Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Halloween

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets to understand where the heck Halloween came from, a holiday that generates over $10 billion in retail sales in the US each year. Why does an average American spend $60 on the scary day, and is it more tied in with paganism, Christianity, or scary monsters? David meets with Regina Hansen - a writer and scholar who teaches at Boston University - to talk about why we used to carve turnips instead of pumpkins, before calling up professor of philosophy and religion Justin Sledge to talk horror movies. Finally, David decides to use the spooky season to try and communicate with a ghost that’s been waking him up every morning at 3am. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now if it's one thing Americans love doing, it's celebrating things by making a day out of it. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, these are all distinctly American things that have spread their tendrils across the ocean to places like New Zealand. Sure, America didn't invent them, but they made these celebrations into what they are today. Sometimes Americans are less interested in the day and more interested in the night,

which is where this week's episode comes in. Halloween may have started thousands of years ago as a Celtic festival, but today it's dominated by America. From its obsession with pumpkins and trick-or-treating, to massive pop culture monsters like Michael Myers from, well, Halloween, and Ghostface from Scream, America shapes what modern Halloween looks like. America dominates when it comes to October 31st. I mean, we have Halloween in New Zealand, but it's pathetic. New Zealand gets about as excited for Halloween as America gets for Canada Day. Halloween generates over 10 billion in retail sales here in America each year. The average American spending $60 each year on the holiday.

Look, it's not the biggest day spending-wise. That goes to Christmas, then Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, Father's Day, then Halloween. But unlike Christmas, where you need a family, or Valentine's Day, where you need some kind of love interest in your life, day where you need some kind of love interest in your life, Halloween is a day for everyone. Adult, kid, atheist, Catholic, Satanist. Halloween has something for you. So start carving that pumpkin and decide what candy you're going to fill your house with. And make sure it's good candy or your home might get vandalized. Because this is the Halloween episode. What are your thoughts on Halloween? How do you relate to it?

How does it make you feel? I love Halloween. You get giddy. I do. And I get scared because I'm a big, scary cat. You got scared at that introduction when Ghostface from Scream started talking. I screamed.

The Halloween's fun though, right? Fun, candy. What is it about it? This is all very foreign to me. The whole trick or treating thingtreating thing en masse. Everyone decorates their yards.

There's those big tall skeletons people get from a hardware store and put outside their house. There's some here. There's some here. Yeah. What are you going to do at your house? So this is a problem with living in an apartment. I can't go all out. And actually, it's a missed opportunity.

This was probably, I hope, God, the last year that this would have been possible. But I wanted to do a haunted house in my house. Because it is a bit scary at the moment. It's scary. No offense to your house, but it's got some work to be done. It's dilapidated. That's such a good idea. Why didn't you organize this?

Halloween's in a few days You still have time I still have time You have a whole month You've got time Guys, I'm so busy You're not that busy Were you with us last year? I came here last April

Did you guys not invite me to your Halloween? Of course you were invited Yeah, it was like a movie premiere No, I was in America Yeah, what did you do last Halloween? I was at home alone No, you weren't You were at some other party

You went to a party You're so popular I think I was somewhere else. Yeah, I was somewhere else that wasn't here. Okay. Well, every year here for the past two years, and it's a running tradition now, Dax does a hayride in the neighborhood. He puts hay all over his trailer, and we all get in it, and he sits up front.

He's the conductor, and he blast blasts music and we drive around the whole neighborhood and then people in the neighborhood come in and ride in it for a bit then they pop out it's this sounds amazing so i am confused because i've seen advertising for a haunted hayride somewhere around here should we guys we should do that It's so fun and scary. I love how excited you are viscerally getting about this. You're like a child. Your legs are kicking in the air. I love it and I hate it. But can you explain where it comes from?

Is that because Halloween's a harvest festival and so there's hay? Why is there hay? And why is it a ride? I have always kind of wondered about why there's hay. Is it just because it rhymes? Haunted hay ride. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's haunted hay ride just because hay rhymes haunted hayride no no no no it's haunted hayride

just because hayrides are a halloween thing okay i guess because yes scarecrow fall okay all of that yeah all right i see in griffith park they make it haunted so you're on the vehicle uh-huh you're being driven yes and there are ghouls yes in the hay they pop out they pop out yeah wow it's fun okay i don't think we get the full halloween on the west coast because so much of halloween on the east coast is autumn happening it's the leaves falling yes yeah that's true but we can still pretend i buy pumpkins and i put them out so i can't do my house but my apartment i did my best which is i put a wreath up on the door okay it's a skeleton wreath pottery barn and then i have a mat that says um what's the harry potter or something no it's a harry potter word okay alhamara and it means it means like light

up the space or whatever wow Wow, that's cool. And it lights up. It lights up? Yes. That's really neat. I like that. And then I have garland. And are you getting these new decorations every year or are you putting them away and you get them out each Halloween?

Is it like getting the Christmas tree out from under the stairs? Exactly. You reuse stuff, but also I'm wasteful, so I buy new stuff. And okay, also this whole pumpkin thing, they're everywhere. Everywhere I go. I went to a market the other day. There's just piles and piles of pumpkins. Yes.

Are they for eating or for carving or both? They're for both. Okay. But mainly for carving and mainly for decor. Some of our friends do a pumpkin carving every year too. That's what's so fun about Halloween and fall. It's togetherness. Yes. There's a lot of community. There's a lot of traditions. We do a pumpkin carving every year too. That's what's so fun about Halloween and fall. It's togetherness. Yes, there's a lot of community.

