, I'm not saying that rural people weren't anti-semitic in this time period I'm just saying I don't know how many Jewish people they had to target with it Well, it's it's one of those things like like currently, you know people living in Alaska are really worried about California's southern border Oh, yeah It has that same vibe of like In Alaska are really worried about California's southern border. Oh

Yeah, you know so it has that same vibe of like you care about this way out of proportion to what your experience is and Therefore you are freaked out to such an extent that You you make up you make up monsters based on those stereotypes It kind of it sounds like it's doing that and again, I look at Because while there was farms you're talking largely serfs living on Nobles like I'm writing to that. Okay, yeah but so now you're talking money people and you're talking and you start to think about like all of the the immediate go-to's for anti-semitism about oh, yeah shadowy power and Draining us dry and on all this kind of stuff which had yeah been in Europe for a long time

Especially on the continent for a long long time not saying it wasn't in England as well I think right after the lion hard got Coronated he expelled a fuck ton of Jews from London. That was like one of his first moves. Trying to remember if that was Richard or if that was Henry. I wanna say it was, yeah. I don't remember, but yeah.

But more to the point, especially if we're looking at Eastern Europe, Eastern continental Europe, it's much more of a crossroads of multiple kinds of Christianity after a certain point. It's also you've got Islam, you've got Judaism, you've got a lot of people moving through there. It's got a more recent history of being conquered by others.

And so you could draw on all those things to make up the boogeyman and to lead to hysteria But it seems to all have the same basic features as A lot of the anti-semitism that we see in continental Europe So yeah in the region the region that we're talking about here when you talk about, you know conquest The region that we're talking about had only recently become hopsburg territory Okay, the result of a war so that is definitely something that's that's in in the water. You know sure background And so anyway this this hysteria

Kept you know coming it kind of stayed at some level in the background sure until the 1750s there was a there was a treatise written by a by a prominent theologian in 1751 That you know talked about this is this is all of the evidence that we have for you know vampires and whatever and Voltaire actually wrote a response to it Wow And volt hair of course was critical of the whole thing saying this is all nonsense and this Apparently his his take on the treatise Was that this person is is you know trying to support the idea that vampires are real and this is obvious nonsense like you know

This is the boy But there were there were other folks that that you know who were equally they haven't come down to us in history the same way Voltaire's name has but they were at the time bleeding lights of a thing, you know And so, you know In in this period of hysteria in these rural areas what this what this led to was widespread digging up of corpses And they would look for signs of vampirism, you know frequently the assumption would be it was it was somebody who had recently been buried and they would dig up the corpse and they would look for signs of is this a vampire and things like

elongated teeth Nails and hair that had continued to grow geez oh my god. I oh Oh my god. I'm so frustrated already and and blood around uh the mouth and the eyes Which which let me guess um, these are all normal things that happen to corpses as they putrefy Yes Not only that but like you have total confirmation bias like I think we should dig that one up specifically and it's like We were right and it's like, okay Did you dig up like a control case? No, shut the fuck up then like well remember why are you dunking me in this chair?

Why am I drowning for saying this what yeah, I mean this is absolutely how I would have died Phrase absolutely to paraphrase Mel Brooks. You have to remember These are people of the land Common clay of Central Europe You know morons Come on you're expecting these people to utilize the scientific come on. Yeah, what did you expect? examine multiple corpses

Come on now. I mean duh No, that's the one we buried last week He's got to be the one doing this right like wait like who died how many people actually anyway, right? But you know it's suspicious and then again, so you know sure enough longer This elongated teeth yeah coming out of the eyes the man we found you know, we found the one Yeah, and then and maybe he's working with someone else. We should dig them up too. Oh, they were working together Of course, you know, it's like you thank you Senator McCarthy. Yes It's you know what it feels like it's like only a step removed from like somebody buried a body in the cemetery

like I Knew it Yeah, it's it's the he named juniper bushes grow. It's of course the juniper bushes It's a juniper, but you know juniper berries. It's a juniper tree. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and and you know How many how many of the special white spotted red mushrooms have you guys been eating right? I know we are we sure there hasn't been any weird fungus getting into the ride. We're eating our bread, you know So so I'm surprised we made it out. Yeah Lord What this led to you know was they dig these bodies up and find these signs of

Emperism and then you know to ritually decapitate him drive a steak through the heart stuff the stuff the mouth full of garlic And then you know Potentially burn them or rebury them you know depending But eventually the Habsburg Empress Maria to race Finally was like okay look this is causing chaos. This is this is craziness she sent her personal physician to the region to do an investigation and He put a stake in the whole thing

Laws laws got made forbidding the exhumation of corpses the superstition was was the panic about the superstition was laid to rest and Hysteria died down. Mm-hmm mostly so to look at the real-world situation here in 1725 Charles the third was Holy Roman Emperor, okay, and He had fought a war to try to take control of not only his Austrian territories, but Spain as well Just remember the Habsburgs had been you know the family that controlled all of this right? And he lost I'm simplifying things in a big way

He had no mail air And up until this point in time The Habsburg territories had followed the Salic law, which had said nobody, no descendant through the female line can inherit and no woman can inherit the throne. Okay. So there was at the highest level of society, therefore, for a number of years kind of early in his reign there was this insecurity about the line of succession and the potential

for chaos if this wasn't resolved what year was were you saying Charles III was taking Charles III he was in control in 1725 when the hysteria came out, okay He had he had put forth a law in 1713 Eliminating the Salic law so he set this thing out saying we're getting rid of the Salic law My daughter is gonna inherit from me. Okay The reason I ask is because like in like the seven I want to say seven it was the king of Spain up until like right before the French

Revolution was also a Charles the third Yeah, oh, yeah, Charles is fucking every Phillips fucking everywhere. Yeah. Yeah And again, they're full there one way or another descended or descended from a related to the Habsburgs. So like right? Yeah, it's crazy Okay, so he passed a sapphic law saying that women Scissors there you go. Yeah So he he vacated the Salak law Which you know? He didn't bar it he didn't do a Salak bar. No, okay, no

But he was addressing there was no dressing yeah, there's no no dressing on it They did address it, but yes, right, right So so he he set word out to everybody that my daughter Maria. Terese is gonna be the one to take over Okay, which was a pretty revolutionary kind of idea at the time sure and In a world that was as hierarchical as it was, sure. You can kind of understand how there would be some carryover of, uh, anxiety or, you know, the world, the world is shifting. Well, there's people sharpening their knives there too. They're like, okay,

this is our chance. Yeah. Yeah. And so as you had mentioned earlier, the majority of peasants in the countryside at this time were serfs They would remain so until the 1780s right and vampire epidemics occurred most frequently in the countryside sure and At this time Austria was fighting a whole series of wars They fought in the Ottoman Venetian War seven fourteen seventeen fourteen to seventeen eighteen War of the Quadruple Alliance seventeen eighteen seventeen twenty war of the Polish succession 1733 1738 and the Russo-Turkish War 1735 to 1739 so

