Welcome to Night Vale - 150 - The Birthday of Lee Marvin

Episode Date: June 15, 2019

Lee Marvin turns 30 one last time, and a great change comes to Night Vale. The voice of Deb was Meg Bashwiner. The voice of Dana was Jasika Nicole. The voice of Steve was Hal Lublin. The voice of Lee Marvin was TL Thompson. The voice of Maureen was Maureen Johnson. The voice of the Faceless Old Woman was Mara Wilson. The voice of Basimah was Aliee Chan. The voice of the numbers station was Molly Quinn. Weather: “Things Still Left To Say” by Mal Blum https://www.malblum.com Four brand new Welcome to Night Vale beach towels now on the store, including a special limited edition design. See y’all at Ash Beach. https://topatoco.com/collections/wtnv/products/cpb-wtnv-beachtowels2019 Come see A SPY IN THE DESERT in Birmingham, Chattanooga, Nashville, Cincinnati, and Cleveland next month! Plus, fall tour dates across the US and Canada are on sale now. http://www.welcometonightvale.com/live/ 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

Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up. First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest. We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th. We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th. You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more. shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome to Nightville. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know all of the news

that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead return on April the 13th, so make sure you are still subscribed to that podcast. Finally, do you want some cool Nightville merch? Go to Welcome to Nightville.com, click on Store, and we have all kinds of cool t-shirts, things for the summer, tank tops, beach towels, and if you like coffee mugs, if you want calendars, if you want backpacks, all kinds of cool stuff there. So check out Welcome to Nightville.com And click on Store, click on live. If you want to see our live shows, we will see you in Europe.

And hey, thanks. It's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Hi, you squishy humans. Deb, add it again, as usual, talking until your mortal forms pass away. Welcome. Once again, the sun has risen. Good one, son.

We're all very impressed by the same trick for the millionth day in a row. I'm Dana Cardinal. Welcome to... Computer loves Night Vale. Nightvale provides home for computer. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

Hey, everyone. Oh, uh, oh man, I'm supposed to prepare some sort of a start to this thing, huh? Dang it. Forget every time. Every time. Come on, Steve. You have a responsibility here, Steve. You're better than this, Steve.

Sorry. God, sorry. Oh. Uh, welcome to Nightvail. Listeners, it is a very special day today. That's right, it's Carlos and I's sixth anniversary. Yes, we count that first night at the Arby's, looking up at those lights as the start. And why not?

Something has to be the start. And that felt like the first moment of it, the rest of our lives. It's especially emotional this anniversary, because recently we did not exist for a brief, period. Then we both did exist again, but I had forgotten about our entire life together. I have since remembered, and it has been especially tender between us. Such things happen in any marriage that has gone on for enough years, and so it served us as a good reminder of who we are in each other's lives. But it's not just a special day for us.

Oh, no, it's also, oh wow. The 30th birthday of legend of stage and screen, Mr. Lee Marvin. Let's take a listen to a special message from the birthday man himself. Hello. It is my birthday again. Well, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to all of us. It's all of our birthdays this year.

Congratulations us. But it's only for so much longer. I am tired of floating on time like a lazy river gone stale. It's time for me to reach out, to seize, to alter. But also I wish, both the wish and the ability exist within me. This will be the last day that I turned 30. I have been climbing a narrow rock chimney, but today I let go. and fall into deep, clear waters.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It really, it really has meant a lot. Okay, kind of a bummer of a birthday message, but let's move on. And now the financial news. And now the financial news, or whatever, looks like stocks are up, which is great for people who own stocks, who are statistically already wealthy enough that stocks being up or down doesn't fundamentally affect their lives. And those of us without stocks, well, then the health

of the stock market has little relationship to... Tony, I see that you are reading the financial news. Yes, I'm looking at you right now. No, not behind your shoulder. I see you glancing back. No, not out the window either. Tony, look up. Look up, Tony. The great work began. Now see, I'm VP of counting at the last bank of Nightvale, I can count very high, so I'm uniquely situated to explain these figures to you. So, uh, oh, okay, you see where the graph is going down. That means that the price is, uh, lower. Or maybe the stock is? Or it's all going up. Oh, hold on. I've been looking at this sideways. Oh, this isn't a graph at all. It's a picture of Lee Marvin.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Wrong question. The question is, why do things happen? I have $17 in my bank account and my teenage father is living with me. So things are going great here. Up 8% the highest percentage in the last three years. And this has been financial news. Meanwhile, a last-minute birthday party for Mr. Lee Marvin

has been arranged at Gino's Italian dining experience and bonds. and grill at 5 p.m. Where we will all celebrate the first three decades of Mr. Marvin's life by taking advantage of some great happy hour deals. Gino's happy hours aren't super appetizing. The most popular item is a small bowl filled with polished pebbles, but they are damn cheap, and that is appreciated in these tough times. When all of us are finding ourselves short on our bills, except the estate of the late