There's a lot of traditions. We do a pumpkin carving every year. Everyone brings a pumpkin and then we all sit outside and they have tablecloths out and then we carve. Have you ever carved a pumpkin? Never. Okay, it's really fun. So you get your pumpkin, you get tools,

then you carve out the top, and then you have to clean out the inside. It's very gunky. You empty it out? Yes. Okay, empty out the gunk. What do you do with the gunk in the bin? In a stew?

Nope. You do put it in a big bin. And then what's fun, if you are the hostess with the mostest, you take all the pumpkin seeds out. You clean them, and then you put seasoning on them, and you roast them, and then you eat them. Oh, that's nice. It is. My other question. Starbucks goes bonkers.

Pumpkin everything. That's a whole thing. PSL season. Pumpkin spice latte. Who is getting that shit? It's like real basic. David, why are you grumpy on Halloween? No, I'm not.

I just, I want to understand. This is coming from a place of not understanding. Okay. I just want you to turn your frown upside down because it's Halloween and it's time to enjoy yourself. Just embrace it. Yes. I will have one large pumpkin chai latte, please. No.

Extra spice. Pumpkin spice latte. Pumpkin spice latte. Extra size. Extra size. I'll order them now. They'll be here by the end of the recording. No. Okay extra size. Extra size. I'll order them now. They'll be here by the end of the recording. No, no.

Actually. I'll try one, yeah. I'm going to pass. They're not my thing. Here we go. You're all shitting all over it all of a sudden. But anyway, my point is America does really transform, right? Yes, we really do.

And it's because there's so little to be happy about. Why are you putting pumpkins in coffee? No one's like giving me a pumpkin flavored anything. Says you who got us orange flavored chocolate, which was nasty. You eating some Whittaker's right now, which I bought over from New Zealand many moons ago. And you're enjoying it, right? Oh, I love it. There's no orange in this. No. Okay. Wait, real quick though. Pumpkin spice lattes, chai, spice. Those are all fall seasonings. If you get a fall candle, it's going to smell like chai or spice. It has a little something.

So that's why they want the spice latte, but it has to be pumpkin because Halloween, you get it. I'm getting there slowly. I went out and talked to some other Americans about what Halloween meant to them, and this is what they said. What are you doing for Halloween this year? Maybe go to my church, do a little Halloween party at our local church. Usually they decorate cars, vehicles,

just for fun for the kids. Sometimes hamburgers, you know, free food for the neighborhood. What is your best Halloween experience? Oh man, honestly, probably in college, had pretty good like house parties for Halloween. Everyone has good costume ideas in college. Another American holiday that we've just decided to make a party.

Like Cinco de Mayo and St. Paddy's Day. And you get to dress like whatever you want. Sounds like a party. Yeah, it's an excuse to party. Consume. Consumption. What does Halloween mean to you? Fun times?

Well, I'm from Detroit originally, and October is such an important time for us. It's harvesting, the leaves are changing, pumpkin patches and cider mills. So it's a big part of where I'm from in Detroit. Yeah. It's my favorite holiday. It's the night when all the spirits get to walk the earth with everybody else. Hello. Always a little bit spooky again. Oh my God, I got scared at the end. Okay. So you've never dressed up for Halloween? Never.

But you're going to this year This year I will So the slight problem is I still haven't got an outfit yet What do you think I should go as? A cinnamon stick Pickled cinnamon stick Oh my god, that'd be great That's actually a really good idea

It is, it is a good idea But you might look like a poop You know that episode of friends where ross is duty what are you going as apple pay what is apple what the apple pay yes do you ever use apple pay on your phone yeah it always backfires on me i'm waving it around and it's always getting annoyed you mean your wallet i? I'm talking about Apple Pay. Like if you're ordering something, a shirt, let's say, and you have the option for Apple Pay, you click that,

and then it just says, you know, double click twice. Oh, double click. So what is that going to look like in physical form? I'm going to wear all black. I'm going to have a sign on my shirt or dress. Really an excuse for me to buy a nice new black outfit. on my shirt or dress. Really an excuse for me to buy a nice new black outfit.

And then I'm going to have a sign that says click twice. And then I have a little button on my sleeve. It's actually really cute. I really like that. And then people are going to be clicking me. It'll be interactive and fun. I'm not going to be on my chest. Be careful where you put that little double click. You're going to have a nightmare of a night.

It'll be fun for a lot of people. What are you doing, Ezra? Our whole family's doing the characters from Over the Garden Wall. Oh, your family loves that. That's a kid's show. That's cute. Calvin's this little guy with a teapot on his head. So that's the other thing I'm trying to figure out.

I understand getting amongst it, trick-or-treating when you've got children. The thing I find fascinating, and I'm not down against it, I think it's wonderful. Halloween's a time when adults can just wander around and request candy and dress up as well, right? Adults are doing it. It's not about the kids. Well, yes, except I would say most of the time when you transition into adulthood, when you're halloween it's a party you're going to you're not as much trick-or-treating unless you have kids and then you go with your kids or it's a big group with kids and then you're it's just like a fun thing to walk around and do but the drunkest i've ever been in my life was on halloween that's what like i said it's like

an excuse to party that's obviously a big part of it for adults what was the best costume you've ever worn rob um i liked last year's because natalie was a pregnant handmaid from handmaid's tale and i was anakin skywalker and calvin was darth vader yeah you guys are cute they came on the hayride that's strong i was dora the explorer once and that was my best outfit i had the backpack i had a wig so it doesn't have to be scary it can just be dressing up as anything are you scared of apple pay no i'm not a little bit it sounds like you are a little bit to be honest but it can just be cute stuff it doesn't have to be scary or sexy no my friend was talking about this everyone sort of buys kids stuff and they put it on as adults they make adult sexy outfits you don't just like put on tiny kid shorts.

