December 4, 2012 • 48 mins
Out of obligation, Chuck and Josh mention Twilight, but it is the longstanding vampire lore that gets the most attention in this examination of how the bloodsucking undead evolved from baby-stealing demonesses to suave counts in our collective psyche.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant sitting across from me,
back in the saddle. Uh, and there's the stuff you
should know yo, back in the satellite. Yeah. Do you
(00:24):
want to explain that or should we just leave it
in mystery the saddle? Well with the metaphorical saddle, isn't
this case? Yeah? Well, um, you know, we have been
kind of away, even though it seems like we've been
here every week. Through the magic of um digital recording.
That's right, pre recording, we uh, we batch recorded our
(00:46):
episodes and covered ourselves. We built up what we call
it Kittie and uh we've been releasing them steadily and
faithfully while we've been off recording a TV show, recording
a TV show. That's right, our own TV show where
and you be pointing this out to me? How cool
it is we play ourselves. Yeah. I think that's the
only thing I'm qualified to do it. Oh, yeah, totally.
(01:07):
We would have failed miserably if we've done, you know,
anything else, like a Sherlock Homes update or something like that.
There's so many of those going on already, I know,
so why not Yeah, why not elementary, my dear Clark. Yeah, um,
but yeah, we have a TV show coming out. I
guess we can talk about it freely. We're done. Yeah,
we'll we'll really ramp up the plug edge come December,
(01:28):
but look forward in January on Science Channel. And if
you don't have Science Channel, go out and purchase Science Channel. Yeah,
and we are. We do not know because I know
people are already asking about online um stuff. If they're
going to be available like uh, you know, through various
media outlets online. We don't know yet, and we're working
(01:49):
on that. We'd love for it too, but it's not
up to us. Yeah. So I mean you have to
head your bets and get Science Yes added to your
your cable subscription. And if your cable provider doesn't offer Channel,
you burn down their offices. That's right, until they do,
that's right. Um. Okay, So, Chuck, have you ever heard
(02:09):
of a little movie called Twilight? Yeah, I've seen all
those you've seen them. Yeah, Emily's read the books and
she's way into it, so I have been. I got
sucked into it. That's very supportive of you. I don't
think they're very good. Um, but I must admit I
do want to see the final one, just because it's
like when you watch four of something, or however many
(02:30):
it's been three of something, it just become a weird
to stop there. So I will see the last one.
When does that come out? I think probably sometime around
this published date. Oh really yeah, I think it's a
Thanksgiving her Christmas release. Yeah. Okay, Um, well I bring
that up to propose that that's the only time we
(02:51):
talk about that franchise for throughout this whole podcast. Agreed, Agreed, Um,
because the vampires, which is what we're talking about, they
go back a very, very very long way. They've evolved,
they've changed, they've shifted their shape. But um, they seem
(03:13):
to all have certain characteristics in common. Right. For example, Um,
they can't see their reflection, well not necessarily, Okay. If
we go back to the ancient myths, okay. Uh, they
are wary of crucifixes, crucify nah, crucifixes. Uh, they only
(03:34):
come out at night. Yeah, they're undead, Yeah, suck blood
from a victim's neck. They have to be invited into
your home. Yeah, Garlic as well holy water, Yeah, superhuman strength,
al tenants of the modern vampire lore. Yes, and modern
is a good It's a good way to put it
because all of this is a fairly recent um image
(03:56):
of the vampire thanks to bram Stoker and then shortly
after that fellow Leghosty. Yeah, we now have this conception
of the vampire. But like I said, it goes back
way way further than the nineteenth century or even the
eighteenth century. Yeah, it goes back as much as four
thousand years as far as we know. I'm probably further back, right, Yeah,
(04:18):
And I will say one thing, not to bring up
the te word again, but brom Stoker and other authors
and filmmakers, the cool thing I like about the vampire
and pop culture is you can pull from all these
different things to create your own creature of the night. Yes,
like some of them. You know, in in like True
Blood for instance, you know they can retract their fangs,
(04:41):
they're super sexy. They you know, Lilith is in that
a version of Lilith that we'll talk about. So I
just think that's kind of one of the cool things
about vampires is brom Stoker did the same thing. He
pulled from different areas of mythology and said, this is
a fictional character I'm going to create using all these
old folk legends. But there are some things that are
(05:01):
are very basic. The commonalities among all vampires is that
generally they suck blood um, and they are dead in
some way, shape or form. They are they're undead. That's
a that's a great way just coined an excellent term
up um. So you have undead people, former people in
(05:23):
most cases um feeding on the living. That's the vampire.
That's the basis of almost all vampires. But even that
has exceptions because these early, the earliest vampires that we
know of that arose out of the first civilization Mesopotamia. Um,
we're actually demon goddesses, right, Yeah. Lamas Do was a
(05:44):
demon goddess and she was the daughter of Anu, the
sky god, and she would um creep in and kill
your babies. Yes, she was not a happy, nice person.
She had talents wings um. And they believe that the
Assyrians and Babylonians were basically going like what is going
(06:05):
on when they would encounter sudden infant death syndrome or miscarriages,
And they said, well, of course it is lamas Do.
Thank you. Yeah, I think it's so funny how so
many of these things were sort of used to explain,
and not vampires, but all kinds of folk legends to explain,
like what medicine health says is sids, right, yeah, you know,
(06:29):
but I mean like it's that that this basis of
the vampire legend using it to explain stuff people didn't understand,
usually some sort of sudden death or wasting away as
we'll see later. Um, it spans thousands of years. People
have been going back to that well for thousands and
thousands of years. That's pretty interesting, you know when you
(06:53):
look at this one group in the nineteenth century with
the Assyrians four thousand years ago, and they're all thinking
the same thing. Yeah, that's I find that very interesting.
That's that's an archetype if you ask you. Yeah, And
it just goes to show you we're all humans all
over the world for as long as we've been around.
We're all stupid. We're all stupid, all right. Um. Lamas
(07:16):
Do is also associated with Lilith, who I mentioned who
this past season was on True Blood like a version
of Lilith. But um, she is in a prominent in
Jewish text and is a lot like lamas do. She
Um was the first woman, supposedly not Eve but Adam
and lilith Yeah, that's like that question about like who
(07:38):
is the first president. Yeah, well apparently there were other
presidents for Washington, like eight or nine before Washington, but
you just have to say, well, were they the president
of the United States? They weren't. So lilith Um was
a modern woman, and she was like, you know, Adam,
I ain't putting up with this because I am just
the same as you. I was created from God just
(07:59):
like you are. And so Um, stop acting like you're
not made of dust exactly. So she left Eden said
I'm out of here. I'm gonna have my own kids.
God sends angels to bring her back. She's like, no,
I'm not going. And the angel said, all right, do
you think angels are nice? We're gonna kill one hundred
of your children every day until you get back up
(08:21):
to eat or heaven. Yeah. And rather than say okay,
well let's go back to eating, then Leis said do it,
and they did it, and so she started killing human
children in return. That's right again, with sharp talents, a
winged demonus stealing infants and fetuses, and I find that
extremely interesting, Um, that the vampire legend is kind of
(08:43):
born out of this, um, this folklore of how you're
supposed to be subservient to men. You know. That's uh,
that's very interesting to me because they there's this element
of seduction that kind of was reinvented with vampires here
or there, but it's one of the It may have
(09:04):
gone away in some areas, but it always came back,
this idea that there was a woman or a person
who didn't follow sexual mores, whether that sexual meaning like
intercourse or gender. They didn't follow the rules. And that's
kind of like another thing that's always kept the vampire
(09:24):
legend going, or that's always been a part of it.
I guess that's a good point, because Lilith thus set
up the notion of the us you know, we see
over and over in further legends, right. Um. And then
so Lilith is associated with ancient Jewish texts. Um Lamas
too is uh from Mesopotamia. And they aren't certain if
(09:45):
um Lilith was a variation of Lamaster or if they
both evolved from a third character. But um, those are
the two most ancient ideas of vampires that we have
shortly after that we can head on over to. And
they had they feared a lot of vampire like creatures. Yeah,
Lamia was another demonus um head and torso of a woman,
(10:09):
lower body of the snake and um. Evidently this was
one of Zeus' mortal lovers. She his wife, did not
take kindly to this, Harah. And she was like, no,
I'm gonna make you go insane, lady and eat all
your children. Yeah, you're so crazy, You're gonna eat your
kids and then come to afterward, that's right. And when
(10:31):
she did, she went so she she went so berserk,
not in the Viking way, not berserker, No, just straight
up berserk that she um became a monster again, killing children, Yeah,
because she was jealous of other women who tried children. Um.
Who else Um. They also had the yes, the daughters
(10:53):
of Hakad, who was the goddess of witchcraft. Ye. And
they were shapeshifters for the first time. Right, So like
you have all these all these different cultures contributing to
the vampire that we understand today here there um. And
it wasn't just the Greeks, it wasn't just the Mesopotamians.
(11:13):
You also had India getting into the mix with the
rack Shassa right um, which was basically like a ghoule,
the shape shifting Google who once again killed children, right
And same with the Vitala, but they were more like
a zombie if you ask me, Yeah, a demon who
(11:34):
took possession of recently dead bodies, freak havoc on a
living that's a that's a sound. Um. And then the
Chinese also had their own thing, um the KUEI sure, okay,
you have to say like that. Yeah, Like, um, the
guy on NPR who always reports from China, he speaks
(11:55):
to him really and all of a sudden, I mean,
he's doing it accurately, but it's like, um, little bit
like Daniel day lewis doing Lincoln. It's like, yeah, that's accurate,
but do you do you know it sounds like I
wanted to get rid of slavery. That was sort of
like a jacked up Kennedy. That's weird a little bit. Um,
So how do how do quai come about? They are
(12:17):
corpses who would rise from the grave kill again, and
that happened when a person's lower spirit did not pass
through the afterlife because of bad things. They did so
the poe was angered by the lower spirit. Yeah, and
that would reanimate basically and say, you know what, I'm
gonna attack the living at night once again, because what
else do I have to do? Nothing? Well, it's a
(12:39):
good way to exact revenge. Just have to hang around here.
