22 Sides

Ghosts, Monsters, And ... Don't Feed The Gremlins After Midnight Or ... Bury That Jar!

• Robin & Alexis • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Four voices trade ghost stories, queer horror, and cultural myths to ask what fear is really for. We swap jokes about cursed jars and rapture beds, then get serious about real danger, empathy, and how horror mirrors power and identity.

• ghost encounters as energy, memory, and suggestion
• Mr Aikman’s attic warning and childhood intuition
• consciousness beyond the body and tech’s mind fetishes
• evolution, otherness, and the roots of monster myths
• horror reframed by queer and BIPOC creators
• voodoo, charms, and culture without appropriation
• Langoliers on a foggy highway terror
• school lockdown drill stress and release
• gremlins, rules, and moral fables in cinema
• UFOs, multiverses, and living ghost towns
• upcoming live art and anti‑fascist events in Houston

Ghost stories are easy; the hard part is asking what they say about us. We kick things off with a hallway lamp that flips on by itself and a polite ghost named Mr. Aikman guarding an attic, then spiral into how memory, energy, and culture make “hauntings” feel true. From a grandmother staring down a figure at the foot of the bed to a cursed coin purse designed so something missing can never be found, we weigh belief against brain science and ask whether consciousness might reach beyond the body into a shared field the living sometimes stumble into. 
 
That curiosity pulls us straight into horror’s engine room. We talk evolution, otherness, and the uncanny—how old fears about difference created modern monsters—and why queer and BIPOC creators are rewriting the rules. Get Out turns suburbia into a trap. The Bride of Frankenstein turns the “monster” into an innocent. Pan’s Labyrinth makes fascism the true terror. Along the way, we swap unhinged folklore: a hex-breaking jar that absolutely should not have been dropped, the “rapture bed” that mysteriously vanished, and the eternal question of when it’s finally safe to feed a gremlin. We laugh because laughter releases the body after it locks up, whether it’s The Langoliers on a fog-choked highway or a real school lockdown alarm that was—no kidding—triggered when someone sat on the button. 
 
Horror thrives where we can’t say things out loud. It lets us talk about power, identity, and harm without naming names. It also reminds us that the scariest threats aren’t ghosts; they’re people who write rules, close doors, and decide whose fear counts. We close by teeing up UFOs, multiverses, and the Great Plains’ “living ghost towns,” where missile silos and abandoned plants feel like postcards from a future we’d better understand fast. 
 
If this conversation hit a nerve, follow and share the show with a friend who loves smart, strange stories. Leave a review to help others find us, and tell us, what’s the one horror scene you can’t shake—and why?


November 22nd, it is the third unprecedented show. 7 p.m. at Aurora Chapel. That’s 800 Aurora Street in Houston, Texas. $10 at the door, but nobody’s turned away. Look up Fall of Freedom and if you’re local to Houston, check out Aurora Chapel

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Mel:

I had one class where I showed the kids the police academy movie because we were talking about that actor who could do anything with his voice. You know?

Koomah:

Michael Winslow.

Mel:

Yes. And so we were like, yeah, no, he had a whole song where he impersonated Michael Jackson, did all the sounds of the concert. It was amazing. Okay.

Alexis:

I think we're ready to go.

Mel:

Oh, awesome.

Alexis:

And welcome to our podcast. It's 22 Sides, and today I'm here now, not just by myself as I was earlier, but I have co-host Robin. Notice I'm taken host today.

All:

Yeah, take a girl. Take it.

Alexis:

And two special friends of ours.

All:

Very special. Hola. You may remember, you may remember Mel from a previous podcast episode. The creepy one.

Alexis:

With lots of laughing. And we have Kuma. Hi there. So I've been wanting to do this for a good while, and that is I want to do a podcast where we talk about ghost goblins, UFOs, and the general weird stuff that goes bump in the night and other things. And I couldn't think of any two people who would be better. Oh, and horror films. I left out the horror films. Couldn't think of any two people who would be better for that conversation than the ones we have with us.

Mel:

Thank you. I am honored to be here.

Koomah:

And although this is audio, uh folks cannot see me, but I definitely look like someone who would have an interest in those things.

Mel:

Oh, absolutely.

Koomah:

So you can use your imagination.

Mel:

You're currently wearing a heart necklace. And it's it's not like a heart like you go in the store and get like the little candies. No, this is an actual anatomically correct heart with the vowels.

Alexis:

Don't forget the crescent moon.

Mel:

And the crescent moon.

Alexis:

I was going to say, yes, exactly.

Mel:

So I think you can imagine.

Alexis:

Well, they didn't even see my face. I mean, give me two minutes and we can be ready to go with that. You probably noticed I have some lighting down here already.

Mel:

The picture podcast begins now. You might be afraid.

Alexis:

Yep, I would be. So what does everybody think about this? Who believes in ghosts?

All:

I believe in I believe in them, yeah. You believe in them? I believe in them conditionally.

Alexis:

Conditionally? Wait a minute, what does conditionally mean?

Mel:

Well, I want to hear Kuma's answer first.

Koomah:

I don't believe in anything. Um I have my own theories of how and why people see the things that they see uh or experience things, but uh as far as like some core belief in it. So what's your theory? Uh it's a little complicated, so let's go to Mel first.

Mel:

We're just gonna keep bouncing the ball back here. Okay, so kind of the similar thing to you is I'm not sure if I believe in them from a standpoint of like a religious faith thing. I think I feel like it's there's a scientific explanation, like energy particles, echoes. I don't think that energy dies when when our flesh dies. I think our flesh, yeah, goes to ash, goes into the earth, aground, whatever, but the energy gets retran converted into something else. Sort of like when you convert a video file and from an ABI to an MP3, four, whatever it is. So I'm I'm a huge nerd techie about it. I think there's a logical explanation, but I think it's something fantastic that that feels like magic, you know?

Koomah:

World and time have not been defragmented.

Mel:

You want to lose the date on that?

Koomah:

Residuals.

Mel:

Residuals. There you go.

Alexis:

Yeah, so by the way, I don't see it as a religious thing. But but I grew up experiencing ghosts. Now, I also think that ghosts may be uh people using their brains to create something and uh you know create the situations and those sorts of things, because it certainly could have been that way with me when I was first experiencing what I consider ghost and all that.

All:

Like little creative buddies or little get-through pals or okay, you know.

Alexis:

Basically, I grew up in southern part of Illinois and grew up in an old house, it was three-story brick, um, you know, sort of a cool place, be really blunt. And you know, until my mother decided she didn't want to go upstairs anymore. But uh which case she sold it and bought a little Rambler ranch type thing, which wasn't a cool place. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't, you know, it didn't have cool, neat, weird stuff. But when I was a little kid, you know, as anybody does, I would get out of bed to go to the bathroom and the the bathroom, we had one bathroom on the second floor, which is where all the sleeping rooms were and all like that. And it was it was a big hallway in the middle, and as I would go as I would go down the hallway, the light would come on.

Mel:

I feel like I should be doing sound effects for this. Go ahead.

Alexis:

You know, I'd go down the hall and the light would come on, and I'd go do my thing and then go back to bed and the light would go off.

Robin:

Bing.

Alexis:

And and the light was a lamp that was probably five feet tall. I mean, it was way high for me, and and the switch was up on the bulb. And after a while, my mom finally said, Well, how are you turning the light on? I'm like, I'm not. Mr. Aikman is. And she said, How do you know about Mr. Aikman? And I'm like, I that that's what he told me. Introduced himself, and she's like, Okay. And Mr.

All:

Aikman's been dead for 45 years.

Alexis:

Yeah, pretty much is he's the one that built he's the one that built the house and had been dead for a long time.

All:

Ten years ago, this very night. Did he happen to die on the second floor while building the house? Did he look like this? No, he was a nice guy. I mean, he seems very hospitable.

Alexis:

Yeah, he was. And he also told me never to go up to the attic, third floor, after dark.

Koomah:

What happened in the attic? I don't know. I didn't go up after dark. So obviously, now we all have to go find this house and crawl up in the attic.

All:

It's still there in the back. And we're the mom of the body.

Alexis:

It's still there, and it's a bed and breakfast.

All:

Okay.

Alexis:

And the attic was a neat place in the daytime.

All:

You had to read some reviews.

Alexis:

But you know, when the sun started down, I left. And you know, a couple times. A couple times I was going to go up there when I was a kid. And, you know, it was at night, and I was saying, okay, I'm doing the attic and got a flashlight and a lantern and all that good stuff. Never made it through the door.

Mel:

Yeah. Mr. Eggman was trying to protect you.