I thought that's what it was. I thought that's what sexy Halloween was, was getting a kid's outfit. And because you're an adult body, everything stretches. And suddenly you're in a sexy outfit. That's disgusting. Oh, my God. Don't ruin Halloween for me. Okay.

I won't do that. Okay. I'm going to play my documentary. It doesn't start scary. So it's okay. We'll ease into it. But I wanted to learn about where Halloween came from because I really know nothing.

By the end of this episode, you have to pick a costume. Okay, deal. One of the funniest clips I've ever seen is this Australian man scaring his aging father who looks to be in his mid-60s. Oh, you bastard! Ha ha ha ha, I didn't say it. What's so funny is that the man doesn't have to put any effort in.

He just stands around a corner and waits for his father to amble in. Oh, you bastard! Oh, you bastard! Oh, you bastard! His dad scares easily. Ah, you fucking cockhead. It's my pet theory that we scare more easily down at the bottom of the world because we don't have Halloween.

We're just not used to scary things like you Americans. So what I'm really interested in with any kind of tradition like this, I like the modern resonances of things that have lasted for a really long time. Centuries. I'm talking to Regina Hansen, a writer and scholar who teaches at Boston University. She's obsessed with horror and sci-fi. When she got her PhD in English, she turned to literature and film, which involved exploring a lot of horror. I explain we don't really get big into Halloween down under, and she blames the fact it's spring in New Zealand when Halloween rolls around. You don't have the same seasons as we do. The cool Halloween scary stuff is still there,

but the thing that makes it, this is fall, we're going to have Halloween, you don't have that. So it makes sense. Yo, how important is the season? I've never even thought about the weather and Halloween being linked in this way. Well, so it's super important historically and in terms of folklore being passed down because it was a harvest festival. It was called Samhain. That's why Americans love their pumpkin so much. It's all thanks to Halloween's harvest festival roots over 2000 years ago. Except back then they used turnips, not pumpkins.

It was a harvest festival. They called it Samhain. It was mostly in whatever the Celtic speaking areas of the British Isles into France as well, like in Brittany and places like that. And it was both the harvest festival and the new year because we don't celebrate the new year at the same time that people used to celebrate it. So part of it was just like, we're going to have a bonfire to celebrate all the things that have grown, but also the winter's coming now and we're worried about that. It's getting darker, so we're going to have all this light to sort of remind ourselves that light will come back. There was another element to that Celtic festival too, one that'll sound familiar. There was a sense in which the veil between the real world and the world of the

spirit was thin. So the possibility that spirits might come out the dead, specifically the dead. So it was not only a harvest festival, it was a festival of the dead. And the dead were appeased with food and various things like that. These were pagans, people in tune with the seasons and what was growing when and what the light was doing in the sky. Then Christians entered the scene. So when Christians came along, believing in one God and good versus evil, why did they feel they had to adopt this pagan holiday? Why even do that in the first place? The thinking is people are going to come along with us if we don't throw everything away that they did. Christianity succeeds if you're like,

oh, they're having that thing. We'll have our thing at the same time. I always forget that Christianity just takes over existing things. Like Christmas is only on Christmas Day because December 25th used to be important to heathens because it was the sun's birthday. So Christian just subbed out the sun and replaced it with Jesus. Same sort of rebrand happened with Halloween. In the 7th century, they had established this holiday called All Saints Day, which is the day on which saints that don't have their own day, that we don't know, just really good people that died in what they call a state of grace. But we don't know them, but they still need a day to be celebrated. And so that used to be in May. So what they did is in

the 9th century, Pope Gregory, he said, why don't we put that around the time of this other holiday? They're celebrating the blessed dead. We'll have All Saints Day, November 1st, and then the next day we'll have All Souls Day for the souls in purgatory who didn't die on this day of grace who we're praying for and who we want to eventually go to heaven. So yeah, Christians made November 1st All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows Day. And so the day before, October 31st, was All Hallows Eve, aka Halloween. They did a lot of the same stuff. There's a combination of scaring away evil spirits and honoring the dead. Scare away evil spirits by ringing bells, and they honor the dead

by lighting these candles, and they also go around and get offerings, which they called souling. Souling is quite an intense word, isn't it? Isn't it? There had been offerings during Samhain of food and stuff like that, little round things called soul cakes. And they dressed up, they pretended they were the dead, hide their faces and go from house to house. And these were Christians doing this, Bible-believing Christians. Absolutely. And Christians did a lot of this stuff. They had like holy wells, and they weren't in the same place where the holy wells of the pagans

were. They just made their own holy wells. They did all kinds of stuff that we would consider superstitious now. And some of those things continue. This lasts a while. All the Christians absolutely up to their guts and all hallows Eve. But then the Reformation comes along. Now, until this point, everyone was pretty much Christian. There were distinctions, Greek Orthodox and so on, but everyone was essentially Christian. After the Reformation, there were Catholics and Protestants. And the Catholics are a little too weird and a little too pagan for a church that wants to be more biblically based. It still

went on, you know, along the edges of what would be now the UK, certainly in Ireland, parts of Scotland. But yeah, it pretty much stopped being a holiday. Basically, the Catholics liked to get their Halloween freak on, but the Protestants hated Halloween. So for a while it fizzled out. But then Halloween came to America, thanks to rowdy Irish and Scottish immigrants. So there is no Halloween happening in America until mostly Irish immigrants, probably some Scottish immigrants as well, they brought it over and it involved getting dressed up and going around and asking for stuff on that day and carving these

jack-o'-lanterns that pretty soon they figured, oh, we'll do it with pumpkins. And there were real issues with it when it first came over because it was a very wild holiday. All Saints Day was a very peaceful, holy holiday, but Halloween was wild. I mean, it sounds like the purge or something. People were just out there going kind of nuts. What was it like? It wasn't like going to people's houses as much. It was big parades of wasn't like going to people's houses as much. It was big parades of people. Around the neighborhood, taking to the streets. Taking to the streets, right?