They're they're they're involved in in conflict you know people in the countryside are having to send their sons off to war not knowing whether they're gonna come back you know there's always the possibility of diseases being brought back by soldiers, you know returning from warfare You know, there's there's always the potential for you know We have a new we have a new overlord now because we lost you know, so there's there's this There's this undercurrent of instability

For people living in this region during this time period and I think that that combined with the helplessness of their condition as serfs Mm-hmm would create a subconscious psychological kind of environment where this kind of hysteria would be psychological kind of environment where this kind of hysteria would be More more I don't want to say more likely, but that's the that's the phrase that comes to mind Yeah, there you go fertile ground for it sure

You know and so Thing that you you know you keep bringing back that this is Usually in rural areas right? Yeah, what is the name? the satiricicon Petronius In the satirica Roman literature from way back in the day He Basically Let's see

So it's it's it's there's this character named Trimalchio Who's this like buffoon just fucking richer than creases and just a goddamn buffoon Bragging it is hilarious. It really genuinely is But it's this this soldier who tells a story About how he went walking with a friend of his to go to his girlfriend's house Who was a slave like two farms over and he and his friend were walking down the road. And of course on the side of the road. There are tombs, right? and his if I recall his

his buddy like He told his buddy. He's like hey wait here. I'm gonna go count the the Stella the What do you call them tombstones? and he his friend notices a second later that his friend took off all his clothes and they've turned to stone. And so he runs the fuck out of there because he's like, this is scary as hell.

And he gets to, I think he gets back to either his or, or no, the soldier. His friend goes and does this and the soldier like pulls his sword out and starts slashing through the shadows and buns full-bore to his girlfriend Melissa's house and he gets there in the morning and somebody had gored their ox and like fucked up all the animals and all this kind of stuff and they they they They managed to drive the beast off and they'd slashed it and and they're like, thank god you're here and all this He's like, oh god. Well, this is fucked up. I'm sorry It was in wasn't earlier and they're like, it's okay

But like, you know, you probably want to go home now So he does he goes home and he finds his friend that he couldn't find before and I think like the clothes had turned to stone and there was a giant pool of blood there or something. But anyway, he goes back home, and the doctor is nursing his friend's wound. There's a Wersi Peles, a shapeshifter. And it's a wolf man story, essentially, because the way the things are described.

And then he and then what do you call it yeah he like there's some stories like some versions where he bays into the moonlight and stuff like that but then he gets gets back home and he says you know after that I could never eat with him and it's like yeah that's fair okay and this is all like a fictional accounting of this kind of thing. But it's interesting. Again, now it's Rome, so it could either be the city or it's gonna be, most satirical stories are rural in nature.

That's part of the genre. And so the satiric on it makes sense but again it just it clicked me that oh hey rural okay so yeah okay well and and you know with with the Romans there's the fact that like the countryside kind of spooked them out like the forest terrified them But but the countryside was not a place to be trusted. No, no, it's there's like bandits There's people who they they actually had a word for bandits that was lame worries, which is the exact same word is like ghosts was yeah Okay, and and Romans regularly admitted like I can't fucking tell if they're made up or if they're real

But like I ain't I ain't sticking around to find out like Nope like you know banditry was a big deal You know wild animals was a big deal. You know so yeah They were they were remarkably agoraphobic kind of kind of society Yeah, like like if you if if you were not surrounded by a crowd of people in a city Right. Yeah, so Sorry, so yeah, no, no, no much of instability. Yeah By the way satiricon came out when Nero was emperor

No, speaking of instability and a man who liked to dress like a wolf sometimes. Yeah Huh? Yeah funny that yeah so The So so that was the end of that wave of hysteria there and that wave of hysteria introduced this whole concept of you know the vampire into English English language media mm-hmm and interestingly

in the late 1800s There was a wave of vampire hysteria in the Northeastern United States You said the late 1800s the late 1800s 1891 was one of the documented cases Was in 18 well the Northeast so okay, so Yankee Yeah, Yankee them so we're looking at And now I'm trying to remember Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut

That's what I was trying to think of and so There's a really great episode about this in the very first season of the lore podcast, okay? And and it's it's spooky without being bad enough that wimp me is like, okay fuck that I'm out, you know but they do a really great job talking about it and in the United States This hysteria was

associated with tuberculosis oh wow because tuberculosis was this wasting disease right that seemed to suck the vitality out of out of its victims caused them to turn pale right and sickly and sweating and that was a fashion for a while wasn't it for women was yeah Because people are fucking weird hey man consumers are consumers but um Yeah, what's his name Edgar Allen Poe? I believe he was in love with a gal who had that TB style a style Yeah, you know yeah who had that TB style. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah that TB style Wow So

So the belief went around the hysteria started like perked up that you know, this was vampires Uh-huh stealing vitality and life force of consumptive people. So so In the case that's that's in in the episode of the podcast. I don't want to ruin it for anybody But the the specific story that they talk about that was part of this hysteria was a case of a man whose first wife died of consumption and He remarried and then his second wife fell ill with tuberculosis mmm, and it led to, you know, his first wife being

dug up and all of this stuff. And the hysteria in general in the Northeast followed very similar lines to the hysteria that had happened in the Habsburg territories, you know, over a century, century and a half before, which was bodies being dug up and this time it was actual medical doctors. Like the majority of medical doctors were trying to tell people, no, like we don't know how this disease works, but that's not it. But there were, like there are today, with any kind of, you know, you can find a doctor who'll tell you that, oh yeah, no, those things will cause autism in your kids.

Right. Like you can find somebody who will. Yeah, they're called functional doctors, and. No. No. Wait, so that's 1891, you're saying? 1891. Okay, so the crossover point in American history

I'm not sure about the world but in American history of whether or not a doctor seeing you Would would increase your odds of dying or decrease your odds of dying like so the crossover point to where it became a 50-50 proposition Prior to that you're probably gonna get killed get killed by this doctor. It was 1881. Really? Yeah. And it had, I mean, a lot of it had to do with germ theory, right? So like they were slow to catch on. You had Semmelweis doing his thing out in Austria, if I recall correctly.