Alexis:

Apparently.

Koomah:

I've seen that movie.

All:

Yeah. The polder goist portal or something.

Alexis:

I don't know.

All:

I don't know.

Alexis:

But but so, you know, I was like, this was just a fact to me.

Mel:

It reminds me of some of those like British horror films that are based on like old literature where it's like there there's always the inference of the spirit and the ghost in the house, but nothing actually ever happens in the movie. And you're just like, well, I'm left unsettled, but also isn't that the way all the British movies are?

Alexis:

Nothing ever happens in the movie. It's like, okay, I've watched this for three and a half days, and eventually they're going to resolve one of the action things. Maybe.

Robin:

Yes.

Alexis:

The true horror with the inside. But you know, I mean, quite literally, I just always accepted it.

All:

There's no reason that you would have known about him and there was evidence with the light and things.

Robin:

Right.

All:

Did you have any further relationship with him? Or just that one?

Alexis:

Do you consider this a relationship?

All:

No, I'm just well, I'm just saying it sounds like no. Don't go in the attic. It sounded like a regular occurrence. Was there anything else you know had with him?

Alexis:

I sort of later on. Person in a bear outfit up there maybe thought that perhaps the don't go in the attic was for a different reason.

Koomah:

Is the attic a reference to like your head and your own mind? No.

Mel:

That's a good twist.

Koomah:

Psychology.

Mel:

I I like that though.

Koomah:

I could see, he could see the darkness in you.

Alexis:

Yeah, that could be. But but he was actually like exploring the attic because even in the daytime, I didn't do much exploring in the attic. But after exploring in the attic behind a wall that was behind a wall, which I mean, literally that way, with you know, finished flooring, but nothing else finished. I did find a stash of moonshine jugs. That still had moonshine in them.

Mel:

Well, maybe he was just protecting his booze then. That's what I was thinking.

Koomah:

Yeah, don't drink their booth.

Alexis:

And and I and I will say that it was quite palatable.

Mel:

Mr. Eggman will never forget it.

Alexis:

They still have the jugs there out in the garage.

Mel:

There you go. Tradition.

Alexis:

You know, and and and I I keep thinking maybe if I rub one of them, it'll be the genie effect, but then I don't want to.

Koomah:

Or we should make our own moonshine. Put it in the jugs and take it back. Take it back to aquatic as the offering. Yes, it's a good thing.

Alexis:

The house is a bed and breakfast right now.

Mel:

So well, it will be strange for them, but I mean very entertaining.

Alexis:

But yeah, so so you know, I accept the fact that there may be something that's different than we know. Now, do I think that maybe I was just doing something with my mind to turn the light on and off? Could be. I happen to think that's quite possible.

Mel:

I will definitely count onto that too, because I even have relatives. So my grandmother, who is uh one of these people who had intuitions who could just know when you're doing something or know when something's gonna happen. Uh maybe because she was raised in Thailand in the jungles until she was four, but you know, who knows? It does strange things to you. But uh yeah, so they were living in was it North or South Carolina when my mom was a kid. And this is also where my mom got like pneumonia for the first time. But it was this old creaky house, and then the middle of the night, my grandmother wakes up and sees someone just standing at the end of the bed. Creepy. Yeah, so she wakes up her husband and stuff and is like, there's someone there. But then they turn on lights and there's nothing there. Wow. But she was like, No, there's with seriously someone there, and they knew the house was haunted, like there was obvious things that happened, and she would know certain things. So, yeah, I do think there are people who can kind of sense these things or are connected to things that have happened. Um, and there is kind of a discussion too in some circles. I was watching this uh YouTube about physics where they were saying that they don't they think it's a possibility that your consciousness doesn't uh like originates outside your body. Like there's maybe some kind of energy or force where everyone's consciousness is to a certain extent connected.

Alexis:

Yeah, with nothing alcohol, I find that that goes that way. It goes right out of your body. You know?

Mel:

I was like, and when you die, you everyone's conscious is meld back together. So you kind of learn from the hive experience of various lives and various iterations and things. Almost like a computer system sort of thing.

Alexis:

To quote Kuma, I've seen that movie.

Mel:

Who hasn't? So it's like it's interesting that we're starting to see some of these discussions even in you know STEM fields and things like that now, too, because I feel like there's a lot of indigenous cultures that have had kind of an intuitive sense and uh observations of a lot of things that now, you know, Western science is finally starting to acknowledge, you know.

Koomah:

Like can I take us on a slight little detour? Go for it. Okay, so since we are all of the the rainbow persuasion, we are so I think it's really fascinating that you brought up this idea of like consciousness being separate from the body. Um, because I do find a lot of like the tech bros are really into that idea as well, like mind mapping, and yet are like very anti-trans specifically. But it seems to me that it would make sense that if you believe in this like separate consciousness and body awareness being this different thing, that that would be a relatively plausible explanation or a way to understand transness, right? That someone's consciousness is maybe disconnected from their body a little bit, or like mismatched or or different things. I like the mismatched thing.

All:

I mean, did it surprise anybody at this table that the Matrix was made by two trans citizens? I mean, I mean, the minute the minute they both like avail that about themselves, I was like, well yeah.

Alexis:

Now I understand the movie better.

Mel:

Now I can.

Alexis:

Yeah, you know, I mean, there there's several things you said that I wanted to comment on. Um, you know, I think it's interesting that the tech people are doing this because the super nerdy tech people frequently are just scared of anything like that. And and it shows. And you know, and and I happen to think, and and I actually read some research recently that surprised me that it actually sort of found this, and that was that trans people in general seem to be in evolved state as opposed to a sickness. Now, you know, sorry, but that would freak out the frigging Christians.

Mel:

Oh, yeah.

Alexis:

I'm putting quotes around Christians here just so everybody knows, and and I'm talking about the evangelical Christians that want to kill everybody. And it and it does, it freaks them out. And and it's like, I'm not sure that isn't the case.

Mel:

Well, and I you know, as someone who grew up reading comics like X-Men, I can totally understand the idea of like you have several evolutionary states existing at the same time, and one might say like the lower state being super paranoid about that because they have a sense of we're being replaced, you know.

Alexis:

Yeah, and and if you even go back to Darwin, Darwin said that. Oh I mean, you know, you've got all these different evolutionary states that are competing with each other because they don't know which one's gonna make it.

Mel:

Well, and wasn't that also the case too with early humans like hominids and uh one of them was a more violent and basically wiped uh uh wiped out some of the other species, even though they also intermingled with them, so you know.

Koomah:

But that's also where we get our uncanny valley as well. And while we're dis like discomforted by things that appear slightly human but are just off a little bit.

Mel:

Hence going back to monsters and ghosts and things like that.

Koomah:

Well, and it's this sort of intuition that in the past we had some sort of collective experience with a life form being race of people that was similar enough to us that they could breed.

Mel:

Yeah, right.

Alexis:

My opinion is that they could breed. Well, probably which doesn't necessarily take as similar as you might think, but yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's sort of like some of the confusion I had on certain scientific things was cleared up when they started running DNA histories and found out that you know the Neanderthal man didn't disappear. And there's Neanderthal DNA in most native French French people. That explains a lot from all sides.

Koomah:

So another slight little detour what I think is very fascinating. So I am uh Ainu, which is a indigenous uh northern Japanese like uh Hokkaido area and like the Sakhalin and Kyrillo Islands of Russia, right? Um we have haplo group type D, like DNA. And it it's really interesting because it's only found in like that area and like the Andaman Islands, and then like in Tibet, like these really like disconnected spots. So it's very I've always thought that was very fascinating of like where did we come from and how did we get in all of these like random places?

Alexis:

Well, Tibet I understand. We all know it's totally mystical.

Mel:

It was aliens.

Alexis:

I mean, you know, I'll be that guy. The answer is always aliens.

Mel:

I've got the weird hair.

Alexis:

But but you know, and I think it's funny because you notice every time they run a DNA line all the way back, they get confused. Because the theory obviously was that eventually you'll get back to one male, one female. Well, we haven't gotten close to that one yet.

Koomah:

But you I mean you can't. I mean we're all inbred. Of course.

Mel:

Or reproduce asexually, who knows? Well sharks, right?

Koomah:

Aparthenogenesis, um, you know. Exactly. Well, I know you're for it.

Mel:

As Jeff Goldblum said, life will find a way.

Koomah:

I mean, we can't all be hermaphrodites.

Alexis:

No, you could be crabs where you just change at will.

Mel:

But but yeah, no, it's okay, so cycling back around to the monsters and and uh everything has to go back to monsters.