People drank, they ran around, they broke stuff. And a lot of sort of nice bourgeois kind of people, like, this is bad. We've got to stop. These people are crazy. We've got to put the kibosh on this. And so the American marketing machine pushed back, changing what Halloween was by changing the idea of who Halloween was for. And what happened over a period of time is that they found ways to make it a children's holiday.

Right. Then it was the children who went around and asked for candy. And that's like around the turn of the century. And then little by little, people go, oh, hey, kids are going around asking for candy. And that's like around the turn of the century. And then little by little, people go, oh, hey, kids are going around asking for candy. But they're also like bobbing for apples, which is a really old tradition that goes back to the Romans. They are still lighting these jack-o'-lanterns. They're still having bonfires and doing all this stuff. But it's for children. It's like a family thing. Halloween had evolved and relatively quickly. And then once kids with soft, malleable brains were involved,

America did something very American. This is where capitalism comes in and goes, hey, these kids are going to run out for candy. We better have some Halloween candy ready for them. The creation of commercial candy goes hand in hand with the celebration of Halloween. This is a Halloween commercial from 1981. A forlorn little kid dressed up as a cowboy

sits down next to someone dressed up as a ghost. Take some of mine. Wow, Hershey bars, Mr. Goodbar, Kit Kats, Rulos, Watchamacalls, Reese's, all my favorites. Let's go get some more. It wasn't subtle, but by now, in the 70s and into the 80s, Halloween had come to represent different things to different people. Halloween just keeps adding to itself. At some point, like in the 50s and 60s, we get people realizing that this is a great way to be able to show who you are without having to show who you are every day. So there's a lot of queer people who really embrace Halloween. There are groups of people at different times who embrace it for different reasons.

I was super curious about what Halloween came to mean for modern America. So I got in touch with Justin Sledge. Justin's a professor of philosophy and religion, and he loves spooky shit. The early function of Halloween primarily was kind of whimsical, kind of spooky. But mostly it was about young men and women being able to get together into a room and do spooky stuff that allowed them to maybe cross stodgy lines around sexual connection or romantic connection. You know, a big thing on Halloween was trying to find who your future mate was where you're bobbing for apples in the same thing. So I think that in the same way that Purim in Judaism operates as the kinds of way that the world becomes topsy-turvy and you can kind of say things you would never be able to say or do outrageous things you could never do, Halloween in the early 20th century allowed people in a pretty conservative social environment at least a day where they could dress up in costume, they could be a little bit more unconventional. So I think that the early 20th century, it was popularized because it was a day in which you got to escape a lot of that

super conservative sort of Edwardian era constraints. And if you want to read some of these great texts, the bogey books and stuff from the early 20th century are great little pieces of Americana about how to throw a good Halloween party. And they give you a great insight into what early 20th century Halloween is. I went and found one of the bogey books, an edition from 1920. It begins with a how-to

guide for throwing a lively home Halloween party. When your guests arrive, the door should swing open, apparently unaided, and the hall should be entirely dark except for a few very faint green lights that may be followed to the dressing rooms. Another chapter was about how women should celebrate Halloween, which was mostly about cooking and baking. Justin said there was that version of Halloween in America. Then the new version came along, the one we know today. As we got into this period of the 1960s and 70s and 80s, as America really was a pretty anxiety-inducing place. I think that in the same way that we see

a huge spike in horror films in that time, like slasher films and exploitation horror and all kinds of other horror, the function of horror psychologically, I think at some level, Aristotle gets right when he analyzes tragedy. It's a way for us to undergo an ordeal. We undergo the ordeal in a very terrifying way

we are hunted by the monster we encounter the monster and we defeat the monster and we get to come out the other side and maybe there's a cliffhanger and jason's still alive somewhere right so you know rinse and repeat the horror movie allows you in a very micro dose to deal with the anxiety and the horror of the world and get through it and get the other side of it and you get the experience of catharsis again when i think of Michael Myers, right, sort of that last scene where you can just hear him breathing and everywhere in the suburbs is now terrifying, where the suburbs used to be the precise place you go because things aren't terrifying. That's sort of that moment. And that's why I think that movie is so iconic in so many ways. So as the world has gotten more and more

unstable, as we've drifted more into a world where social conventions and gender roles and social classes and all kinds of other aspects of American society have broken down, Halloween and horror films work as a kind of circuit by which we can be super sexy in a way that we would never be super sexy in our normal life. We can be super scary. We can embody the very horrors that give us that catharsis. As we've gotten into this post-9-11 period where I think anxiety has actually increased and social isolation has increased, spooky season has gotten longer and longer and longer. And I think that that elasticity of the spooky season is because we are facing more anxiety, more depression, more horror. We have AMC playing 30 straight days

of horror films. The need for catharsis has only gotten higher. I mean, if you've seen some of these haunted houses that exist now, they're positively nightmarish. So yeah, maybe Halloween and being scared, fake scared, is a way to process things we're too scared to really talk about. I checked back in with Regina. I quickly wanted to address some Halloween myths, things many Americans might assume are real, but apparently aren't. So when I was a kid, there was all this talk about the candies being poisoned and your mother would look through and then they'd make the apples and make sure there was no razor blades in the apples.

