Do Go On - 262 - H.P. Lovecraft and The Cthulhu Mythos

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

He's probably the most acclaimed horror writer of the 20th Century, H.P. Lovecraft lived a life that was almost as strange as his creations. When he died in 1937, his work was almost completely unknown, but left behind many stories that have since been dubbed 'The Cthulhu Mythos'. In the decades since his death he has become extremely influential around the world. And also, extremely controversial.This is the most requested topic for Block 2020!Buy tickets to our WORLD TOUR of live streams:https://sospresents.com/programs/do-go-on-world-tourSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodBuy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 8 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonCheck out our web series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2TuMQ31VXvqqEus9Bo6FZW-dDY5ukEuh Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:H.P. Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown [2008]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17tj18qpJf0https://www.hplovecraft.com/life/biograph.aspxIntroduction to An Epicure in the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H. P. Lovecraft:http://stjoshi.org/intro_epicure.htmlHP LOVECRAFT: A TITAN OF... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

Hey everyone, before we get to this week's episode, which is our number one most voted for Blockbuster Tober special, we've got to tell you about a very exciting announcement. Oh, I'm so excited to be able to announce this. What an honour it is. We're going to be doing some live streams again. It looks like we're going to be allowed back in the same room at the Stupid Old Studio. we're going to do a special world tour. Really?

Only all of them are from the Superdoll Studios in Melbourne. But we're going to do each week in a different time zone around the world and maybe theme it to that. We're not exactly sure. But the exact dates and times will be online now. If you look, we haven't got them locked in at the time of recording. But they're going to be on the weekend of the 21st-12nd of November, the 28th slash 29th of November, the 5th slash 6th of December and the 11th.

12th slash 13th of December. So depending on where you are in the world, it will be either on the Saturday or the Sunday, maybe even on the Friday nights in some occasions. And yeah, so wherever you are in the world, there'll be at least a couple that will be in waking hours for you, which is exciting. And we'll be awake for all of them.

Yeah, we'll be awake for all of them. And if you want to be awake, I mean, any hour can be a waking hour if you believe enough. Yeah, that's a very good point. And if you don't believe enough and you prefer to stay in bed, That's totally fair enough because you can catch up later. Yes, if you buy a ticket, you'll have access to watch it at your leisure with no time limits. You can watch it again and again and again and again and again.

And as always, there's four shows, but if you buy a season pass, you get a bloody good discount. And each episode will have a bone. Like, they're basically episodes in two halves. We'll do the first part, it'll be a report, which an edited down version of that will probably go out in the podcast feed. And then there's a whole second episode in there that could be anything. It could be a Q&A session. It could be a quiz or some other game. A rap battle.

Different things at different times, which will be fun, maybe appropriate to the country where faux broadcasting from. So, yeah, I think it's going to be a whole lot of fun. I can't wait to be in the same room as you two again. It's been fucking, what does it be? It's like over 100 days now. Wow, someone's been counting. And he's not counting down the end of lockdown.

He's counting down until he can be in the room with us again. That's quite flattering. That's beautiful. Right, if you want to check out the next out, those dates and times and buy yourself a ticket, that'd be fantastic. Just check the link in the description of this episode. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky, and as always, I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins.

Hello, I'm Jess Perkins. Hello, I'm Matt Stewart. That worked out very nicely. Well done, everybody. So I'm excited to be here. This is the number one day of Block. This is like Grand Final Day, and we're also recording this on AFL Grand Final Day. So I've got that.

Who won? I know. Don't tell us. You're listening going, these idiots don't even know that Richmond or Geelong won. Well, we know Richmond or Geelong one. Well, don't worry. Well, we'll just edit it so it's right.

Yeah. Perfect. Rich manned. One. But yes, this is the number one most requested episode for Blockbuster Toba month of 2020, which if you're not familiar, we Matt put out a little poll with about 100 of our most requested ever topics. and we've got thousands and thousands of votes.

They've all been tabulated. We've been doing a countdown, really, the last few weeks of the most popular topics, and there's only one left. So I'm feeling a bit of pressure on my shoulders to report on this, to be honest. Good, yes. I won by quite a margin as well. This one was the leader pretty early in the poll because I was checking every few days.

And it held onto the lead for the majority of the time. and I'm like, I don't know what the fuck this is. So it really surprised me that it won the poll. I don't know what the fuck this is. I think at some stage we would have discussed what the top five topics were, because obviously we've known some of the other ones. I've got no idea today. I've either forgotten or maybe I never knew.

All I know is there's a Metallica song called The Call of the Kutulu, or Kudaloo, or how have you pronounced that word? And that word is also in this week's topic's name. Wow, let me ask that question, possibly to you, Jess, because Matt may remember a bit more, because one of her favourite band doesn't have a song about it. That is, which author has books written about him that refer to him in their titles as,

The Master of Cosmic Horror, the Master of Weird Fiction and the Master of Modern Horror. Do you know who I'm talking about, Jess? Absolutely not. How did I miss this? Well, I know it's not. Not, but it feels like it would be Stephen King or Bram Stoker or something. Well, before Harry Potter, there was another famous HP on the scene.

HP Lovecraft. That's right! Oh, yes! Glad that clue actually worked. Well done. I thought it was going to be HP Brown sauce. Well, before Lovecraft, there was the Brown sauce. Every few decades, a new HP rises to the surface.

We're due for a new one, I think. I think we'll do for a new HP. Yeah, get in there. So the way this topic was suggested by multiple people was HP Lovecraft and the Kutulu Mythos or something like that. So, yeah, the full subject is H.P. Lovecraft and the Kthululu mythos. Kus. Because the Metallica song is an instrumental.

I never knew what the pronunciation was. They didn't help you out there by saying it a bunch of times. And they also spell it differently. It can't be a coincidence. No. At the end of the episode, I will go through many pop culture references to this person, which makes you, and the mythos, which might make you go, oh, actually, I have come across that in my everyday life, even if you don't know it. Because I'm wondering if HBO Lovecraft, which he has a cult following,

especially if people that love horror and stuff, but I'm wondering if everyone voted for him because of that or because they saw the Kutthulu mythos and thought, what the hell is that? That sounds interesting. And then that got extra votes. I'm not sure. Okay. Well, maybe they'll tell us. Maybe they will, because the three of us were all very unfamiliar. Like, I knew that he was a writer and either you wrote horror stuff.

I knew the one-sentence summary, but I knew nothing about this guy. Or I've never heard of the mythos before. So I'm going to get through both of those. But first of all, I've got to thank a few people now. And those are the people that suggested over the previous five years that we do this topic. And as all of these blockbuster specials, there's quite a few to get through. So thanks to Jack from Liverpool. Christoph Nouth, Andrew Jerome, Kendra Mickels, Cody Reynolds, Will Hudson, Bernold Esgara, Joshua Roberts, Gabe Hager, Andrew Dolphin, Andreas Mulower, Ruben.

Ruben. My God, some amazing names in there. Amazing. As always. I don't know how they do it. How do they do that? Was one of them, Jimmy Dolphin? That's wild. There was Andrew Dolphin and Jimmy Rubin, but their son. And then a Ruben, two Rubens. Yeah, Ruben Dodd. What are the odds? Wow.

So some fantastic names there. A lot of people, yeah, cool. Now, cards on the table, a bit of a preface here on this episode. It will mainly focus on HP Lovecraft's life. I will, of course, try to touch on the Cthulhu mythos, but I thought, what better way to really get into it and keep Blockbuster Tobri alive for another week than to focus next week's episode of book sheet

on the HP Lovecraft story, The Call of Cthulhu. Oh, yes day. And I would love it if I could extend that invitation to both of you, but I could find a time for me to tell you. Oh, that would be great. I was going to say, look forward to listening, but even better if I can just listen from inside the podcast.

I'm incredibly busy. I know you are. So I've got... I've got to lock you in on tape, otherwise you slip out of everything. No, of course. That'd be great. For those of you not familiar,

Book Cheaters, my spin-off podcast from this show where I'd take two guests through a book so they can pretend they've read it. So keep an eye out that will come out Tuesday, six days after this podcast. So really, Blockbuster started the end of October, sorry, end of September, went through October, went through in November.

So there'll be six episodes there. Plus we did Action Park as our Patreon bonus episode report this month. which was the sixth most popular voted topic of blocks. So there's seven block episodes really this year. And of course in primates, I'm doing season two of the Umbrella Academy, which in a way is related. I'm not sure how yet.

Let me think about it out. We'll find a tenuous link. So let me tell you about HP Lovecraft. Howard Phillips Lovecraft. That's what stands for. was born at 9am on August the 20th, 1890. Wow, even down to the time. Yeah, I'm giving you.

You don't know what time you were born? I do, but I don't know. But not what time HP Lovecraft was born. No, I did not know that. And usually I don't look that up when I'm doing a biography. Or they don't mention it, you know. So I love that we've already got this detail. I was born at 5pm.

Thank you for asking. I'm a 4 p.m. baby. Nice. I believe I was... I think I have no any. 6 a.m. Oh, 6 a. Early bird.

My brother, when I was growing up, I would wake up on my birthday and be like, it's my birthday. And he'd be like, no, you were born at 5 p.m. It's not your birthday yet. And so I'd go through school, like, it's not my birthday yet. And I'd have to go to bed at 7. I was like, I only got two hours of birthday. Hey, Jess, I didn't realize your brother was a dog.

Absolute dog. Yeah, that's rude. So he's born at 9 a.m. on August 20th, 1890, at his family home in Providence, Rhode Island. Not many people come from there. Honestly, if you look up famous people from Rhode Island, he is up there with one of the most famous people that ever come from this state. Is that a big university town or something? Providence?

Maybe. Yeah, great. That's all I wanted. I wanted a maybe. Could be. Not for this guy. Let me tell you about that a little bit later. But he was the only child of a well-to-do family of distinguished ancestry

that really considered itself part of the Providence aristocracy. That's the wrong word. Aristocracy. Aristocracy. Thank you. Aristocracy. Sometimes you see it written down, you're like, I'm going to have a crack here.

His mother was Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft. She could trace her ancestry to the arrival of George Phillips to Massachusetts way back in 1630 when people were coming over from England. So she could trace her family back a long way and he was quite a famous man in the town. His father, this is HP's father, was Winfield Scott Lovecraft,

a travelling same. What a fun sounding job that is. Yeah. Traveling salesman. It sounds fun. Yeah. Briefcase, you got like carpet samples in there or something. Yes.

That's what they do. And then they like, they'll put a stain on the carpet and then they'll clean it. They'll go, hey, how good is that? It's a cleanable carpet. Do you want some? And the answer was always yes. And then he said, well, I've only got three samples. Have you got a really small room or?

A dollhouse or something? A dollhouse or like a mouse house. I'm not like that. That mouse. That mouse. That mouse never stand anything. Providence, Ohio is home to the Ivy League school, Brown University. So that's over in Ohio.

Providence. Rhode Island. Wait, what is? Providence Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah, wait, where were you? I thought that's what you said. Yeah, you said Providence.

But you said Providence, Ohio, didn't you? Oh, did I? I meant Providence, Rhode Island. Brown University. I think that's my favorite university name. Well, it comes up in this story. Oh, great. Would you believe?