Koomah:

I guess we weren't talking about monsters where we I thought we were talking about ghosts. We're talking about monsters now. We certainly are.

Mel:

All the things that are misunderstood. I've never had a fear of those things. So that's the thing, is I feel it's like Jamie Lee Curtis said, I'm not afraid of monsters and horror movies. I'm afraid of real people here and now trying to take human rights away and things. It's like that's true because that that is an actual threat. Whereas my perceived phobias that could be easily disproven through either different study or just interaction with supernatural elements because have they hurt me? No, I've never been hurt by a supernatural element. You know, I know they exist, I know they're around, I know certain things happen, and whatever explanation for it, be it scientific or uh, you know, some other level that we haven't understood yet, those things don't hurt you. They're just there and you don't understand them. And I feel like, again, with the DNA and everything, a lot of things cycle back to early humans, to the lessons we've learned and things we remember in our consciousness. And we give these things a vilified status because we don't understand them.

Alexis:

Well, and I think, ooh, this actually connects a whole lot of what we've already been talking about. I think one of the things that I've noticed, and that is that humans tend to like to kill things they don't understand.

All:

Ooh, everyone at the table knows that.

Alexis:

You know, and I mean I happen to think that's where the monster comes in. Yeah. Those are scary monsters. And and I see them pretty much as monsters, shall we say?

Mel:

Yeah. What was it? Uh Frankenstein, the actor, original, well, original actor who played Frankenstein in the early universal pictures. Boris Karloff told his daughter that the kids got it. They understood his character of the monster because he was innocent. Yes. He was just a being that was brought into this world that was different at the mad lust of a scientist who didn't know what they were doing. Yeah. I mean relatable. But you know, and they they didn't know how to function. They didn't know how to interact with the social society as it was then, and they made mistakes, and then they got to be the villain because of it, you know?

Alexis:

Right. And, you know, I mean, we have all certainly seen situations where there's someone who didn't interact well with the rest of society that was vilified for it and mistreated for it, etc. And you know, it could just be they don't know how to interact with the rest of society.

Mel:

And again, that empathetic lesson comes from a director who was queer, you know, gay, James Whale, you know. Fantastic group of movies, by the way. I love the campy characters. Apparently, the maid who was always screaming in all those movies was also a lesbian. He could used to hire a lot of family to work with, I guess. And the guy who plays Dr. Pretorius, who is everyone's goal to end up as when they are that age. Uh because Dr. Pretorius is just camp personified. You have not seen The Bride of Frankenstein, please watch it for Dr. Pretorius.

All:

I think there's a lot of ways you can look at this because uh look, I'm kind of I've always thought a little bit along the lines of what Mel was saying and what Kuma was saying. Like there's a reason why our minds can make up stuff. And there's a lot going on here that maybe we could connect to on other levels, maybe if we're impaired, or maybe if our eyes are a little bit open or the veil is open, whatnot. But I think too that we don't really give the mic or safe space to people who explore that, like witches, shamans, uh, you know, we always would kill the women that were perceived as witches. We never, you know, we're not in a time where we're seeking that out. If people use something like, let's say uh they go out into a jungle to take ayahuasca, they're not doing it to seek spirits anymore and to get advice. They're doing it to get more self-knowledge about themselves through themselves, kind of. You know, it's it's been interesting how it's taken a more internal, I don't want to say narcissistic because they're trying to get a more expanded view, but I don't hear it as, well, this spirit told me that, or I sought this from this elder from this past time, or whatever, you know, handed down information. I hear it as this was the information I was supposed to be told, kind of like from myself that I couldn't see until I was impaired, you know, to see it. And I I think at the same time, though, if we all drive down a cul de sac that looks really freaking weird, we're all gonna have a gut experience of like, I don't know if we should go in that house, you know. And I think there's something to that. I don't I I know there's people, maybe Mel Mel's like, I would run in there, you know. I don't know, uh, you kind of got that face.

Mel:

But kind of that's kind of my childhood, to be real with you. Like constant family trips in abandoned areas of Arizona where there's either drug cartels or there's Yetis, you don't know.

All:

So you're not afraid to go into those spaces, or you know, I mean, sometimes I just feel like there's something to be said about we could feel like uh we just get a presence of there's something off here. Like animal instinct, yeah, yeah.

Mel:

Yeah. No, I I feel that, and I think we do vilify our own.

All:

Because that's not always making something up. Like sometimes we make something up, but then if it's just an an immediate occurrence, but there's there's two halves to that.

Alexis:

One of them is a protective half.

Mel:

Yes.

Alexis:

I mean, you know, like I had an experience where I was invited to a political gathering that was, you know, in a really nice part of town, Hunters Creek. And when I get there, right time, I checked it multiple times. There is nobody. The house is open, house is dark, big house. And you know, being a trans person, I'm like, uh oh. Sort of the spidey senses are going off like crazy. And and so, you know, I decided not to go in. I got out and looked around the outside, and I'm like, no. Uh and and you know, because I was like, well, maybe the front of the house is lit. Nope. Not a light on in the whole house. And, you know, so I sort of backed out, turned around, went back out, and I had seen one of the uh village's police officers sort of patrolling, and so I just sort of pulled over into a white area that was on the street for people pulling over and parking, and waited a minute, and sure enough, he came by and I'm like, Okay, I got a question for you. And he's like, There's nobody there. And he said, I'm wondering why the house is open. And I'm like, Okay, so doesn't seem right to you. So I came back home and it turned out they had moved the event sort of at the last minute.

Mel:

Yes, I don't, yeah, apparently.

Alexis:

And I'm like, okay, this was really poor poorly managed, and it turns out that they didn't have contact information for everyone with them. They certainly had it because it was someone coming down from Austin who was running for office that was having this event. And but you know, you talk about guys, you know, dark houses and things being scary. This is a really good part of town.

Mel:

And I gotta give a shout out to the subgenre of horror that's popped up in more modern days of BIPOG, LGBT, and all this, because that's taking so tradition, a lot of traditional horror is kind of based on this Lovecraftian and Lovecraft was a bigot and and was very anti-woman, anti-BIPOG, everything. And a lot of our our gothic, our horror is based on his stories and his storytelling. So it kind of carries over to an extent that same kind of systemic prejudice. But because people, again, are starting to recognize these things more and understand and question them, now we have this whole subgenre of horror that's been popping up for a while, especially since the 80s, with the whole final girl, final girl thing, of questioning, like, okay, we don't want to just put the woman in danger trope, or we don't want to just have this like, oh, the house is haunted by indigenous spirits who are coming back to harass the white family. Poor, poor people.

All:

So now if you the woman running in heels that's about to die.

Mel:

Yeah, exactly. So it's like constant, like people, even in suburbia where they're like, you know, it's like I always felt like like uh uh poltergeist, not poltergeist. That was like Craig T.

Koomah:

Nelson.

Mel:

Craig T. Nelson's. Well, let's look at that narrative. They're in suburbia, houses all around. Now, what's the scary thing that happened to a lot of white people at a certain point in their housing districts? That Integration. Yes.

Alexis:

So it's like Oh, the scary theft.

Mel:

Yeah, so it's like the all these narratives come with their problematic sides, but now because of the reversal, you have things like get out, where who hasn't felt that? They've gone into a room, into a house in a part of town that's supposed to be, yeah, of course this is legitimate. Rich white people have it, and they're doing a political uh uh uh gathering and stuff. It must be safe, but how many of us who are different in some way are still like, okay, is this a trap? Where's the cage kind of gonna be the first to go? I'm I'm waiting for hostile.

Koomah:

It reminds me a lot of when we were doing all of the like Black Lives Matter rallies, and there was the one in Viter, and everyone was like, oh, oh no, that is a trap. And it was it turns out that it really was like a legit thing, but everyone was like, Oh no, I'm gonna vote for that.

Mel:

If they put on the posters this is not a trap, then you would have thought it's even more then you know it's a trap. Then you know it's a trap.

Koomah:

Real quick, can I detour back to something that Robin said? You always detour it. Yeah. So uh another detour.

Alexis:

Um is this a dirt road?

Koomah:

Yes. Okay. So you had mentioned like shaman and stuff like that, and I think it's really fascinating how we have this very like global north and global west like idea of those type of things. Sure. Right. That that experience is very different here. Um, and I think the same works also with like mental health. So, like, even the concept of like schizophrenia and how that is experienced. Experienced by people is very, very different uh in like the USA, for example. I'm totally negative. Versus some other areas where like here it's a typically negative experience. People hear uh voices that tell them uh negative things about themselves, or sometimes to harm themselves, or to harm other people, or to not trust other people. But we know that in some other places, like those experiences of hearing voices are overwhelmingly positive, that the voices tell them good things, uh, which I think uh has kind of boiled a lot down to culture and the way that our cultures vary. Um, but with just thinking about that and that experience of like this intersection of mental health and and how we sometimes kind of merge those things with whether that's religiosity or um what other other sort of uh premonitions or or spirits or guides or whatever, uh it it does make me think about the ways that culture influences the spookies as well.