And yes, Vienna Hospital. Yeah. But they were slow to catch on and you're you may remember in 1881 James Garfield gets shot by Charles Gatteau, right and he probably would have Probably would have survived if for the fact that they weren't all the doctors poking their fingers in Yes, stick it literally sticking their fingers in the bullet wound Yeah trying to find the bullet because you know that the Doctors poking their fingers in. Yeah, literally sticking their fingers in his bullet wound. Trying to find the bullet,

because the prevailing wisdom at the time was if you get the bullet out, then they can survive. And they're just like poking, poking, poking all summer long. Gave him sepsis. What an awful way to go. Well, and he was fat, right? Because it's the 1880s,

and he was part of that class of men. And on top of that, I think it was, oh God, what's his name, the inventor guy? It starts with an A? Yeah, Edison. Yeah, Thomas Alva Edison, Alva. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Edison kind of created a metal detector,

like developed to find the bullet. Yeah, to try to find the bullet. Which is funny, because the bullet bullets lead, but okay, okay? It you know metal detector could still detect lead Absolutely, but he's laying on a metal bed spring and you know what he accounted for that No, no, but it took that into account, right? But anyway, so crossover point is only ten years earlier So yeah, yeah, so we're in we're in an environment where this is this is again fertile ground for this kind of thing

Yeah, you're still five years away from them discovering what causes the black plague Yeah, never mind how many years it takes to people actually are like, are you sure it's not my asthma? Yeah, but okay. Yeah, so doctors are telling people I don't know how many decades away from phlogiston being disproven, but you know, which is medical science, but it's still science. Is that Ectoplasm? Optical. Yeah. Well, yeah ectoplasm Phlogiston, you know, there's the medium through which light was believed to travel. Is that part of the ether theory? Uh, yeah. Oh, okay. so that's 1927 specific. Yeah I always tell the kids this it where I teach because I'm like and just keep in mind

This is still X amount of years before we discovered that ether wasn't that air wasn't a substance Yeah, and they're like what I'm like yeah, sometimes growth happens very unevenly Yeah, oh my god, so I could I could spend more than one episode Talking about vampires in general like there's so many so many themes that they're connected to and some so much stuff Especially as often as I interrupt with It's what we do really yeah Have a specific endpoint in mind sure and vampires are kind of my my mechanism for getting there

So so we kind of get a pick up and move on but And but at another point maybe spending some time doing some research on that. Yeah, it'll be a good one But yeah, so by this time by the turn of this century Vampire lore was established and recognizable like when we when we hear the stories people are telling me like oh, yeah I know that sounds like vampires. So they're blood-sucking. They are undead Garlic steaks through the heart and and the cross, specifically, there's a strong Christian

element going on here, are all supposed to be effective at either holding them at bay or stopping them. We have now developed the idea that the victims of vampires become vampires themselves, their ability to shape shift and turn into wolves or become a mist or a cloud has been established. Their affinity with wolves and bats, the idea that they turned into a bat specifically has not shown up yet. Interesting. But their affinity with them, the children of the night what right music they make you know that that idea predates Dracula okay And sunlight interestingly is not yet lethal to them

Is that it robs them of their powers? Oh interesting okay Okay, so so and now I'm gonna talk about Dracula So Dracula was published in 1897 Bram Stoker, you know wrote it put it out there And it solidified most of these ideas in the popular imagination. It was a Massive hit it was you know and and it Every piece of vampire literature since then is somehow responding to it To Bram Stoker. Yeah Yeah, everything that's come since since 1897 is responding to Dracula in one way or another It's either emulating it or it's going no. I'm gonna take that and I'm gonna flip. I'm gonna change something up

I'm gonna you know deconstruct the trope or whatever. Okay, bram flakes bram muffins all of them are yeah, okay? Good day sir Now the idea the modern idea that sunlight kills vampires Comes from the 1922 film NOS for RATU. Okay, German expressionism Yes, which inspired a lawsuit from Stoker's widow for copyright infringement. Oh, wow Okay, and that was just the max rank right? Yeah, it was Mac Shrek. Yeah and and So so Stoker's widow sued for copyright infringement because they didn't pay her anything.

Although the film did include a credit to the novel. It said this is based on Dracula by Bram Stoker, but they never got permission to do an adaptation and she didn't see a dime so she tried to sue. Is not enough. Yeah. Because of that lawsuit You know famously

Nearly all of the prints of the movie were destroyed as part of the settlement for that lawsuit Oh, wow in order to avoid bankrupting the movie company. So Prince of Darkness Yes And however a couple of a couple of prints survived and and and you know the film You know became a kind of underground legend, and you know undying underground prince. Yes. Yeah, there you go and so again We have in in 1922 with this movie. It is a response to stoker right and it's mostly

a retelling although there are a couple of things that get changed and the idea that sunlight will kill a vampire comes from here from this okay and now if I was just gonna talk about you know vampires in media I'd have a whole lot more to talk about but we're gonna fast forward at this point Okay to the 1960s. This is so hard like there's so much good cool shit Yeah, like but I You don't need to do an eight part series on this yeah, I know I get it

Yeah, well cuz this is gonna be I don't even know how many parts are you five because the games I'm talking about but So in 1968 and rice Wrote a 30 page short story About a vampire being interviewed about his long time of undeath Two years after that story, Rice's daughter was diagnosed with cancer at age four. And two years later, she died at the age of six, sending an into a deep depression. In

1973, still reeling with grief from her daughter's death, she picked up the vampire story on the urging of one of her husband's writing students And expanded it into a novel Okay She dealt with a whole lot of rejections Developed OCD as a result of all kinds of stuff She had developed a drinking problem because of the loss of her daughter and like all kinds of stressors and it finally got picked up by Knopf publishers in 1974 and is this why there was an immortal child in it do you think

well I'm gonna get to that okay it got it finally saw the light of day in 1976 and immediately and became a bestseller right the protagonist of the story is Lewis uh-huh Louis de Pont de Lac he starts his immortal journey in Louisiana in 1791 right he is the scion of a plantation and starts the story despondent at the death of his brother. Lestat or actually turns out, I found out as I was researching this rice pronounces it Ledot. Very very Frenchified Ledot. Okay. Ledot finds him him becomes fascinated with him and turns him When they enslaved people on the plantation start to suspect there are vampires up in the big house, right? the to burn the place down and

Kill the slaves in order to prevent word getting out that there are vampires in Louisiana Before they flee to the city of New Orleans. Now, she's not an historian, so I have to give her like a lot of the past here, especially since it's in the 70s, but like there was a history in the Deep south of plantation owners, so slave camp owners with nice houses, slave labor camp owners with nice houses, mutilating and eating the people that they enslaved. There were fucking books on this from those times. And and in fact these were things that were also punishments against uprisings.

If I recall correctly Nat Turner himself was partially eaten by the people who were scared of the fact that he was Rising up and and murdering The people who had a colors. Yeah, so it just it How peak 70s woman white woman is this like very yeah, and oh that race these accounts say you know again is she from the south shooter has been lived in New Orleans for years okay so I have an affinity for this place and I remember hearing about these stories stories like very short hops and jumps, but okay, yeah and there

There are there are ways multiple ways in which rice is or was Now that she's no longer with us that she was problematic in her work and work Sometime when we when we talk about vampires like on their own that's something we can spend some time talking about sure But yeah, no you're right as I was as I was doing the research for this

Rereading the summaries of rereading the summaries of Interview I Was like oh, that's I don't oh right and right like you know yeah because the last time I read the novel I was Freshman in college okay, and you know did not have the the life experience or the understanding of like any of this stuff now With your historian hat yeah with with my story hat, you know like oh and oh Oh and well and also she's been mentioned in our fanfiction four-parter Yes, because she turns out to be an asshole

Because she turns out to be an asshole um and also how much of like you were Now examining her and going and looking through multiple lenses at her how much of that is also due to just what we do here on this podcast You know Yeah, yeah, just just the historiography we perform on a regular basis here right enough that yeah, I have I have no I have no honed that tool to the point that like I wind up finding it in my hand when I wasn't looking for I must kill the Queen yeah Why right I didn't I just wanted to sit down and watch a movie why why is this here?