That's the wheelbarrow. So all of these stories were floating
around the world and eventually UM, through trade and things
wound up in Europe. Yeah, the first globalization, the silk
roads started bringing all these things together, and yeah, they
moved over to Europe, and that's where they really sort
of took off, I guess you could say. And in
(13:03):
the place that became the epicenter um was Central Europe
or Eastern Europe. Yeah, Russia early on with the upier
and again Greek with the boy uh Rykolakas or kolacas. Yeah,
(13:24):
one of those one of those you can't start a
word with four consonants, one of them got to be silent. Yeah.
And this kind of like um was an offshoot of
the Chinese conception of how a vampire became a vampire. Uh.
The upier um, which they think is the word that
led to vampire or vampire um was basically a person
(13:47):
who during their life was a sinner un baptized baby,
which is really sad, a vampire baby. That's kind of funny. Um.
And they anyone who wasn't a Christian, Yeah, practitioners of witchcraft,
especially of course for obvious reasons, because you'd already sold
your soul of the devil. Yeah, so you're you're doomed.
(14:07):
You're like halfway there, right, So, um, all of these
factors combined to basically make you a loser in the
afterlife and you're going to come back. Um. And families
were I guess aware of this kind of thing. They
knew that there was the possibility that you know, uncle
(14:29):
Uncle Vigo, who had a lot of big gambling problem
which the village looked down upon, um when he was alive.
When he died, well, he was probably going to become
a new pier. And so if all of a sudden
Uncle Vigo's like nephews start dying in a weird way, um,
(14:52):
say of maybe a dread disease, the family probably go
dig up Uncle Vigo and do crazy stuff to his body. Yeah.
And one thing to point out here this is I
think the first time with the upier that we get
the notion that they would go back to the grave
to rest. Oh yeah, it's a big one on a
regular basis, and that sets things up moving forward kind of.
(15:14):
So like you said, they would, um sometimes dig these
bodies up, sometimes burn them, um, drive a stake through
the heart. They would really take care of this corpse.
They would bury them face down sometimes. Yeah, so like
if they tried to crawl out, they would be headed
in the wrong direction. That's pretty or but um steaks
facing down, so if they tried to crawl up, they
(15:36):
would stake themselves. And that was this is the Uh.
About a thousand years ago in Central Europe, this stuff,
or es Central or Eastern Europe, this stuff started to Um,
these beliefs started to come about that you could solve
your vampire troubles by butchering the corpse of the suspective vampire. Yeah. Um.
(15:59):
And it started then and it carried on anytime there's
a vampire panic, which uh, interestingly all almost always attended
a an outbreak of some sort of disease. I could
see that, um, because once again they're just trying to
explain away exactly medical conditions, right. Um, people would dig
up corpses and like do crazy things to them. Like
(16:21):
in Venice they found a sixteenth century corpse that had
a brick in its mouth and they no, it hadn't
it didn't fall in there. Um. And then in the
eighteen fifties there's this really cool article Chuck called the
Great New England Vampire Panic. It was on um the
Smithsonian website recently. It is awesome. And in the eighteen
(16:42):
fifties in Connecticut there was a tuberculosis outbreak and people
panicked and started digging up graves and the just completely
um rearranging the people's bones, are cutting out their hearts
and burning them and doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
And these were this is the eighteen fifties. I mean,
(17:03):
this wasn't the Dark Ages. Like people were starting to
have an understanding of like disease like the Salem which
trials same deal, right, but two hundred years later, a
hundred fifty years later, you know, so um, there there
was this big panics still as recently as the eighteen
fifties in the US among you know, folk who dug
(17:25):
up their family members and like burn their their hearts.
Those people are funny, Yeah, they call them undecided voters.
But those are those are the people that I'm talking
about that they're doing the same thing, we're thinking the
same things that the Assyrians did four thousand years before.
I just think that's so interesting and yeah, um so
(17:46):
in uh Wallachia, Moldavia in Transylvania which is now Romania. Um,
they had something called and stray were. Um they were
a little bit different because they were um. They would
go through different stages after rising from the grave. Like
at first they were just poltergeist and they were invisible
(18:08):
spirits that would torment their family in the afterlife um
or in their regular life the strict boys afterlife. Does
that make sense? Um? But then they would as time passed,
they would become visible looking like they did in life,
and they would still return and steel cattle and bring
disease and all that stuff to their family for food. Yeah,
(18:28):
why would they do this to their family? That's what
I never got. I think I saw later. Um that metaphorically,
it's a it's basically a vampire lore is a life lesson.
Don't be a drain on your family. Support your family,
take care of your parents in their old age, like
you don't want to be a strogoy. Okay, you know
what I mean. Sure, I guess that makes sense. Um.
(18:49):
And strogy or a strogo, which I guess is the
singular of the strogoy, would Um, they would have to
go back to the grave a lot, just like the
upier did. And they followed the same pattern. They if
they thought someone was a striggo, they would exhume the
body and take care of it the old fashioned way.
And um, but here's a little loophole. If you managed
(19:09):
to survive for seven years as a striggo, then you're
good to go. And they're like, all right, you've got
staying power. You just go do your striggo things right.
You are like the living debt. You no longer have
to like return to your grave to rest. You're basically reborn.
Well done. Um. And apparently the striggo couldn't um or
(19:29):
the strigoy couldn't make their way in their town after
that seventh year, you know, because they went on to vote.
There is all sorts of all the right. Um. So
they would move to other towns and they would have
secret meetings with other strigg oy and um, that's where
the idea of vampires fraternizing came from yeah, hanging out, Yeah,
(19:50):
talking shop. Yeah, basically a secret culture of vampires existing
outside of our awareness. You remember, remember like on Jerry
Springer when that was on, or it might still be on,
have no idea I think it is. Is it really? Yeah? Wow?
Is it still the same crap? Oh yeah, yeah, he
(20:11):
didn't take the high road at some point. No. I
just remember back in the day, they would have like
those real vampires, the people that lived the vampire lifestyle.
There's a video of it in this um is there
in this article? Oh boy? Yeah, the guy looks like
a cross between Marilyn Manson and um Brandon Lee. Oh yeah, yeah, interesting,
(20:32):
kind of kind of odd looking. He's got the contact
lenses and everything. Yeah, they'll they'll shave down their their fangs,
like for real, right, they'll file them down. Yeah. Um.
So there's two types of TROGOI right, You've got the
strogoy mort not Morty no more isn't dead. So this
is the basically who we were just describing, and then
(20:54):
the strong oy view, which is the living, the person
who's going to become a streako when they die. Yeah,
people that I feel very sorry for because they were
probably just born with a bump. What are those called
the when you're born with a like really just racking
my head with a vestige like a partial tail? Yeah, uh,
(21:14):
vestigial tail. Yeah, no, there's a word for it. I
can't remember. I'm so tired of doing this. Have we
wasted combine saying, oh, I wish I could remember it. Well,
we just invented this off the top of our head,
soans ai, yes, exactly right, and some sort of drug. Yeah,
(21:40):
it is actually um so here, poor baby born with
a vestigial tail, a little bump on the top of
your tailbone or um some sort of fetal membrane still
attached to the head, which is called a call. Yeah,
they would just call you a string strio view or voo. Right,
and you're sort of like, sorry, I was born with
his bump. I'm not a vampire living walking on the earth.
(22:02):
They said, no, you are, and if you have kids,
and they're gonna be h stro oi in the afterlife,
and we'll have to destroy your body when you die,
and they did, and they did so. But I guess
it's kind of nice that they didn't just kill the
person while they were living. They just showed them I'm sure, yeah, exactly. Um,
the idea of a call like having some sort of
(22:24):
um special significance, is it goes beyond the vampire thing
to like like you're gifted with the second side, or
there's all sorts of like supernatural paranormal folklore surrounding people
born with a call. Once again, people have proven to
be stupid over the years. So, um, but this is
where vampire came in, right, Yeah, the street go, the
(22:47):
strog oy um started to come to be called the vampire,
which is again from Upier in the Russian And all
of a sudden, the stage is set for the vampire
legend to really take hold as it's taking shape. Yeah,
and like this is where pop culture came into plague
hysteria had set in, and so painters and artists and
authors had this material that's pretty rich for the time.
(23:10):
All this hysteria's gone on, so let's write a scary
book about it. And that's what Bram Stoker did. Yeah,
and he was, um, he was, are you going with Brom?
I go with Bram, you go, Bram? Yeah? Have you
ever read it? I know, I saw the movie though
it literally the movie was a pretty faithful at it
with the couple of one. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good.
(23:32):
The book is great, though. I took a literature of
horror class at Georgia and it was one of the
cooler classes I took. I'm sure he did Dracula and
Frankenstein and like the House of Usher and then a
bunch of short stories. Yeah, very cool. So Bram Stoker
also Abraham Stoker, which I didn't know until I read
this that was his first name. Yeah, just because the
class um he uh. He was a theater manager and
(23:54):
a novelist and also a really great researcher because you know,
all this stuff from this empire um um hysteria, yeah,
panic from all this took place like hundreds of years
before him. And I guess I don't know what inspired
him exactly or where he saw it or where the
where this all took place. But he didn't just go,
(24:15):
oh that's a pretty good idea and wrote his book
like he went and did some serious research. Yes, supposedly
he was inspired by uh. He was a personal assistant
to this actor um who ran the theater that he
worked at. And supposedly Henry Irving was a guy's name
was the inspiration to write the book. And I don't
know if that meant he was some jerk. He's like,
I'm just gonna personify he was the blood sucker or what.