And you're talking about his father having a great job as a traveling salesman. Well, it sounds like he was having a great time out on the road because sadly, HB's childhood was marked by tragedy because in 1893, when he was just three years old, his father, Winfield suffered a nervous breakdown in a hotel room in Chicago. The breakdown was brought on by syphilis. He's probably having a great time out there on the road.

he was institutionalised at Butler Hospital where he would remain for five years before dying. But after being taken to hospital, HP never saw his father again. So he had a huge mental breakdown and that was it, Sally, never recovered. Whoa. I don't think I understand syphilis at all.

No. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it really, it affects your mind if you leave it untreated for a long, long time. Right, there you go. Right, okay, Dave, obviously speaking from experience there. Hey, I've had my untreated. I mean, what? And you're doing great.

Great name. A dad name though, Winfield. Winfield's great. Winnie? Winnie Blues. I'm about to one-up at here. Well, here we go. With his father gone, HP was raised by his mother.

With his two aunts, Lillian and Annie, and his grandfather, who has one of the greatest names I have ever come across. His grandfather's name was Whipple Van Buren Phillips. Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. Whipple. Van Buren.

Phillips. Whipple. I mean, I can only... It's a little... It starts so strong and ends in Phillips, but... Whipple. That's why people voted for this topic, because I knew we'd have this much out. Whipple.

Whipple. They seem like quite a fancy family, too, so I doubt they're calling him whip, you know? Oh, yeah. Or maybe they are, but... They're quite formal, I believe. Yeah. Ew, Whipple. Whipple. Ew. You know, a posh sound. E!

Whipple. Pass the... Chocolate Ripple cake, please. Mick Minesh Ripple. So Whipple was a wealthy industrialist who had become a profound influence on the young HP. Whipple was the centre of his universe, essentially, because I'm just going to say his name over and over again because I love it so much. Whipple had a lot of books, and the young Lovecraft who could read from the age of three

would go into his grandfather's library with a candle and secretly start reading at night. What to show off. Yeah, three, I can read. Whatever, I'm 30, I'm still figuring it out. Well, unlike you, Jess, he peaked young, so. I'm going to pick old. Yeah, that's right, go for it. So even when he was young, he loved stuff like the Arabian Nights

and stories from Greek mythology. In his early years, he also read literature from the 18th and 19th centuries and wanted to be like the people in those stories, a real 18th century gentleman. So yeah, he was already showing signs of being a weird little boy. He also got very into Edgar Allan Poe and other, quote, weird fiction, as it was then known. And he was fascinated. All of this was fostered by Whipple, who would entertain his grandson with improvised Gothic stories.

So he's doing a lot of reading at home, but he didn't go to school much because he suffered from frequent illness, most of which was psychological. He learned more from reading them from traditional school and began writing poetry. true from the age of seven. He also had a fascination with chemistry and astronomy, so he was a prodigious self-learner. But sadly, awkward things must come to an end. Oh no. And in 1904, Whipple died. No, not Whipple. Not Whipple, they all said. Now until then, the family had been very well off. lived in a very large house that had a library for God's sake. But some bad investments and mismanagement just before Whipple's death and also possibly contributing to his demise

meant the family were left in financial difficulty. Oh no. So they were forced to move out of the family mansion, which of course included HP's beloved library, and he was devastated with the loss. You do hate to see people have to move out of their mansions. Oh, no. It's tragic.

Oh, and they're libraries. Oh. Sadly for a young Howard, it was possibly the only happy home he would ever know. Definitely had forgotten that his name was Howard too. Yeah, it feels like it's a real stepdown from the rest of the family. Yeah. Whipple. Winfield, Howard.

Yeah, all Ws. Maybe that was the tradition, but geez, the, I know Howard doesn't start with the W is going to W. Okay, thank God. Yes, okay. Your face. I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. How do I tell him? But then I was also like, am I wrong?

How word got it, yes. I mean, they could have given him a great name like Warnie or something. Yeah. Tribute, oh, Woldrick. Oh, Woldorf. New name of made up, I think. I like it. I mean, you could have just done anything.

If Wipple's accepted, I think anything goes. Anything's on the table. So young Waldrick, or whatever you called him, moved with his mother to a cramped apartment. the opposite of a large house, which he had become accustomed to. And Lovecraft became very depressed. He had a very, very, very strange relationship with his mother, Sarah. Very hot and cold, love, hate.

With the death of her husband and father, she mothered H.P. incessantly smothering him. So she loved him too much. But she also treated him badly, Matt. Okay. It was really hot and cold. So apparently his mother told neighbours that he had a hideous face, and that's why he wouldn't go outdoors. very much. She also said this to his face, which made the young teen very insecure, as you can understand.

She also said this to his hideous face. She's holding up a mirror saying, look, look at it. I have to. Now you do too. Now, have you seen photos, Dave? Of him? He's a very thin, pale man. And I think you look great. I mean, either way, I don't know, I'm like going, was it justified? Was she right, though? Either way, she probably shouldn't have gone down that path. It's not enough to keep him inside. Yeah, okay. But he missed a lot of high school due to more semi-nervous breakdowns and overall had a very, very lonely childhood.

A side effect was that he had a very vivid imagination because it was him and the books, him and the writing at all times. Starting in childhood and throughout the rest of his life, HP suffered from terrifying nightmares, some of which would influence his horror stories. Because of this, he suffered from chronic insomnia. Throughout his life, he would stay up all night and sleep into the day and he would very rarely go outside during the day,

leading him to be very, very pale. He had a lot of phobias that dominated his life, fear of doctors, fear of the cold among them. NYBooks.com lists some of his many phobias and some are quite specific. So let me read you a short, well, long selection. Some of his phobias included. Invertebrates, marine life in general,

temperatures below freezing, fat people, slums, percussion instruments, caves, cellars, old age, monumental architecture, non-Euclidean geometry, deserts, oceans, rats, dogs, the New England countryside, New York City, fungi and moulds, vicious substances, medical experiments, dreams, brittle textures, the colour grey, plant life of diverse sorts, memory lapses, old books, mists, gases, whistling, whispering, and it says here, quote, The things that did not frighten him would probably make a much shorter list. Wow. See, old books frighten him.

Yeah, that's difficult when your grandfather owned a library. So I imagine he was probably stoked to move to that cramped apartment away from all those old books. The colour grey. Whistling. Yeah. The colour grey, especially living in those days. Inverte. In my head, everything is grey.

It was all grey. Yeah, they don't have colour yet. Duh. That doesn't come to much later. the 60s, the Cultural Revolution. Everything's in color. High definition. Yeah, so he was scared of a lot of stuff.

So it's probably not surprising then that in 1908, he suffered from a full-scale nervous breakdown just before high school graduation, meaning that he left school without a diploma and didn't go to Brown's University as he had planned. There it is. He's going to go all the way down to Browntown. Well, I'm afraid he didn't get to Brown.

He was stuck in Greyville, which he hated. That's why he wanted to go to Brown. He hated grey. I love brown. Brown's the one colour that'll trump grey. You know, you mix everything together. What do you get? Brown. Yeah, that's right.

Wow, that's so true. That's so deep. That's beautiful, Dave. Thank you. Deep like the ocean, one of his fears. There was a type of geometry he was scared of. Non-Euclidean geometry. I have no idea what that means.

Me either. Let's look it up. I mean, what could that mean? Euclidean geometry? Yeah, no fear at all. Come on. Bring you Euclidean geometry at me and I'll face it any day. But if it's not, Euclidean... Euclidean?

Geometry. Get it away from me. Get it the fuck out of here. Get it out of here. I don't want to say it. I don't like it. Is that non-Euclidean? I can sense that there's non-Euclidean geometry somewhere near me.

So there's three main types of geometry. Euclidean, spherical and... hyperbolic. These are... Yeah. So two of the three, he's not into. Yeah, so Euclidean geometries, the mathematical system attributed to Alexandria and Greek mathematician Euclid.

Okay. There you go. One of the great. Interesting. So one of three. He only likes one third of geometry. Yeah, it really does sound like just day-to-day life would be very difficult. Yeah.

And so uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, jokes aside, this. sounds like it would suck. Yeah, big time. Oh, yeah. And now he missed out on graduating from high school because of his health. He didn't go to university.

And he felt deep shame in this failure because he was a very, very smell. He smelled great. No, he was a very, very smart but self-taught man. He just didn't have the ability to function in regular institutions. Yeah. So, yeah, very intelligent. Just not cut out to, you know, study in the school way. Which a lot of people aren't, right?

Mm. Absolutely. School system is still a weird thing. I'd never thought about it at school. But now it's like, oh, this is strange. It's a whole system built for one kind of kid. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're not, then bad luck.

I mean, there's two types of kids. There's also sporty, so. Well, that's true. Which I was, so. Dave, you couldn't pick up a tennis record. Oh, no, that's a pencil, please. Do you think I'll ever be a professional athlete? No, Dave, you won't.

Oh, wait. Is chess a sport? Yeah. Then, yep. You can't even push pencils, let alone like kick a ball. I know it sucks. I'm not sporty enough for sport and I'm too dumb for chess. I mean, what have I got left?

You're right. School sucks. I think all that's in your future, mate, is podcasting. Oh, no. I know. I'm sorry. Podcasting. So I'd be the bearer of bad news.

And even more tragically, non-Euclidean geometry. Oh, God. I mean, what's the point? The third best type. I mean, it only just makes the top three. What is hyperbolic geometry sounds interesting? Sounds fun. Spherical sounds nice.

I like round things. Let's go with that one. That's in the top three. Yeah. Favorite shape? Mine's circle. Oh, pentagon. Oh, yeah, right.

The devil one, is it? That's a pentagram. Oh. Oh, yeah, pentagons where the defense base is in America. Yeah, that's right. Also housing the devil, some good argument. Jess, favourite shape, I mean. I'm thinking, maybe like a square.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's like a nice and even. Oh, no. Shut up. Don't ask me a question and then criticise my answer. I answered from the heart, okay? No, square's a great. It's a great shape.

It's one of the classics. I'd put that up on my bloody, what's the cliff face with the four president faces? Mount Rushmore. I'd have that on my Mount Rushmore. So your Mount Rushmore would be a circle, a square, what else we've got, a triangle maybe. Triangle. Triangle.

And, yeah, well, they're the big three. Well, then what do you go from there? I'd say rectangle is the next most basic. Maybe Thomas Jefferson's face. Oh, yeah. Very angular. Yeah, that makes the most sense. Oblong, it's fun to say.

That is fun to say. Oblong. Oblong. So feeling more shame, he became a recluse for the next five years and found himself alone at home and developed an unhealthily close relationship with his mother. Even the official HP Lovecraft website describes that a relationship at the time as, quote, a pathological love-hate relationship. Oh, it doesn't sound good.

No, not a good time. It started good when you said love. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm listening. Oh, hey, that's bad. Pathological doesn't sound good either, but I don't fully know. I was going to say, pathological is never followed, never said in a positive way. Yeah, bring it back as a positive word. Yeah, come on.

Okay. Dave, can you use it in a positive sentence? Yeah, um, happy pathological birthday. Okay. So it means of or relating to pathology. Relating to or caused by disease. Okay. Involving or caused by a physical or mental disease.

Is there positive diseases? Not really. What about that goose who laid golden eggs? That was probably some sort of disease. Yes, I think you're spot on. And that was pretty good. I mean, not for the goose. That would have been awfully painful.

But, I mean, gold's is sort of malleable, isn't it? Gold is malleable. Yeah, when it's heated to a temperature. Yeah. Yeah, well, I reckon. So how hot's the goose? Well, I think this goose is cloaca, we'll have it to a nice temperature. It's a molten cloaca.