And we were very, very careful with the candy. But I found out that the only incident of the razor blades was either parents or grandparents doing it to their own kids. Oh, my goodness. And that became this urban legend that it was something you had to worry about. Isn't it funny, though, that people who are willing to just give kids candy for free are really just willing to give kids candy for free. They don't want to kill them. Do you think Halloween is the best holiday in America? Because, you know, I'm learning about Thanksgiving as well during the show.

Thanksgiving is pretty good. It's a big meal, Christmas presents and whatnot. You've probably got some other festivals I haven't even heard of yet. Where does Halloween stack up in your mind? I love Halloween. It's my favorite. Halloween doesn't ask anything of you. Thanksgiving has its problems. Oh, absolutely. It does. Yeah. And Christmas, not everybody can celebrate Christmas. No, it's not for everyone. No, it's not for everyone. But Halloween, depending on how you decide to celebrate, it could be for everyone. It has religious roots. It's also very secular. It's very capitalistic, but it doesn't have to be. It can be something completely different to you

rather than say, oh, this is a terrible thing. It's only for certain people or it's only for kids or it's only for whatever bad people or this is a chameleon of a holiday. It really can be anything you want it to be. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Now, a very quick word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. We talk about our physical health a lot. We're getting better at it, but we need to talk more about our mental health, and that's where BetterHelp comes in.

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Go to masterclass.com slash bird now. That's masterclass.com slash bird now. That's masterclass.com slash bird for 15% off Masterclass. I really like that expression, chameleon of a holiday. Yeah, I like that. I think it sums it all up. It is really inclusive. Yeah, which is really nice. I was really surprised in talking to two very smart people that Halloween has morphed so much over the time. It wasn't really until 60s, 70s, 80s when that really strong horror element came in and people got really into the really intense kind of scary, cathartic kind of stuff.

I can't believe it started out as a romantic holiday. believe it started out as a romantic holiday yeah i guess like an excuse for people like push boundaries and to get a bit sexy and like it was out of their shackles of conservative sort of values you know conventions i want to actually so rob's just handed me a pumpkin spice latte psl call it what it is psl okay i'm gonna have a sip. Okay. Smells awful. Okay. Did you get regular milk? Oh, my God. You don't have to chug it. Oh, it's so hot.

I burnt myself. Cinnamon got burnt. Oh, cinny with the cinny. You didn't tell me it was hot. It's fine. It tastes more sweet and cinnamony Than coffee Like this isn't a coffee

This is a really sweet other beverage Which is often what Starbucks does I find It's less about coffee And more about some cream filled nightmare The syrups and stuff Yeah the syrups But hey look this is okay It's a gloopy mess

But I'm going to go back for more And that's fine. I like a sugary tweet, a tweet. I like a sugary treat. Okay, so a few other things. The myth about razor blades and apples that had reached New Zealand. I found it remarkable that that myth actually came from awful parents doing it to their own kids. That's where the myth started. We learned about this in a fact check on Armchair. It happened once, and yes, it was a dad who did it to his son. Isn't that amazing? Suddenly in New Zealand, I'm being taught, watch out for razor blades in your apples when you're bobbing for them, and also on water slides. So we had a myth that when you go down water slides,

some people that go in front of you will slip a razor blade into the cracks and the joins in the tube so that when you go down your whole back gets sliced open which is horrific well in mine that i still am affected by is in the movie theater seats there are needles with aids oh god that old classic like the hiv aids Mixed in with the darkened theatre Yes and so you always have to check the seat Before you sit down I obviously know that doesn't exist

But there aren't AIDS in the seats At Regal or Arclight But I do check It's just habit at this point Have you ever looked at theatre seats When the lights are up in a theatre? I don't want to do that It's a nightmare.

Never do it. Horrific. You'll never want to sit down again. I'm not doing that. Okay, but that is what I wanted to bring up to the razor blades because Dax told us that there's a new one this year. There's a new panic. What's the panic? That the candy is laced with fentanyl.

I heard about this somewhere. You did? Right, that's the thing. That's the new fear and well i'm afraid to say that's bullshit because if someone dies because of this i'll look bad and i care about how i look but no but you're potentially there's some psychopath out there exactly but also no no people who are interested in getting fentanyl are interested in doing drugs. Like they're not interested in lacing little candies with it.

And giving it away for free. To children. No, no. It is that social moral panic thing that whips through because it's such a scary thought, right? Yeah, exactly. And maybe that goes back into that whole catharsis of as a society, we're so freaked out at fentanyl at the moment and it's awful. So, of course, that's going to enter our myth of it also killing our children in Halloween candy. Yeah, you're right. It's just kind of whatever we're scared of at the moment.

Yeah. The other thing I was curious about that I didn't realize is that trick or treating, there's not really a trick anymore. So if you don't give candy out, kids aren't going to throw eggs at your house and stuff. That doesn't really happen anymore. No, we're a politer society now. It's not like Truth or Dare where you get to choose do you want truth or dare. I would never play that game. That is way too scary.

Truth or dare. No, you're not doing this. Absolutely not. I think tricks still happen. Both options, too scary. Don't like it. My neighborhood, people with teepee houses. For Halloween?

Or just in general, though? Halloween's usually when it happened. Or you'd fork their yard. Yeah, I've heard that. Or like plastic forks. What's that? You take a bunch of plastic forks and you stick them in the ground. Because it's hard to get out and then they snap.

Oh, that's annoying. Or you smash the pumpkins. So it does happen. People take revenge if you don't give them candy, potentially. I don't know that it was targeted at people that didn't have candy. Do you know what TP in a house is? Toilet paper? Yeah.