So yeah and so while Lewis and Lidat are in New Orleans Lidat who is who is batshit crazy in in multiple different ways and and

utterly amoral Becomes Worried that Lewis is losing interest in him, which is kind of happening Because there's this there's this development part, part of the story arc is that at first when, when Lewis encounters Ladaat, uh, Ladaat is this, is this, uh, enlightened otherworldly immortal being, you know, right with, you know, this, this, uh, alien experience to his own and he's raptured by it. And then he becomes Lidat's companion and

And he realizes that Lidat is only 40 years older than he is right and Isn't really all that enlightened and is kind of a base creature of his urges And you know and he and he's he becomes disillusioned Lidat can tell that this is happening He gets worried that Lewis is gonna lose interest in him and leave him Mm-hmm and because of Laudat's trauma that he carries from his mortal life In order to try to hold on to Lewis he winds up turning a five-year-old girl to be their daughter Claudia

Now Rice to be their daughter Claudia Now rice herself like for decades When when interviewers would bring up Claudia and then would bring up her own daughter Michelle Rice would shut it down like I'm not talking to you anymore. This interview is over. I'm walking away. No, I didn't do that that's not what that is like was in like didn't do that, that's not what that is, like was in like vehement denial that that was what that was. Yeah, and I could honestly, you know, having seen, only having seen the movie,

seeing what a damaged and wretched, and I don't mean it's her fault wretched, but wretched creature Claudia was, I could absolutely see somebody going like, so your dead daughter, was she like that like hmm. I could imagine hearing any question about your daughter Yeah, feeling like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and So most commentators and reviewers and people who've analyzed the book and you know Kind of stuff that literary scholars do

Have have called bullshit They're like no, this is this is very clearly an insert character. This is clearly your Trauma, you know like bleeding through well, and she's working through it too because it is the yeah I wanted to live forever, but what would that look like? Yeah, I mean Yeah, and and it's worth noting how much easier would it have been for her though just to be like no you're absolutely right I was working through very real and honest emotions that I had yeah the desire to bring my daughter back and the

recognition of what that would have done to her so yes next question like yeah like yeah the nobody's ever asking you shit again like yeah Yeah, like you you can put it to rest and move on yeah put a stake through its heart as it were No, yeah and her husband Is is actually One of the people who who in his own interviews was like no it's it's really clearly that was that was something that you know

she she Doesn't want to recognize it doesn't want to admit it But I am convinced that that was that was something that was going on there. Yeah, you know and So, you know and again I can have sympathy for like I I don't I don't want that being insinuated I don't want that to be what I have to talk about every time I talk about the book Like I can get all of that uh-huh What I find fascinating is Her

her characters are all trauma monsters Like literally like yeah, really monsters and literally porn of trauma Yeah, like every every one of her characters is is like carrying a a sea-chest full of issues sure and that she

had the gift she had to capture that and she had the gift she had to capture that and Capture the ways that they all dance around all of that and the way they avoid dealing with it and the way they have shitty maladaptive coping mechanisms, right? And at the same time that she could Have the same time that she could Have the same blindness Mm-hmm is It's it's it's it's not like I'm not I'm not trying to say this is a derogatory thing about her

It's just something that I find fascinating It's it's a remarkable kind of kind of bit of a character study. Yeah. Yeah, you know and so kind of bit of a character study. Yeah, yeah, you know, um, and so the, the blood sucking trio, uh, Lewis and Laudat and Claudia, uh, live together in dysfunction for a while. Um, but Claudia matures mentally and emotionally whilst being stuck in a body that's eternally five years old and she Really becomes an on font or ebola

Horrible child horrible child okay Usually usually that term is used to describe an adult who's being a brat, but she's literally yeah, I'm font or ebola entering her brat phase Yeah, yeah, and and potentially staying in it forever because you know big vampire brat energy Yes, and so she convinces Lewis to turn on Ladaat Right and they do they set the house on fire arson keeps coming up right like In fairness that is like the easiest fucking thing to explain in in any setting back then

Kerosene lamps lots of lace. That's true. You like true If you had no fire departments, okay, or if you did they were not adequate to the task Yeah, no, but yes, it is kind of interesting that a woman writing in the 1970s when Brooklyn is on fire is Would go back to this. Yeah, you know if I had a nickel for every time Louis de Lioncourt set An expensive house on fire. I'd have two nickels, but it's weird that it happened twice right Twice in the book is a little twice in the same novel. Yeah Apart from each other you know yeah and so with with Ladot behind them and they assume dead

They travel to Europe they wind up running into other vampires Ladot catches up to them Claudia gets destroyed by their vampires as an abomination, and it's it's a convoluted book Okay, okay a couple of important points That that I want to that I want to bring up here about this work in theory Interview is a horror novel Sure, okay. It's on the shelf with horror books all of Anne Rice's yeah

Well all all of the stuff Anne Rice has published as and rice is on the shelves as horror But it's an inverted horror novel The horror is experienced by the reader as they live vicariously as a blood-sucking monster That relates his life in a sympathetic way Mm-hmm Mm-hmm I've I've mentioned. I don't know how many times you know anytime. We've we've talked about anything having to do with the horror genre I've been very honest about the fact that yeah, no I didn't watch that because I He's like I'm a wimp I've really it just it doesn't work for me. I don't enjoy being scared

But I managed to read this novel in about three days without without really having any trouble because it works on a different level. The horror isn't adrenaline rush. Oh my God, you know, there's there's a monster in the woods. It is it is revulsion horror.

It is it's not revulsion at their their monsterness. It's revulsion at their horribleness as persons Yes. Yeah, you're reading you're basically You're reading the great Gatsby You know, I didn't make that connection, but you're not entirely wrong. Right. Like really good writing about terrible people. Yeah. You know, the funny, the funny thing about it is in interview, and, and I think this,

this shows something about, about the difference in, I don't know if it's style or skill, but, but the difference between Fitzgerald and rice is as Fitzgerald was writing all these characters. It was really clear He was like oh, you know look how cool they all are and Fucked up there at the same time da da da aren't they sympathetic I kept looking at him like I hate everyone in this fucking book Mm-hmm like the only character in this book. I do not actively want to see choke is Is the guy who's married to Daisy and and even him?