(24:38):
But or maybe he just inspired him creatively. Who knows. Um,
but I bet someone knows more about this and I do. Oh,
I'm sure, so right in and tell me. Um and
so Bram Stoker goes and he starts to do some
research and pokes around, and he finds a great place
to set this vampire tale is in Transylvania, which is
the heart of this stroy vampire. This is where everything
(25:00):
that we just talked about came together. Wallachia, Transylvania, Romania
is what we call it today. Um and uh. And
he he thought, well, this is just perfect. I'm gonna
set it there and let's see if I can find
somebody of that area how it can base this vampire
character on. And he came up with a guy named
(25:21):
Vladislav Bazzarreb. Yeah that's a creepy name period, yea. Um,
but it would be even creepier he was the prince
ruled Wallachia in the mid fourteen hundreds. Uh. Creepier is
that his father was vlad Drakul, Vlad the Dragon or
the devil, and um Vlad Jr. Was referred to as
(25:42):
Vlad Dracula, which is son of Dracula, or Vlad Tepis
or Lad the Impaler, because even though it's not verified,
supposedly he was a very fierce warrior. He would impale
his victims. Okay, I really feel like we should do
um the real Count Dracula episode. Sometime I wrote this
awesome article on it, and it is, it's verified. It
(26:06):
was there a real countract. It's about blood Tepis, the
vladim Paler. Yeah, because he just borrowed the name in
the in the title, right, he wasn't really based on
this guy who Count Dracula brom Stokers, Yes, version right.
Vlat Tepis was probably far far worse than um anything
bram Stoker wrote about Count Dracula, way worse. Yeah, his
(26:30):
like it is verified. Like, yes, he had all sorts
of guys who were um against him and who published
extensively all these um like books and pamphlets and all
the stuff to smear his name. But they got a
lot of stuff, right, Yeah, Like he was into some
horrible stuff. He killed a lot of people, Uh. He
had a lot of people killed. His armies killed a
(26:51):
lot of people. He uh, he's probably like most rulers
of the day. He was he was worse. He was
most likely worse than anybody else. So he borrows this
name in this title and social standing is an aristocat
aristocat great movie. You's a naked woman in that um
in that one in the Aristocats. Yeah, the Disney cartoon. Yeah,
(27:14):
that's the one with the Is that the one with
the No, I'm thinking of the rescuers. Oh, I remember
that there's a naked woman the rescuers when they're flying
through the city. If you watch it frame by frame,
they passed by a window and there is a photograph
of like a woman standing in the window naked. Um,
and like you have to watch it like in in
(27:35):
you know, frame by frame is the only possible way
to see it. But it's in there. Yeah, they were dirty.
There's also the little mermaid thing. The the ballast is yeah,
hidden not so hidden ballast. Yeah. I'll bet that guy
was like, no one's ever going to see this, and
(27:56):
then he lost his job forever. So um So Stoker
borrows this, uh the name, Like I said, the social
standing says, this would be a great setting. Let's throw
it in Transylvania. Let's let's change a few things. Let's
borrow from a bunch of different uh folklore, and let's
let's say maybe you can't go out in the sunlight,
and let's bring up the crucifixes now, and let's make
(28:19):
him really smart and um charming. And well that was
largely Bella le GHOSTI that did that. Well, No, brom
Stokers was totally like that. I thought his was um
that he was like a withered, ugly old man, you know,
but he was still had like the stuct of power
and all that swave. Well because he was Yeah, he
(28:42):
changed ages if I remember correctly, Well he does in
the movie, and I've heard the movies a pretty faithful adaptation.
And it was also, I think the first time where um,
all of a sudden they didn't have any reflection because
most of the previous lest uh legends they loved their reflection. Yeah, apparently,
not only were they in love with their own reflection
(29:03):
and they could be lost for hours staring into a mirror,
they were also supposedly obsessive compulsive, as some like Eastern
four'klore goes. And one way to ward off vampires was
to spread seeds outside of your house because the vampire
would be um bound to count every single seat. And
(29:23):
if you put a little nail or attack or something
in there, when the the vampire went to pick that
one up, it would prick itself and all drop all
the seeds to forget where it was and start counting
all over. You gotta start counting again, and then you'd
just be sitting inside, laughing, drinking your ale. Stupid vampires,
so um, but that was that was another difference. I'm
sorry we've been calling them stupid vampires and up until
(29:47):
the nineteenth century, like you could make that case like
they were kind of dead zombiesque a little bit um.
It was Stoker that introduced, like you say, not not
to sell this other stuff, but the acute intelligence, that's right,
this this very smart like power of persuasion, almost hypnotic
Umvengali type. And in True Blood they have this thing
(30:10):
they do called glamouring, which is kind of a silly name,
but it's almost like a charm, like a spell that
they can put over you if you like black eyes
with one and you know when you glamor them there,
you know, basically in a hypnotic state, you can. They're
highly suggestible, I get into a sexual way. Well, in
all kinds of ways, but yeah, there's plenty of They
usually are just like, take off your pants? Did they
(30:33):
say like that point and say in a creepy tone? Yeah, see,
you don't tell me you can't act. You could play
the role as a vampire. Take off your pants? Yeah,
you got the joke. Let's do some voguing. So you
mentioned Bella Lego si film Dracula Um, which was you know,
(30:53):
where we get the cape and the I want to
drink your blood and the sort of familiar modern vampire
that pop culturally speaking, that we're familiar with today. And
one of the best songs ever bus is Bella the
Ghost He's Dead. Yeah, excellent silent film Nosa Barato with
Max Shrek a little more true to the original creepy
(31:14):
looking guy. What was the movie starring Willem Dafoe and
um uh oh about Yeah? Yeah, that was good. What
is the name of that movie? Do you remember? I
can't remember, dude. That is such a good movie. Yeah,
I want to see that movie again. I do too, Actually,
it's a great one. The ending is just yeah, what
(31:36):
is it? Shadow of the vampire Ry? That life correction? Uh?
And Rice then came along and um yeah, nothing happened
in between, but and Rice definitely brought things more into
the forefront as far as um this range of emotions
and he's really complex characters. Um. I didn't think the
(32:00):
books were very good. But it's just not my bag.
Oh yeah, I read the first one and it's just
not my thing. Okay, yeah, I mean I'm not saying
it was not good, it's just not my thing. I'm
with you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course classic. Not
a great movie, great TV series? Are you out of
your mind? You didn't like the movie. I didn't think
it was very good. Now, oh you're crazy. I love
(32:23):
that movie. Well that's good. Yeah. I thought it really
became itself when the cast changed. And I love that movie. Yeah,
well that's great. Have you seen the South Park where
like all the kids start becoming like vampires, all the
good kids. It's like very trendy and hip to be
to be like a vampire and give yourself a new
(32:44):
name and everything. Um, and they drink clomato. Oh I
love Clomato. Yeah, you're in the minority, buddy. That's the
secret to my famous bloody Mary. I know you've told
me it's a good South Park Chuck. I'll check it out.
Um are we now? So we talk about psychic vampires
a little bit. I guess all right. These are people
(33:06):
in modern times that claim that they crave and feed
on others energy, their psychic energy, and they claim to
be vampire rish or vampire rick, vampire esque, vampire esque um,
and that they will not if they do not do this,
then they will not have feel like they have fed on,
you know, sustenance like that is their sustenance is other
(33:29):
people's psychic energy. And it also goes back. It's you know,
modern people claim this, but it goes back, you know,
thousands of years. Um, this phenomenon does. It's nothing new. Well,
they actually think that it may have given rise to
vampire lords. We understand it now. And it's also a
metaphor if someone, you know, someone can call someone a
psychic vampire if they're just a drain as a person,
(33:52):
you know, those people energy vampires. That's right. Not to
be confused with the other kind of energy vampire, which
is like your coffee maker. Yeah, these things that are
left on all night. Um. So there's there's We kind
of touched on it earlier, the idea of why, um,
where we would have gotten vampire legends. People use it
(34:14):
to explain phenomenon that we didn't understand before there was
such thing as like germ theory. Right. So you have
like um lamas too being blamed for sids and and
um ah, miscarriage is that kind of thing, right, and
then you have um a couple other diseases that we've
(34:35):
come to understand that they're like you know what, We've
never really definitively linked this to vampire lore, but I'll
bet you this gave rise to it. It probably didn't help.
So like like, what, uh, porpyra? Do you pronounce that porphyria? Porphyria?
All right, we'll go with that. Have you ever seen
the others? Is that what those kids had? All Right?
(34:59):
That makes sense. It's a rare disease um irreg irregularities
in the production of of him with himmy, which is
an hemoglobin he like himmy, I think got a himmy.
That's yeah. Um. And basically, what you're gonna be sensitive
to sunlight, you're gonna have a bad stomach pains, you
(35:19):
may be delirious. Um. Back in the day, one prescription
may have been to drink blood, So I would say
that's probably a dead giveaway, right, Yeah, And have you
seen pictures, Yeah, people stricken with us creepy looking. Their
teeth can be like red or black, and their gums
can be red and black, which is I think probably
(35:40):
another reason why they link that to that. And it's hereditary,
So there, you know, there were places where there was
more of this um happening than other places, which would
also lend itself to the whole vampire thing and feeding
on your family. Yes, same with tuberculosis, Like when when
people were kind of spread out except your family, and
(36:01):
there were nineteen of you and you all lived in
one house. If one of you had TB probably the
rest of you were going to catch TV and a
lot of you were gonna die from it. And whoever
was the first one to die of this was probably
the original vampire who's feeding on the other And you're
probably the one who's going to be dug up and
have your heart cut out and burned. But at that point,
(36:21):
who cares? And then there's another disease called catalepsy, which
is associated with epilepsy. This one is freaky. Do you
ever see that Twilight Zone where Um, I can't remember
what actor it was. It may have been the professor
from Gilligan's Island or he's in a cart and he's
paralyzed and he's the whole thing is just him talking
to himself in his head like he's locking these people, Yeah,
(36:44):
to not bury him because he's not dead, and um,
it's really it's a great episode. So is he cataleptic? No,
he was kind of like you said, locked in Twilight Zone.