Moulton cloac. That's a cool band. Moulton cloaca. I like it. What do you reckon? Yeah, it's on the list for sure. Oh, we forgot. to explain for new listeners that we will be annoying at parts by forgetting what the topic was.

And I think we might be in one of those spots right now. So apologies for that. Dave, please do go on. So not much he's known about his life during this five years or he's a recluse at home alone with mum. But quoting from a university paper written about him, quote, we know that on his 21st birthday in 1911, he wrote the trolleys all day. But aside from this, this period is largely blank, end quote. So not a lot. happening for HP. So no big 21st birthday party, a bunch of speeches from friends. Made it to drink a yard glass of beer.

Yeah, got given a symbolic key. But he just rode the trolleys that day. Yeah, symbolically. You guys picturing shopping trolleys? Because I realized after a second that means trams, right? Tram. Mm-hmm. Riding the trolleys.

Because I used to be a trolley pusher. So I used to ride the trolleys in a way. Or did they ride you? Riding toys are hardly riding. That doesn't work in anyway. One thing we do know that he did during this time was continue to read. He read popular magazines all day long. Full of pulp fiction, Lovecraft found that he hated the romance stories that were written,

especially a story in the Argos, which is one of these magazines, by a writer named Fred Jackson. He just liked it so much that he had to do something about it. he wrote a letter to the editor. Oh no. Oh, no. The point of no return. But not just any letter.

He wrote it in rhyming verse. There once was a man from Nantucket. You can take your paper and... Well, it caught the attention of the editor who decided to publish it in the next edition. Other writers came to Jackson's defence and their back and forth with Lovecraft was again published in the magazine. Lovecraft always writing in Cumber. couplets taking the piss out of the others. Strangely enough, this ended up being a pivotal point in Lovecraft's life

because the controversy caught the attention of Edward F. Das. Das was the president of the United Amateur Press Association, of course you know as the UAPA, which is a group of amateur writers from around the country who wrote and published their own magazines. Das was impressed by Lovecraft's poetic takedown of Jackson and invited the young writer to join the UAPA, which he did so in 1914. Lovecraft was forever grateful for the invitation that almost certainly saved him from wasting away as an unknown recluse. He was given a lifeline and an outlet, and he took it with both hands.

He later wrote, quote, in 1914, when the kindly hand of amateurdom was first extended to me, I was as close to the state of vegetation as any animal well can be. End quote. So he wasn't doing very much, but just because he was so annoyed at this letter, they asked him if he'd like to write his own stuff. Cool. So he published 13 issues of his own paper called The Conservative and contributed writing and poetry to other journals.

He even later became the president and official editor of the UAPA himself. Okay. Early on, I thought that was a big twist. He later on became the president of the United States. But I will not be talking about that. that any further. I mean, I don't want to bore you with that period of his life. It was only four years. He was only one-term wonder. It was during this period that he began writing fiction since the first time, since his teen years. He allowed the stories he'd written as a teen to be published and he'd actually

received great feedback for them and decided to, oh, maybe I'll have a crack of that again. So we wrote two stories, The Tomb and Dagon in 1917. Dagon was the first short story that would later be seen to embrace the concepts and themes that his writing would be known for, the so-called Cthulhu mythos. But at this point in his life, fiction wasn't his main creative outlet he regarded himself as more of a poet and an essayist.

This period of his life also kick-started something that he would later keep up for the rest of his life, letter writing. He wrote letters to associates and friends, and it's estimated that by his death, he had written 100,000 letters. Whoa. Some of them up to 70 pages in length.

Oh, God. You know, if you'd get a letter from him, you'd really have to like set aside a weekend for it. Oh, no, I imagine. Here we go. Got another letter from HP. All right, honey, I'll be in the reading room. I'll be taking my meals in there, thank you.

He has to send it in like a five kilo bag just to get all the pages in. So if he wrote 100,000 letters between this point in his life and his death, that average is to be over 13 letters per day, every day, for the rest of his life. Wow. He is actually known as one of the most prolific letter writers in all of history. It said that only Voltaire, the French philosopher and writer, wrote more letters than him.

He's honestly in the top two letter writers ever. Whoa. You're that crazy. That's mad. It became his... But I suppose they didn't have MySpace, did they? No. So what are you supposed to do all day?

Exactly. But it didn't have a Nintendo Switch, did he? No. But he did have a wee. That's pretty sick. It's cool, but it's not as good. Yeah. He wrote in 1917 at the age of 27,

speaking about how letters really became his main form of communication. He said, as to letters, my case is peculiar. I write such things exactly as easily and as rapidly as I would utter the same topics in conversation. Indeed, epistolary expression is with me largely replacing conversation as my condition of nervous prostration becomes more and more acute. I cannot bear to talk much now and are becoming as silent as the spectator himself

while laquacity extends itself on paper. Okay, I knew, I reckon I knew every third word he just said. Yeah, be about the same. Imagine that for 70 pages. Basically, he's saying there... Obviously, I know lequacity, but some of the others last movie. So basically what he's saying there is he found writing these letters easier than actually talking to people face to face.

Yeah, okay, yep. He'd get nervous, he'd get tongue-tied, but in a letter, He could let it fly. So that's basically what he did. You know, you do hear a lot of, it's usually older people saying, like, you know, we're talking more now, but we're not communicating. You know, because we are spending more time.

On MySpace. Texting or on MySpace or communicating in different ways. But for a lot of people, that's a really good thing because they do find it hard to express themselves in person. Some people need to like think about what they want to say more and process it. and then put it to paper or something. So, yeah, okay, it's a different way of communicating,

but for some people it's a better way. So I get that. I get what he's saying there, but it's hard to talk, but he finds he can express himself better in his letters, but still too many letters. Yeah. Like some people just find it easier to express themselves

by learning the code to change the background of their Myspace profile to be turquoise, for example. Exactly, right. And that says more than words ever could. Algorithms. That's my language. Yeah. Mine is manipulative.

through changing my top friends. Ah, great. Playing people off against each other. Exactly. What do you mean? I used to be number one now, number three. Well, you know what you did? Yeah, that's how I like to communicate.

Love that. Get in there on the Messenger app and just really go on. He would have been a nightmare on MSN. My God, he'd never be off. Yeah, you'd be like, honestly, I've got to go to bed. And he's like, but my loquacity knows no bounds. All right. Oh, no.

Poor old HP, this is things were starting to make sense. In 1919, his mother, who had never been in a great headspace, had herself a mental breakdown, like a husband before her, and she too was admitted to butler hospital. HP realised after a month that also, like a husband, she was never coming home. He became depressed and suicidal. But despite this, in 1920, so she's gone off to the hospital and you'll never see her again, basically,

he continued writing, and at an amateur writing convention, and he met his closest confidant, Frank Bellknap, Long, a man who would be really influential on his writing career, which in 1920 was quite prolific publishing stories that would fit into the Cthulhu mythos. 1921, his mother did die, and her son was devastated by the loss. They've thrown around mental breakdown a lot,

and I'm wondering what that would be today. Do you know what I mean? Like, what's... I feel like back then they didn't really... have any kind of understanding of a lot of medical things. So it was, yeah, always weirdly managed. I'm wondering, yeah, just saying, ah, mental breakdown. Yeah, that's, okay.

What does that mean? Well, I think his father's one was major. I think that he sort of lashed out, had a bit of an incident of this hotel, and then I think he became pretty non-communicative after that. Yeah, wow. And then, yeah, that's when HP didn't see him anymore. But very tragic that both your mother and father have been taken away and to die in these hospitals.

Really, really awful. Really sad. So he was very devastated. A few weeks later, he managed to drag himself to a journalism convention in Boston, and this is where he met a woman. Sonia Haft Green, who was seven years his senior. How many years? That's all right.

Seven years, is okay? The two married in 1924, which was no surprise to their friends, but it completely took H.P.'s off guard. They only found about it later after the ceremony when they were informed by a letter. And they weren't too happy about it either. They did not like his wife, possibly because she was Jewish and Russian. Funnly, that they weren't invited to the wedding then, huh? But they were very blind-tum.

How dare you not invite me to this wedding that I disapprove of? That's right. I wouldn't have approved. How dare you? I would have been a real pain in the ass to be there. I would have certainly objected, given the option. Oh, and I'm a nightmare for catering. My goodness.

You know, my diet. Oh, my God. And I'm fussy. Oh, so fussy. I only eat crab. And my lavaciousness knows no bound or something like that. Curvaciousness. My curvaceousness.

Eating a lot of crab. So he got married. He might have been called Lovecraft by name, but he certainly wasn't Lovecraft by nature. You're focusing on the love or the craft part? Yeah. Was he not good at? at knitting?

Oh, no, he's okay at knitting, but he's not good at loving. Oh, dear. He was, by all accounts, a virgin on his wedding night, and there is an article on H.P. Lovecraft's sex life, or lack thereof, on his website, written by R. Elaine Evitz. It's quite pervy, and if you want to delve into his difficulty in achieving orgasm, I will link it into the description, but I will not be quoting from it here. What does that exist?

Why would you put this little tease in there of his difficulties to orgasm? Because I thought it was funny that there's an article about it. Yeah, website. That is a bit weird. Wait, is it like his estate's website? Is it like an official website? Or just a fan? Like a fan.

Why? I mean, why is that relevant? What a weird. Yeah, it's on HB Lovecraft.com. I thought it'd be that strange for people to be virgins on their wedding nights in the early 1900s either, would it? No, I don't think so. Was, because that, like, not, you know, being, having kids before wedlock was like a no-no around then, wasn't it?

Through pretty much through most of that 1900s, really. In, sorry, in Christian societies. Basically, he's been described as Victorian prude when it came to sex and sexual relations. He didn't like talking about sex or any talk of such a subject when spoken of by friends. And his wife later said, the very mention of the word sex seemed to upset him. Well, I'm glad. I reckon he'd be stoked that there's a page on his website dedicated to it then. But credit where credits due, when he got married, he did as he always did. And he read up on the subject so he could perform on their wedding night.

So good on him. He did his research. Yeah. Did his research. That's good. Yeah. He moved into her Brooklyn apartment where she was the real breadwinner running a very successful hat shop on Fifth Avenue. Early on the relationship, she was quite wealthy.

So Lovecraft kept writing and was happy to have some of his stories published in the popular pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1923. He also had a crossover with one of our previous report topics, Harry Houdini. Oh, yeah. He ghost wrote a column written by Houdini, and he then wrote a story called Under the Pyramids for Harry Houdini. HP kept writing for the famous magician, and they even formed a friendship,

but their collaborations were cut short when Houdini suddenly died in 1926. Still, I thought that was quite interesting. Yeah, that is, isn't it? So that's the second crossover because he was reading old mate the Raven guy. Oh, that's right, Ed Gowlin Poe, which earlier this year I did a report on. Very influenced by Poe. So he was going okay for a while, but sadly this period of happiness again couldn't last. No.

Only 10 months, in fact, because Sonia's hat shop soon went bankrupt and she was hospitalized with illness. Lovecraft tried to find work to support his wife, but few were willing to hire a 34-year-old man who, who'd never had a job before. He had no experience. How is, I mean, maybe it's just a sign of the times, but how unlucky has he been with close people being taken away to hospital? Yeah, really bad. He's having a shocker, someone so.