Marcus Vansden, which now contains approximately 15% of all the money in the United States, but still has no designated beneficiary. Mr. Marvin himself is not expected to attend his own party, as he is not feeling well, and also says that he has a plan to remove himself from this tired wheel of time. Well, feel better, Lee, and good luck on that hobby of yours. Sounds complicated and exhausting. I'll have a Shiraz and a bowl of pebbles in honor of you. Night Vale, we are a town of good intentions.

Once there was a god, her name was Honokar. And she tried to save one little town. She acted with love. The missiles came and she reached out to shift the timeline. only a tad, only enough to save us. And in that moment, her little town shattered into millions of parallel towns. This place became a prism. A god's love is a dangerous force.

Once there was a woman who was a general. She wanted victory for a just cause. So she fought every battle. over and over until time was jumbled up and overlapping and worn thin. She returned home and she died, but the wreckage she made of time remained. And once there was a man, an actor. Once, but not much longer. Here, time and space have been scratched and scrunched, worn, down until they're translucent.

And what if I reached out of hand? And what if I pushed that through the thin places? Happy birthday to me. 30th birthday. Here's the hour, and it's time to, uh, you'll do our usual checks and such. Check in on it. On the, uh, you know, the, uh, what's the word? I'm standing on your roof, Randolph.

Yes, Randolph, that's my pacing, you here. here back and forth on these cheap clay tiles that needed replacing three years ago. There will be rain Randolph someday. And then there will be leaks. That's a certainty. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at... That's that for all that, listeners.

I'm getting tired just reporting on all this life. Can't imagine how tired all of you are from living it. So let's all take a break. Together and go to that. 43, 12, 9, 55, 30, 17. The weather, to the weather. Because I am a champion and you're gonna hear me. Roar.

Another year already. All the days and weeks unfolding as we buttoned up our coats added. Oh, but what's a home? Another place. You never go. Another space. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that?

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Pilate just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso. What else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. There are many night veils. This isn't news. It's merely the fact of it. There's a night veil where the streets are rivers and the rain falls constantly from sunless skies. There's a night veil where the mayor is a smiling man. and a night veil where the mayor is a brave woman. And of course there is a night veil that has no mayor and never will have one again. There's a night veil without a day, and there's a night veil without night.

There's a night veil where the dogs sing and the birds bark. There's a night veil with no people, only the angels moaning and tapping their fingers. There's a night veil where I was never born. And there's a night veil. There's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home. She's in every night veil there. There's a night veil where time runs backwards and a night veil where time skips about. And there's a night veil where time doesn't work at all.

That's this night veil. Time is weird. Time is weird everywhere. but it's especially weird here. There's a night veil where Dana is the voice of her town. And a night veil where Deb, the sentient patch of haze, is the voice of her town. And a night veil where you are the voice of your town. Infinitude of voices of an infinitude in this nightfall.

Our voice is Cecil. A voice like distant traffic. A voice like. strong coffee. Once there was a god with good intentions. In a heart full of love, she shattered us into many versions of us. Once there was a general, full of courage and victory. She twisted our time about itself, lost us in a labyrinth of hours and years. And once there was a man, Oh, his dreams were simple. He wanted to be an actor.

That's all. To lie a little, to op. In a way that they liked being live, too. Time got stuck on him, like gum on a shoe. It was always his 30th birthday. From the Big Bang to the tedious heat death of the universe. His 30th birthday, forever, weighed on him, And so he looked out at every night veil that has ever been,

and every night veil that will ever be, all of them swirling and swinging through intertwining chronologies, and he concentrated very hard. And he reached out one tired, ancient, 30-year-old hand. Just for a moment. All is frozen. Water hangs in the air. air below a leaking tap. The trees are sculpted by a gust of wind and haven't yet swung back to