Yeah, right. Throwing the toilet paper. Also, post-COVID, I hope nobody's doing that now that we know how precious toilet paper is. But also, people will probably still be overstocked from their various buying missions. So we probably need to get rid of some of them. Are we about to get into something scary? Well, look, the documentary takes a turn because there's something that's been going on in my life that I wanted to look at. So it's not scary.

It's just the documentary takes a shift. About six months ago, I moved into my first apartment here in America. The process was a bit like a horror. I had no credit here, so getting in was hard. And apparently you pay your rent by check here in America. So weird. But I settled in and got comfortable, mostly. But then a few months ago, something weird started happening. A few times a week, I started waking up at 3am. Okay, so, yeah, it's 3am. There was no reason to wake up. It's always 3am.

I didn't need to go to the bathroom, and there weren't any noises I could hear. It's weird. So when I started planning this Halloween episode, I got to thinking. I'm Priestess Mata, and I have been a priestess for over 15 years. It's my working theory that maybe a ghost is waking me up at 3am. It's the only reason that makes any sense. And with Halloween around the corner, it seemed like a good time to sort this problem out. I'd read an article on Realtor.com headlined,

Have ghostly housemates? Maybe your home needs a spiritual cleanse. So I googled spiritual cleanse and came across Marta, a priestess who knows a lot about spirits and ghosts. She agreed to meet me. So we set up a Zoom. My work of priestess services, which is house blessings and oracle readings. I'm a priestess and a seer, so I don't need cards.

I'm curious when you found out that you have abilities that the rest of us or a lot of us probably don't have. Very young, I heard things, I knew things. My mother passed away when I was eight, nine years old, but I knew it when it happened. The phone rang and I'm like, oh, I knew what happened. So I think maybe, possibly that might have been it. Before I told her about my specific problem,

I wanted to get an idea of Matt's abilities. I think my first house clearing and blessing was quite an event for me because as I was clearing this house, I saw at the end of a hallway, somebody running towards me. And apparently the spirits were kind of stuck in the hallway. And I could see mostly you don't look straight at him, but you see him out of the corner of your eye. When you look at him, you don't see him, at least in this instance. And so I started to clear the house with a sage. And there was like this old man's kind of angry that was there. And he kept blowing the sage out. So I went and got a lighter and he blow it out and I glide it. And I

said, that's it. I blow it out and I glide. I said, you're not doing this. No, this is you got to go. This is not your house anymore. You have to go. And so as I was clearing the hallway, another, this Japanese woman came from the end of the hallway, walking towards me, and she was bowing and she's speaking in Japanese. And I don't know Japanese, but I started bowing and speaking in Japanese to her. It was unbelievable. Then things got more unbelievable as she explained she doesn't do this work alone. Years ago, a giant creature entered her life and sort of teamed up with her.

When I say giant, I mean giant. It was about two stories high. It was a huge room. And in through the walls, because, you know, everything goes through walls, walks this apostas sphinx and so he was some kind of a combination of apostos and sphinx because i asked what are you and so he walked in over two stories tall oh my goodness i was kind of shocked

but i'm like okay i'm going with it i greeted I said, well, thank you for being here. I didn't tell anyone else. There were a lot of people in the room. No one saw him. I was the only one that saw him. So this being has been with me. I could call this being anytime I want. I mean, I just think about him and he's here. He's huge.

He's flying up the house. So he's above the house now. I'm blown away. So if you went outside now, you could look up and see this creature. I can see him now through the ceiling. I decide this is the time to tell Marta and her dragon about my problem. Spirits, if they're not in a good place, they're not sure where to go or how to go and say stay.

So first of all, I would honor your feelings that it's true, not that it's just your imagination. If you think it's your imagination, it's not. It's always just your gut feeling. I tell her about the building I live in, that it's quite old and there's lots of old Hollywood photos on the walls. I think it's an old hotel, but it feels more like an old museum. I can't really bring dates back home because it's too scary. As I'm telling her this, I feel a little tingle down my neck and in my ear. Little did I know, but Marta had just teleported into my building and was walking around the hallway outside. There's a lot. I mean, I can feel it already. I already walked down the halls.

Unfortunately, despite the astral visit, she couldn't pick anything up. The dragon was no use either. I said goodbye to Marta on my Zoom, thanked her, and hung up. Pacing around, I realized I'd need something more than Marta just beaming in. So I got in touch with Patty Negri, a psychic medium and witch. My job is clearing spaces. I've cleared from full office buildings, a lot of lawyers' offices,

and a lot of agents' offices. It's funny. Patty agreed to do a house visit. It's just after 8pm when she knocks on my door. She looks a bit like a witch, which makes sense because she is one. She's dressed all in black with jet white hair. Medallions and a pentagram hang from her neck.

She has a basket with her made out of old wood bound together with twine. It's filled with bottles, which I can only assume are potions. There is certainly energy here. There's certainly spirits here. Okay. Yeah, I get this upper tummy, like just below the sternum, I get this kind of like rumbly feeling. She gets out an old, ancient- looking wooden box with a bulb attached.