Having a real mayor. Yeah. So on January 1st, 1925, Sonia went to Cleveland to take up a job, and Lovecraft moved into a single-room apartment near the seedy Brooklyn area called Red Hook. He found himself isolated, alone, and to his horror, surrounded by foreigners. Now, H.B. Lovecraft is famous for his horror stories,

but he's also increasingly famous for his horrific views on race. He was, in no uncertain terms, a massive racist. There's problematic. One of his phobias, was it? Yeah. Well, there's problematic, and then there's H.B. Lovecraft. Like, it's blatant, indefensible. Wow.

Now, the Atlantic writes, the xenophobia and white supremacy that verbal beneath his fiction, which may have gone unnoticed had he remained anonymous, are startlingly explicit in his letters. Okay. So you may not get too much of it in the stories, the horror stories that he goes on to be famous for, but in his letters he's very explicit.

Wow. And his aunties sounded like they were even more racist. Yeah, they were similar. He was just brought up in a very racist environment, was he? Yeah, so he's been described as despising, quote, people who weren't white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. And I believe that's what his aunts also held those views. That is pretty specific.

And it also includes his wife as outside of that. Yeah. Yes, and some people say stuff like, oh, he can't have been that racist. He married a Jewish lady. But he was pretty anti-Semitic in the letters. That does not rule out racism, who you marry necessarily. I know.

Yeah. I'm just trying to, yeah, some people who obviously really like him and want to defend him for some. Honestly, some of my best friends are dot, dot, dot is a great, obviously a great defense. And it's used very well often. So I can say that incredibly offensive thing I just said. And I don't have to take any feedback on it. I'm actually one 16th Swiss Italian, so that's where that joke sort of comes from. Anyway.

Yeah. It's always fun to explain your long-running jokes. A little peek before. behind the curtain there, and I personally never got it. Apart from the fact, I am literally one-eight Swiss-Italian as well. But you water it down for comedic effect, which I appreciate it. So I don't want to repeat word for word too many of his views here because honestly they are vile. But he wrote of, he hated everyone.

He wrote of undesirable Latins, low-grade southern Italians and Portuguese people, the plague of French Canadians that were coming in. He hated Chinatown, its inhabitants, very anti-Semitic. very anti-black people. In summary, he wrote, in general, America has made a fine mess of its population and will pay for it in tears amidst the premature rottenness unless something is done extremely soon. Wow. Yeah, he hates everyone.

Yeah, except white Anglo-saxon Protestants. Yes, of course. But, I mean, he comes from a good standpoint to have these views as a recluse who never interacts with anybody. So obviously these are well-researched standpoints of viewpoints. Yeah. I hate Chinatown. I've never been there, but I assume I'd hate it.

I hate it. I hate that it exists out there somewhere. Not sure where. I've never looked it up. But I've heard of it, and I hate that. Yeah, it was very much like that. And as time goes by, these views are something that fans are having to deal with. So we'll discuss that more at the end of the podcast.

As a white Anglo-Saxon, I reckon white Anglo-Protists. Am I Protestant? No. No. But as a white Anglo-Saxon, too, that's a check. I reckon white Anglo-Saxons might be one of my least favourite. Oh. Just putting that, just to say.

Well, there you go. I mean, that's the same thing. You're still being racist. There you go. It's okay because I'm white Anglo-Saxons. Yeah, great. Here we go. Yeah, great.

Some of my best podcast co-hosts are racist, so I'm allowed. Sorry, best, yes? Yeah. So I had to cover that period of his life because it's bloody awful stuff. I've got to tell you. Yeah, you've got to mention it, but you don't want to quote him too much. Yeah, I don't want to quote too much because, yeah, it's fair. I think, yeah, okay, we have had feedback in the past that we dwell too much on the negatives of people from the olden days.

But I feel like you've got to, you've got to mention it. If you know about it, you've got to mention it. I think even for his day, he was well beyond. I shouldn't say olden day, you know, like just anyone from any time. But, you know, things. Yeah, sure, no. Because he was one of these people that he loved the 18th and 19th century, he basically held views. that were even the end well outdated.

Yeah, fascinating and terrible. Yes, but back to the life that this racist was living, it wasn't going well. He was stuck in his single room in Red Hook. He was split from his wife and he had no money. His two aunts offered him a lifeline in 1929 when they offered to move him back to his town of Providence. But the catch was he had to move back alone.

They did not welcome his wife. This is a quote. He's going to do it. He's going to do it Because he sort of go Well that's dumb And a bit of a no brainer Well no obviously

I want to live with my wife He's going to do it I think Well quote The family's social standing In spite of their poverty Was too precious to be tainted By a tradeswoman wife In quotes

They also didn't like that she Had a successful trade qualification What? She's running a really successful business Isn't that funny how things have changed Like that? Like the thing you'd be proud of there Either the people

Who are born into wealth Who mismanaged it and have fallen out of wealth or the person who worked their way up to be a successful business person. Yeah, by being good at something. Well, it does sound like she also, that business also failed, right? But still, yeah, it's funny how it's... And I think it did fail because she got quite sick as well.

Right, yeah, yeah. Which I probably wasn't that clear about it, but yeah. Not a bad, not a bad reason. Yeah. So they gave him this lifeline, and he accepted the offer. Yep. Basically, never saw his wife again. They divorced.

Get fucked. What do you mean? So he would write letters during this period, professing his love for her, but then the aunts came out and said, hey, want to live with us again? Just drop the old ball and chain. And, uh, well, uh,

so she'd moved to a different city when she moved to? She moved to Cleveland, I think. Yeah, right. And so they were already kind of separate, but it certainly sounded like they were still a married couple, just living in different places for a while. and then he just goes to lose with his aunts who say she can't come. That's so weird.

No. Different time. It remembers him in a pre-COVID world. Sorry, yes, okay. So he's back in Providence, Rhode Island, and if you don't know where that is, just imagine a famous state like North Carolina, and it's kind of north of there,

kind of like North North Carolina. I mean, I could say it's near Boston, but I think this makes more sense to the listeners. And there it is, the... fifth block episode. Every week we refer to North Carolina. They said I couldn't do it, but I did it. Oh, North Carolina.

You really shoehorned in. That reminds me of a fact about North Carolina. Michael Jordan, one of the most famous basketballs of all time, won the championship in his final six seasons in the NBA until he came back and played for the Washington Wizards. But forget about that. Anyway, he played for North Carolina University and he found his shorts to be lucky.

So he wore them under his Chicago Bull shorts in the NBA and had to wear bigger red Chicago Bull shorts to cover his blue North Carolina shorts. And that sparked a bit of a trend because he became like the goat. So everyone else wore bigger baggy basketball shorts, and that's why basketball shorts are baggy these days. That's a bit of a fun fact.

I did not know that. Super interesting. Also a good drink sprake. so thank you so much. So he's back in his home city and it was during this time that Lovecraft wrote most of the work that would later be referred to

as the Cuthulu mythos. He didn't coin this term, it was only after his death that it was applied, but essentially the Cuthulu mythos is a shared fictional universe. The name, Cthulhu, derives from the central character, the creature, I should say,

in Lovecraft's seminal short story, The Call of Cthululu, first published in the first published in the Pult magazine Weird Tales in 1928. This is the story that we will cover on the next episode of Book Cheat. Okay, cool. So I'll look forward to that. And just a note on the pronunciation of the name Cthulhu here.

In a 1934 letter to amateur writer Dwayne W. Rimmel, great name. Lovecraft explained how to pronounce the name of his alien creation. He said, The name of the hellish entity was invented by beings whose vocal organs were not like man's. hence it has no relation to the human speech equipment. The syllables were determined by a physiological equipment wholly unlike ours, hence could never be uttered perfectly by human throats, end quote. Wow.

I love it. So it means even if you or someone else pronounces it differently to me, I'm off the hook, baby, I'm not wrong. It's foolproof. It's foolproof. We're just not built to be able to say it. Even the way you say it might be slightly more correct, but you can never be 100% correct.

so please don't at me. I'm so sorry that I'm human. That's right. Sorry that I'm not a monster. If you can say it right, well, I don't want to know you. I don't want to be anywhere near you, thanks very much. Monster. I'm just a humble human being.

Is it possible that the way I have always said it is also kind of right there? Could be. Yeah. How do you say it, man? I actually have heard people say it that way. I'm going to have a go. Here we go. Grapefruit.

Oh, my goodness. what I was trying to do, but I couldn't get my mouth or human throat to make that sound. We're not all alien linguists like me. Well done. That's amazing. I've never heard that sound come from a human throat before. So yeah, it's a fictional universe encompassing the shared elements, characters, settings and themes of Lovecraft that really took off in 1928. I had to search high and low for an overall definition that a newbie could understand. This is the best I could find. It was written on the U.S.

Lovecraft Fandom page. The little summary. The mythos usually takes place in fictional New England towns and is centered on the great old ones, a fearsome assortment of ancient, powerful deities who came from outer space and once ruled the earth. They are presently quiescent, having fallen into a death-like sleep at some time in the distant past. So, yeah, it's set on earth, and so it's our world, but there are these.

old monster type things if you like. Who've been sleeping. Do they wake up in the books? Sometimes. That's when things get interesting. Just to give you an example of one of these deities, the most famous but not the most powerful, Cthulhu is described as

a massive hybrid of human, octopus and dragon. It's usually depicted as being hundreds of meters tall with webbed arms, tentacles, and a pair of rudimentary wings on his back. Yeah. You reckon people would have noticed that thing's sleeping. Oh, it's under the ocean. Oh.

It's not just like... Flying on a main road. Not just in Fitzroy. It's blocking a highway, actually. It's very inconvenient. We'd never know what that was. It actually fell asleep on a mini golf course, and people just thought it was one of the displays.

So it'll wake up and it'll just cough out all these golf balls. It's like, yeah, I hit it in its mouth. I was expecting it to come out the ass, but it still hasn't. The essence in the mythos is that the human world and our role in it are an illusion. Humanity is living inside a fragile bubble of perception, unaware of what lies behind the curtains or even of the curtains themselves. And our seeming dominance over the world is illusionary and ephemeral. We are blessed in that we do not realize what lies dormant in the unknown lurking places on earth and beyond.

Yeah, and that's sort of where the horror comes from. in the stories. Do you think it's scary, like by modern standards? Yeah, I think people say that they're terrifying. Yeah. And it's terrifying in a different way in terms of, it's not like, oh, there's a werewolf and you can go get it. It's more like the horror comes from the fact that humans don't matter and we've

never mattered and we're not like the main characters in this story. We're just, you know, there's no good guy coming to save the day. It's just bleak, bleak stuff. So to quote from director Gaiomo del Toro, who was a big lovecraft fan, he's got a lot of celebrity enthusiasts. Guillermo describes it as things much older than us, are gazing upon us with indifference and cruelty. That's what these gods do, yeah.

Diffence and cruelty. Feels like they kind of... Yeah, if you're indifferent. Yeah. Are you going to be cruel as well? Answer that, Giamo. Yeah. I'll email him.

Thank you. Thank you. Could you email him in rhyming couplets? Yeah, that'll get his attention. So Lovecraft himself described it as all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos at large, which is not surprising for a man who obviously didn't fit into our society. Yeah.

You can be indifferent and cruel to someone. I take it all back. In a lot of ways, sometimes indifference can be cruel. Dave, can you scrap that email? I know you've already halfway through it. Yeah, don't worry about it. Don't worry. I've just hit send, but I can do the cancel undo button on Gmail.

Love that feature. Great feature. Love that. Thank goodness. Thank you. Yeah, it seems like Lovecraft is really operating on a different level. And because he is sort of a recluse and he spends so much time by himself, he feels like an observer of humans.