Catalepsy is a it's a specific neurological just order, like
I said, associated with epilepsy, where your muscles just freeze
up and an episode like this can last for days
(37:08):
and your heart rate slows and your respiration slows and
you're alive and God knows what your brain is doing,
but you're alive during this time. But you know, prior
to stay embalming, you may have just been taken for
dead and putting in the ground and you had to
dig your way out and go back home. Yeah, And
it's also associated with schizophrenia, so you're sitting around the
(37:29):
dinner table and uncle, um, uncle, what vigo? Uncle Vigo?
Remember like to gamble. He comes in three days after
you buried him brushing dirt office overhauls in a schizophrenic
having a schizophrenic episode, and you you know you're gonna
put a stake through his hard Yeah, you know, if
(37:50):
you're smart, Which is just not fair because after an
experience like that, it's like, why would you wait? Why not?
Why not left kill this man before he goes to
this horrificectic experience and then it all end with a
stick through the heart. Let him get hit by a
truck with a hemmy or something ahead of time. Uh.
(38:12):
And then I'm not so sure about this suggestion, but
it might carry a little weight that what happens after
a regular human body dies. Um might have fed into
this a little bit, I would say. So, um, fingernails
and hair um continue growing. So this is like if
they diggy back up, they're like, look, the fingernails are long,
the hair has grown. They're bloated because you're full of
(38:36):
you know, gases expanding. So let's cut them open and
this all this fluid drains out and say, see they've
been growing their hair and fingernails and feeding on others
bodily fluids. They're alive there well or undead but uh well,
I mean like they're going back and resting and like
they obviously have gorged themselves. Look at their stomach. It's
(38:59):
all the stend did. Yeah. So I mean I think
it was probably like the nail in the coffin on
their beliefs, like this is is all absolutely correct. Yeah
I could see that though. Yes, and then the notion
of the vampire bat um came along later on, where
the vampire could shape shift into bats and sometimes wolves,
(39:22):
although in Twilight, wolves and vampires are on opposite sides. Yeah,
I said I would mention it again. Yeah, there I went. Um,
but the whole thing of the vampire bat was just
like a creepy uh you know, real vampire bats are
docile creatures and they might drink like the blood of
a cow, but they're not attacking people. No, that was
(39:45):
all for there's harmless is vampire babies. You know, what
are some of your favorite movies, Josh, Oh, vampire movies? No,
just comedies like a DC CAM Doctor Detroit. Um, I
would say probably the best of all time in my opinion,
(40:07):
is lost boys. It definitely has a kitch value. Now
that is a great movie. It doesn't hold up super well.
Tho have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it
in a while. And it's the ways that other eighties
movies don't really because that was like a cool movie. Ye,
Echo and the Bunny Man covered the doors in it.
Come on shall not Ki? Yeah, it's a it's a
(40:30):
stream song. Near Dark. Did you ever see that one?
I don't think so. Nineties seven Bill Paxton and uh
that one guy Lance Heinrixen. They're like these modern vampires
traveling in an RV through the desert and killing people.
Really good. I have not seen Near Dark is excellent.
What about first bite with the George? George Hamilton's first
(40:54):
bite was Yeah, he's like a disco Dracula. Vampire's kiss
was funny. Nick Cage, I never saw that one. That
was good. I thought the original Fright Night. Granted it
was the eighties again, but for me it was pretty
good back in the day. I haven't seen that. Um Coronos,
have you seen that? Garma del Toro? I don't good one.
(41:15):
I think I've seen it, and then um of course
let the right one in both versions to me very good. Really,
I heard the American version was compared to the original.
I thought they were both pretty great. I'll check it out.
Then you know, they didn't like definitely didn't ruin it
by americanizing it. And then there of course the bad
(41:36):
ones like Van Helsing West Craven's Dracula two thousand, um
Blood rain r a y any. I mean there's lots
and lots of bad vampartments. Dracula dead and loving it?
That looks good though. Um, do you know how many
emails we're gonna get from people that would say, like
(41:56):
you forgot about this one? Yeah? But let's just say
there are hundreds of vampire movies. There's TV shows now
in the Vampire Diaries, True Blood, which I mentioned, which
is sort of good again after falling off the rails
in my opinion, and um, Twilight Breaking Dawn part two,
What is your problems in theaters near you? Oh? Actually
(42:17):
that's seventy nine Dracula with Franklin Jella. That was good.
Did he play Dracula? Yeah? He was good. Oh yeah, okay,
I could see him. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking of
the right person. And then if you're into old movies.
You know, you can't go wrong with with Bella Orghossi
or uh not Sparato. Take some time watch an old movie.
(42:37):
That's what I say. Yeah, that's that's pretty much your
life coaching, I think. So take some time watch an
old movie, says Chuck. Yeah, watch some of them black
and white for a change. Um. Hey, also, while we're
while we're on this kind of scary esque topic, you
want to plug somebody real quick? Yeah, I think we
(42:58):
have another horrors as right as we said we would
um plug people who send in their stuff for a
horror fiction contest um and who went on to publish stuff. Um.
And one of the guys, Christopher Kelly, who wrote the
very cool short story Variable um, took us up on that.
(43:19):
And he says that he has a creepy novella about
two boys whose father tries to kill them, called Abraham
Road not Bram Road. Uh. He says that it's, um,
it's what would have happened if HP Lovecraft rewrote of
Mice and Men, which is pretty awesome. It's available on Kindle.
You can go find that on Amazon dot com Abraham
(43:40):
Road ebook. Uh. And then he also has a collection
called I held my breath as long as I could.
Twenty three stories of the Strange the Sinister in the
Literary Um and you can get that on Amazon as well,
so check those out. Christopher Kelly, thanks for sending in
your work. We liked it a lot. And remember, anybody
else who has lisched and entered our horror fiction contest,
(44:02):
we want to say thanks by letting everybody know about
your stuff. The great If you wanted more about vampires, man,
it's been a while. Yes, um, you can type that
word into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up a bunch of cool stuff, including, um,
who was the real Count Dracula? This vampire article written
by Tracy Wilson, which is a great one. Tracy wrote that, Yeah,
(44:24):
couldn't you tell? It's pretty thorough? Uh. And then also
another one I liked a lot was a Hungarian um
countess the world's most prolific serial killers. She's like the
female Dracula Elizabeth Bathroom. Yeah, awesome stuff. Type that in
the search bar and it will bring all this great
stuff up. It's since I said search bar, it's time
for listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna call this
(44:47):
a trivia plug. Um. We went to New York for
tomic Con and we had one of our trivia nights
there and one of the things that we were required
to do and want to do is read the names
of the trivia winners. And so I got emails from
them and then in the runner up team because they
(45:07):
were cool and I'm gonna read them all. This is
from the winner, Kyle um Jannish or Yannish. I'm not
sure how he grown was that. Thanks guys for hosting
the event. Um. As an Avid s y s K listener,
our team, Steve Holt, had a great time. The team
name was Steve Holt. We were made up of mainly
former Midwesterners, which gave us a good advantage in the
(45:30):
Great Lakes question. We had three girls in fashion, Caitlin Grommel,
Monica Lange, and Amy Guidal. We also had three teachers,
Dan Farrell, Michael Rakowski and myself Kyle Janish and my
twin who does social work, Mike Jannish and my friend
who seems to always be working for a pyramid scheme,
(45:51):
Mike as Sterling. So those were the winners there, and uh,
he says the fashion expertise did not come in handy
this time, but we were prepared for anything except for
the Kevin Smith movies category, which I wasn't a fan of.
They were far behind coming in the last question, but
wagered it all in one. Um, it's crazy, that's how
it goes in. At one of our events. Yeah, so
(46:14):
Kyle and his brother Mike remember meeting them. There were
buddies with Joe him and he says thanks for hosting
and thanks for the sweet T shirts. And then the
runner ups, runners up, runners ups, sorry than ghost of
Williams Sapphire just for him through to uh thanks for
hosting the super fun trivia night at the Cutting Room. Um,
and boy, by the way, thank you cutting Room. Yeah,
(46:35):
that place is amazing and very generous in hosting us,
and it is back up and running after like redoing
the inside and it is really nice. So give them
some love if you live in New York. Um, I'm
a longtime listener four years of Pure Love, and I
recently got my boyfriend David booked as well, and it
has been a nerdy bonding experience for us. Anyway, we
(46:57):
decided to come up from Virginia. Came up from virgin
never knows that's a long dry um. We met some
awesome people in line and formed teen phil um. Our
lovely teammates were Paul mcgowski, Leah Talman, Jim Nelson, Charlie Tran,
David Bury, and two others who skipped out early, and
myself who is Natalie David. And Natalie is the one
(47:20):
who brought us the Mike's on pants off T shirts,
so um. Not only was that super nice, but they
sat in the table next to us and I was
able to talk a lot of smack with them, and
so I said I would read about them on the show.
This is just how it goes to one of our
trivia events. Would bring people together chuck talk smack like
directly to you. It's a lot of fun. So Natalie
(47:42):
David says, thanks a lot and cheers, and I hope
you enjoyed the shirts and all that good stuff. We
also we met the convo Kings, who we've been in
touch with. That's right. They have a podcast of their
own called appropriately Appropriately the convok Um and uh yeah
that's worth checking out too. So it was great fun
meeting everyone, and it's always fun. I enjoyed Robin elbows
(48:05):
like that. Nice people? Uh? What else? All right? Um,
if you have had a good experience because of Stuff,
you should know whether it's at one of our trivia events,
standing in line from one of our trivia events, or
nothing at all. Um. You can tweet to us right
at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
(48:27):
on Facebook dot com slash stuff You should know. You
can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
com
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant sitting across from me,
back in the saddle. Uh, and there's the stuff you
should know yo, back in the satellite. Yeah. Do you
(00:24):
want to explain that or should we just leave it
in mystery the saddle? Well with the metaphorical saddle, isn't
this case? Yeah? Well, um, you know, we have been
kind of away, even though it seems like we've been
here every week. Through the magic of um digital recording.