She tells me it picks up electromagnetic signals in the air. She also gets out some steel rods, like what water diviners use. She tells me when they cross over, whatever she's communicating with is saying yes. And do you think chances are in an old building like I'm living in, would there be ghosts here? I'm 100% sure there's ghosts here. I tell her about my problem. But about 3am most nights I'll wake up and I'll go back to sleep, but it just feels a bit weird. Right, and you know that 3am is the witching hour. It's when the veil is lifted. I guess because I live in that paranormal world, everything happens at 3am. She enters my bedroom. It's the the veil is lifted I guess because I live in that paranormal world Everything happens at 3am

She enters my bedroom It's the one bedroom in the house that has an air conditioning unit And it's quite loud, humming in the background What's the general vibe? Because this is where I'm waking up at sort of 3 in the morning And I'm curious about why that might be Do you notice your eyes drifting up a lot? Yeah, I mean

I'm just trying to think Like when i'm working or when i'm in bed or if you're just like sitting or hanging i know that i'm always drifting off up and around up and around yeah because i'm feeling a lot of like ceiling energy this is like the square it's true which is most really far but i'm feeling a lot almost energy swirling above she points the rod she's grasping in the direction of my bed, and slowly, they cross over. She indicates some rogue energy is coming from directly above my bed. She starts addressing whatever entity might be in the room with us now. Okay, is there something or somebody who actually comes in around 3 o'clock to wake up David? The rods cross over. Someone's talking to her.

So is there a spirit here right now? If there's a spirit who comes in at night, Will you come in now? The rods cross. Oh. Okay. Where do you come in from? The window. The window.

Okay. Do you mean David any harm? Nope. You just like the energy here? Yep. Did you used the energy here? Yep. Did you used to live here? Yep. That's what I was thinking.

Yeah. Yeah, and again, if the veil between the worlds is the thinnest at 3 o'clock, you're kind of asleep or not at that time. So do you just like to come visit your own place? Yeah. Someone that used to live here is coming in through the window and just sort of checking out their old place? Yes. Yes.

I ask if she can tell it to stop waking me up. Can you try to avoid waking up, David? No. No. They refuse. Will you try to be more energetically quiet? Yeah, maybe. Maybe.

Whoever this ghost is, they're stubborn. What I'm feeling, I'm seeing like literally, probably kind of a Hollywood guy. I mean, we are Hollywood. I'm seeing a little bit baggy pleated pants. He looks like maybe 1940s. Do you float your energy high? Yeah. So to clarify, at 3am, a Hollywood guy in baggy pleated pants drifts in my window at 3am and hovers above my bed. The next time I wake up at three in the morning, can I say anything or can

I communicate? Can they hear me? Is that not not a thing that's completely a thing and I would highly recommend it just say hi you can say it in your head if you're worried about anybody here why are you talking to nobody but whenever you can speak out loud speak out loud because have you felt like a tickle in your ear sometimes oh I absolutely get tickles in my ear that's him holy shit I feel glad to know what's been going on at 3am. At least I know what I'm dealing with now. I thank Paddy and send her on her way. I wish her a happy Halloween in advance. That night, like all nights, I wake up at 3am.

But now I talk to the man in baggy pleated pants hovering above my bed. Because I know I'm not alone. Hello. man in baggy pleated pants hovering above my bed because i know i'm not alone hello it's just it's annoying you're here but this is just the way it is now yeah i hope you're having a good time all right good night Mate, goodnight. So I want to clarify a few things. I do get only at my house tickles in my ear when I'm in that room. I hate. Only when I'm in that bedroom. I think that's some evidence towards it. And also I'm still this morning, every morning, 3 a.m., still waking up.

So he refused to leave. He's not there to harm me, but he won't not come in. That's just life while I live in the apartment. Why does he tickle your ear? He used to live there, and I guess that's his whole thing. Do you think he's flirting? Horny ghost. I mean.

Or horny 1940s ghost in pleated pants. The woman that teleported in didn't pick up anything, but she wasn't in the house. That's why I had to get someone to come into the house. I don't want someone teleporting in while I'm viewing them on Skype and with the dragon. So I thought Patty would come around. And Patty was legit.

That basket she had, it was literally, it looked like it had been woven together thousands of years ago, full of potions. And pretty quickly she found the source of my problem. So what else can I say? Okay. Do you think there's an even small chance you brought him in here today? I'm nervous.

Have you found any? Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Because, no, I mean, the thing is he's on the move. No, what I gathered is he's just in that room. He comes in the window and he leaves and it's okay.

I don't think he follows me. I think it's just at my house. If you ever come to my house at some point, I'll take you into my room and you can feel the energy and see if you feel a little tickle. Never. I feel like you made all this up so it would never come over. Like I will never step foot in that house. It's a really intense deterrent. No, but honestly, I laugh, but it is like waking up at 3 a.m. every morning is so fucking annoying.

And I'm getting really sick of it, but it's been happening for a long time. I feel better knowing maybe what it is. And I just have a little conversation. I just say, look, hello again. I'm going to go back to sleep. And I'm trying to get him. At the moment, what I'm trying to do is just talk him into not coming back. I feel if we get that dialogue going, then maybe one day he will just not come in the window.

He's floating three feet above me looking down at me. Do you see him? No, I just wake up. Just a feeling. What does it feel like besides the ear thing yeah when he's inside you your ear what is the sex with him no it's don't belittle what's happening to me you know don't belittle my experience i told you you have to move i'm serious it's hard property is hard in la you know i found this little place i really like i like my little apartment during the day when it's not 3 a.m it's great 3 a. Property is hard in LA. You know, I found this little place. I really like it. I like my little apartment. During the day, when it's not 3 a.m., it's great.

3 a.m. is the only problem. If 3 a.m. is the only problem in my life, I can deal with that. Well, can you cleanse it with the sage? So for a price, she can possibly come and clear it out a little bit further. She gave me some chalk and some salt to put around the windows. And she's also given me some spells that I can to put around the windows, and she's also given me some spells that I can do, but I haven't gone down that path yet. Why don't you just move into the living room? Put your bed in the living room.