And I think it sounds like he's trying to kind of figure it out in a very critical way. It's really interesting. Yeah, he's certainly a different perspective. Yeah. He would say, I could not write about ordinary people because I am not in the least bit interested in them. And so he wrote about the bizarre, cannibalism, reanimation, self-immolation, murder, madness-inducing meteors, human fish hybrids, aliens and much, much more.

Wow. So he created dozens of weird and malevolent creatures in his writings like the Cthulhu, and during his life he actually encouraged many of his writer friends to create their own stories within the fictional universe. So other people contributed to it as well. It was expanded upon by his pals at the time and continues actually to be expanded upon after his death. So that's my vague definition.

I'm, again, cards on the table, not a huge Lovecraft fan, so I don't know too much about it before doing any of this research. But I hope we'll get a better feel for it and when we cover Call of Cthulhu on bookshed. When you say you haven't been a huge fan, did you know much about him before and you just weren't into it or you just never really came across his stuff that much? I never really came across these stuff,

and I just don't really have a big interest in horror in general. Right. Yeah. But maybe this will change my life. And actually, I just realized how perfectly time is this is, because this is Halloween week as well. No.

It is. Halloween's on Saturday. Well, I did that on purpose. Happy Halloween. God, you are good, Dave. Well, I mean, you didn't even choose to do it, Dave. I know. The Patreon.

How are you thinking you're claiming, what was a popular vote, you're claiming the result. somehow had anything to do with you. I rigged it. Yes. And well done, Dave. Hooray for Dave.

I mean, HB Lovecraft was never going to be number one, Matt. I made that happen. I was surprised. I'm like, I really feel I would have heard of it more, whatever came at number one. Ted Bundy, I was not surprised was a popular vote. O.J. Simpson trial, another big thing. Robin Williams, I was a bit surprised because biographies don't usually get right up there. What was the other one we did?

Oh, and the Donner Party, I knew that was, yeah. This one's been the most surprising of all five, I reckon. Probably up there with Robert Williams. So it makes sense that you rigged it, Dave. You rigged it so that you would do a topic that you were indifferent to until right now. For Halloween. Yeah. I'm that good.

So that's Kathaula. We'll get back to that on the book cheat episodes to keep your eyes peeled for that. But conversing with his friends over letters meant in his later part of life, He was less lonely after returning to Providence. He had found his niche as a New England writer of weird fiction and a man of letters. He also helped to nurture the careers of young writers and became a sort of oracle to these other amateur writers.

His close friends, many of whom would find success in writing, included Robert Block, who in 1959 wrote psych. Block, Dave. Blocktover. Come on. Robert Block. Bobby Block's got to be our new patron saying of Block. For Grace. Robbie Blot.

Well, you'll know some of his writing because in 1959 he wrote Psycho, which would be the basis of the Alfred Hitchcock film. Starring Anthony Perkins. Ah. What? Is that your dad? Yes, my dad. Daddy.

Daddy Anthony Perkins. Wow. That's cool. Oh, Dave, we're just talking about rigging it. We never mentioned this on the podcast. In case anyone isn't getting that Dave's making a weird joke. He didn't rig it. He had no way to do that.

But someone tried to. Someone voted for one. one topic, and like, because I can see in the back end of our voting software, when people, the same person votes over and over again, someone just sat at their computer and every three or so minutes for hours at a time voted for the same topic. Wild. And I do not apologize, so. But it wasn't this topic. I actually, I mean, I was thinking, I reckon there's something fishy with H.P. Lovecraft. How could it be so popular? But I'm just realizing now that it is a very popular thing.

I mean, even Metallica wrote songs about him. But, yeah. Do you think Kirk or Kurt rigged the vote? Yeah, I reckon... I couldn't remember us. Kirk might have got involved. Kirk Van Houten. Can I borrow a feeling?

So good. So, yeah, there's Robert Blocker who wrote Sarko. He would later be the recipient of a Hugo Award, a Bram Stoker Award and a World Fantasy Award. Another one of Lovecraft's friends and a mentee of his was Fritz Lieber, he was now considered one of the fathers of sword and sorcery fantasy, having even coined the term sword and sorcery himself.

Oh, there you go. That well-known term. Yeah, term we all know. I mean, you've heard of sword and sorcery as a concept, right? I've heard of sword and HP sorcery. Brown sauce. Do you think brown sauce is from Brown University? That is the only possible explanation.

Holy shit. What do you get when you mix? Mix. H.P. Lovecraft. Sean Connery, is that you? Sean Connery obviously discovered Brown sauce. I love Brown Shaw.

And Brown University. HP Source. H.B. Sword and sorcery. I was now available at Coles. I graduated at the top of my clash. There was also his friend Robert E. Howard, who created Conan the Barbarian. Ah. Oh.

There had a whole crew going on. whole crew and then finally rounding them out he was very close to Donald Wondray and August Dirleth, two writers who would go on to be instrumental in spreading the word of Lovecraft. So not as famous for their own creations but they really really helped HP out.

Conan the Barbarian of course played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, another previous topic. Yes. He's a big break. So they really spread the word of Lovecraft and I say that because all good things must come to an end. Oh no. In 1932 his beloved

Aunt Lillian died. I thought you said all good things must come to a name. Yeah, well, we're working up to something here. Aunt Lillian died. He was devastated by that. His later stories became increasingly lengthy and complex, and they became difficult to sell. He was also known to give up trying to sell a story

after it had been rejected once. So he didn't really... Oh, wow. You know, even J.K. Rowling has dozens and dozens of rejection letters to a name. But if someone said no, he'd go, you're right, it does suck and then put her away. He was a perfectionist. He was also forced to support himself largely through the quote, revision or ghostwriting of other people's stories, poetry and nonfiction works.

But money was very tight and Lovecraft eated out every single penny, eating terribly. He would brag that he could live off a loaf of bread and a can of beans for a whole week. No. Dave, I reckon you could do that. Yeah, Dave. It sounds fantastic. Have I got a toaster? I'm happy.

What's the problem? He sometimes went without. food to be able to pay the cost of mailing his letters. So this is obviously not great for your health. No. One of his closest letter correspondence, who I mentioned before, Robert E. Howard, the Conan creator, committed suicide in 1936 and Lovecraft was devastated by the loss. So depressed, he also found his health was deteriorating and he was in tremendous pain.

He referred to this pain as the grip in his letters and his diaries. But really, he was experiencing stomach pain. but because of his fear of doctors, he just soldiered on. He didn't consult anyone. Finally, the pain got too much even for him, and he went and saw a doctor, but by that time it was too late. He's diagnosed with terminal cancer of the small intestine.

Oh, no. He spent the last month of his life in hospital, keeping a diary of his illness until he was no longer able to hold a pen. So even right up until the end, he was documenting, writing letters, keeping a diary. But sadly, he died on March 15th, 1937, the age of only 46. Wow.

1937, wow. And at the time of his death, he was virtually unknown. Lovecraft was never able to even pay for basic expenses by selling his stories. Yeah, right. But how are we sitting here talking about him all these years later? A few years after he died, the New Yorker critic Edmund Wilson wrote bluntly, Lovecraft was not a good writer. The only real horror in most of these fictions is the horror of bad art and bad taste.

What a take-down. But not everyone agreed. He left behind some 70 stories and thousands and thousands of letters and also some devoted friends and colleagues, including August Dirleth, who I mentioned before, who in 1939, a few years after his friends passing, co-founded Arkham House Publishing with Donald Wondray. You might recognise the name Arkham Asylum from Batman.

Well, in the 70s, they took that from a city and Lovecraft stories. Ah. Yeah. And how do you get famous enough to influence Batman? Well, Dirleth co-founded Arkham to put out hard copies of his friend and mentor Lovecraft's work. Sadly, they didn't immediately take off. And this is when you got that terrible review from the New York. I just read out.

But August Dirleth was committed and at great personal expense continued to publish Lovecraft stories, both in English and in other languages. Wow. This is when they really took off. The French translations proved to be a huge hit. You know, sometimes you have to make it overseas before your home country will take you seriously. Well, this is what happened. Lovecraft was so big overseas.

His stories were re-released in the USA in the late 60s and early 70s, which at the time was going through a fascination with horror movies. Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, and the Exorcists were all huge hits around this time. So people were suddenly fascinated with horror, people that had never read horror stuff before, and he just happened to be hitting the shelves at that time.

And he grew a big following in America as well. That's awesome. Horror was in vogue, and Lovecraft's Home Nation was finally ready to dive into the Cthulhu mythos, the term that had been coined by publisher August Dirleth to describe the fictional universe. His legend grew and grew, and he found himself with legions of fans

that he'd never known in his lifetime. By 1977, a crew of devotees had raised money to buy the author a proper headstone in the Lovecraft family plot in Providence, a now iconic gravestone inscribed with a quote from one of his letters, which it says in capital letters, I am Providence,

which is... Pretty sick thing to have on your grave. Be even better if he wasn't buried in Providence. It's like, that's out of context. I am Queen's Boulevard. Okay. Good on you. All right.

I don't know what that is. So since his death, Howard Phillips Lovecraft has been unbelievably influential and popular culture. His influence is felt in nearly every art form. music, TV, stage, film, radio, video games, and of course, writing. He even has a subgenre of horror named after him called Lovecraftian Horror. Yeah, that's cool. I reckon I've heard of these sort of things without really ever understanding what it meant. Oh, yeah, I'm about to read out some things that reference his stuff and you'll be like,

ah, I get that. So the great Stephen King, horror titan, said in 1995, Now that time has given us some perspective on his work, I think it is beyond doubt that HP Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale. Wow. Lovecraft opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me.

It is his shadow so long and gaunt and his eyes so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since. No kidding. That's amazing. Wow. Yeah, huge. It's great because he died like not knowing any. any of this, which is obviously, you know, upsetting in a way. Yeah.

He's like the poster boy of the tortured artist who really thought he failed. There has to be some sort of calmer for being a racist fuckhead, right? Maybe this is his penance. Yeah. Well, when he died, I'm sure he hardly could have imagined that items his characters would be featured on would be board games, role-playing games, coins, t-shirts, computer games, apps, movies, bumper stickers, toys, posters, collectibles, and so much. would have been, if he knew that his stuff was going to end up being used for video games,

he would have been confused. What does that mean? Yeah. What do you mean? But you can name any piece of memorabilia. There's a Cuthula on it. There's a bar in New York City called Lovecraft. There are Lovecraft festivals held in Stockholm, Leon, Portland and Providence, his hometown.

Despite not finishing high school and making it to Brown University, like he planned, Brown University now has an endowed fellowship for research relating to H.P. Lovecraft, his associates and literary heirs. So they, yeah, they give grants to people to do research on it. And this is a university that he, you know, wasn't seen as good enough to get into at the time. And we come to the Metallica song, The Call of Kutulu.

And it's not surprising that you say Kutulu, Matt, because it's actually spelled differently. Oh, right. Okay. So it comes from their second album, Ride the Lightning, and it's inspired by the story, The Call of Cthulhu by H.B. Lovecraft, according to songfax.com. In the book, the story says that

mentioning the name Cthulhu, verbally or written, will bring him closer. Obviously something you don't want this monster to come close. So that's why Metallica used the name Coutulu, spelled K-T-U-L-U, and not C-T-H-U-L-H-H-U-H-E-H-E-H-E. you for fear of the beast. Wow.

So there you go. That's cool. That's really interesting. They are obviously fans if they're getting that reference. And it's also an instrumental, so they're not saying it either. Yeah, they don't want to say. I'm afraid that I've said it many times on this episode. Oh, Dave, not again.

