Welcome to Night Vale - 146 - The Birthday of Lee Marvin

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

Hold on, haven't we been here before? The voice of Lee Marvin was TL Thompson. Weather: “Sicilian Crest” by the Mountain Goats http://www.mountain-goats.com http://ionlylistentothemountaingoats.com Don’t miss our Faceless Old Woman live show at the Largo in Los Angeles on April 27, part of a Night Vale Presents triple bill with Alice Isn’t Dead and Within the Wires: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/live/ Signed editions of our upcoming script books are available for pre-order from Mysterious Galaxy Books until April 25: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/books/ Music: Disparition http://disparition.info Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin.  http://welcometonightvale.com Follow us on Twitter @NightValeRadio or Facebook. Produced by Night Vale Presents.  http://nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by disparition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, Do you want to hear us talk about other things? We have three other really great chat shows.

First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightville needs. You can hear Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single episode in order of Welcome to Nightvail. Also, we have Random Horror Number Nine. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated on a IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middlest rated on IMDB. So check out all of those at nightfallpresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks.

Every evening's disappointment is the next morning's hope. I'm Lee Marvin. Welcome to my birthday. There is a dark planet of awesome size lit by no sun. An invisible Titan, all thick black forest and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans. It is so far away, so desolate, so impossibly, terrifyingly dark. One day, we will go there. Imagine the feeling of the ground beneath your feet on that planet. The soft cold grit of sand that once was rock, that once was mountains. You won't be able to see the sand.

You won't be able to see anything except the faint glimmer of the stars. There's always light somewhere, just not here. What does it smell like on the planet, I wonder? The salt tang of invisible oceans. The bitter sap of ancient forest. I don't think it smells of rot. I don't think it smells of fire or of food. I think it smells empty like a home that you lived in for many years but have cleaned out and repainted,

and you're standing in it for the last time, and it is once again a stranger to you. I think it smells like that. I am Lee Marvin, actor of some note. It is my 30th birthday today. Every day is my 30th birthday, and yet I do not age. This morning, on my birthday, I had a vision. I was walking, and the ground became wet. Then the water rose up around my ankles, but I kept walking.

Around me were the trunks of mighty trees, hundreds of feet around. The water felt cool, but the air was warm, so it was nice to walk through. And still, the water rose, and I was waist-deep now. I didn't know where it was I was going toward or away from. There was a fierce bicker of birds somewhere far above, the water roiled, but I was not afraid. I just walked, waist-deep in that water. Perhaps I walked forever. My morning routine is like so.

I wake up at 5 a.m. I know this because my digital clock tells me in stark red against black. I've had the same clock for decades. All of the labels have worn off the buttons I wouldn't know how to set an alarm, but I don't need to. Whenever I wake up, it's 5 a.m. Maybe my waking causes time to happen. I have the same breakfast every morning. I don't mean I have the same kind of breakfast.

I mean it's the same food. I know because the apple has a bruise shaped like a witch's hat near the stem. It's the same bruise, same shape every morning. When I pour the cereal, no matter for how long or short, it's the exact same amount of corn flakes. I've counted them again and again. Even if I pour no cereal at all, if I refuse to touch the box, there is still the same number of cornflakes in the bowl. It's the same breakfast, and I eat it again and again to celebrate the morning of my 30th birthday. We were not meant to last forever.

There is no peace in eternity. What shapes all of this is the boundaries, the birth, the death, even the pain in the knees, the forgotten wallet. You are bounded, and so within. you are boundless. Without boundaries, I have no shape. I have no pain in my knees, and so I forget I have them. I forget my body.

That's all. I just want to remember my body. There is a dark planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. Its orbit is wild. It's serpentines through space, even with the most powerful telescopes, we would not be able to find it. But at some point, we will all see it, clear and plain as our own faces in the blue of the sky.

We will look up on a day where we had a dentist appointment, where we had to pick up the kids by four, where the basketball game was on down at the bar, and there will be a planet of awesome size, lit. by no sun, an invisible titan, all thick black forest and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans. The planet will be so close that you will be able to see details on its midnight surface. Are those cities that you see upon it? Vast and cavernous cities? Empty windows and empty rooms.