Him I don't like okay none of these characters none of these characters are sympathetic like at all I know that all the word people yeah, whereas Lewis I Had moments where I was like oh shit. I'm I'm rooting for this guy. Okay. Yeah. Oh Fuck and that was the horror right sure yeah Gatsby just made me furiously angry Like like every time because I part of it was I had you know I didn't pick it up for for my own for my own

Entertainment I had to read it for AP English right and Like I walked in a class a couple of mornings. I'm pretty sure Mr.. Burnett my AP English teacher was probably like okay Well, I'm not calling on you today because what I get is it gonna be productive Just the expression on my face was like, I hate everyone in this book. Sure. And the only the only one that was worse that year was the French Lieutenant's woman. I was like, what? Like, I understand this is this is a literary novel and it delves in all these issues of, you know, free will and and I don't even remember

now anymore. but like must we This is just gross the main character is pathetic like come on right um So whereas in in interview of the vampire Lewis actually comes across as charismatic Lewis actually comes across as You know there there being some kernel of a person there that you have some level of sympathy for yeah I was gonna say he's at least sympathetic Yeah, and you know Did we skip out What happened sorry internet connection?

Okay, yeah, yeah, I paused it. I'm gonna wait for it for a second Okay, no worries Actually while we're paused I'm gonna go grab the power cord for my laptop because I'm seeing the battery is There was a technical issue there, and so we are replacing a cord Sorry for the confusion there the next voice you hear will be ed resetting Okay, so sorry we had technical issues there I heard I believe you were saying that Unlike in the Gatsby a great Gatsby were absolutely nobody Was redeemable in any possible way with with a tiny exception Yeah, Lewis actually caught your sympathy. He was a sympathetic character

And that the horror was and that's I think that I feel like that's where it left. That's that's about where we were Yeah, yeah It could be that that's as far back as I can remember because then my brain started scrambling trying to catch up to everything else. Yeah. Yeah, no worries so so so the horror for me came in the moments when I Realized when you know as you're reading or listening to somebody telling a story You know suddenly you have that moment where like they're saying oh and see that's the moment at which I threw the baby in the Incinerator and you're Like what fuck yeah like man. I thought we were cool and

What Luca Brasi you are not the guy? Yeah, yeah, and and so that's that's that's the way the horror worked and I imagine now, being because again, I read this when I was, you know, freshmen in college, being 30 years older and having more life experience, being a father, sure. You know, and having, as we talked about, you know, not being able to take my historian hat off. The book would probably affect me a lot more I

Kind of have a feeling like I would I would much more frequently be like no Lewis. No, you know What more often But you know it was it was as a work of horror Mm-hmm it it But you know it was it was as a work of horror Mm-hmm it it flipped the trope around you know yeah wasn't it wasn't I'm reading this book And I'm getting I'm getting the spooky spookies because things are moving around in the house And you know I'm hearing strange noises and no man And you know I'm waiting for the monster to jump out it's no no no I keep being reminded. I'm looking at the world through the eyes of the monster

Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, the other thing is the horror of it is not the monstrosity, but the humanity. Yeah. Yeah Yeah And so the other thing that I want to touch on here is I want to make it really clear how Unbelievably queer rice's entire vampire culture is okay Whether this is just because of rice's own personal erotic ticks or like a conscious attempt to make a point about sexuality Sure, it is the 70s. Yeah, you know you're seeing David Bowie You're seeing Queen you were seeing Mick Jagger

Yeah, and Roger knee is a big recurring thing and twiggy rice's work in the culture at large at this time You know if it's a way of making her protagonists seem more alien You know if it's a way of making her protagonists seem more alien Or some combination of all of the above which I kind of lean in the direction There's a little bit of all of that going on sure The fact remains that in a novel published in 1976 The protagonist has over the course of the novel has multiple homosexual relationships And The novel has multiple homosexual relationships And or at least they're homosexual they are heavily homosexual coded he refers to people as his lovers Right whether they actually have

Sex as living humans would Sure isn't isn't there, but like there's there's a very strong erotic Ellen actually a lot of the... Yeah. Yeah. And when Rice describes the experience of feeding for a vampire and the way... The characters spend like half the book eye-fucking each other. It's really, really...

It's there the the the sexual nature of it is there even though there are not sex scenes as such if that makes sense no it does does so and the the only meaningful relationship Lewis has with a woman is with an adopted daughter Claudia is really the only major female character for Lewis in the book.

Right. Well, and in the book you said he's preoccupied with his brother's death, whereas in the movie it's his wife. Yes. Yeah. So she doesn't get credit for that. Yeah. So yeah, it really, okay.

Yeah. It really okay. Yeah and In in the follow-up novel the vampire Ladaat It's again in the first person, but Ladaat is the one telling the story La dot himself just comes out and says he's bisexual Sure over the course of the series though. He shows a distinct preference for men And he makes remarks that are sexist to varying degrees. Lada's first vampire companion is his own mother. He leaves without getting into too much detail.

His mother follows him to the city and he has just recently been turned into a vampire. His mother follows him she is dying of tuberculosis, I think hmm and He turns her into a vampire and she becomes his first companion and It's it's really Interesting to note that in in the, when she is talking to him, up to this point in the story, when we see her earlier in the story when Ladat is still mortal, she refers to him as the male part of me, refers to him as her phallus at one point

and upon killing her first victim She steals his clothes And and tucks her long hair up under the man's cap okay, and She winds up cutting her hair very short in a man ish style And then is horrified to find when she wakes up the following night that it has returned to its to its previous length Because whatever whatever your parents is when you get it turned that's that's just what you are forever Yeah, we see that with Claudia in the movie. Yeah, which one you did it like I was like oh shit this kid can act Yeah, but yeah, yeah, and

so So it's it's there is it's never specifically said but there is some level of evidence that Lidat's mother may have been trans. And this is an element, this is coded that way anyway, in that work. And so there are all of these themes of non-straight sexuality and sexual identity

and gender identity and all of this kind of stuff tied up in all of the vampire novels. I can't speak with any level of meaningful knowledge to her other series, the Ramsey's the Damned or any of the Mayfair Witches novels. I don't know enough about that to say anything, but I can say the vampire stuff is very, very heavily queer coded and outright, you know, characters are non-straight. Okay.

You know, and this the stereotype of the Erotic homoerotic kind of kind of undercurrent theme within stories of vampirism Goes back before rice, but it was it was as a symbol of decadence or corruption or debauchery Right and it always had these intensely Loathsome negative, you know, this is this is the devil's work. You know, this is this part of the demonic nature of vampires going on. Like the erotic aspect of the Lamia was there from the very beginning, you know, seducing

men and then devouring them. Dracula and Orlok both have hypnotic abilities that clearly have erotic subtexts But part of that always played on the Revolting nature of what a vampire was and in Rice's case This is this is something glamorous This is this is something glamorous This is this is something

sleek This is something sexy about them right and whether it's I mean the subtext kind of comes across that like vampires are just so damn Sexy they can't help but be pansexual like right and if you live long enough Yes, you don't want to try all the cuisine You know, yeah. Yeah and and You know It's a good good place to point out here that rice also under a pen name

Wrote a series of erotic interpretations and retellings of classic fairy tales That included really significant kink and BDSM themes Okay, so I'm just saying Anne Rice got freaky at least on the written page. Yes, they wanted to yeah, you know So or she was trying to make money There's that too. Yeah, but this is This is this is an inflection point in the popular perception of vampirism and vampires.