That's right, pre recording, we uh, we batch recorded our
(00:46):
episodes and covered ourselves. We built up what we call
it Kittie and uh we've been releasing them steadily and
faithfully while we've been off recording a TV show, recording
a TV show. That's right, our own TV show where
and you be pointing this out to me? How cool
it is we play ourselves. Yeah. I think that's the
only thing I'm qualified to do it. Oh, yeah, totally.
(01:07):
We would have failed miserably if we've done, you know,
anything else, like a Sherlock Homes update or something like that.
There's so many of those going on already, I know,
so why not Yeah, why not elementary, my dear Clark. Yeah, um,
but yeah, we have a TV show coming out. I
guess we can talk about it freely. We're done. Yeah,
we'll we'll really ramp up the plug edge come December,
(01:28):
but look forward in January on Science Channel. And if
you don't have Science Channel, go out and purchase Science Channel. Yeah,
and we are. We do not know because I know
people are already asking about online um stuff. If they're
going to be available like uh, you know, through various
media outlets online. We don't know yet, and we're working
(01:49):
on that. We'd love for it too, but it's not
up to us. Yeah. So I mean you have to
head your bets and get Science Yes added to your
your cable subscription. And if your cable provider doesn't offer Channel,
you burn down their offices. That's right, until they do,
that's right. Um. Okay, So, Chuck, have you ever heard
(02:09):
of a little movie called Twilight? Yeah, I've seen all
those you've seen them. Yeah, Emily's read the books and
she's way into it, so I have been. I got
sucked into it. That's very supportive of you. I don't
think they're very good. Um, but I must admit I
do want to see the final one, just because it's
like when you watch four of something, or however many
(02:30):
it's been three of something, it just become a weird
to stop there. So I will see the last one.
When does that come out? I think probably sometime around
this published date. Oh really yeah, I think it's a
Thanksgiving her Christmas release. Yeah. Okay, Um, well I bring
that up to propose that that's the only time we
(02:51):
talk about that franchise for throughout this whole podcast. Agreed, Agreed, Um,
because the vampires, which is what we're talking about, they
go back a very, very very long way. They've evolved,
they've changed, they've shifted their shape. But um, they seem
(03:13):
to all have certain characteristics in common. Right. For example, Um,
they can't see their reflection, well not necessarily, Okay. If
we go back to the ancient myths, okay. Uh, they
are wary of crucifixes, crucify nah, crucifixes. Uh, they only
(03:34):
come out at night. Yeah, they're undead, Yeah, suck blood
from a victim's neck. They have to be invited into
your home. Yeah, Garlic as well holy water, Yeah, superhuman strength,
al tenants of the modern vampire lore. Yes, and modern
is a good It's a good way to put it
because all of this is a fairly recent um image
(03:56):
of the vampire thanks to bram Stoker and then shortly
after that fellow Leghosty. Yeah, we now have this conception
of the vampire. But like I said, it goes back
way way further than the nineteenth century or even the
eighteenth century. Yeah, it goes back as much as four
thousand years as far as we know. I'm probably further back, right, Yeah,
(04:18):
And I will say one thing, not to bring up
the te word again, but brom Stoker and other authors
and filmmakers, the cool thing I like about the vampire
and pop culture is you can pull from all these
different things to create your own creature of the night. Yes,
like some of them. You know, in in like True
Blood for instance, you know they can retract their fangs,
(04:41):
they're super sexy. They you know, Lilith is in that
a version of Lilith that we'll talk about. So I
just think that's kind of one of the cool things
about vampires is brom Stoker did the same thing. He
pulled from different areas of mythology and said, this is
a fictional character I'm going to create using all these
old folk legends. But there are some things that are
(05:01):
are very basic. The commonalities among all vampires is that
generally they suck blood um, and they are dead in
some way, shape or form. They are they're undead. That's
a that's a great way just coined an excellent term
up um. So you have undead people, former people in
(05:23):
most cases um feeding on the living. That's the vampire.
That's the basis of almost all vampires. But even that
has exceptions because these early, the earliest vampires that we
know of that arose out of the first civilization Mesopotamia. Um,
we're actually demon goddesses, right, Yeah. Lamas Do was a
(05:44):
demon goddess and she was the daughter of Anu, the
sky god, and she would um creep in and kill
your babies. Yes, she was not a happy, nice person.
She had talents wings um. And they believe that the
Assyrians and Babylonians were basically going like what is going
(06:05):
on when they would encounter sudden infant death syndrome or miscarriages,
And they said, well, of course it is lamas Do.
Thank you. Yeah, I think it's so funny how so
many of these things were sort of used to explain,
and not vampires, but all kinds of folk legends to explain,
like what medicine health says is sids, right, yeah, you know,
(06:29):
but I mean like it's that that this basis of
the vampire legend using it to explain stuff people didn't understand,
usually some sort of sudden death or wasting away as
we'll see later. Um, it spans thousands of years. People
have been going back to that well for thousands and
thousands of years. That's pretty interesting, you know when you
(06:53):
look at this one group in the nineteenth century with
the Assyrians four thousand years ago, and they're all thinking
the same thing. Yeah, that's I find that very interesting.
That's that's an archetype if you ask you. Yeah, And
it just goes to show you we're all humans all
over the world for as long as we've been around.
We're all stupid. We're all stupid, all right. Um. Lamas
(07:16):
Do is also associated with Lilith, who I mentioned who
this past season was on True Blood like a version
of Lilith. But um, she is in a prominent in
Jewish text and is a lot like lamas do. She
Um was the first woman, supposedly not Eve but Adam
and lilith Yeah, that's like that question about like who
(07:38):
is the first president. Yeah, well apparently there were other
presidents for Washington, like eight or nine before Washington, but
you just have to say, well, were they the president
of the United States? They weren't. So lilith Um was
a modern woman, and she was like, you know, Adam,
I ain't putting up with this because I am just
the same as you. I was created from God just
(07:59):
like you are. And so Um, stop acting like you're
not made of dust exactly. So she left Eden said
I'm out of here. I'm gonna have my own kids.
God sends angels to bring her back. She's like, no,
I'm not going. And the angel said, all right, do
you think angels are nice? We're gonna kill one hundred
of your children every day until you get back up
(08:21):
to eat or heaven. Yeah. And rather than say okay,
well let's go back to eating, then Leis said do it,
and they did it, and so she started killing human
children in return. That's right again, with sharp talents, a
winged demonus stealing infants and fetuses, and I find that
extremely interesting, Um, that the vampire legend is kind of
(08:43):
born out of this, um, this folklore of how you're
supposed to be subservient to men. You know. That's uh,
that's very interesting to me because they there's this element
of seduction that kind of was reinvented with vampires here
or there, but it's one of the It may have
(09:04):
gone away in some areas, but it always came back,
this idea that there was a woman or a person
who didn't follow sexual mores, whether that sexual meaning like
intercourse or gender. They didn't follow the rules. And that's
kind of like another thing that's always kept the vampire
(09:24):
legend going, or that's always been a part of it.
I guess that's a good point, because Lilith thus set
up the notion of the us you know, we see
over and over in further legends, right. Um. And then
so Lilith is associated with ancient Jewish texts. Um Lamas
too is uh from Mesopotamia. And they aren't certain if
(09:45):
um Lilith was a variation of Lamaster or if they
both evolved from a third character. But um, those are
the two most ancient ideas of vampires that we have
shortly after that we can head on over to. And
they had they feared a lot of vampire like creatures. Yeah,
Lamia was another demonus um head and torso of a woman,
(10:09):
lower body of the snake and um. Evidently this was
one of Zeus' mortal lovers. She his wife, did not
take kindly to this, Harah. And she was like, no,
I'm gonna make you go insane, lady and eat all
your children. Yeah, you're so crazy, You're gonna eat your
kids and then come to afterward, that's right. And when
(10:31):
she did, she went so she she went so berserk,
not in the Viking way, not berserker, No, just straight
up berserk that she um became a monster again, killing children, Yeah,
because she was jealous of other women who tried children. Um.
Who else Um. They also had the yes, the daughters
(10:53):
of Hakad, who was the goddess of witchcraft. Ye. And
they were shapeshifters for the first time. Right, So like
you have all these all these different cultures contributing to
the vampire that we understand today here there um. And
it wasn't just the Greeks, it wasn't just the Mesopotamians.
(11:13):
You also had India getting into the mix with the
rack Shassa right um, which was basically like a ghoule,
the shape shifting Google who once again killed children, right
And same with the Vitala, but they were more like
a zombie if you ask me, Yeah, a demon who
(11:34):
took possession of recently dead bodies, freak havoc on a
living that's a that's a sound. Um. And then the
Chinese also had their own thing, um the KUEI sure, okay,
you have to say like that. Yeah, Like, um, the
guy on NPR who always reports from China, he speaks
(11:55):
to him really and all of a sudden, I mean,
he's doing it accurately, but it's like, um, little bit
like Daniel day lewis doing Lincoln. It's like, yeah, that's accurate,
but do you do you know it sounds like I
wanted to get rid of slavery. That was sort of
like a jacked up Kennedy. That's weird a little bit. Um,
So how do how do quai come about? They are
(12:17):
corpses who would rise from the grave kill again, and
that happened when a person's lower spirit did not pass
through the afterlife because of bad things. They did so
the poe was angered by the lower spirit. Yeah, and
that would reanimate basically and say, you know what, I'm
gonna attack the living at night once again, because what
else do I have to do? Nothing? Well, it's a
(12:39):
good way to exact revenge. Just have to hang around here.