Jess, you're going to have grapefruits coming closer to you now. No. They're so sour. Oh, I know. Every time I'm at a hotel buffet, I'm like, maybe grape juice is for me now. I always pour it out. It tastes awful. Yeah.

I don't get it. Apparently it's good for you. I don't think it can be good enough for you to overcome that taste. Awful, awful taste. I prefer a lemon. Lemon juice would be better than grapefruit juice for some reason. Don't mind lemon juice at all. It's just, I don't know, it's grosser than lemon juice.

It's not the sourness. Something else. It's bitter. It tastes like when I've spewed up everything I've got. So it's just boil. That's what it tastes like. Yeah. But it's good for you.

I guess bile is good for you too. Doesn't mean I'm going to eat your bile. Anyway, what a tasty way to finish. Well, staying with Metallica, did you know this? His work also inspired their song in the next album, The Thing That Should Not Be. Oh, I did know that. I don't.

That's my least favorite song on Master of Puppets. Damn you, HP. H.B. Lovecraft is featured on the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 24. Okay. So when we're still watching for sure. I know, I've got to get a Simpsons reference in there, but I obviously have no idea because I've never seen up until that season. Don't worry. I mentioned Kirk Van Houten earlier and something else in. I'm pretty sure I slid in.

When I looked up, the Cothulhu's also been depicted multiple times on The Simpsons, but never during the glory years. You wouldn't recognise him from that. Cthulhu appeared in an episode of South Park and killed Justin Bieber. So. Kthulah was also seen in the Rick and Morty opening credits. Oh, what?

Like a tentically thing. Do you ever see that? That's the thing that shall not be named by me. Yeah, too late, we got you on tape. Oh, cool. And I've got to tell you, the influences felt far and wide. In 2015, a region of Pluto was named after Kthulhu. Wow.

In many of Lovecraft stories, particularly the whisperer in darkness, the trans-Neptunian planet Ugoth is implied to be the same as Pluto, which was discovered around the time Lovecraft was writing these stories. Oh, there you go. Another one for you, Matt. Black Sabbath's album,

Behind the Wall of Sleep, is named after a Lovecraft short story. Behind the Wall of Sleep? Yeah. So these are all came after he rose to prominence. No one got in, you know, before he was cool sort of thing. thing. No.

I don't think so 60s and 70s and yeah, Black Sabbath, they would have been just as he was rising. The 2015 World Fantasy Award trophy bears his likeness, but the bus was retired following that year amidst complaints

about Lovecraft's history of racism. So sadly, this is also a part of his legacy that many fans have to grapple with and there's also, every time the Road Island Festival comes up, there's talk again. I saw quite a few articles of people talking about his legacy. We're celebrating this writer, but he had these views.

But like, you know, like many talented artists and creators with a controversial past, I think it's probably a personal question, but can you separate art from the artist? Yeah, it's a hard one, isn't it? It's really difficult. But anyway, that's the weird and very controversial life of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. I knew absolutely nothing. To be honest, neither did I.

Well done, Dave. That's great. Well, interesting and weird and, yeah, confusing. And very, you know, obviously his views are absolutely horrendous, but he also, I do feel sorry for the life that he led it. It did not sound like he had a good time ever. Yeah. It would be great for us to do a story from the late 1800s, early 1900s that isn't grim.

It feels like it's always so grim. Was everything maybe just grim? Yeah, yeah. He was grim. It was real grim. Great work, Dave. Well, that is the kind of finisher block, but yeah, we'll be covering it a bit more HP in the next book sheet. So keep your ass peeled for that.

And, yeah, we'll be tweeting about it, Instagramming about that kind of stuff. Also, there's a fun, and if people are listening in the future, what number episode will it be on book cheat? You look that up while I say, we've just had a bit of a fun idea inspired in the Patreon Facebook group that we might do a second block, six months from now, we'll call it, you know, blockmas in April or whatever from borrowing from Christmas in July. And maybe we'll either do the topics that just missed out or maybe we'll more likely probably just do another vote and maybe make it a biannual thing. Because I really enjoy doing the block, doing the big topics. So why wait 12 months when we can do maybe we'll need to think of another name for it.

April actually is always a big primates month because we do all the big ape topics then. Oh, right, of course. We don't want to steal April. I think it also, primates will be on probably a hiatus at that point anyway. But maybe, yeah, maybe that's what, maybe it can be called something like it's April. It's like the big King Kong level topics,

the big monster topics. Monster Month? What about Monster March? The Monster Month. They did the Monster Month. The Monster Month. The Monster March is good. Like that.

Some of the think about. Give us some suggestions. We can brainstorm. Yeah. Whatever correct. And in answer you the question, Matt, it will be episode 49 of the sheets. 49. Go 49ers leveled up the ledger at 3 and 3 now, still holding faint hope to go back into the point of end of the season after failing the Super Bowl earlier in the year.

I followed all of that sentence. You are quite loquacious. I'm such an NFL noob that people would be like, that lingo is way off. When I explained what a rush, what rushing was in football, someone mentioned that listening to that hurt their head. Is that because they are a fan or they're not a fan, they're trying to follow it?

Oh, okay. Bagger, that sucks. Matt, that's what you get for trying. I know. I know, you're going to just stay in your lane. Yeah, don't bother. Got similar feedback. Don't bother trying to expand your knowledge.

Got a similar feedback from cricket fans when I did that Cricket Explaner video. I'm trying to put it in the basic terms. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I do love that only this podcast on this one episode can piss off sport fans, but also nerdy horror fans all in one episode.

That's right. We'll alienate all of you guys. don't worry about it. Well, the podcast, it does it all. I tried. I tried on HP. We've got a few HB-type listeners who do get in contact in rhyming couplets

to let us know. Yeah, that's right. That's the only form of criticism I will take. And we disappointed them. I must say, last year, one of the block topics was I did Dungeons and Dragons, and I was very worried about that because people take it quite seriously.

It's a big part of many people's lives and I'd never played or even really heard anything about it. And everyone was very nice, so I'm hoping for that again. Yeah, absolutely. And we've since played, so maybe, you know, in the future we'll read H-Pree Lifecraft. I don't like horror either because I'm a scared cat. Well, I'm going to read it this week. I have to for book cheats.

And then you're going to tell me about it. Can we record in like light hours? No, let's do it in night. By candlelight. With Dave's favourite shape in between us, the pentagram. No, that's the pentagon. And, yeah, since we even played Dungeons and Dragons, there's a series of bonus episodes on our Patreon if you want to get involved with that,

patreon.com slash do you go on pod. And we were going to have done a second season of that by now, because we're not allowed in the same rooms, we're holding off. But we'll get onto that soon. We will do that again soon. Probably, hopefully. Anyway, that brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show, the fact quote or question section,

which I think has a jingle that goes, something like this. Fact quote or question. DING. DING. And the way to get involved in this is also go under the website, patreon.com slash TegornPod. And when you get involved there, you sign up to the Sydney-Shaunberg Deluxe Memorial Edition level and you get to give us a factor quota of question.

You also get multiple other bonus rewards. That's one of the higher levels. On lower levels, you can also get three bonus episodes a month. You get shout-out stuff. You get voting rights and all sorts of things. I was going to say, we've just got so many bonus. episodes these days. And like I said at the start, if you want a complete block, it was Action Park this month, which was Jess did a report on the absolutely fucked up.

What was it also called Class Action Park? Is that the nickname, Jess? Because it was like a theme park, a water park with so many weird injuries that were probably preventable. But we had a good time talking about it, didn't we? Yeah, it was a really interesting one to research. And it's a pretty wild story. So, yeah, definitely get involved and check that one out. But on the fact quote or question level, you have to give yourself a title and also give us a fact, a quote or a question. And this week we've got one from Katie Murphy, who's given herself the title of podcast head of ethnomusicology. And Katie has given us a quote, which is Louis Armstrong popularized Scat singing when he and his Hot Five released the song Heibi-Geebies in 1926, the first commercial recording featuring Scat.

Armstrong tells a fanciful story of how he spearheaded the style by accident that musicologists and music historians suspect is probably embellished. But it's a good story, so they leave him be. He said, quote, so this is the quote. The day we recorded hebi-jeebies, I dropped the paper with the lyrics, right in the middle of the tune, and I did not want to stop and spoil the record, which was moving along so wonderfully. So when I dropped the paper, I immediately turned back into the horn and started. started to Scatten.

Just as nothing had happened. When I finished the record, I just knew the recording people would throw it out. And to my surprise, they all came running out of the controlling booth and said, leave that in. Yeah, that's a good story. I like that.

I don't know what scat is. Well, you think real big fish, the mighty, mighty boss stones. Ah. You know, originating from Jamaica. It was the first wave and he had the second wave. And then when I was in high school with a chain wallet, obviously, the third wave. And probably the fourth wave when I was in high school with Wheathorn.

Yeah, but that's kind of what it is. And yeah, I mean, sorry, I said it originated in Jamaica. Obviously, Louis Armstrong actually originated in 1926 in America. Yes. Then I went to Jamaica, had its own thing. came back. I love that. They took off the tea. Added a K. Skat and scar, very confusing. New listeners will find that so infuriating and I apologize. Don't worry. We've been through before. I've got to tell you, I think that Katie may have known what she was doing there.

Thank you so much for that. Yes. Yes, she did. Thanks, Katie. The next one comes from Drew Foresberg, who's given himself the title of Junior Plutonian Space Person from Earth. Oh, that sounds, I mean, that's a reference to Back to the Future, but it's interesting, Plutonian, Pluto, you just mentioned it, Dave. Yeah, that's right. So Drew, because in Back to the Future, our man, Sydney-Sharnberg, wanted to call Back to the Future Space Man from Pluto. So I think that's a reference to that.

And I reckon it would have been a hit of that. That's all that was lacking. But anyway, they should have listened and they didn't. So Drew has given us a quote as well, and here is, is quote. A pair of identical twins were weighing themselves. Twin one weighed in at 60 kilograms on the dot. Twin two weighed in at 60.0106 kilograms. Twin one says to twin two, gee, that's a very slight difference. Just then, a tiny lizard-like amphibian crawled out of twin two's pants pocket and leapt off. The scale went down to 60 kilograms. Twin two replies, very slight. More like truly mined

Newt. And that is a quote from Drew Foresberg. Wow, Drew, that's great. His own quote, which was a very long wind-up for what I believe to be a pun. Dave? Is it, well, absolutely pun-confirmed, but also, it's possible that Drew was a twin and this is a, you know, a bit of, biographed stuff going on.

I mean, it is. He's quoting himself. It's a big swing to quote yourself. And it paid off, you know? Got a good laugh. Especially when the person reading it hasn't read it before and didn't know that I was, you know, like, I was lucky that I got it out one go and didn't fuck up the momentum. Drew's got a PS here.

He said, I thought of that one over 10 years ago and still haven't come up with a a joke, which makes me feel kind of sad. I switched the weight to kilos for y'all because I'm used to pounds and didn't want to confuse. Also, looked up what a newt weighs. So that's a... Oh, wow. It's an accurate joke.

They are tiny. I love that. He said, also, sorry for the punchline being a homophone, Matt. Hopefully, Jess and Dave enjoyed it or hated it. Ha ha ha. Did enjoy that very much. Homophone. So it was a homophone.

So is a homophone a pun? Good job, Drew. No. No. So it wasn't a pun. It was a homophone. Well, it's still a play on words, isn't it? This is going to annoy people as much as the Scarskat thing.