Yeah, it feels like- Dracula, oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say, it feels like, okay, so there's this grammatical thing that happens in Latin where it is a fear clause is a type of clause that takes the opposite formation of what you would expect because which is just this weird thing so like essentially you have some sort of fearing word and then you have a word it's what I always call the marker word it's OOT or NEY and it lets

you know that what's coming is going to be in the subjunctive mood okay okay so OOT means to do something NEY means not to do something so for instance okay indirect question would be use a questioning word and then an OOT or NEY or an indirect command okay okay commanding word OOT or NEY OOT or NAE or an indirect command. Okay. Okay. Commanding word OOT or NAE. OOT I ordered you to do it NAE or not to do it and then the order would be in the subjunctive right. So right. Okay. So fear clause same formation except that the OOT and the NAE invert. So if you fear that something will happen you use NAE and if you fear that something will happen you use nay and if you fear that something will not happen you use OOT Which I always found fascinating and what it is is that

Fear and hope are two sides of the same coin every fear that you have is actually a hope expressed in the universe right Okay, okay. So for instance my fear of snails very well-known is truly a hope that no snail Countenances me. Hey, you know what I mean? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and so like you think about like your your hopes You're saying it helps a snail does countenance me right shiver shiver, right? Okay, or you go the other way to all of your hopes are fears inverted. Right. Yeah. I hope you know, you you hope your son gets through high school and goes to a good college your fear that he does not right. Okay. Right. Okay. I believe that very often, our revulsion and our attraction are inversions of each other.

Very much. Yeah. And vampires seem to really embody that in a visceral way. No pun intended this time, but in a visceral way for people in literature. Yeah. Like a lizard brain kind of level of our... in literature. Yeah. I really don't want a big strong, powerful man to have me under his sway. Yeah. Because I'm going to like it.

Like it feels like that, you know? Yeah, it very much is. Speaking of like current events. Yeah. current events Yeah, but you know it's it's it's that it's that so it feels like vampires absolutely embody that that revulsion attraction Very much that fear. Hope quite honestly could go right back to your hope. Yeah, so Yeah, that's that's a great. I love I love that take on that. Yeah I'm sure Freud had something to say about

Freud had so much shit to say about it, but I don't have time to get into it here that you will sodomize me with a cigar Yeah Sigi Do you have something to share with a glass? Yeah, so and and I feel like This is a point that that interview of the Empire of vampire Lestat. Mm-hmm are an inflection point in popular culture for the perception of For the for the when we talk about the push-pull of that revulsion and and eroticism

I feel like this this is a tipping point Yeah, and I'm gonna veer away from rice specifically to talk about a couple of other couple of other bits of vampire media Sure, in the in the 80s there are two I Consider very important vampire movies. Okay. That are important for my argument. There are others, of course. I don't want you to look at the chat until after you've said this.

Okay. Okay. So, but I'm putting in the chat, so do not look at the chat. Okay, I'm hitting enter. Okay. Okay. After you've said the two very important movies, I want you to at the chat. Okay, I'm hitting enter. I'm not, I'm not. Okay. Okay. After you've said the two very important movies, I want you to open the chat.

Okay. Okay. So the very first one, in 1983, Catherine Deneuve plays an immortal vampiris who can give her lover's eternal life, but not eternal youth. In order to maintain their youth They have to drink the blood of the living. Okay. Yeah

And David Bowie is her current lover at the beginning of the film He has started to suffer decrepitude and he goes to a gerontologist played by Susan Sarandon And who watches him visit first he talks to her and she dismisses him She's like you're crazy. I don't know what you're talking about and then as he's leaving she sees him visibly Age and like chases after him okay without getting too much into the details of the story she winds up Getting involved in a in a triangle between him and new she becomes to news next paramour Okay, and there is a whole lot of lesbian eroticism going on In this film the central theme is of addiction

But the eroticism of it is really overt and everybody involved is really good-looking and that's the hunger Uh-huh now the next one four years later 1987 Spoiler spoiler alert for a nearly 40 year old movie, but Edward Herman Turns out to be a master vampire Whose sons are all wild and unruly and out of control Whose sons are all wild and unruly and out of control The oldest son is keifer Sutherland who tries to turn Jason Patrick who's new guy in town?

And Patrick gets seduced into the first steps of vampiric transformation by Jamie Gertz playing a vampire named vampiris named star and So this is the lost boys in which key for Sutherland and Jason Patrick and Jamie Gertz made vampires young and hot Okay, and There's also a really important aesthetic element to the lost boys. Uh-huh that baby oil

What I was going to say is there's a there's a biker rocker hairband You know sure like consciously consciously on the tougher end of goth Aesthetic going on right in addition to the we all look you know young and hot and you know good-looking and everything sure and You know Dracula Was compelling and charismatic charismatic but not handsome No, he was novel in the novel He's described as as you know being shriveled and wizened and and you know not quite monstrous, but certainly not attractive

right and Orlok From Nosferatu is just is creepy straight-up straight-up monstrous. Yeah You know bald big pointy looking ears, and yeah, he's all angles Yeah, yeah, you know obvious obviously a monster yeah, and here The lost boys are all young and virile Jamie Gertz's character is is hauntingly beautiful in that very kind of important to note that that consumption chic kind of kind of way uh-huh

and so Again, I've already mentioned that they're really compelling a aesthetic so now Mm-hmm. I'm gonna go into the chat Gonna go into the chat and yes, you pegged it the hunger and the lost boys. So I will tell you I've never I've never seen the Lost Boys Okay, but I knew as soon as you said 80s. I'm like, okay But the reason I picked to the hunger was because one of the very first you remember when VHS is cost way too much fucking Money, we talked about this with the dark crystal. I think and I think you talked about it in one of yours, too

Yeah, I don't know which one but yeah, we've talked about it before. Yeah, but One of the first movies that my parents bought for like $85 or however much fucking money was holy shit was the hunger and this was before VHS cases were standardized Was the hunger and this was before vhs cases were standardized For storage and so it was a beautiful and like cardboard and I mean it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Um I had no business watching this movie this young Really didn't Yeah bisexual susan sarandon david bowie vampire movie just like

I don't I don't think it had an adverse impact on me, but I know kids should have been allowed Yeah, I don't remember much from it to be honest. I do remember it's probably for the best. Yeah, I do remember him aging Rapidly in one. Yeah, it's very well. Yeah, there's there's there's scenes where you wind up finding out that her her her previous lover, Deneuse, previous lovers have have aged to the point of immobility and and powerlessness. And they're essentially mummified. And she has them all because they won't die. Right? She has them all in coff won't die right she has them all in