Mel:

Totally, and politics too, because what Harry Tubman was said to hear voices that helped guide her, uh-huh. Uh Joan of R. She had a head injury, yeah. Uh Mulan too, right?

Koomah:

Uh well, Mulan's a little bit complicated because uh no one's uh 100% sure whether she really existed or not because it's based on the cycle.

All:

She was a spirit the whole time. Well twist, yeah.

Koomah:

A little complicated.

Alexis:

But you know, so as you were talking, I was thinking, having grown up in the 60s and 70s, I'm very much aware that the way you set the stage has to do with the way you trip on drugs. Yeah, and I think it's the same thing.

Koomah:

Let's talk about LSD.

Mel:

Okay.

Alexis:

Easy to make, hard to figure out if you have the right kind. Oh, that's not what you're talking about.

Koomah:

It's easy, it's easy to make. And now now will teach us how to make a fun thing at home. Like stuff you already have in your own kitchen.

Mel:

You know what's hilarious? I I grew up watching like Sherlock Holmes on TV and everything, and they would actually just show people doing like the the little drug on the spoon and light, you know, heating it up.

Alexis:

That would be opium.

Mel:

That would be the opium, yeah. Exactly. Opium was very popular once. Exactly. So kids and fun at home prepares.

Alexis:

Well, I mean you've got to learn someplace.

Mel:

Yeah, I'll learn someplace. It's bear at home. Uh they can call 911.

All:

Kuma was talking about like like mixing different cultures and beliefs. I think I think on one hand we don't want appropriation, but on another hand, it's sometimes we look and we say, maybe this culture has the answer. So like when Trump was going into office, I saw a lot of people getting voodoo dolls for Trump that wouldn't have otherwise gone to New Orleans, you know, and I'm like, oh, now you believe?

Koomah:

Like, oh yeah, we could go to New Orleans, now you know why. But wouldn't you need like a little tuft of his hair or something to maybe sexually work?

All:

I don't know.

Mel:

You can build a psyche connection too.

Alexis:

Yeah, but they aren't nearly as strong as if you actually have to.

All:

I mean, it wasn't a damned doll. It was a it was a pincushion.

Koomah:

So little side note, not a detour, but just uh an aside, which depending on when this it doesn't matter. Just so that the people at the table know. Um so we have the unprecedented show on the 22nd. Uh on a few days later, I think the next weekend, uh Stormy Daniels is gonna be really performing at the same venue. Wow. So it should be interesting.

All:

Wow. Okay. So Houston has some events coming up at the Aurora.

Koomah:

So are you going to leave behind some essence to I'm just saying she's performing there because of me.

All:

Wow. Oh.

Mel:

That's exciting. That's exciting. I mean, Christian still claims that Elvira's in the space. Yes. Christian still claims that Elvira came out after she visited Houston QFest. So, you know, we influence people.

Koomah:

Oh, I think we actually do influence people. Well, Kuma. Some of us more than others.

Robin:

Yes.

All:

Kuma Alexis. And in different ways. Kuma Alexis and I were sitting at a table with Kate Bornstein, and she said for sure she had never seen such different identities just sharing a meal at a table. And that's not now how Kuma influences everyone. But I mean it was it was it was a rememberable experience, you know.

Alexis:

And it was funny because she had to work all night changing her talk because she was going to be basically be railing at us about the fact that we shouldn't be separate, et cetera. And she said, I'm sitting here looking at it.

Mel:

I came in here with an assumption. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alexis:

She's the same person who is vegan. And when I said, So what would you like to eat so we can get it set up, you know, whatever. No chicken? Oh no, she wanted barbecue. We were at a barbecue thing.

Koomah:

Yeah, that but oh yeah, but she she thought that I I I took her leftovers and we made soup, and I made a video of it.

Alexis:

Yeah, I was gonna say, because it was it was a foul of some sort she got because she never had it. Yeah. And it was funny. I thought, okay, I thought you were vegan, I'll just tell you. And she said, well, I am, but not in Texas. In Texas, I barbecue.

Mel:

Back to our regional differences.

Koomah:

Somehow we we will be able to make a segue from Kate Bornstein back to Monster Vision?

All:

Well, yeah. Well, you're the detour driver. Yeah.

Mel:

Okay, intersection here is there's a show called Queer for Fear. And finally, you know, I think I've mentioned this before too because I feel so validated that I'm not just the only one talking about how horror connects so easily to our communities.

Koomah:

Because let's face it, the all the tropes, all the tenets of it, it's like well now there is an actual connection between Kate Bornstein and us, specifically me at the table and the and that is that when she came, she was about to go through another round of chemo. Yeah. Yes. And so I don't know if y'all know this or not, but I made her a voodoo doll of me.

All:

No, we didn't know that.

Koomah:

I did. So I I gifted it to her with like a little um like a prescription pill bottle full of needles.

All:

Uh-huh.

Koomah:

And was like, whenever you feel bad, you can just, you know, transfer it to me, kind of thing. And she thought it was really cool. And she connected me to a friend of hers that makes puppets.

All:

Neat.

Koomah:

So that's our connection back.

All:

Well, yeah, that's really cool. Voodoo dolls.

Alexis:

Did you explain to her that you sort of like the pain?

Koomah:

Um, yes. So it was it was this also we we were like you know, masochist to masochist. Like you get the you kind of enjoy it.

All:

So that it sounds like her get out of free jail cards that she gives out that she'll take the pain in hell for you if you don't want it, and then you're you're connecting with her on that level. I I can only imagine that was a really cool gift for her to give get, but also great voodoo dog voodoo doll segment.

Mel:

I I I love that too, and it's a connection to a real world thing that people used to be hired by rich people to take on their sins or their pain uh in an esoteric way. I think that was in medieval England.

Alexis:

Yes, it would be the whipping boy. Yes, everyone had a whipping boy.

Mel:

So again, we always cycle back present as past as future, probably.

All:

It's not as outdated as some people would think.

Koomah:

Did they get paid?

Alexis:

Yes, big money.

Koomah:

Let's bring that back.

Mel:

The master kicks community has that not okay.

Alexis:

Okay, so yeah, we when when my mother died, I ended up the executive being executor of her estate. And my sister wasn't happy with the way things were going. She wanted everything uh to be really really there's always one.

Mel:

There's always one.

Alexis:

And my brother was like, Well, I don't want to give her anything. Anyway, uh, and they both had a falling out, so I ended up the sole executor. And as I'm going through things, we finally get to the point where I'm opening the safety deposit box. And there's this little purse in there, just about this big coin purse type thing that's fairly old, and I open it up and she released all the spirits. I think it was like Pandora's box. And so, you know, I'm looking, and there's like an empty peanut shell and a weird little I mean, there's several things. Um I still have it upstairs. Oh and my sister lives in Covington, Louisiana, and just north of New Orleans, and had lived there for a good while. And so I ended up having to go to New Orleans for estate reasons anyway. So I took this with me, and I happen to know which voodoo shop my sister went to most of the time. So I went in and said, I just want to find out what this is. I think you all made it. And the person there says just nodded yes. And and I'm like, so what is it? And so, well, it's a charm to make sure that something missing can never be found.

All:

Oh I'm still with you said it was upstairs. So where is it? You never find the money. Exactly.

Koomah:

It turns out it's in the attic.

Alexis:

Yeah. Mr. Aikman.

Koomah:

So that reminds me of a story. Which Mr. Aikman against it this one is it's kind of related to uh voodoo black magic, whatever you want to say, but in a absolutely bonkers, perfect, fun uh sort of way.

Alexis:

Well, this was sort of fun, I thought.

Mel:

Yeah.

Koomah:

The judge thought it was fun too.

Mel:

Well, you know.

Koomah:

So I used to have a roommate that everybody here at the table knows. Uh his name is George. And he I think I know where this is.

Mel:

Yes.

Koomah:

So we uh he had moved out of a house and a and uh we were living together, and he was like, Hey, uh come with me, come help. Actually, this was before we were roommates. He had contacted me and was like, I'm moving out of the this house uh and I need you to help me.

Alexis:

Was that house his uncle's house?