If they're listening this long, I don't think it's going to annoy them. Only the good ones say this one. Thank you so much, Drew. That was great stuff. And, you know, if that's all you do in your whole life, I still think it was a life worth living. So don't worry that you haven't topped it in time. I think you'll see Dave using that next time he does crowd warm up at the project. So I was weighing myself with my twin brother the other day.

60 on the dot, would you believe it? Dave had a little bit of his own color. Yeah. Would you believe it? Oh my God. You wouldn't read about it. Okay. What we're doing tonight?

Okay. I'll check one too. The next one comes from Nesta Guarro. Nesta Guarro. Dave, can you say it again? Because I... Nestor Kiharo. Nesta Kiharo.

On your Nessa, your bloody legend. Nesta writes, or Nessa's called himself first, chief consultant of cryptozoology of the pod and the universe. Whoa. I love when titles specify two things, and one of them is

clearly included in the second thing, but they keep it separate anyway. Like, there's... Is there a... There's a music festival in Australia called the... I think it's the Melbourne Blues and Music Festival. I reckon music probably covers blues off there. Just say Melbourne Music Festival, I reckon.

I don't know. Maybe it's somewhere else. It might not be Melbourne. But yeah, and there's a similar to Nesta being the chief consultant of cryptozoology of the pod and the universe. And the universe. Nestor's given us a fact. He says, first and foremost, how are all of you?

Not too bad, thank you, Nestor. I'm good, thank you. I'm good, thanks. My entry is a fact and a paraphrased quote without any question about it. Quote, an alligator, snake and a stingray are basically all neck. From the one and only, David James, golden tonsils, tiny tush, Christmas, elf, not a Nazi, or sympathizer,

That was from one of our first ever live episodes. Yeah, the stingray, I would say, is all head. But I'm with you on alligator and snake being all neck. Yeah. Stingray's all face. Yeah, they're all face. The underneath is just like, it's like a, it's like all belly. Yeah, but isn't that where their mouth is on the underneath?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they got like a little slit mouth that sucks up. You see a picture of like having a walk up on land and pretend to be like a human or whatever. and just sort of like holding himself off the real floppy. That'd be a bit of fun. I think I'm stealing a bit from Toy Story 3 or something where Mr. Potato Head has to put his eyes and nose and everything into a bloody, what do you call it?

A round piece of bread that they've used for a burrito? Tortilla, thank you. My God. Round piece of bread. I was thinking, didn't mean a roll? Finally, this one comes from. from Siraj, Peeris.

He's written Saraj brackets, not fuss about the Peeris, just don't call me Sue Ridge. You got it, Saraj. You got it, Saraj. Peeris. I reckon I'm finally getting that pronunciation right. Saraj writes, a quote,

self-education is, and this is interesting again the timing of this because our topic was self-educated. Yeah, totally. Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

The only function of a school is to make self-education easier. Failing that, it does nothing. That's a quote from Isaac Asimov. Good quote. I think it's another sci-fi writer. Oh, there you go. That's interesting. I wonder if he's a Lovecraft fan.

I mean, sorry, I just want to say, I came across, I didn't know, an autodidact is the name of someone who is a self-educator. Autodidact. Yeah. I like that. Well, that brings us to the section where we thank a few other patrons. Jess only gives us a little game to play based on the topic. I'm struggling a bit this week because I can't.

We can make them a monster. Make them a monster. Because the Cthulu, Cthulhu was octopus, human with dragon wings. Yeah, fuck yeah. But we're not making them. No, they are not the monster. We're giving them a monster that they either look after or befriend or whatever. Wasn't there a show, cartoon we're talking about a reason called My Friend the Monster or something?

No. I don't remember that one. When we're talking about cartoons, it was something like that. Real Monsters? That's what it was. I'm mixing that up with my friend the something else. Dino, the Last Dinosaur? Denver the Last.

Anyway, whatever. We'll give them a monster. And can I also say, I am, what was going to be on their tombstone? Oh, great. Whatever their city is. Yeah. Okay, yeah, great. With a tombstone reading, I am Thunder Bay.

It's a way. Thunder Bay in Canada. It's David Chisholm. David Chisholm. I am Thunder Bay. The Bay is spelled Bay, B-A-E. Thunder Bay. I think our Thunder Bay is half warthog.

This is his monster, half warthog, half butterfly, so the wings on a warthog. Oh. And then the tail of a lion. So I'm guessing it's not strictly half. No. It is. With the tail of a lion. That's cool.

So it's a warthog that can fly with the tail of a lion. Oh, wow. Okay. What's purpose does the tail serve? Well, have you seen in lion's tail? They look awesome. Yeah, I have. So it's aesthetic.

They flop away flies, much like a warthouse tail. Yes. Yeah, but it's just like a way better tail. And the butterfly wings, are they going to be strong enough to carry the weight of a warthog? They're very big, I'm imagining. It is to scale. Like, they're huge. Okay.

Are they bright coloured or are they like those gross little white, flappy moth? Oh, no, they don't look. They're not dusty. They're coloured. And does this warthog thing form in a cocoon? Yeah, yeah, that was a freaky, freaky day for everyone. That's a big cocoon. Oh, it's also got the deep cocoon.

teeth of a human. Oh my God. That's the worst thing about it by far. Don't do that, Dave. That's not going to be that helpful in the wild either. You think the wardhog wants its own teeth. The things that make them a wardhog are those big tusks. Well, I mean, unfortunately they were removed and replaced with false teeth,

but they only have human ones available. Chattering force teeth. Oh, David, so sorry. We're off to a strong start. So sorry about what Dave's done for you there. I am Newport in New South Wales, Australia. Will Seal. Oh, Will Seal.

I can't think of any animals. Maybe like Will. I've got one. I've got one. I've got one. Okay. So Will is half dolphin. Oh, wow.

That's good. The half that enjoys burning. The bottom of. And half. What goes with a dolphin? Well, If you're going with Dave's rules, you don't want to go with something that goes with a dolphin. Yeah, you're right.

So it's half dolphin, half pelican. Yes, that's good. So it's a dolphin with a big gullet? Yeah. This is a monster. And human legs. It's a real mess. That's so good.

Honestly, these are awful fucked creatures. Well, horror. I mean, this is a horror genre. Exactly. They're horrify. Enjoy that. we'll seal or will yeah I reckon it's seal with an e at the end I think that still would be seal seal a maybe will seal a seal a seal a and finally I am card of south New South Wales

Australia Keanu Reed Keanu Reed okay let's see crocodile yeah so the main part is crocodile but it's got a rhinoceros horn oh and that's cool and also bat wings. So I can glide, like a sugar glider. And it's got the legs of a bald eagle. Legs of bald eagle. Like little claws. Yeah, little bald eagle legs.

It can float down from trees. Imagine seeing a crocodile with a horn slowly circling down above you when you're out camping or something. So I can really only glide if it throws itself off a cliff or something. And then how does it? Because it can't get up a cliff, can it? Eagle legs. It's got one chance.

It starts at the highest point of a mountain, and it lifts its life slowly heading down, heading south. It glides once in its life. To mate. That's a mating season. Wow. Those animals or those flowers that just bloom once or do one big thing once, that's kind of cool.

Is that odd? I thank three people, is that right? Yeah. So thank you so much to David Will. and Kayana. Can I thank a few beautiful people? Please. Please.

I am West Sacramento. In California, I would like to thank Claire Norris. Claire Norris. Claire Norris obviously has the head of a woodchuck. Oh, okay. Chuck Norris. And the body of Chuck Norris. And the tail of a lion.

Oh, that's cool. That's a pretty badass one. They're cute. They're cool tails a little puff on the end. And the sex drive of a dolphin. Is that even true? The only thing I really know about dolphins is supposedly they're the only other animals

that mate for pleasure. Humans don't, do we? I say, don't. Yeah. Good heavens. Heavens, no. Look forward to that page on your website being written, Jess.

She read all the books, but just could not get her head around it. Because I'll figure out. The poor guy couldn't even talk about sex, you're right? And then there's an article about his sex life. Poor dude. Yeah, I don't know why that's all that relevant, but good on him. I only brought it up because it made me laugh that someone else have written about it.

Very funny. I would also now like to thank, I am Brighton from England. It's Mr. Heggy. Oh, Mr. Heggy. Mr. Heggy. The official tattooist to the stars. I don't think I knew Mr. Heggy was a patron supporter. That's cool.

Oh, I don't think I knew that either. That's awesome. Hello, Mr. Heg. I know that he's a patron and supporter because he listens to phrasing the bar and he's even given us some artwork. Oh, yeah. For phrasing the bar, which we're going to use on our new website. Thank you so much.

Mr. Heggy, if you don't know, if you want to follow, it's one of my favorite Instagram accounts. It is Mr. Heggy, who is a tattooist and also cartoonist, an artist, does very, very funny tattoos, really, really cute stuff. And also, yeah, it just travels the world doing them. Unfortunately, he was going to be in Australia at the start of the year and in Melbourne.

But it just didn't quite work out because we would have loved to have met up with him and gotten some... Yeah, I think he was going to... I think we talked ages ago about him giving me a... in his style, obviously, of Caesar from Planet of the Apes with the Apes Together Strong or something like that. Or like a... I want to get that or like a saint,

1966, a good year or something on it. Good fun. Just a bit of fun for once. Like we used to do in the pre-COVID world. Oh, wait. We haven't given Mr. Hegey a monster. Yeah, but a monster. What about it's half Caesar from Planet of the Apes? With St. Wings.

Saint Wings and then the head of a penguin. Oh. An emperor penguin. I love penguins. I reckon they're one of the cool. My name of bird, I reckon. All right. Top three birds.

All right, if I was going to do a Mount Rushmore of birdheads, Penguin. Thomas Jefferson. Penguin head first. Cookaburra. George Jetson. And, no, what, George Jefferson's, and...

Still not right. And I can't think of any other cool birds. Maybe a pelican. What about... I love a pelican. I love toucan. Oh, two cans are great bird. Yeah, two cans are cool.

I love, but I love really small ones, like Willy Wagtail. or even spats. Even like a Rosella, because I've got like the smaller, cute little beak. Oh, parrots are, even, you know. A McCall is good. What about the blue fairy wren?

Rens are great. Love a wren. Which is more kind of what Dave's talking about, the little guys. Yeah, I even just like this, the common cafe sparrow. I love a little sparrow. They're so tiny. And then they just dive in, grab a crumb and keep going. It's just like, good on you.

That's funny. I thought I didn't like birds. I love birds. I think I might love birds. I love them. Ows are cute too. Yeah, owls are pretty good. Some of ours can be real freaky, but.

Yeah, some of them are very pretty. And I'm not about looks. Not their value. I'm just saying some of them are very cute. They're also just a beautiful fun bird. Fun bird. Oh, what a fun time bird. That's a bird you can hang out with.

Apparently owls aren't that smart too. You know how you always think like. Yeah, apparently they're not very bright. But I don't know. But they are fun. They are fun. They are fun. They are fun.

They are fun. I think people think they're smart because they've got big eyes. But yeah, they're not. We've learnt from Dave. It's not always the case. I'm just going to jump in and say, that's how I fooled them.

On your, Mr. Heggy, thanks so much for your support. And keep doing those awesome tattoos. He's like, he was just about to throw on the towel. And Dave said, keep doing, You know what? I will. You reckon I will.