That's the wheelbarrow. So all of these stories were floating
around the world and eventually UM, through trade and things
wound up in Europe. Yeah, the first globalization, the silk
roads started bringing all these things together, and yeah, they
moved over to Europe, and that's where they really sort
of took off, I guess you could say. And in
(13:03):
the place that became the epicenter um was Central Europe
or Eastern Europe. Yeah, Russia early on with the upier
and again Greek with the boy uh Rykolakas or kolacas. Yeah,
(13:24):
one of those one of those you can't start a
word with four consonants, one of them got to be silent. Yeah.
And this kind of like um was an offshoot of
the Chinese conception of how a vampire became a vampire. Uh.
The upier um, which they think is the word that
led to vampire or vampire um was basically a person
(13:47):
who during their life was a sinner un baptized baby,
which is really sad, a vampire baby. That's kind of funny. Um.
And they anyone who wasn't a Christian, Yeah, practitioners of witchcraft,
especially of course for obvious reasons, because you'd already sold
your soul of the devil. Yeah, so you're you're doomed.
(14:07):
You're like halfway there, right, So, um, all of these
factors combined to basically make you a loser in the
afterlife and you're going to come back. Um. And families
were I guess aware of this kind of thing. They
knew that there was the possibility that you know, uncle
(14:29):
Uncle Vigo, who had a lot of big gambling problem
which the village looked down upon, um when he was alive.
When he died, well, he was probably going to become
a new pier. And so if all of a sudden
Uncle Vigo's like nephews start dying in a weird way, um,
(14:52):
say of maybe a dread disease, the family probably go
dig up Uncle Vigo and do crazy stuff to his body. Yeah.
And one thing to point out here this is I
think the first time with the upier that we get
the notion that they would go back to the grave
to rest. Oh yeah, it's a big one on a
regular basis, and that sets things up moving forward kind of.
(15:14):
So like you said, they would, um sometimes dig these
bodies up, sometimes burn them, um, drive a stake through
the heart. They would really take care of this corpse.
They would bury them face down sometimes. Yeah, so like
if they tried to crawl out, they would be headed
in the wrong direction. That's pretty or but um steaks
facing down, so if they tried to crawl up, they
(15:36):
would stake themselves. And that was this is the Uh.
About a thousand years ago in Central Europe, this stuff,
or es Central or Eastern Europe, this stuff started to Um,
these beliefs started to come about that you could solve
your vampire troubles by butchering the corpse of the suspective vampire. Yeah. Um.
(15:59):
And it started then and it carried on anytime there's
a vampire panic, which uh, interestingly all almost always attended
a an outbreak of some sort of disease. I could
see that, um, because once again they're just trying to
explain away exactly medical conditions, right. Um, people would dig
up corpses and like do crazy things to them. Like
(16:21):
in Venice they found a sixteenth century corpse that had
a brick in its mouth and they no, it hadn't
it didn't fall in there. Um. And then in the
eighteen fifties there's this really cool article Chuck called the
Great New England Vampire Panic. It was on um the
Smithsonian website recently. It is awesome. And in the eighteen
(16:42):
fifties in Connecticut there was a tuberculosis outbreak and people
panicked and started digging up graves and the just completely
um rearranging the people's bones, are cutting out their hearts
and burning them and doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
And these were this is the eighteen fifties. I mean,
(17:03):
this wasn't the Dark Ages. Like people were starting to
have an understanding of like disease like the Salem which
trials same deal, right, but two hundred years later, a
hundred fifty years later, you know, so um, there there
was this big panics still as recently as the eighteen
fifties in the US among you know, folk who dug
(17:25):
up their family members and like burn their their hearts.
Those people are funny, Yeah, they call them undecided voters.
But those are those are the people that I'm talking
about that they're doing the same thing, we're thinking the
same things that the Assyrians did four thousand years before.
I just think that's so interesting and yeah, um so
(17:46):
in uh Wallachia, Moldavia in Transylvania which is now Romania. Um,
they had something called and stray were. Um they were
a little bit different because they were um. They would
go through different stages after rising from the grave. Like
at first they were just poltergeist and they were invisible
(18:08):
spirits that would torment their family in the afterlife um
or in their regular life the strict boys afterlife. Does
that make sense? Um? But then they would as time passed,
they would become visible looking like they did in life,
and they would still return and steel cattle and bring
disease and all that stuff to their family for food. Yeah,
(18:28):
why would they do this to their family? That's what
I never got. I think I saw later. Um that metaphorically,
it's a it's basically a vampire lore is a life lesson.
Don't be a drain on your family. Support your family,
take care of your parents in their old age, like
you don't want to be a strogoy. Okay, you know
what I mean. Sure, I guess that makes sense. Um.
(18:49):
And strogy or a strogo, which I guess is the
singular of the strogoy, would Um, they would have to
go back to the grave a lot, just like the
upier did. And they followed the same pattern. They if
they thought someone was a striggo, they would exhume the
body and take care of it the old fashioned way.
And um, but here's a little loophole. If you managed
(19:09):
to survive for seven years as a striggo, then you're
good to go. And they're like, all right, you've got
staying power. You just go do your striggo things right.
You are like the living debt. You no longer have
to like return to your grave to rest. You're basically reborn.
Well done. Um. And apparently the striggo couldn't um or
(19:29):
the strigoy couldn't make their way in their town after
that seventh year, you know, because they went on to vote.
There is all sorts of all the right. Um. So
they would move to other towns and they would have
secret meetings with other strigg oy and um, that's where
the idea of vampires fraternizing came from yeah, hanging out, Yeah,
(19:50):
talking shop. Yeah, basically a secret culture of vampires existing
outside of our awareness. You remember, remember like on Jerry
Springer when that was on, or it might still be on,
have no idea I think it is. Is it really? Yeah? Wow?
Is it still the same crap? Oh yeah, yeah, he
(20:11):
didn't take the high road at some point. No. I
just remember back in the day, they would have like
those real vampires, the people that lived the vampire lifestyle.
There's a video of it in this um is there
in this article? Oh boy? Yeah, the guy looks like
a cross between Marilyn Manson and um Brandon Lee. Oh yeah, yeah, interesting,
(20:32):
kind of kind of odd looking. He's got the contact
lenses and everything. Yeah, they'll they'll shave down their their fangs,
like for real, right, they'll file them down. Yeah. Um.
So there's two types of TROGOI right, You've got the
strogoy mort not Morty no more isn't dead. So this
is the basically who we were just describing, and then
(20:54):
the strong oy view, which is the living, the person
who's going to become a streako when they die. Yeah,
people that I feel very sorry for because they were
probably just born with a bump. What are those called
the when you're born with a like really just racking
my head with a vestige like a partial tail? Yeah, uh,
(21:14):
vestigial tail. Yeah, no, there's a word for it. I
can't remember. I'm so tired of doing this. Have we
wasted combine saying, oh, I wish I could remember it. Well,
we just invented this off the top of our head,
soans ai, yes, exactly right, and some sort of drug. Yeah,
(21:40):
it is actually um so here, poor baby born with
a vestigial tail, a little bump on the top of
your tailbone or um some sort of fetal membrane still
attached to the head, which is called a call. Yeah,
they would just call you a string strio view or voo. Right,
and you're sort of like, sorry, I was born with
his bump. I'm not a vampire living walking on the earth.
(22:02):
They said, no, you are, and if you have kids,
and they're gonna be h stro oi in the afterlife,
and we'll have to destroy your body when you die,
and they did, and they did so. But I guess
it's kind of nice that they didn't just kill the
person while they were living. They just showed them I'm sure, yeah, exactly. Um,
the idea of a call like having some sort of
(22:24):
um special significance, is it goes beyond the vampire thing
to like like you're gifted with the second side, or
there's all sorts of like supernatural paranormal folklore surrounding people
born with a call. Once again, people have proven to
be stupid over the years. So, um, but this is
where vampire came in, right, Yeah, the street go, the
(22:47):
strog oy um started to come to be called the vampire,
which is again from Upier in the Russian And all
of a sudden, the stage is set for the vampire
legend to really take hold as it's taking shape. Yeah,
and like this is where pop culture came into plague
hysteria had set in, and so painters and artists and
authors had this material that's pretty rich for the time.
(23:10):
All this hysteria's gone on, so let's write a scary
book about it. And that's what Bram Stoker did. Yeah,
and he was, um, he was, are you going with Brom?
I go with Bram, you go, Bram? Yeah? Have you
ever read it? I know, I saw the movie though
it literally the movie was a pretty faithful at it
with the couple of one. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good.
(23:32):
The book is great, though. I took a literature of
horror class at Georgia and it was one of the
cooler classes I took. I'm sure he did Dracula and
Frankenstein and like the House of Usher and then a
bunch of short stories. Yeah, very cool. So Bram Stoker
also Abraham Stoker, which I didn't know until I read
this that was his first name. Yeah, just because the
class um he uh. He was a theater manager and
(23:54):
a novelist and also a really great researcher because you know,
all this stuff from this empire um um hysteria, yeah,
panic from all this took place like hundreds of years
before him. And I guess I don't know what inspired
him exactly or where he saw it or where the
where this all took place. But he didn't just go,
(24:15):
oh that's a pretty good idea and wrote his book
like he went and did some serious research. Yes, supposedly
he was inspired by uh. He was a personal assistant
to this actor um who ran the theater that he
worked at. And supposedly Henry Irving was a guy's name
was the inspiration to write the book. And I don't
know if that meant he was some jerk. He's like,
I'm just gonna personify he was the blood sucker or what.