Coffins in a in a hidden room in their loft apartment in New York. I mean, yeah Talk about fucking with somebody right Wow. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was that was Yeah, that's I that's what I remember of the movie basically. Yeah So it honestly aesthetically it reminded me a lot of Blade Runner. Same haircuts, same lighting, same noir. Yeah, similar. Yeah, I can definitely see the noir tone. Yeah. Going on there. Yeah. Um, so now both, both of these movies, whether it's conscious or not or whether it's direct or indirect there. There's an influence from rice If it's not specifically Her work it is whatever was in the water at the time right they have in common

the overt sexuality involved There's a there's a romanticization Inverted sexuality involved. There's a there's a romanticization There's a there's a really significant romanticism involved and a glamorizing of vampirism At the same time that these vampires remain inhuman and monstrous at their core You know Catherine Deneuve is hauntingly beautiful Sure, you know David Bowie is the 70, you know is is the you know 70s early 80s icon of This is what it is to be good-looking and androgynous, you know, right, right

You know thin white Duke, you know that whole that whole aesthetic going on there And so there is there again we see this inversion of the hope and the fear here Yeah, and you know so vampires and vampirism are these nebulous things right thematic right right? In the hunger we have this really strong theme of addiction, you know, and in other literature vampirism has been used as a metaphor for addiction, you know blood sucking and the hunger to kill and right if you don't get this thing you're going to Die right you will be more and more miserable you go through withdrawal you yeah And and you know that by doing it you are harming others and you get to the point where the hunger is such

That you don't care. You must feed that addiction. Yes Parasite ism Vampires are dead. They produce nothing but they feed off the living right Interesting that in a society where you know the people who were engaging in these vampire Hysterics in the 1700s they were serfs Yeah over by a class who you know were rent seekers just you know, huh? Predators and prey it's pretty self-explanatory, you know, yeah hunters, you know and that predatory nature can be a metaphor for whatever

kind of predatory behavior or predatory nature you want to you want to try to get into that can be a metaphor for any number of things. Sexuality of all stripes. Yep, any sexuality that is deviant from the norm in some way any sexuality that could be attractive to our Straight youth. Yeah, you know who know how to dance with the Bible between them who know how to Go on a date with an aspirin between their knees like yeah, you know, this is anything from oral sex to Sex between same sexes or transgenderism like tree yeah yeah anything yeah what what would be considered deviant right by social conservatives yeah at whatever time by the whatever time so in in the 1930s it

would be simply sex or you know sex between unmarried people in the 1930s, it would be simply sex, or sex between unmarried people. In the 1940s or 50s, there might be people of color involved, probably some sort of woman of color seducing them, because men get seduced. And then, yeah, into the 80s, the you know gay panic and stuff like that. Yeah and then At the very core of it and we've and we've kind of talked about this already

But the weird the subconscious Freudian connection between eroticism and death, right? the the you know It's not for nothing that, you know, French, the French phrase for orgasm is look at T more, you know, that, that weird fear of extinction involved in the surrender of, I think, I mean, my, my guess is it's related to surrendering of control. Yeah to to the urge and to you know Whatever, you know to to your partner to whatever in the in the tie between extinction and and

Eroticism, yeah, you know the Freudian death urge Yeah, I mean they touch on it a little bit in the interview of the vampire movie where Antonio Banderas his character touches the flame Yeah, clearly gives him erotic joy. Yeah, but also it's a fucking fire, you know, yeah, and the vampires are rightly afraid of fire Yes, but you're right. Absolutely. There's that that and again, there's the The obsession that the moth has to the flame that will does that will destroy it that will destroy it Yeah, you know we're always chasing that next orgasm kind of thing. Yeah, like and also like yeah, yeah, I can Again, you know similar to sneezing. Ah, it's a moment of losing control. Yeah Getting all tingly and then things running out of you. So yeah

Try that next time I'm stuck in fourth gear, maybe if I just start the light Because I sneeze when I stare at a light like that'll help me get through this There's like 20% of people that like if you stare at a light it helps you sneeze. I haven't thought to do that That's something to consider. Yeah, you know So to to connect this to what's going on in the real world As as this shift is happening We have the Reagan administration here in the United States, you know in the early 80s that is

Willfully overlooking the AIDS epidemic yes because of its connection to homosexual men yes at that time yes and simultaneously there had already been a expanded expansion of public awareness of You know gay culture post Stonewall and You know the the numbers were slowly ticking upwards in terms of understanding and acceptance. It was still Not a good time to be gay in the United States by any stretch, right? But the awareness of it

in the United States by any stretch. But the awareness of it, and even as Anita Bryant was desperately trying to find ways to oppress and vilify homosexuals, that by its very nature kept the idea in the public consciousness, which meant it is now something that is closer to front and center in people's awareness So we have that going on that's in the water in in the background I would also point out that like while you have the straights freaking out in these fucked up stupid ways You have a

And you have people There's this wonderful quote by Dan Savage, where he talks about how like, during the worst days of the AIDS epidemic, like we would bury, what was it we'd bury our friends in the morning, we'd protest in the afternoon, and we danced the night away. Yeah. And I really like and I'm Damian phrasing obviously, but I love the defiance to that last part. And I mean, Anita Bryant famously got her face pied.

The AIDS quilt, you know, drag shows. There's all kinds of things going on that are openly defiant of the straights hate. And I just, I really, there is a defiance and with a defiance to the straights, the straights would see that as a deviance. Yes. And so like there's this recursive thing that happens.

And so in the art You almost see that like because I'm just thinking of like vampire movies that I've seen Vampire joy isn't joy It's delighting in somebody else's cackled destruction That feels very much like the the the shitty straight lens looking at actual joy Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah. No, I totally get it. So we get it. Yeah And at the same time as that's going on we have on a global level. We have the Cold War still going, right? And this is something that comes up forever because you and I are both jet-accers

But you know the constant presence of nuclear holocaust and extinction right yeah in the background yeah and so you know that's that's going to have some some effect on the on the on the zitgeist in in terms of these kinds of stories. And then we kind of touched on this a second ago, but in the 1970s, we have disco. As a vibrant, defiant part of gay, again, yeah, with the blacks culture, right. And the moral panic and the backlash to disco, right? This goes from the Midwest disco from from the Midwest from you know, yeah Conservative white America, right? Right? Um

And really mad at the kids that they kicked out for being gay. Yeah Yeah, like what did you expect them to do like? you know and So by the late 1980s vampires are still vampires They're horror monsters, but they're cool, and they're sexy at the same time right So if I wanted to launch a new tabletop RPG series based around supernatural beings What better group to choose than vampires?

And by that association with the supernatural of vampires being attached to sexuality, sexiness, and all that, any and all supernatural beings are going to be sexy on some level. You'll have the sexy fey and you'll have the sexy... there will be a sexuality to the werewolf. There will be a sexuality to fey creatures. There will be a sexuality to almost anything that's not a mummy. But like, there's going to be a sexiness. You're underestimating white wolf fans.