I'm inspirational people. I would like to thank now and I would like to also thank I am Tenmouth from Devon it is Alexander Malon Well we know that Alexander does his scones In the right order

Cream and Jam The Devonshire Way So you're saying that the bottom half of Alexander is cream Why? It doesn't have to be animals Anything though? All right He's bottom is cream Then what else does he got? A clotted cream

A thick clotted cream bottom. He's got a creamy bottom. He's got the creamy bottom. Legs of a polar bear, so that matches. You know, a bit of white. Yeah, yeah. And then what's something's sort of a jammy,

a red jammy color from there? Maybe like a red crested, one of those red crested birds. Yeah. Can't think it. A red crested bird. And then. But on polar bear legs.

Yeah, that's cool. Like a real puffy, feathery, red chest. Like a red robin maybe, but only big. And then the head of, nothing goes on top of the jam, though. More jam, another red thing. Maybe then at the head of a just like a real posh English person who has scones with jab and cream often.

Wearing a top hat. Like Ian McKelland. Ian McKellan. Drinking a cup of tea. Ian McAllen's head with the top hat. And like a, you know how birds have a certain sound, like a call that they make. This one just goes, I say.

Over and ever again. That's great. Yeah. That's how you, if you, if you, If you, you know, just take a moment, just go quiet and listen, you will hear in the distance. I say. I say. Oh, the mating call.

I say. Oh, I say. Oh, I say. Wow. Alexander Mellon. You know how sometimes, like, some animals will, like, do a display. The male will do a display. What they do is they put down a picnic rug, have a wicker basket, a little T-set.

That's nice. I say. I say. I say. I say. And they strut around it. Oh, I say. I'm going, I say.

I say. I say. I say. I say. It's very horny. That is a horny bird, man, polar bear. Yeah, good luck to Alexander for controlling that one. Is it my turn or have you still?

Have you still a lot? No, that's three from Dave. So over to you, Boppa. Ah, my turn. Well, no. Oh, yes. Okay. I would love to thank.

on their tombstone obviously. I am New Farm. Oh, I love New Farm. In Queensland. I'd love to thank Murray Somerville. Okay. Fuck, that's a great name. Murray Somerville.

New Farm is such a great spot in, that's where the Brisbane Comedy Festival and stuff is. Lovely spot. All right. What do you think for Murray, head of a Murray cod? Well, that is, does it need to always be underwater?

So is it in like a fish tank? So is it in like a fish tank? Yeah. Helmet? Yeah, yeah, because the body is the body of a tiger. Oh. Right. But then the legs of an emu. Wow. That's a fucked-looking creature.

It's hard to stay upright. I'd love if anyone has the skills to put any of these down on paper, I'd love to see it. I thought that initially, and then as we've gone on and they've gotten much, much worse, I'm thinking this is going to be difficult. Because that creature you've just described, Dave, is very middle heavy. Yeah, yeah. Skinny little legs, small head, massive body. This animal never skips leg, dog, got to.

You can't. Wow. Okay. Marie Somerville. Great name. Marie Somerville. I would also love to thank from I am Sheffield. Mr. Sheffield.

Hey, so that means in the few that we've done today, Two of the places are Brighton-Sheffield. Oh, yeah. Can you believe it? I'd love to thank Kathleen Toman. Kathleen Toman. Kathleen Toman. All right.

I think obviously we're talking a woolly mammoth body. Oh, nice. Big body, which you like. I love a big-bodied animal. I love a big-headed animal, but that normally goes with a big-bodied animal. head of a like a cat but it's really big

obviously it's the same size so like a like a lion like a big cat I was thinking like domestic cat but yeah maybe let's go tiger saber tooth tiger

saber tooth tiger head whatever woolly mammoth what are its legs Dave what about another extinct animal legs of like a stegosaurus oh okay so sort of that reptilian bit thick Leg.

Yeah. And four of them, so it can stay up right. Love a thick leg. I love thick leg. Love a thick leg. That's awesome. That's, Kathleen. Maybe that's the best one so far.

Yeah, that's bad ass. You don't want to meet that one. That's terrifying. But if you control it, obviously, well, good for you. Yeah. Well, not a good for you. Well, played. And finally, bringing it home, I would love to thank, I am unknown.

That's what it's going to say on my term show as well. None of you ever knew me. We don't know where this person was from. We don't even fully know their name. All we have here is D.H. Oh, D.H. I mean, you're assuming that's not dickhead, but right? What do you think when you think D.H?

Well, I think of a creature with a dick for a head. Kind of like. A woolly mammoth body. Oh. Yeah, so one big, what, what can't we talking to human dick? A human dickhead? Like big for a human, but on a very big body, so it is actually a portion. Okay, this is a little floppy dick coming out the neck of a huge woolly mammoth.

Maybe not a woolen mouth, because you've done that. I'll go a more modern version of an elephant. Right. So instead of a trunk, it is just a dick. Oh, dick face. Yeah. Okay, that's pretty good. All right.

So on, and I think, well, can we go a probiscus monkey head? Because they've already got basically a dick nose, but instead of their dick knows, it's a human dick. It's a human dick. It's a human dick. Yeah. Have you heard the term abomination? I think we've just created one.

I think we've created a few today, to be fair. I think all of these have been. Does seem particularly bad. But what kind of legs, Dave? You're our legman. I'm the legman. We know your personal number plate says leg man. I'm trying to think of a good one that we haven't done.

What, legs of a camel. Okay. Okay, yeah. Because that can hold up something. Yeah. They can hold up something. They can hold up their end of the bargain for sure. Thank you so much, D.H.

D.H. Wherever you are in the world, we love you. We appreciate your support over the last year. And, well, year and a bit. As well, Kathleen, Murray, Alexander, Mr. Heggy, Claire, Kiana, Will and David. Thank you so much all of you for your support. The only thing we've got left to do is bringing a few people into our triptitch club.

Jess, do you explain what that is? Yes. So for people who support us on Patreon for three consecutive years, we have what I like to imagine as a, like an airport lounge. You know, so we have drinks and canopets. and a band plays there and there's sleeping pods out the back and we've got everything you could possibly need. We've got it there.

And so Matt stands at the door, holds up the velvet rope for you. I'll be behind the bar making you a drink. And Dave's just rushing around making sure the band has everything they need. That's right. And it's a place you can pop into whenever you need it. Once you're a member, you get the special portal machine thing and you just walk through wherever you are in the world.

You can pop in, pop out wherever you need to. Yeah, you can stay as long as you like. But yeah, pop it. You know, it's totally up to you. We're very cool about it. So there are three inductees this week. What is on offer for drinks and nibblies? We will be having a special HP Lovecraft cocktail,

which is vodka and brown sauce. Wow. And it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad, I'll be honest. The brown sauce just sits at the top, I imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't get it to mix like a bloody mary for some reason. But you can have it if you want to.

And canapes wise, well, it is grand final day at the time of recording. So we're just going to have a bunch of like party pies and sausage rolls and some little veggie pasties. And just everything I can shove in the oven for a bit. Jess, you know what? You've just made me want to go and buy. I'm going to the shops and getting a little pack of frozen. That's literally my plan for the day. That's a great idea.

Thank you. Footy food. Love that. And Dave, who's playing? Who's entertaining this week? Who's the house band? Entertaining this week, it's amazing. We have got the members of Metallica playing exclusively their HP Lovecraft songs.

Just the two tracks. Well, apparently there's another one on their more recent album, hardwired to self-destruction. Is that what it's called? Destruct. To self-destruct. And that song is called Dream No More. So we've got three songs on repeat, the call of course. The Thing That Should Not Be, and of course, Dream No More.

Luckily, they're all longish. Those three songs together probably go for about 25 minutes. Fantastic. Oh, maybe not quite that long, but still. Awesome. All right. That is exciting. So is it the current lineup of Metallica?

Yeah. Sick. All right, great. Yeah, I was thinking about it, but then... I think Kirk Hammett is a big horror fan. So maybe he's the connection. Yeah, I think that he may have written the story. song when I was looking, at least the Kutulu track, I think.

I feel like Cliff Burton might have been involved in one of those early ones too, but might be wrong. Anyhow, that is, that is cool. To be, get, see Metallica play in such close quarters it will be. Yeah, even if it is only three songs over and over. Yeah, and one of those I don't really like, but, um. And the other one's instrumental. But that is a cool instrumental track. Anyway, that one off Master of Puppets, the thing that should not be is a very popular song. I reckon I'll be Metallica head's going, you're a fuckhead, Matt. But I stand by it. I'll make no apologies for it.

I'm sorry for that. So the three inductees this week and Dave, I'll read him out, Dave hypes him up and then Jess hypes up Dave's hype work. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, firstly, from, oh, great, what a great city name.

From Firestone in, I think Colorado in the United States, it's Sage Hoffman. Oh, Sage is on fire tonight. Yeah. I've got some sage advice for you. Hoffman, just make yourself at home. No. Matt, please don't try.

You're embarrassing yourself. Just read the names. Come on, stick to the script, please. Is CEO Colorado? Yeah. Okay. And from Hastings in Hawks Bay, New Zealand, it's Amy Rainford. Well, let me say to you, Amy.

I say. Yeah. Hastings chart. Yeah. Hastings chart. That's good. That's a Poirot road joke, so that's pretty good. Hey, Amy, let's not rainford on your parade.

Welcome in. Matt, seriously, shut the, come on. Can we meet his, Mark? This is Dave's thing. You are ruining the momentum. Shit, it, come on. And finally from Guymere Bay in New South Wales, Australia. It's Sharnie Black.

Oh, we're back in Sharnie Black tonight. Yes. Certainly. Woo! Bad. Don't even. Don't even. What is wrong with you?

Family. Stop it. Stop it now. You are my Gamiya Bay, Shani. Stop it. Can we edit this out? Can we just ruin everything? Jess and I will go for another go.

Come on. Do it again. This is Dave's thing and you have to just shit all over it. Pull your pants back up, Matt. Quit shitting on Dave. Sorry, I just had a rush of blood to the head. Like the big old dump on the edge. I'm drowning in how much shit you just put on me.

I think that brings us to the end of the episode. Thank God. What a fun time it was. Block, another big success this year. I thought it came to a great crescendo there with the double hype for those Triptych Club members coming in. They got a little warm-up hype and then I really brought it home with a super hype. And thankfully that will never be happening again. You'll be having a big talking to me.

Yeah, we have to have a meeting now. It is, of course, that's the end of block officially, but of course the side projects keeps going, and that is next week. Don't forget to check out the book cheat episode with all three of us talking about the call of Kutul. And yeah, let us know if, yeah, if you had any thoughts about how we could do our secondary block,

yeah, you can get in contact with us on our Patreon at patreon.com.com slash you go on pot. if you're involved there, there's a Facebook group you get access to. But if you're not involved in that, you can just get it onto us by DoGoOnPod on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and do go on pod at Gmail.com. Also got a website which will hopefully be updated soon at do go onpod.com. But yeah, that does bring us to the end of another blocktastic month of episodes. And yeah, we'll be doing some live streams coming up soon.

Check the link of the description of this episode. you want to get more details on that. We cannot wait to do more live events. We've really missed it. Even if it's just hanging out on a stage together, even if you can't be in the room with us, yeah, they were really, really fun earlier in the year. So I'm hoping they'll be just as fun to round out 2020.

Yes, it's going to be a lot of fun. Dave, you just did it then. But how about you do it for real now and boot this baby home. Woo! All right. Thank you so much for listening. and until next week I'll say thank you and goodbye.

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