Koomah:

No, this was before the uncle's house. Okay, good. So he was like, I need your help to repossess my plants, which is a phrase you would only hear from George. And so the plan was that we were gonna drive to this house that he used to live in and go to the backyard and dig up all of the plants that he had planted in there and put them in the truck to bring them to another house, which is like fine. And we always said, you know, if we would get into these like Lucy and Ethel shenanigans, and if we ever got caught, you know, you're deaf and I don't speak English, sort of thing.

All:

So I think you two can pull that off.

Koomah:

So we we got there, he's there with a shovel digging up all these plants, and he gives me like this tiny hand shovel and is like, go to the back door and at the corner there, dig until you find something.

All:

No, yes.

Koomah:

So I'm over there on my hands and knees, and I'm digging, and I digging and digging and digging, and I'm like, I don't think there's anything here. And he's like, Yes, there is something I buried there. You need to find it. And I was like, okay. So I'm digging and digging, and I finally hit something, and it's like thunk. So I'm like, okay. And I dig it up, and it's like a Tostito's salsa jar. Okay, but it's got this like murky liquid in it with like stuff inside of it.

All:

Okay.

Koomah:

And so I'm like, I I think I found it. I don't know what this is. It looks like trash. It was upside down. And he was like, Oh, it's a jar of my pee.

All:

This really sounds like George.

Koomah:

Yeah. Uh and I was like, what?

All:

In fact, I think all the plants were just a decoy for you to do that one thing.

Koomah:

That's a good possibility. So uh, and without him here, I don't know the exact specifics of the story. But he had, I think it was like an ex-boyfriend who thought that they were like a witch sort of thing. Okay. Uh what that and what that means is that like they got a book from the library on magic and thought they could cast spells and stuff.

All:

Of course. And so had like gotten into some sort of bury the P on the beaver moon, and there you will be lesbians until one of you transitions. And even then, waha, maybe it'll still work, or maybe it'll be.

Koomah:

There was some sort of tiff that happened with the colour.

All:

It was a soul contract. Yeah.

Koomah:

And one of them put a curse on the other one or something like that. And so then another group of friends were like, Had to relieve the curse. This is how to do like a hex breaker or whatever. Yeah. You need to pee in a jar and put in like broken glass and nails.

All:

Oh god, you got stung by a lesbian, so we're gonna pee in this together and put in a larger sting, and then you'll be okay. If you buried on the floomer.

Koomah:

As if the whole story itself is not funny. But it had nails, like screws and nails. I'm pretty sure it meant like nail clippings, probably. Like off of a person's body.

All:

Right, that makes sense.

Koomah:

So anyway, we took this jar and brought it to the house that we moved into and buried it again in the back.

All:

Wow.

Koomah:

So, and then when we moved out of that house, we moved into uh another place.

All:

He hand you the small shovel again. No.

Koomah:

Uh so um, as Alexis mentioned, like the great uncle's house, uh-huh. We moved into that house. He brought the jar, but there wasn't a way, like a place to bury it. Uh-huh. So we kept it in the utility room uh by the front door, and then when we moved out, uh, he dropped it and it broke. And good lord, it smelled like death.

All:

Well, it smelled like a curse.

Koomah:

Yeah, it smelled like a curse. And it stained the concrete.

All:

Oh my god.

Koomah:

And I was like, well, we're we're moving out, so it doesn't matter. You know, someone else can deal with this.

All:

The next people who moved in were like, I think a ghost was here. I see the ectoplasm over here.

Koomah:

Anyway, that's my that's my uh story.

All:

That's a pretty good one.

Alexis:

The part that I find as interesting as anything else is that you went along with it. You were out there digging.

Mel:

I that doesn't shock me half as much.

Koomah:

How else am I gonna get a story like this if I didn't go on George adventures?

Mel:

I feel like there needs to be like a Wiccans Council put on alert and tell them, like, the same as the gas company, you know, before you dig, but the Wiccans need to be like before you do anything involving magic, actually research it.

Koomah:

And then there was also this- I was not involved in this, but there was also the story of what was called the rapture bed, which is kind of related, but also really not. But I just want to share it because it's funny and you did that too. So there was uh one of his boyfriends, I believe. They lived with You're just giving George's tea. Well, I mean, he tells the story also, and probably tells it better than I do.

All:

Oh, okay.

Koomah:

Um they had some kind of falling out, he wasn't paying rent or something, and he had borrowed this bed, he didn't own it from the people that he was living with. George or their boyfriend. The boyfriend. Okay. And so when he came home, they had dismantled his bed and like gave it away or sold it or something, along with the mattress and everything. So all that was left was just like the sheets there as if the bed was still there, like still information, and it was like the bed had been raptured.

All:

I could have sworn there was a bed there this morning. It must be the ghost.

Mel:

I was like envisioning a bed that you can lie in and get raptured. So it's like you charge people with it.

Alexis:

Right.

Mel:

Speaking of rapture, that was in October that we missed it.

Alexis:

I was looking forward to it.

Mel:

Me too.

Alexis:

Because I was hoping those people would all leave.

Mel:

That, and I like defenser stuff. So like they can't take it with them. Well, you don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so, unless you really can rapture the bed. I don't know.

Koomah:

There is a whole market of like after rapture pet care. Wow that you can like pre-pay for someone to come and take care of your pet.

Mel:

Wow. What they don't think the pet's gonna get raptured to. Oh, that's right, they end up shooting their pets and that.

Koomah:

I mean, a lot of a lot of them. Wow. Some people that believe in that are Dr. Kant believe that animals don't have souls, like people do, so they will not be because uh Fluffy cannot uh believe in Jesus or get baptized or whatever the specific belief is that the animals get left behind and only the people get taken away.

Mel:

I feel like we're gonna lead to another subsect of Christianity where it's the animal lovers who are like, no, Fluffy does believe in the phone. Some of them do they believe that they're in their pets. Because in their doggy bolts, there's a whole rainbow bridge community for pets.

All:

So I mean, leave it to the queers to love the pet the whole way through. Yeah. I'm just thinking about that movie The Lingoliers and how Balkie, you know, Balkie Wake is in the airplane, and like there's all this loot around him, and I was just thinking of not one leftover dog, actually, the whole film.

Koomah:

Did I just say that? Good lord. That movie with the do you remember Honeycomb used to have that commercial with the little monster? Yes, the little fluff ball.

Mel:

Yeah, huh?

Koomah:

You go through that whole movie, and then the like the little monsters look like the honeycomb monster, and I was like, oh god, that cannot get it.

Mel:

You got us, you got us. Well, but some of those honeycomb commercials, especially the 90s one where the kids like get super like they're high on crack or something, and then you're gonna be back to the city. You eat that kind of cereal. Yeah, it's like that is super scary, actually. So it was like, what is in the honeycomb sugar?

Koomah:

Which so let's detour again.

Mel:

Follow us a dog.

Koomah:

Oh, wait, you can't detour yet. Take your detour. It's okay, but it's not a detour. I'm just we're getting off at the next station. So we talked about we went from Langoliers to honeycomb monster to like you know, kids in these like wild little fluffies. And I was going back to Langoliers.

Robin:

We will.

Koomah:

We'll get there. So like there's this whole uh like genre of movies like gremlins and critters.

All:

Oh yeah, they're bringing another gremlin back. Yeah, yeah.

Koomah:

You know, that whole thing of like you didn't follow instructions. Oh, yeah. You have to do that. And so now here's your punishment sort of thing.

Mel:

It's designed to teach us to read the contractual obligations before we sign up with Apple. Yeah.

All:

And it's always something weird after midnight.

Koomah:

But how like monsters get used to like have some sort of like lesson in stories. Well, but they always have been.

Alexis:

The old mythological, by the way. Oh, yeah. So did the um Norse people. But they were always for a lesson. Yeah.

Mel:

Absolutely. I mean, you see that in Pan's Labyrinth too. There's a lot of Latin American culture.

Koomah:

Oh my god, can we talk about the pale man from Pan's Labyrinth?

Mel:

I mean fun dinner jokes.

Koomah:

Just like Mitch McConnell.

Mel:

That's true.

Koomah:

Actually, he is. His eyeballs are in his hands, so he only sees what he wants.

Mel:

Uh-huh.

Koomah:

Right?

Mel:

Yeah, I see it. See the analogy.

Koomah:

No, I mean, it's if you really like take a deep dive into that like representation.

Mel:

Well, are we shocked it was a story about fascism taking over Spain? Top level. There's a lot of reference.

Alexis:

Yep. But the pale man wasn't like orange-topped.