No one built those cities, but they are there. I am Lee Marvin. I have always been Lee Marvin. It has always been my 30th birthday. This afternoon, on my birthday, I had a vision. I was at a conference table in a conference room, and a building full of rooms exactly like that one. a place of business where money is not made but is procured from those who deserve it less.

I wondered, if I searched those offices for all of my birthdays after, would I ever find an exit? I did not search. I sat at the conference table. Across from me was an unsmiling man. His hands were folded in front of him on the table. I did not greet him because I felt that we had already exchanged small talk, and now it was time to get to the meat of it. But I didn't know what the meat was.

I didn't know what he wanted for me. Neither of us said anything from either side of our conference table. The tinted window looked out over a parking lot, full of identical silver sedans. My afternoon routine is like so. I put on my hat and I go into town. I do my shopping and say hello to the people I know and the people I don't. There are still somehow people I don't know even after all this time.

However much time it has been. They often wish me a happy birthday and I say thank you. But what I mean is please don't. No more. Sometimes there's a party. And I poke at the kids. cake with the side of my fork. I go home with my groceries and I put them in the fridge, throwing out the identical groceries I had bought the day before. Then I have an afternoon

coffee out in the backyard, staring at my lawn, which remains green and lush, even though the heat is intense this time of year, even though I have never in my life watered it. The grass is like me. I spit a little coffee on the grass. Imagine having no shape, no form. Imagine a clumsy endlessness. Imagine me. Picture me. In an emergency, it is recommended that you look for the nearest exit. That's all I'm doing here. Looking for the nearest exit. There is a dark planet Lit by no sun, an invisible titan, all thick black forest and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans. I feel that I walked there once long ago. I know the bitter crunch of its lifeless soil.

I know the ice fizz of the waves along its shores. I know the smooth glass of its mountainsides. The dark there is complete. I wish I could take you by the hand, and together you and I could step onto its surface. We could know it the way one knows a home. We could find warmth in its absolute chill. We could make light in its total darkness.

That won't happen. Because when we visit that place, each must visit it alone. We can take it. comfort and those who have gone before and those who will come after. There is a dark planet lit by no sun and one day we will go there. This evening on my birthday I had a vision. I was climbing a chimney of rock. The rock sat tight around my shoulders. There was hardly room for my body. By wedging myself outward, I was able to make myself stable and then wiggle myself just a little bit higher and a little bit higher after that. I knew that my climb would last for the rest of my life,

and that the rest of my life would last forever. And still I wiggled myself an inch at a time. Far above me was a dot of pale orange of sunrise or sunset. It never changed. The sun was always setting or else it was always rising. And anyway, I was far beneath, wiggling my way up a chimney of rock. Far below, I could see cave water, absolutely clear. an impossibly deep and brutally cold. If I wanted, I could simply relax my body and fall through the rock into that cold and clean water.

All I would need to do is relax for one second. But I didn't. I kept climbing toward the sunrise or else the sunset. My evening routine is like so. I listen to the radio to, hear the news and nod thoughtfully at what the world is up to when I'm not involved. I take off my socks. I like how my feet feel against the carpet in my living room.

Sometimes I hear a voice from the living room wall. The voice sounds like me. There must be more than this. The me in the wall says to the me in the chair. I wish it were so. I say to the me in the wall Could you help me out of here? I think I'm stuck Says the me in the wall

And I shake my head sadly If I could have helped myself I would have already I don't like to sleep So I binge an old 90s sitcom Like 5 in a pit Or the thin man commences I don't fall asleep I know I don't

I count every hour Until the next day and yet I find myself waking again in my bed, and it's my 30th birthday, as it is always my 30th birthday. If I am not given a boundary, I will have to create a boundary for myself. I will have to be the inventor of my own end. Listen against the window. Do you hear? The soft murmur of the weather outside.

Witnesses. All manner of devil tremendous. A kitchen bag in heretics blood. Wash your windows and prepare for the flood. Look to the way. That the time is near. Coming in loud and clean. Acroficial victims out of the cage.