(24:38):
But or maybe he just inspired him creatively. Who knows. Um,
but I bet someone knows more about this and I do. Oh,
I'm sure, so right in and tell me. Um and
so Bram Stoker goes and he starts to do some
research and pokes around, and he finds a great place
to set this vampire tale is in Transylvania, which is
the heart of this stroy vampire. This is where everything
(25:00):
that we just talked about came together. Wallachia, Transylvania, Romania
is what we call it today. Um and uh. And
he he thought, well, this is just perfect. I'm gonna
set it there and let's see if I can find
somebody of that area how it can base this vampire
character on. And he came up with a guy named
(25:21):
Vladislav Bazzarreb. Yeah that's a creepy name period, yea. Um,
but it would be even creepier he was the prince
ruled Wallachia in the mid fourteen hundreds. Uh. Creepier is
that his father was vlad Drakul, Vlad the Dragon or
the devil, and um Vlad Jr. Was referred to as
(25:42):
Vlad Dracula, which is son of Dracula, or Vlad Tepis
or Lad the Impaler, because even though it's not verified,
supposedly he was a very fierce warrior. He would impale
his victims. Okay, I really feel like we should do
um the real Count Dracula episode. Sometime I wrote this
awesome article on it, and it is, it's verified. It
(26:06):
was there a real countract. It's about blood Tepis, the
vladim Paler. Yeah, because he just borrowed the name in
the in the title, right, he wasn't really based on
this guy who Count Dracula brom Stokers, Yes, version right.
Vlat Tepis was probably far far worse than um anything
bram Stoker wrote about Count Dracula, way worse. Yeah, his
(26:30):
like it is verified. Like, yes, he had all sorts
of guys who were um against him and who published
extensively all these um like books and pamphlets and all
the stuff to smear his name. But they got a
lot of stuff, right, Yeah, Like he was into some
horrible stuff. He killed a lot of people, Uh. He
had a lot of people killed. His armies killed a
(26:51):
lot of people. He uh, he's probably like most rulers
of the day. He was he was worse. He was
most likely worse than anybody else. So he borrows this
name in this title and social standing is an aristocat
aristocat great movie. You's a naked woman in that um
in that one in the Aristocats. Yeah, the Disney cartoon. Yeah,
(27:14):
that's the one with the Is that the one with
the No, I'm thinking of the rescuers. Oh, I remember
that there's a naked woman the rescuers when they're flying
through the city. If you watch it frame by frame,
they passed by a window and there is a photograph
of like a woman standing in the window naked. Um,
and like you have to watch it like in in
(27:35):
you know, frame by frame is the only possible way
to see it. But it's in there. Yeah, they were dirty.
There's also the little mermaid thing. The the ballast is yeah,
hidden not so hidden ballast. Yeah. I'll bet that guy
was like, no one's ever going to see this, and
(27:56):
then he lost his job forever. So um So Stoker
borrows this, uh the name, Like I said, the social
standing says, this would be a great setting. Let's throw
it in Transylvania. Let's let's change a few things. Let's
borrow from a bunch of different uh folklore, and let's
let's say maybe you can't go out in the sunlight,
and let's bring up the crucifixes now, and let's make
(28:19):
him really smart and um charming. And well that was
largely Bella le GHOSTI that did that. Well, No, brom
Stokers was totally like that. I thought his was um
that he was like a withered, ugly old man, you know,
but he was still had like the stuct of power
and all that swave. Well because he was Yeah, he
(28:42):
changed ages if I remember correctly, Well he does in
the movie, and I've heard the movies a pretty faithful adaptation.
And it was also, I think the first time where um,
all of a sudden they didn't have any reflection because
most of the previous lest uh legends they loved their reflection. Yeah, apparently,
not only were they in love with their own reflection
(29:03):
and they could be lost for hours staring into a mirror,
they were also supposedly obsessive compulsive, as some like Eastern
four'klore goes. And one way to ward off vampires was
to spread seeds outside of your house because the vampire
would be um bound to count every single seat. And
(29:23):
if you put a little nail or attack or something
in there, when the the vampire went to pick that
one up, it would prick itself and all drop all
the seeds to forget where it was and start counting
all over. You gotta start counting again, and then you'd
just be sitting inside, laughing, drinking your ale. Stupid vampires,
so um, but that was that was another difference. I'm
sorry we've been calling them stupid vampires and up until
(29:47):
the nineteenth century, like you could make that case like
they were kind of dead zombiesque a little bit um.
It was Stoker that introduced, like you say, not not
to sell this other stuff, but the acute intelligence, that's right,
this this very smart like power of persuasion, almost hypnotic
Umvengali type. And in True Blood they have this thing
(30:10):
they do called glamouring, which is kind of a silly name,
but it's almost like a charm, like a spell that
they can put over you if you like black eyes
with one and you know when you glamor them there,
you know, basically in a hypnotic state, you can. They're
highly suggestible, I get into a sexual way. Well, in
all kinds of ways, but yeah, there's plenty of They
usually are just like, take off your pants? Did they
(30:33):
say like that point and say in a creepy tone? Yeah, see,
you don't tell me you can't act. You could play
the role as a vampire. Take off your pants? Yeah,
you got the joke. Let's do some voguing. So you
mentioned Bella Lego si film Dracula Um, which was you know,
(30:53):
where we get the cape and the I want to
drink your blood and the sort of familiar modern vampire
that pop culturally speaking, that we're familiar with today. And
one of the best songs ever bus is Bella the
Ghost He's Dead. Yeah, excellent silent film Nosa Barato with
Max Shrek a little more true to the original creepy
(31:14):
looking guy. What was the movie starring Willem Dafoe and
um uh oh about Yeah? Yeah, that was good. What
is the name of that movie? Do you remember? I
can't remember, dude. That is such a good movie. Yeah,
I want to see that movie again. I do too, Actually,
it's a great one. The ending is just yeah, what
(31:36):
is it? Shadow of the vampire Ry? That life correction? Uh?
And Rice then came along and um yeah, nothing happened
in between, but and Rice definitely brought things more into
the forefront as far as um this range of emotions
and he's really complex characters. Um. I didn't think the
(32:00):
books were very good. But it's just not my bag.
Oh yeah, I read the first one and it's just
not my thing. Okay, yeah, I mean I'm not saying
it was not good, it's just not my thing. I'm
with you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course classic. Not
a great movie, great TV series? Are you out of
your mind? You didn't like the movie. I didn't think
it was very good. Now, oh you're crazy. I love
(32:23):
that movie. Well that's good. Yeah. I thought it really
became itself when the cast changed. And I love that movie. Yeah,
well that's great. Have you seen the South Park where
like all the kids start becoming like vampires, all the
good kids. It's like very trendy and hip to be
to be like a vampire and give yourself a new
(32:44):
name and everything. Um, and they drink clomato. Oh I
love Clomato. Yeah, you're in the minority, buddy. That's the
secret to my famous bloody Mary. I know you've told
me it's a good South Park Chuck. I'll check it out.
Um are we now? So we talk about psychic vampires
a little bit. I guess all right. These are people
(33:06):
in modern times that claim that they crave and feed
on others energy, their psychic energy, and they claim to
be vampire rish or vampire rick, vampire esque, vampire esque um,
and that they will not if they do not do this,
then they will not have feel like they have fed on,
you know, sustenance like that is their sustenance is other
(33:29):
people's psychic energy. And it also goes back. It's you know,
modern people claim this, but it goes back, you know,
thousands of years. Um, this phenomenon does. It's nothing new. Well,
they actually think that it may have given rise to
vampire lords. We understand it now. And it's also a
metaphor if someone, you know, someone can call someone a
psychic vampire if they're just a drain as a person,
(33:52):
you know, those people energy vampires. That's right. Not to
be confused with the other kind of energy vampire, which
is like your coffee maker. Yeah, these things that are
left on all night. Um. So there's there's We kind
of touched on it earlier, the idea of why, um,
where we would have gotten vampire legends. People use it
(34:14):
to explain phenomenon that we didn't understand before there was
such thing as like germ theory. Right. So you have
like um lamas too being blamed for sids and and
um ah, miscarriage is that kind of thing, right, and
then you have um a couple other diseases that we've
(34:35):
come to understand that they're like you know what, We've
never really definitively linked this to vampire lore, but I'll
bet you this gave rise to it. It probably didn't help.
So like like, what, uh, porpyra? Do you pronounce that porphyria? Porphyria?
All right, we'll go with that. Have you ever seen
the others? Is that what those kids had? All Right?
(34:59):
That makes sense. It's a rare disease um irreg irregularities
in the production of of him with himmy, which is
an hemoglobin he like himmy, I think got a himmy.
That's yeah. Um. And basically, what you're gonna be sensitive
to sunlight, you're gonna have a bad stomach pains, you
(35:19):
may be delirious. Um. Back in the day, one prescription
may have been to drink blood, So I would say
that's probably a dead giveaway, right, Yeah, And have you
seen pictures, Yeah, people stricken with us creepy looking. Their
teeth can be like red or black, and their gums
can be red and black, which is I think probably
(35:40):
another reason why they link that to that. And it's hereditary,
So there, you know, there were places where there was
more of this um happening than other places, which would
also lend itself to the whole vampire thing and feeding
on your family. Yes, same with tuberculosis, Like when when
people were kind of spread out except your family, and
(36:01):
there were nineteen of you and you all lived in
one house. If one of you had TB probably the
rest of you were going to catch TV and a
lot of you were gonna die from it. And whoever
was the first one to die of this was probably
the original vampire who's feeding on the other And you're
probably the one who's going to be dug up and
have your heart cut out and burned. But at that point,
(36:21):
who cares? And then there's another disease called catalepsy, which
is associated with epilepsy. This one is freaky. Do you
ever see that Twilight Zone where Um, I can't remember
what actor it was. It may have been the professor
from Gilligan's Island or he's in a cart and he's
paralyzed and he's the whole thing is just him talking
to himself in his head like he's locking these people, Yeah,
(36:44):
to not bury him because he's not dead, and um,
it's really it's a great episode. So is he cataleptic? No,
he was kind of like you said, locked in Twilight Zone.