Right! That's a good idea. You don't have people over that often, right? Yeah, no, I don't. I could just move in to start living in the lounge and just have my bedroom as sort of an office or something. Helix Sleep won't get me sleeping in that bed anymore. just this old man sleeps in there now we could get a ghost to do an ad for helix sleep so anyway i'd never thought about ghosts before this experience i've always wanted to have some sort of experience with a ghost i think this would probably be my first one okay so that's actually an interesting piece of

this dax is not listening to this because he's turned it off because he's really upset that no one's poked any holes. What holes could you poke in this? Come on. You've always believed in ghosts. No, I haven't. I've wanted to. It's a bit like seeing an alien ship or something. I love the idea of seeing it just to sort of slap me out of my sort of cynicism. But no, generally, I don't believe in ghosts. And I'd say that is a factor in maybe believing my story because I'm not out there seeing ghosts everywhere. This is a really unique thing for me. Okay.

Yeah. Why don't we do a house swap at some point? You sleep in my bed, I sleep in your bed, and just see what happens at 3 a.m. Because you'll wake up. Absolutely not. I am not going into your bedroom you have the least

appealing bedroom in Los Angeles I'm not going there air conditioning air conditioning ghosts coming in at 3 waking you up for everyone who has been shipping us

they can call it quits. Because this is a deal breaker. Damn ghost. So anyway, Halloween. I'm scared for you. I think I will go as maybe some sort of ghost to Halloween. Go as your ghost in the plaid 40s. Yeah, I think I'll go as my own ghost, my own haunting.

And you haven't done any research. You should ask the landlord to get like... Yeah, so my landlord is ancient and wonderful. He's about 103. And so he might have been alive when this guy was living there. So I'm going to go and see if there's any record of who stayed there. Or there might be some sort of public records about who lived at that property. There's a photo in the hallway.

Woody Allen once shot a scene at my house. So I don't know. I'll keep looking into it. If I look in the ledges and sort of find a man that was in my apartment at that sort of time frame, I'll let you know. Well, they have to disclose if somebody's died in there. But this is what I'm hazy on goes. I thought that they could only haunt if they've died in there. But I'm starting to worry that that's not the case.

Because he's traveling in sort of thing. He's traveling in and he lived there so he just wants to see his old place. Why are people so attached to their old places? Move on. Move on. This idea of being attached to the place where you die and being stuck. I mean, it's an awful thought, isn't it? Not being able to go into the afterlife, but sort of be stuck on this plane. That is a sort of an awful thing.

I hope when I die, I'm sort of off, you know? To the next place. I don't want to be staying in my, at least if I die in that apartment, I guess I could hang out with this man. You'll have friends. I've got company. Yeah. Yeah.

And we can both haunt together, whoever moves in next. Ew. Tickling ears and that kind of thing. Ew. Ew. Ew. Tickling ears. Ew. Ew, creepy. Just really quickly, have you done any of those really extreme Halloween nights where you get chased by chainsaws and, you know, there's really scary horror nights? Yeah, haunted houses. Haunted houses?

Yeah. Have you done any of those? I know Universal puts on a big thing where you go and it's just so intense and scary. And do you do all that shit? I've never done one in LA besides the Haunted Hayride but I want to go to Universal scary horror nights. They go all in. They do.

They are. And I used to when I was younger I would go with my friends to haunted houses in Atlanta and it's horrifying. You are gonna die. You're gonna die in there. It is like a cathartic thing, right? It's experiencing death and murder and scary shit without actually dying.

My philosophy on it is it's relief. The feeling of relief at the end of that is so worth the experience. You never feel that happy to be alive. I mean, how scared are you on a zero to ten? Not at Halloween, but in New Zealand, I went to a haunted house, and it was out at an old psychiatric hospital. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

And so it's out in the middle of nowhere. It's called King's Seat, and the actors get really in character, and they're allowed to touch you when I went through so they could grab. No. And that was really intense. And the great thing about that that made it so extra scary is that, and this was a legitimate thing, patients that they'd let out into the streets would sometimes wander back onto the grounds. And so there was always this thought that potentially one of those patients could end up wandering into the old ward where they were stuck and would be involved. So that made it extra scary.

Oh, my God. And I did that once, and it was really, really terrifying, and I would never do that again. Really? Yeah. I think Haunted Hayride is my speed. Haunted Hayride feels like part ride, part scare kind of fun. And if Dax is driving, that seems amusing.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're combining things. Yeah. Isn't he in? The hayride. The hayride. He's driving and there's a trailer full of hay. Yes.

And we're all in it. Yeah. And there's fun music. Yeah, he's going, yee-haw. And we're all like that. That's right. But the haunted hayride is in Griffith Park. That's separate.

We have to buy tickets to that. Dax is not driving that. That's like Universal Horror Nights. It just happens in Griffith. Okay, Dax isn't doing that. Nope. Okay. Our hayride is not haunted here. Oh, but it's for Halloween. It's for kids. Yeah, and you are not allowed to bring your ghost with you on

the haunted hayride when you come. If it's not 3am, you're safe. He might possess you if you're dressing up as him. That's true enough. Possession is the next step, potentially. So if I start acting different... Just go as a cinnamon stick. Can I just say that I am so hopped up on sugar right now from this pumpkin spice.

I have so much sugar coursing through my veins. I'm finding it hard to talk and I'm feeling weird. All right. Well. More American, less American. More American. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.

I hope everyone has a very spooky day. Yeah. And if you feel a little tickle in that ear. Stop. Just think. Nope. Might be a little ghosty. No.

3 a.m. offer is on hand anytime you want. Never.