Mel:

No, that's Mitch McConnell, not Trump. I know. That's what I'm saying. That's another beast in the in the whole uh, you know, labyrinth in beast thing. So what was the your lingolier? Back to langs.

All:

Back to Langoliers.

Alexis:

As an adult, the most afraid I have ever been.

All:

Was that movie?

Alexis:

No.

All:

Oh.

Alexis:

I used to drive frequently from Michigan to Houston and back, which brings you through Arkansas, you know, the way I usually go. And so I always did, you know, books on tape and that kind of stuff to listen to. And so I'm driving back to Houston, and I've just passed Little Rock, Arkansas. And at that point, there's really nothing much out there except woods and swamps and and swamp creatures, supposedly. And that whole thing.

Mel:

And unfortunately, no Adrian Barbo.

Alexis:

Yeah, exactly. I don't think. Wouldn't know. But anyway, so I'm driving along and it starts to get foggy. And it starts to get heavier and heavier and heavier fog to the point where I can see no lights except my car lights. And we just are at the point in the langoliers where they're on the airplane taking off as the langoliers are coming through, you know, chomping up, you know, history.

Mel:

Oh yeah.

Alexis:

And, you know, I'm not paying a lot of attention to it, but I am. And so I finally get to a point where I honestly, I mean, I haven't gotten off of the freeway, but I've yet to see a car in a long time. Oh. And so I'm like, I need to pull off and figure out where I am.

All:

Oh no.

Alexis:

And so, you know, I see an exit, so I take the exit. I can't even see to where the exit where the exit goes to. It's a dead-end exit.

Mel:

Oh, you got the silent hill. That's in, yeah.

Alexis:

And you know, and I kid you not, by this time I'm shaking. And and I haven't turned off the tape yet.

All:

Oh no, that would have been my first thing.

Alexis:

Oh, that would have been the logical thing to do.

Mel:

But then you're afraid of the silence that maybe someone else you may hear. Like, no, no, no, no, no.

Alexis:

I get out of the car and I look around, and there is a road over there, but there's no way to get to it in a car. And I'm like, okay, but there's like no business signs, there's nothing you can see. And so I decide that the only thing worse than continuing is to stay here. And I am shaking so hard I can barely back up.

All:

Oh my gosh.

Alexis:

But fortunately, there's no cars around, so what the heck? And so I get back on the road, and then that's when I remember that it would be a good idea to turn the tape off. However, I'm stuck on what comes next. And I'm like, no, I've got to turn it back on. Because I was forgetting that it's Stephen King. I was thinking there'd be a good outcome.

All:

No, no.

Alexis:

But but I kid you not, when I got back to Houston, I didn't go to sleep for two days. Which isn't totally unusual, but I didn't. Because every time I start to go to sleep, I'd get back into the fog. And gosh, you know, something's crunching up everything behind me because there should be lights at least behind me.

All:

I thought it was amazing when uh, you know, COVID broke out and Trump got elected. Just how many people were like, wait a minute, Stephen King has prepared us and wrote all about this. It also might be his fault. It also he might know the ending, and also I didn't like the ending in his book, so maybe there's a new one by now, you know.

Mel:

He's a witch who predicted the future, but that's why I don't want to believe this.

Koomah:

I would like to go from Alexis's story to back to sidetracks. No, not not back, but like going forward to hear other people's like a moment of like terrifyingness, creepiness, like something like that. Like a just a moment where you were like terrified. Terrified. And then maybe after that, if you have like a near-death experience or something like that. Okay, I mean you can laugh at that, but some of us have had more.

All:

No, no, totally, totally, totally. I'm I'm just I love how you're like, and if you have a near-death experience, also segue into that.

Mel:

Also that too. Yeah. So many. Why don't we go that way around the table since we started with me before? So do you have one? I mean eventually I'll think of one.

Robin:

Do you have do you have one?

Koomah:

Um it sort of.

All:

Go ahead. That means yes. Go ahead.

Koomah:

This is weird though, because uh I have experienced a lot of pretty terrifying things, like horrible things in my life. But uh I think in a lot of ways for me they were it's a long story. There's a there's a stage show about it. Um they were like very normal also. So but I've only ever had like one moment where I was like, I don't know, I felt like my insides fall out of my body sort of thing. And it again, it's a George story. Um it's not even squarely.

All:

No, this is great because like you said, we work ourselves up sometimes.

Koomah:

Yeah. So we had been George found this like plastic horse duck thing. I don't know what it is. That he he had like as a small child. It was like one of those like ride-on things. And we started like playing hiding it around the house to like surprise each other. So like we'd put it in the washer, or like one time he put it in, he seat belted, buckled it into my the driver's side of my car. Okay. So it would go there. So we were doing like all of this, you know, kind of silly stuff. Yeah. You'd hide it in the shower.

All:

That's fun. Scary.

Koomah:

We did that for a little while, and then one time around Christmas at his job, he found these animatronic, like a little uh Victorian Caroler boy and girl dolls that you could like plug in and they would move. And they had these candles that would light up. But we thought it was funny. We took the candles out of their hands and put knives in their hands, right? Uh I didn't know about them though when he found them originally. And I came home and it was totally dark, he wasn't home yet. When I got to the stairs, because like my room was upstairs, I had the upstairs of the house and he kind of had the downstairs. I flipped the switch on, and there are these like maniacal, small children at the top of the stairs with knives in their hands. And I, for a brief moment, just like I of all the things in my life I've experienced, I could understand very quickly what was happening. But it was this like, there are these small Victorian children at the top of the stairs with knives moving.

Mel:

Yeah, and I had this not even like ah, it was just children's.

Koomah:

Yeah, no, just this moment of like sudden intense dread, and then I was like, oh, that's what that is. But it was that brief moment that was almost like a high. I've never experienced that before or again.

All:

I think that's kind of why people like being scared, right? Like, I mean, there are they I don't know, Mel, do you have this does that draw you to horror films? I don't watch horror films, but I what I hear is is that people like being in that fright and they they know it's not really gonna happen, but they like being like, ah, like when the things jump out and and everything, do you get that sensation from horror films?

Mel:

I mean, yeah, there's that side of it, definitely. I think there's always gonna be a draw of like, because let's face it, media, movies, it's about experiencing things that maybe we don't get to feel in our everyday lives. So whether it's like a a romance film in a sense of like, you know, oh, that that lovely date or that, you know, something, or uh action films, and you just want adrenaline and go in and and da da da da da da everyone. So it's like, you know, uh die hard, great holiday film. I think it's hilarious that that became a holiday film. Well, you know.

Koomah:

It's already a holiday holiday film.

Mel:

That's my introduction.

Koomah:

Yeah, that kind of scarier.

Mel:

Yes, fair. But I I love that they're like destabilizing this little suburban white town, though. But so from a like a ha ha perspective. And of course it originated from the the old guy's shop, so it's like haha.

All:

Yeah, that's true.

Koomah:

I told you you didn't.

Mel:

I told you to follow the rules. Exactly. Again, the little lesson, right?

Koomah:

I want to know with gremlins, when is it okay to feed them again?

Mel:

Because like what time does it take over, right?

Koomah:

Uh you can't feed them after midnight. When is it 6 a.m., 10 a.m.? Are we doing McDonald's rules? Is it like no breakfast after 10 30?

Mel:

I don't know. Cut off at midnight. I would assume 12 the next day. No, I mean, yeah.

Alexis:

Can't weat them until noon? I I always assume that when the sun came up, it was okay. Now I have no basis for that whatsoever. So if you're in the vampire thing. Then you can feed them all night.

Robin:

Yeah.

All:

There you go. Highlight a vampire thing. Yeah. No rules in Alaska.

Alexis:

But then they don't get to eat for a few months.

Mel:

Oh man, that's that's torment.

All:

So like penguins. So when you watch horror films, do you get that like spike of uh scaredness?

Mel:

So yeah, that's that's a part of it. But I think my personal draw to horror, and I I have heard a few different people kind of share this too, is kind of like, you know, we have that sense of of you want to know. You just want to know, you know, because you're truth seekers. You want to know what's behind the door, you want to know your curiosity, you know, it's gonna kill you probably. But you're still like, at least I'll die satisfied.

Koomah:

That saying though is curiosity killed the cat. But satisfied. Satisfaction brought him back. So I'll be a ghost.

Mel:

There you go. But I'll satisfy it.

Koomah:

I find that I I laugh at a lot of horror movies. Oh, yeah. No.

Mel:

My mom laughed at Alien when she saw it in theater when the thing burst through the chest. It was like that.

Koomah:

That and Hellraiser made me have feelings.

All:

Like, what kind of feelings?