Catalepsy is a it's a specific neurological just order, like
I said, associated with epilepsy, where your muscles just freeze
up and an episode like this can last for days
(37:08):
and your heart rate slows and your respiration slows and
you're alive and God knows what your brain is doing,
but you're alive during this time. But you know, prior
to stay embalming, you may have just been taken for
dead and putting in the ground and you had to
dig your way out and go back home. Yeah, And
it's also associated with schizophrenia, so you're sitting around the
(37:29):
dinner table and uncle, um, uncle, what vigo? Uncle Vigo?
Remember like to gamble. He comes in three days after
you buried him brushing dirt office overhauls in a schizophrenic
having a schizophrenic episode, and you you know you're gonna
put a stake through his hard Yeah, you know, if
(37:50):
you're smart, Which is just not fair because after an
experience like that, it's like, why would you wait? Why not?
Why not left kill this man before he goes to
this horrificectic experience and then it all end with a
stick through the heart. Let him get hit by a
truck with a hemmy or something ahead of time. Uh.
(38:12):
And then I'm not so sure about this suggestion, but
it might carry a little weight that what happens after
a regular human body dies. Um might have fed into
this a little bit, I would say. So, um, fingernails
and hair um continue growing. So this is like if
they diggy back up, they're like, look, the fingernails are long,
the hair has grown. They're bloated because you're full of
(38:36):
you know, gases expanding. So let's cut them open and
this all this fluid drains out and say, see they've
been growing their hair and fingernails and feeding on others
bodily fluids. They're alive there well or undead but uh well,
I mean like they're going back and resting and like
they obviously have gorged themselves. Look at their stomach. It's
(38:59):
all the stend did. Yeah. So I mean I think
it was probably like the nail in the coffin on
their beliefs, like this is is all absolutely correct. Yeah
I could see that though. Yes, and then the notion
of the vampire bat um came along later on, where
the vampire could shape shift into bats and sometimes wolves,
(39:22):
although in Twilight, wolves and vampires are on opposite sides. Yeah,
I said I would mention it again. Yeah, there I went. Um,
but the whole thing of the vampire bat was just
like a creepy uh you know, real vampire bats are
docile creatures and they might drink like the blood of
a cow, but they're not attacking people. No, that was
(39:45):
all for there's harmless is vampire babies. You know, what
are some of your favorite movies, Josh, Oh, vampire movies? No,
just comedies like a DC CAM Doctor Detroit. Um, I
would say probably the best of all time in my opinion,
(40:07):
is lost boys. It definitely has a kitch value. Now
that is a great movie. It doesn't hold up super well.
Tho have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it
in a while. And it's the ways that other eighties
movies don't really because that was like a cool movie. Ye,
Echo and the Bunny Man covered the doors in it.
Come on shall not Ki? Yeah, it's a it's a
(40:30):
stream song. Near Dark. Did you ever see that one?
I don't think so. Nineties seven Bill Paxton and uh
that one guy Lance Heinrixen. They're like these modern vampires
traveling in an RV through the desert and killing people.
Really good. I have not seen Near Dark is excellent.
What about first bite with the George? George Hamilton's first
(40:54):
bite was Yeah, he's like a disco Dracula. Vampire's kiss
was funny. Nick Cage, I never saw that one. That
was good. I thought the original Fright Night. Granted it
was the eighties again, but for me it was pretty
good back in the day. I haven't seen that. Um Coronos,
have you seen that? Garma del Toro? I don't good one.
(41:15):
I think I've seen it, and then um of course
let the right one in both versions to me very good. Really,
I heard the American version was compared to the original.
I thought they were both pretty great. I'll check it out.
Then you know, they didn't like definitely didn't ruin it
by americanizing it. And then there of course the bad
(41:36):
ones like Van Helsing West Craven's Dracula two thousand, um
Blood rain r a y any. I mean there's lots
and lots of bad vampartments. Dracula dead and loving it?
That looks good though. Um, do you know how many
emails we're gonna get from people that would say, like
(41:56):
you forgot about this one? Yeah? But let's just say
there are hundreds of vampire movies. There's TV shows now
in the Vampire Diaries, True Blood, which I mentioned, which
is sort of good again after falling off the rails
in my opinion, and um, Twilight Breaking Dawn part two,
What is your problems in theaters near you? Oh? Actually
(42:17):
that's seventy nine Dracula with Franklin Jella. That was good.
Did he play Dracula? Yeah? He was good. Oh yeah, okay,
I could see him. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking of
the right person. And then if you're into old movies.
You know, you can't go wrong with with Bella Orghossi
or uh not Sparato. Take some time watch an old movie.
(42:37):
That's what I say. Yeah, that's that's pretty much your
life coaching, I think. So take some time watch an
old movie, says Chuck. Yeah, watch some of them black
and white for a change. Um. Hey, also, while we're
while we're on this kind of scary esque topic, you
want to plug somebody real quick? Yeah, I think we
(42:58):
have another horrors as right as we said we would
um plug people who send in their stuff for a
horror fiction contest um and who went on to publish stuff. Um.
And one of the guys, Christopher Kelly, who wrote the
very cool short story Variable um, took us up on that.
(43:19):
And he says that he has a creepy novella about
two boys whose father tries to kill them, called Abraham
Road not Bram Road. Uh. He says that it's, um,
it's what would have happened if HP Lovecraft rewrote of
Mice and Men, which is pretty awesome. It's available on Kindle.
You can go find that on Amazon dot com Abraham
(43:40):
Road ebook. Uh. And then he also has a collection
called I held my breath as long as I could.
Twenty three stories of the Strange the Sinister in the
Literary Um and you can get that on Amazon as well,
so check those out. Christopher Kelly, thanks for sending in
your work. We liked it a lot. And remember, anybody
else who has lisched and entered our horror fiction contest,
(44:02):
we want to say thanks by letting everybody know about
your stuff. The great If you wanted more about vampires, man,
it's been a while. Yes, um, you can type that
word into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up a bunch of cool stuff, including, um,
who was the real Count Dracula? This vampire article written
by Tracy Wilson, which is a great one. Tracy wrote that, Yeah,
(44:24):
couldn't you tell? It's pretty thorough? Uh. And then also
another one I liked a lot was a Hungarian um
countess the world's most prolific serial killers. She's like the
female Dracula Elizabeth Bathroom. Yeah, awesome stuff. Type that in
the search bar and it will bring all this great
stuff up. It's since I said search bar, it's time
for listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna call this
(44:47):
a trivia plug. Um. We went to New York for
tomic Con and we had one of our trivia nights
there and one of the things that we were required
to do and want to do is read the names
of the trivia winners. And so I got emails from
them and then in the runner up team because they
(45:07):
were cool and I'm gonna read them all. This is
from the winner, Kyle um Jannish or Yannish. I'm not
sure how he grown was that. Thanks guys for hosting
the event. Um. As an Avid s y s K listener,
our team, Steve Holt, had a great time. The team
name was Steve Holt. We were made up of mainly
former Midwesterners, which gave us a good advantage in the
(45:30):
Great Lakes question. We had three girls in fashion, Caitlin Grommel,
Monica Lange, and Amy Guidal. We also had three teachers,
Dan Farrell, Michael Rakowski and myself Kyle Janish and my
twin who does social work, Mike Jannish and my friend
who seems to always be working for a pyramid scheme,
(45:51):
Mike as Sterling. So those were the winners there, and uh,
he says the fashion expertise did not come in handy
this time, but we were prepared for anything except for
the Kevin Smith movies category, which I wasn't a fan of.
They were far behind coming in the last question, but
wagered it all in one. Um, it's crazy, that's how
it goes in. At one of our events. Yeah, so
(46:14):
Kyle and his brother Mike remember meeting them. There were
buddies with Joe him and he says thanks for hosting
and thanks for the sweet T shirts. And then the
runner ups, runners up, runners ups, sorry than ghost of
Williams Sapphire just for him through to uh thanks for
hosting the super fun trivia night at the Cutting Room. Um,
and boy, by the way, thank you cutting Room. Yeah,
(46:35):
that place is amazing and very generous in hosting us,
and it is back up and running after like redoing
the inside and it is really nice. So give them
some love if you live in New York. Um, I'm
a longtime listener four years of Pure Love, and I
recently got my boyfriend David booked as well, and it
has been a nerdy bonding experience for us. Anyway, we
(46:57):
decided to come up from Virginia. Came up from virgin
never knows that's a long dry um. We met some
awesome people in line and formed teen phil um. Our
lovely teammates were Paul mcgowski, Leah Talman, Jim Nelson, Charlie Tran,
David Bury, and two others who skipped out early, and
myself who is Natalie David. And Natalie is the one
(47:20):
who brought us the Mike's on pants off T shirts,
so um. Not only was that super nice, but they
sat in the table next to us and I was
able to talk a lot of smack with them, and
so I said I would read about them on the show.
This is just how it goes to one of our
trivia events. Would bring people together chuck talk smack like
directly to you. It's a lot of fun. So Natalie
(47:42):
David says, thanks a lot and cheers, and I hope
you enjoyed the shirts and all that good stuff. We
also we met the convo Kings, who we've been in
touch with. That's right. They have a podcast of their
own called appropriately Appropriately the convok Um and uh yeah
that's worth checking out too. So it was great fun
meeting everyone, and it's always fun. I enjoyed Robin elbows
(48:05):
like that. Nice people? Uh? What else? All right? Um,
if you have had a good experience because of Stuff,
you should know whether it's at one of our trivia events,
standing in line from one of our trivia events, or
nothing at all. Um. You can tweet to us right
at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
(48:27):
on Facebook dot com slash stuff You should know. You
can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
com
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