Smiling as they're taking the stage. Look to the wax. Everything's new. All the talk we heard was true. Things we all heard once. The whispers from the starfronts. It's longer than anyone. There's still so much I haven't done.

I've never been to Poland or Bolivia or New Zealand or Svitz. I've never been to North Carolina or North Dakota or North Florida or Germany. I've never seen a giraffe in person praying mantis or an eagle. I've never been to space. I've never been in a coal mine. I've never tasted kale or kimchi or lamb or radicchio. There are big things I've never done. I've never written a book or recorded an album.

Ever built a house? Choosing the location and materials, laying down the foundation and constructing the framework upon it, putting in insulation, installing drywall, getting permits from the city. I've never led an army over a mountain pass saying to them, Today we go down in history. I've never gone down in history. Most of us haven't and most of us won't, but me too, I guess.

I've never been to the dark part of the ocean floor where the sun can't reach through the sheer liquid mass and the strange creatures live whose beauty does not rely on our sense of beauty because their existence does not rely on our sense of existence. Where the volcanic vents pump heat into the blue-black abyss, I've never been married, although I have been divorced.

I've never skydived or even been on a plane. I don't know what flying feels like. I imagine it feels a little like dreaming and a lot like waiting. There are small things that I've never done. I've never had a picnic. I've never made whole weed pasta. I've never parallel parked or spent a few hours picking up litter from the side of the road. I've never pulled a weed.

And I've never bought a hat. I've always owned this hat. I don't remember where I got it. I've never driven any car, but a Dodge Durango. I've never seen a single movie except forgetting Sarah Marshall. Not that new remake, but the original 1960s classic starring Frank Sinatra as every character. I can't imagine any other movie being better, so I've never bothered. Exotic things I've never done.

I've never time-travelled. Although I do get the brochures in the mail each week like everyone else. I've never danced in the ballet, although I've daydreamed of it many times. I've never printed counterfeit money, nor ordered a hit on anyone, nor otherwise committed a crime. I've never been bitten by a vampire,

or by a werewolf, or by a child. Simple things I've never done. I've never mailed a letter. I've never owned a dishwasher. I don't know what a sauna feels like. I've never been in a hot tub. I've never kept a flower in a vase long after it was time to throw it away

until it is the brown memory of a flower that once was. I've never done Pilates or yoga or CrossFit. I've never taken a run, although I have always owned running shoes. My life, like all lives, is more of a list of I-nevers, because the world is bigger than we can reach, not even if we spend our entire lives reaching.

We clear a little circle around ourselves. We sit in that circle, and that is our, life. But it's okay. I don't have to do everything. I will leave an endless list of the not done's and the meant twos and the should-haves. And that's fine. Past performance is not a predictor of future results. After all, death is only the end if you think the story is about you. After all, after everything, after it's over. Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale Presents.

This episode was written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by Dysperition. The voice of Lee Marvin was T.L. Thompson. Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at disparition. info or at disparition.bamcamp.com. This episode's weather was Sicilian Crest by the Mountain Ghost. from their new album, In League with Dragons. To hear songwriter John Darniel and Nightvale creator Joseph Think have an hour-long discussion of this song,

check out the new season of their podcast. I only listen to The Mountain Goats, wherever you listen to podcasts. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightville Radio. Or live your best life, whatever that means to you. Check out Welcome to Nightvail.com for more information on all sorts of of Nightvale merch we have, from logo shirts to logo earrings to shirts that say, sleep like there's nobody watching.

Today's proverb, a group of chihuahuas is called a committee. A group of Labradors is called a jumble. A group of golden retrievers is called a butter dish. Hey, Jeffrey Kramer here to tell you about another show from me and my Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink. It's called Unlicensed, and it's an L.A. Noir-style mystery. set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles. Unlicensed follows two unlicensed private investigators

who small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg. There are already two seasons of Unlicensed for you to listen to now with Season 3 dropping on May 15th. Unlicensed is available exclusively through Audible, free if you already have that subscription. And if you don't, Audible has a trial membership. and if I know you, and I do, you can binge all that mystery goodness in a short window.

And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, please rate and review each season. Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience engagement. So go check out Unlicensed, available now only at audible.com.