Koomah:

I mean, I was way too young to watch it, probably. But I was not scared.

Mel:

I was a little bit of horrors.

Koomah:

That is something totally different. Um, so Little Shop of Horrors, I love, and we're talking the 1986 Rick Moranis musical version. With the fade me. My adoptive parents were very strict, and we weren't allowed to watch a lot of stuff. So, like, we couldn't even watch like Bewitched or The Monsters because it was the cult, you know. My mom saw this on TV.

All:

Uh-huh.

Koomah:

Um, she like was flipping through channels and caught right, came in like right at the part where uh it's the dadu song uh where he's telling the story. But right where Rick Moranis like walks up to join the doo-up singers, and she was like, This looks like a wholesome. The musical. So she hit record on the VCR and turned the TV off and went to bed. And the next morning she was like, I recorded something for you. I was like, Oh, okay, whatever. Um fenging tails again. Yeah, you know, that's pretty much what I was expecting. Yeah. Came home from school and there's like a two-hour window before they would get home from work. And I watched this and was like, she could never find out what this is. Right. Like it was I hid it in my room like it was porn, you know, kind of thing.

Mel:

Yeah. So that explains a lot about I think that definitely brings a window into our roots. But yeah, it's like I and it's funny too, because that is again, horror takes real life kind of struggles and issues, like in in Little Shop of Horrors in the remake, or a little bit in the original too, it dealt uh with like uh partner abuse and things like that as well. Poverty's poverty. Domestic violence, domestic violence, that sort of thing. And yet it was such a if it's a musical, it was lighthearted, you know, the plants eating people, you know, yeah, exactly. The end of the world.

Alexis:

Um well, and it had lots of satisfying scenes.

Mel:

Exactly.

Alexis:

You know, when the assholes showed up and the plants like Bill Murray as a masochist, you know, the genocide.

Mel:

Yeah, yeah.

Koomah:

I loved that scene and didn't understand why until Hellraiser.

Mel:

There you go. There you go. The connection but again, horror takes like a lot of real life stuff, and then Hellraiser was the um story uh from um oh my god, I'm forgetting his name. That's okay. He's in the uh queer comedian too, the creator, the writer. Uh but that story comes from anyone's down now. Yeah, I know. I don't think of it, it's like everyone knows his name. Everyone knows his name, but I'm gonna pop out the IMDB. Sinility is coming in. Uh but anyway, so he's a queer creator too, who wrote the original story and did integrate these themes of BDSM community and things into these fairy tale stories, which were horror but still fairy tales. So it is telling you something about real life scenarios. But it's interesting that, like in Hellraiser, it's not the Cenobites who are really the bad guys, it is the humans who take their own pursuit of self-pleasure and and and breaking the barriers too far without any restrictions, without any conditions or boundaries or anything like that. So it's taking something that people actually do and it's it's twisty, it's it's appropriating it with at no boundaries. No boundaries, right? So again, extremism and certain things. Um, same thing with uh night breed and stuff like that. It takes stuff from the real world and shows you a potential dark side if you misuse that power, if you misuse that uh convention. So taking all that about horror, another aspect I find fascinating about it is it often reflects the real world back to us and commentaries about politics and our sociopolitical states and our mindscapes and everything. Things we're not willing to talk about in open society a lot of times because we're afraid about the reaction it we'll get. Right. Uh even if we're told not to talk about it.

All:

Don't talk about sex politics or religion.

Mel:

Exactly. So it's like through these stories, yeah, basically. But through these stories, through this mirror and and and illusion and metaphors, we can discuss that without discussing it, right? And that's a big power for me. I think that's why I find empowerment from horror is because we're finally able to discuss things that were repressed against discussion in the mainstream. You know. Did you find who made it?

All:

No. No. Okay. Well, we'll leave that to the listener to think of. When you're thinking about your life, Mel, do you have something where you were terrified? Ooh. Uh, yeah, a lot of times.

Mel:

Usually it was real-world stuff though, but I bing bong.

Koomah:

And now a very special guest.

Mel:

Surprise guests. And and if it's that. The ghost of Pee-Wee Hermit.

Alexis:

If it's somebody canvassing for a candidate, invite them in and we'll just add up.

Mel:

There you go. What's your scariest moment? But yeah, okay. So while we have that interlude and we'll see if we have a surprise guest, um the uh I'll I'll go ahead and tell you something that recently happened, which started out as very much of a real-world scare, uh, pretty common and topical today, but ended up in kind of silliness. Is uh I'm teaching in high school right now. And so we have that's always scary. We have these emergency drills that we're trained on. Some are for fire, some are for um, you know, intruder alerts, that sort of thing. And of course, you have one for uh possible active shooters. So one day we're in the middle of a lesson with my class, and uh the alarm for uh hold in place goes off. Now at first I'm like, wait, which alarm was that again? And the student, the student had to tell me, I was like, that's the hold in place. I was like, oh, so you gotta put the blackout card on your door to make sure no one can see through the window. You turn off the lights in the classroom and you turn off all monitors, and then you have the kids huddle it in a corner out of the way, right? That's what we're you know trained to do. And so we're all there following procedure. Um, we're all there following procedure. Oh, another core. Following procedure. I know the kids, like these kids usually act pretty, you know, unaffected, nothing, you know, they they chat and gab about all sorts of things all the time and joke about the drills and everything. But when you actually think it's happening, yeah, you're terrified. So it's like, you know, I know they're they're scared in that corner. I'm there by the door holding on to the door just in case someone does try to break through. Because if something happens, you know, obviously I'm gonna try and put, you know, deal with it first and try and get them out. But yeah, I'm trying to listen and see if I hear gunshots or anything going on. That goes on an interminable time until it's finally one of the assistant principals comes on and it's like, uh, holy place, we're still trying to figure out what's going on. So I'm thinking, okay, well, if they don't really immediately know, it's probably not a super big issue. It's probably someone, you know, accidentally press a button or something. And so we're waiting, and then finally they do it all clear, but they don't explain what it was. So, but we have the lights back on, we open the door back up. It's not the end of the period yet, but the kids are so fragile, they just start leaving to the next class anyway. And I'm like, well, whatever. And so they have to end up coming back to class because the other teacher is like, Well, our class isn't done yet, so you have to come back and sit there until it ends. And I was like, you know what? We're not gonna discuss a lesson or anything. You guys sit and just discuss what you're feeling. You know, what do you going through right now? If you want to joke about it, you can joke about it. If you want to like have a cry and a corner, you can just like decompress. You're decompressed. Decompressed. Whatever you need to do right now, just sit and do it. Uh and and we're there. We do end up kind of joking about it, but then we're also like, yeah, it's traumatizing when you're like, you're going about your day, something like that just interrupts it, and you think, oh, there's a real possibility I might die right now. Or the kids might die, or something. Yeah. So yeah, it's it brings you out of your routine every day and it st stops you in your tracks. And you're like, oh, how do I get through the rest of today without falling apart or trying not to think about this until I can get home and process it? And you just do, but then you know, it helped that we got the email that was like, yeah, someone sat on the button. Like, yeah. And everyone was like, of course. Yeah, but I mean, that's the same.

Alexis:

And you wonder what they were really doing on that disc.

Mel:

Yeah, I mean and we're like, thanks for that. And back to the case. Isn't there a supply closet you could use time? Oh yeah. No, UFOs should be its whole own episode because we've gone so far from like where it was like, oh, it's just a bunch of delusional people to now. It's like, oh yeah, the military's known forever, and here's the documentation.

Alexis:

And the military's been so afraid of something that they won't even tell anyone, which It's a thing that exists. They outran us, so we can't talk about them existing.

Mel:

And you know, the langoliers with them the whole time.

Alexis:

I was gonna say we could do UFOs and the little flying rods in the caves and uh the Amazon.

Mel:

You know what's also related to is uh multiverses, because there is a theory as well that Aeons are from multiverses.

Koomah:

And I do love some quantumnessness. Who knows?

Alexis:

I mean, we don't know anything about it.

Mel:

It's true. There's uh there's said to be like I and I think it's in some religious books. It might be the Bible or one of the versions that there's a spot in the desert where it's a hole from another dimension where creatures pass through.

Alexis:

So I saw that movie too. What Bible are you reading? I want to read that one. I mean, the early desert is probably one of the ones that didn't have the books deleted.

Mel:

Right?

Koomah:

This is totally off-topic, sort of. Uh the only connection is the Bible. I learned that scarecrows are older than Jesus. And it's it's just funny to me because they both have the same stance. And maybe also are created to scare things into submission. Anyway, um back to s was scary.