Oh, so gross. No, actually, I take it back. Here's the thing. Mummy lore gets torqued around. But in terms of the other things, like, you see a sexiness attached to all of these things Yes, and I think maybe probably through that Yeah, so okay, so white wolf Yeah, white wolf you said yes white wolf at this point in time the company that

Originated the world of darkness was white wolf publishing and okay, so we're gonna tick ahead I'm talking about late 80s now. I'm gonna take a head to 1991 okay, and here is where I'm going to pause things because we've we've gotten the the background Out of the way, okay, and now I can get into in our next episode I can specifically talk about vampire the masquerade and what it was and how it was different from

What had come before it okay? Yeah? Yeah? So what are your takeaways at this point um? Let's see uh I kind of really want a much deeper dive on vampires now But I'm just thinking we do remarkably enough. But yeah, interestingly, I never had much interest in vampires, but there were So this is the long way around to to my takeaway but yeah, um, I never had much of an interest in vampires in general, but there was a TV show that came out when producer George was moving in with me,

or out with me, out from me, no, it was in with me, yeah. When producer George and his family were moving in with us, I heard an interview with Alan Bell who was the creator of, I want to say he was a creator of Six Feet Under, but I know for a fact that he was a creator of, oh what's the fucking thing, True Blood. Oh yeah yeah. And which is Louisiana Vampires. But very different from Ann Rice's Louisiana vampires right important ways Yeah, right, but like the thing was is like, you know, the premise of the show was kind of cool

but what really drew me was the in the interview he said that like what's the point of getting up tomorrow if you're never going to die and And I love that because it finally explored something that was interesting to me about vampires, which is their immortality, right? And I was like, oh, that looks like that might be fun. They didn't explore that shit at all. They, I mean, don't get me wrong,

love tits, love nakedness, love vampire fucking, and that's all fine, great. And like the first few episodes was like all these are really interesting characters and yeah Oh shit. He's a changeling, you know and stuff like that, but like It never got to the questions. I wanted and so then it was just like well, I'm just watching vampire porn and that's fine But there you go, right? Not that there's anything wrong. No, there's not It just wasn't what I was there for and then the other vampire show that came out that I really loved was being human Where it's oh, yeah, this is stupid as fuck a human or no a Ghost a vampire and a werewolf for all living in a flat or in an in a in a rented house in Boston

in a flat or in a rented house in Boston in the early 21st century trying to hold on to their humanity. It sounds dumb as hell. It did so much more of that original question that I liked. Yeah, well you mentioned it. You've mentioned it in like recently I think. Yeah. A couple episodes. Yeah. And so what I loved, and that got me interested in vampires, partly because Sam Witwer is goddamn gorgeous, but also because, but also because, yeah, because my kids and I are watching it right now,

so I will probably end up doing the research on this. So I'm going to get a heaping helping of vampire in my research, but it's going to be through the lens of the opioid crisis. So that'll be fun. Addiction, hey. Yeah. But it's going to be through the lens of the opioid crisis. So that'll be fun. Addiction. Hey. Yeah. And it gets to the same thing. So all that to say is I never really was that interested in vampires in and of themselves as a thing. Like I did, you know, I did 10 10 episodes on zombies because I've always been interested in zombies.

I couldn't give a shit about vampires, but honestly like a longevity of vampires on screen, I mean, given what you're... Yeah, well and just given what you're starting to give me just with this and I'm like, okay I think I am interested in vampires as its own thing. But I'm very interested in seeing where it goes in this game system because I remember people playing it. I remember Looking down my nose at them for reasons. I think they're still valid. Um, but I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of get into a little bit of what I think the

Problem there with the root of the problem there is sure well It could be that I'm just a tight ass that it's a problem a problem but yeah I mean most of the problems I'm just a tight ass um but but and also they have that five percent of wobble until what the fuck's wrong with you um but that being said I remember there being different types of vampires oh yeah and so that I found interesting yeah so I'm looking there's a lot of there's a lot of lore Yeah, that goes into it, but yeah, yeah all right very cool, so yeah Let's see is there anything that you want people to read Not read, but I'm going to recommend something to consume

I very very very strongly recommend the podcast and The I think there were two seasons made of it the television adaptation of the podcast for lore It is Categorized as horror and it is spooky as fuck as horror and it is spooky as fuck and and just amazingly well done and and atmospheric and wonderful but it is a really remarkable study of like they have one episode that's about the vampire hysteria in 1891 Northeast that

I mentioned before that you wouldn't think that would have been a time for that to happen and in a similar timeframe, there's a story about the the Irish and a court case about a Woman whose husband thought she was a changeling that happened in the mid 1800s. And it's these, they talk about real world incidents where these kinds of stories and folk beliefs, you know, documented cases of these folk beliefs being a thing and having consequences for real people and

And they they do kind of what we do with them In in that they talk about the social context and then what was going on here at this time, you know, right? Kind of stuff. It's fascinating and Yeah, I very highly recommend it it's it's wonderful to check out So yeah lore Either the podcast or the way I got exposed to it was was through the the Netflix series. Okay How about you, uh, let's see, um I

Honestly, I don't know that much in the in the ways of vampire books or anything that's never been a What do you call it a genre I've picked up on right because it's fiction so I will however point out that in Star Wars books there is a vampiric race of the Anzati and in the tales from the Cantina, tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, there is a short story about an Ansati and ZATI who is absolutely thirsty, and I mean that literally, thirsty for Obi-Wan's cerebral spinal fluid and instead he says, that guy, no. I know better, I've lived long enough to know better.

I ain't gonna use, I ain't gonna drink his. I'm gonna go and drink this Hot Shot Pilots. And he starts stalking Han Solo. Nice. And if you remember in the movie, it's the guy with the hookah. You only see him briefly, very briefly. I love Star Wars for doing that stuff with wallpaper characters.

Like, you know what? That guy. That guy. I'm going to do something with that dude. And what's cool is that later lore, because that set him and that species and all that, later lore became that there were actually Ansati Jedi. I think in the Clone Wars comic books that my son is reading right now, they run into some Ansati, and some Ansati have gone feral and stuff like that. So he talks about drinking the soup.

So anyway, it's it's the story from a most slice of these cantina. I forget exactly whose story it is, but it's the guy who's the end side. Nice. So yeah, that's what I'm gonna recommend. Very cool. Cool. Well, where can we be found? Collectively, we can be found on our website at wubba wubba wubba dot geek history time dot com Where we have over 300 episodes now in our archive Find a topic you like And go from there We can also be found on the Amazon podcast app on the Apple podcast app and on Spotify

Since you're listening to us. you've somehow found us and wherever you did, please take a moment to subscribe and to give us the five star review that you know we deserve. Where can you be found, sir? Let's see May 2nd and June, or May 2nd and June 6th, you will find capital punishment at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento, 9pm. Then June 11th. We're not going to perform on 4th of July. I'm sorry, July 11th.

So those three dates, you really, really, really want to try to make it to all three because each one is very special for its own reasons. But bring 15 bucks down. Bring merch money because we've got some really badass merch now. Wonderful enamel pins, some stickers. I think by that point we will have our new t shirts in. So bring merch money. Come watch us. 9pm. Get your tickets in advance at the comedy spot sack comedy spot com go to the Calendar portion and find tickets for capital punishment at 9 p.m. Bring friends bring enemies, but bring friends And enjoy it there. So that's where you can find me. Very cool. Cool Well for a geek history of time, I am Damian Harmony. And

I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.