their natural state. The clouds form a frozen pattern, like snow drifts in the sky. A voice of night veil, sits in front of a microphone, mouth open, but no words coming out, all of the voices in all of the night veils. On the highway out of town, the cars are stopped dead. Their drivers caught glancing at their phones or scratching their ears and thinking about what would finally make them happy or looking in the mirror and trying to gauge whether the car behind them belongs to the sheriff's secret police. Farther out over the mountains and to the coast, the waves are stopped mid-fall. Foam caught, rising, water, caught, tumbling. An old man in Canada trips on a shoe, discarded by his grandson, and there he remains, hands out, mid-air too late for

anyone to save, but not yet, colliding with the earth. He will dislocate his knee. A soldier in China squints at a bird trying to decide which type of bird it is. Really, it's too distant to tell, but the soldier makes a game of this to pass the tedium, and so here they are, squinting at a bird that has stopped mid-flight, its wings outstretched, catching wind that is no longer moving. Observe the soldier in this moment, a thin slice of a long life out in low orbit. A spindly silver being in a graceful silver craft

is caught in an instant when its appendages that are not really fingers, but we'll call them fingers, even though technically are closer in function to kidneys when its fingers phase through the skull of a sleeping human that it has brought aboard, reaching into the human's memory, seeking out a clearer understanding of a planet

that the being has been tasked to observe. And all of the other planets cease for a moment in their senseless hurdle through the vacuum. They are suspended, the way they are in dire. The story we tell ourselves of stasis and clear spatial relationships is, for a moment, true. An entire universe holds its breath. Then I shift my hand a little, and the gears of time can deplace and start again to move. Not quite as they were before.

They are on track now. Their tread a little truer. The beginning of my end, the start of McGinn air. I let out air. And in the moment where the universe starts again, something happens that has never happened before. Not in all of history. Today is a special day, Night Vale.

Lee Marvin, star of stage and screen, is, oh, wow, wow, turning 31 today. Happy birthday, Lee. You know, it feels like our 30s just fly by. Enjoy them while they last. Lee Marvin celebrated his birthday in a notably somber way. He stepped out onto his lawn, nodding at passers-by and various idiot birds. He spit through his teeth, placed his hand on his hips, watched the sun move for a while. Then he nodded in approval of everything he had seen and stepped back inside.

Well, we all express happiness in our own ways. A few minutes ago, I got the most interesting voicemail from my most interesting husband, Carlos. It's our sixth anniversary today, you know? Anyway, he was so excited I've never heard him talk so fast in his life. Carlos said he opened the clock that was on our mantelpiece at home, the one that was given to him by his mother the day he received his Ph.D. The one he brought with him to Night Vale, the one that after having come to Nightveal, he opened to find that it was full of moss and fur and human teeth.

Time doesn't work in Nightvale, he had realized, and he mourned the transformation of both the clock and his experience of the days and years of his life. But he still believes in keeping his possessions in perfect condition. And so today he opened the clock to brush its teeth, only to find it was full of gears and a battery and was ticking away. He measured the movement of its minute hand against the sun and found that the sun, instead of disappearing at wildly different times,

was setting on a normal schedule. He called me up, his voice cracking with excitement, bordering on terror. Cecil? Cecil! He said to me, Cecil, time is normal in Night Vale. Well, it is night, Nightvale. Soon the sun will rise, and we know exactly what time that will happen. Our lives have all lurched forward. Is that good?

Stay tuned next for exactly what was scheduled to run next at the exact time it was scheduled to do so. And from my mouth to your ears, even after all of these years, good night, Night Vale, good night. Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Nightvail Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and producer. by Disparition. The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin. The voice of Deb was Meg Bashwinner. The voice of Dana was Jessica Nicole. The voice of Steve was Hal Lublin. The voice of Lee Marvin was T.L. Thompson. The voice of Maureen was Maureen Johnson. The voice of the faceless old woman was Mara Wilson. The voice of Bacema was Ali Chan. The voice of the number station was Molly Quinn.

Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at Disparition.Info or at Disparition.Bandcamp.com. This episode's weather is Things Still Left to Say by Malblum from their upcoming album, Pity Boy.

Find out more and pre-order the album at Malblum.com. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvail.com. Or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio. Or think sweetly back on better days. Check out Welcome to Nightvale.com for more information on volumes three and four of our illustrated episode book collections out now.

Plus, info on our very last tour of a spy in the desert live show this summer and fall. Today's proverb, technically, the first human being and the first human being in space were the same person. Hey, Jeffrey Kraner 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 three 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.