Alexis:

I mean, the only part that's scary is the fact that everybody presumes Jesus wasn't like us.

All:

Well, and you actually had a positive experience with the ghosts in the hallway helping you out. Have you had other positive experiences with ghosts? Yeah. Okay.

Alexis:

Mine are always positive.

All:

Okay. Any last final stories you want to tell about positive ghost experiences?

Alexis:

I think we're done.

All:

Wonderful. Well, thank you for coming on, guys. We are happy to have you. It's always an open table, and we look forward to dancing around all 22 topics we can come up with, especially in one sitting.

Alexis:

And I I think you know the uh the idea of doing UFOs for a next one is great.

All:

Sure, sure. We'll start off with UFOs and then we'll take detours depending on who's doing the tour guiding.

Alexis:

And who shows up at the door.

All:

Yeah, and who shows up at the door. So thank you for listening to 22 sides. If you can like, subscribe, share all that stuff. If you can even kick a few dollars our way, it keeps it going. So the most important thing is that you take care of yourself, especially going into this holiday season. I think everyone at this table is gonna stick with Halloween, but I mean you do you. Enjoy.

Mel:

Oh, and also we have a show coming up.

Koomah:

Oh, yeah, we did mention that a little bit.

Mel:

We did mention it briefly.

Koomah:

November 22nd, it is the third unprecedented show.

Mel:

Wonderful.

Koomah:

7 p.m. at Aurora Chapel. That's 800 Aurora Street in Houston, Texas. $10 at the door, but nobody's turned away. And it is a part of the National Fall of Freedom uh collaboration of artists that are doing shows, events, uh, installations, all related to a sort of uh some sort of collective effort to combat fascism through the arts.

All:

So look up Fall of Freedom and if you're local to Houston, check out Aurora Chapel. It's in the Heights area. And they do a lot of different really nice programming, everything from showing videos to having art presentations and uh talkbacks.

Alexis:

And what do you have coming up after that? Stormy Daniels, I mean.

Koomah:

Well, they're doing they're having they're not doing Stormy Daniels. I'm sure she's doing something else. Someone else. Um Yeah, she will be at the same venue. I don't think I have anything planned. Oh, so let's figure out something to do. Oh, okay. All right, we'll keep it going. I will uh this is uh I'll you can insert this story wherever, but I wanted to share this story because it's kind of related, but also kind of not. One time, uh after I did a show, uh Drag Show and Galveston, I spent the night at a friend's house who lived in a garage apartment upstairs, and the stairs were really like rickety and scary, and had a very small platform at the top where the door opened like out towards the stairs, so you had to like kind of scoot in the corner. And I obviously had a giant duffel bag on wheels. And I have a friend that was coming to pick me up, and I was like positioning myself to try and get the door closed, and fell backwards down the stairs as my friend like drove around the corner just in time to see me fall down the stairs, and these were very it was like three stories high. Um and you know they say what like before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. My life did not flash before my eyes. So you knew you were okay. What did flash before my eyes was that scene from Death Becomes Her when she falls down the stairs and like her head twists backwards? Uh and then I, you know, blah plop plap, uh hit the last three stairs and then the ground, and my friend was like, Oh my god. Uh and was like, Are you okay? And I was like, I think so. And then like on the drive, I was like, Yeah, no, I'm not. We need to go to the emergency room. Uh I fractured my hip, but I was okay. And when I was in the emergency room, they obviously asked you what happened, and I was like, I fell down the stairs. And they made my friend leave, and they were like, they handed me these materials, and they were like, Are you do you feel safe at home? Do you need I was like, no, really, I fell down the stairs. And they were like, Well, we want you to take these pamphlets anyway. It's like, no, I appreciate you. I really did fall down the stairs. I legitly fell down the stairs. I wasn't putting it. That's it. That's my near-death experience.

Mel:

One last story because I have a similar kind of weird staircase story.

All:

Well, I just want to say, I think that's really cool because you you guys know a lot about movies that your brain was like, this is the movie scene that your body is doing right now. Yes. Your brain was like making sense of it. What were you guys saying?

Mel:

Okay, so when I still worked in public access, we were looking for properties to move into long story, traumatic story. But so I was, and we had an intern at the time who was Tracy McGrady's daughter.

Koomah:

And don't mention names.

Mel:

She's in college, she don't care. And so uh we were exploring this house, or not house, like it was this old factory building from the 70s along Navigation Street, and it used it must have been a printing press or something. They had this big open space, which was like a garage area, and then they had all these shelves of like the text print that used to be on there. They had like an old soda machine from the 70s that didn't work for ages, and so I was like manning the video thing. So it was like a ghost hunter's kind of video almost. I was following her around with the camera. We were uh looking at the whole building, kind of documenting. We went up the creepy stairs on the sign, and we were like, oh well, this upstairs they say is supposed to be like a board conference room or something like that. So we're following up the stairs. She's ahead of me, she opens the door and gasps, and I was like, What? What happened? Yeah. And she's like, There's a body up here. And I was like, There's a body live alive. I was like, no, it's like, come and look at it. And I go up the stairs with the camera and I go in, and it's a stuffed life-size material dummy with a face, someone's face was you know, screen printed onto the the head of it. Wow. I don't know whose face, it was just someone's face sitting in the chair. Wow. And I was like, already this is awesome. I feel like I'm on ghost hunters. And then, so it's your boardroom with the chairs and everything, and then off to the side is this 70s-style honky tonk bar with filled with taxidermied animals. And when I say taxidermied animals, I mean huge, huge bears, full bears, full tigers, full lions, leopards, huge heads all over the wall of various animals, huge, you know, you know, hawks and things like that, all over the place. Like there must have been millions of dollars of taxidermied animals inside this sidebar. I was filming, I was like, this needs to be a film set. I was like, I'm in an eagle panel movie right now. So I was like, I wanted to get the place because I just thought you'd be filming everywhere all the time for different weird things. Um, but yeah, they structurally it probably wasn't that sound. But then it was probably not as bad as the place we ended up in anyway. So like most haunted places, not very sound, probably. Yeah, probably not, but I love that I still have that footage and one day may do something with it. Nice, nice, nice.

Alexis:

Yeah, I I think part of the problem was that um someone who was well above you, yeah, when they heard exactly what it was, was scared to go look.

Mel:

Probably.

Alexis:

I experienced this.

All:

Who wouldn't be? Who wouldn't be? Except for Melalani.

Koomah:

Oh well, I wanted to go. And we did not even get to the part where we went to a nuclear power plant in Kansas that's right next to a graveyard.

All:

Well, badly mean gliffingers, right?

Koomah:

We're not really sure what that place is.

Mel:

I don't know if that's a UFO episode or the nuclear uh future episode. That's something to like a to be continued. To be continued. All right.

Koomah:

All I'm saying is we are one tornado away from radioactive zombies.

Mel:

Oh, it's a zombie episode. There you go. Zombie episode.

Alexis:

Could be zombie episode, yeah. Or back to Jesus.

All:

Yeah. Or monsters, like you said, it all goes back to monsters.

Alexis:

And and and you know, I think that there are a lot of areas actually in Kansas and some of the other Great Plains states that you could make the um claim and show that we're probably post-apocalyptic.

Mel:

Yep, I buy that.

Alexis:

You know, they there's missile silos that are empty, there's power plants that are just abandoned. There's, you know.

Koomah:

Living ghost towns.

Alexis:

Yes.

Mel:

Living ghost towns. And what was it, the blob 1980 kind of ends in like, was it the snake religion, Christian religion hut where he's got the last piece of the blob that could just absorb humanity in it in a jar. In a jar. So, you know, George, in a jar.

Koomah:

The question is We happen to know where that jar grows. Critters takes place in Kansas. Yes. Are you ready to connect it back to Houston? Go for it. Okay. So in Critters 3, one of the actors uh used to do porn, but he now works at an H E B in Houston.

All:

Oh, right.

Koomah:

In the fish market.

Mel:

I love our representative.

All:

Gay porn. Hey. Very important. Houston. We're just breaking people out, keeping people in, and having all sorts of fun.

Alexis:

So you all said you have to run about it.

All:

Yeah, I don't think that's the end of that, guys. We're terrible at the time. Yeah, we're terrible timekeeping.

Koomah:

Put off time.

All:

Thank you for the for the commercial break. Oh, yeah. No, that was fun. I enjoyed that. Yeah. It was like, Kuma, we were gonna talk a little bit about the number. Oh yeah. But I looked it out and do you wear a black shirt, wear a black hat.

Koomah:

We can do kind of a brief run through.

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Robin Mack

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Alexis Melvin

Co-host