September 28, 2020 • 54 mins
Emily is on the road again, so it's just Tess and Molly this week taking calls calls calls, calls from the public! First we get a call from a listener debating whether or not to go to a family wedding. We talk about the no-win situation that is Coronavirus weddings - what to do when your family won't cancel, and why everyone should cancel big family events this fall and winter if possible even if they put money down. Then it's Spanky's, the secret Los Angeles afterhours speakeasy that went viral for sending out this email: “Somewhere in Los Angeles, we’ve curated a small intimate space where friends, lovers, bartenders and bootleggers, DJs, musicians, wanna-be celebrities, drug dealers and baristas, pimps, prostitutes and Johns can come together and reacquaint ourselves with the nightlife that we once loved and lost.” Would you go to a sketchy after hours listed at a location that turns up as a random houseless section of Mulholland Drive thrown by promoters who are known creeps? Then it's Altered States!!! Ken Russell's 1980 drug nightmare comes to life through our words. Now more than ever we need movies about sexy druggy academic types putting themselves in drug induced dream states to push it to the limit. Tess and Molly talk about whether we'd get in the isolation tank, with or without William Hurt, Bob Balaban, and Blair Brown, and why Total Recall raves and San Junipero type digital escapism are so appealing right now. Take some mushrooms in a cave and get in the tank with NIGHT CALL!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's eleven eleven PM in an isolation tank and you're
listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome to night Call,
a Colin show for our dystopian reality. I am Molly
(00:21):
Lambert and with me is Tess Lynch. And there is
no Emily this week because she's driving back across the country,
which sounds fun. Yeah, godspeed Emily. Hey Test, how are you, Daran?
I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. I mean is that
we've talked about this before, but there's no answer like
pretty good. I'm pretty good, I think is the only
(00:43):
right answer. I'm pretty happy that we can breathe the
air again. That's the main thing. Yes, that is the
main thing. Um. Yeah, it's clearing up a bit, but
it's still kind of it's still kind of chunky. And
I've been suspicious that the a q I is not
accurate it. That's my conspiracy theory, because there was a
(01:03):
day recently where it was an a QUI of I
think eighty three, which is considered moderate, but it was
I was sneezing and the air tasted like a grill
and I was not a fan. I think we're right
at the point where the moderate air feels like delicious
fresh air, because at least it's not the very bad air.
(01:26):
It's not the chunky, chunky air, chewy air. I like
the idea of the air tasting like a grill. It
had such a flavor to it. It was very and
especially because um, one of the symptoms of coronavirus is
a change in taste and smell. Yeah, it made me
very paranoid. But no, it was just the air. Yeah
it did. It did like kind of taste like a
(01:48):
Western bacon cheese burger. Yeah. It had the mesquite. Yeah,
it was mesquite. Uh. My boyfriend was like, oh, are
you burning a fall candle, and it was like, no,
it's just uh, the actual fire air, not a bonfire candle.
The air is just burning itself. Should we take a
nightcall to kick things off? Let's take a night call, Hey, Nicol,
(02:09):
this one is a little bit of a doozy, so
I appreciate you alful listening. I'm the oldest support kids
and my youngest brother. Basically, uh, it's not going to
camp to us as weddings this year in Rolla, Alabama.
I feel kind of crazy for even wondering how you
go because there's a general generational pandemic on and every
chance they have to spread it, it's like a chance
to further home people. But the only reason I'm even
(02:29):
questioning it is because I really love him and his fiance,
And it seems like the mainly reason they haven't called
it off is because my brother's feature father in law
mother in law have a bunch of deposits down on
a bunch of venues in Alabama. Their transporters, they're Republicans.
They think the virus is real. They just are also thinking,
like what we're doing is legal, and everything says it's
safe as far as like state and national regulations are concerns,
(02:49):
but we're also gonna like sign waivers to get into
a venue and the weddings inside, and uh, it just
used a fe of the sinker. I'm going to use
all agency on my house, say I feel about coronavirus
if that you can get up. So I'm really corn
Part of me wants to uh absolutely not go because
that's the ship and we shouldn't support it. And the
other part of me is like, if it's just going
(03:09):
to be my family who is like silent white people
that don't cough but aren't necessarily rich enough to be watched,
that like won't stand up for themselves, that are just
gonna accept how this like not say stuff. Someone needs
to be an advocate for them, advocate for them. And
then part of me also wants to go just to like,
I don't know, try to make it safer. It seems
crazy to even think about this, and I feel like
a lot of people that are facing these kinds of choices,
(03:30):
So maybe it's really selfish for me to even ask,
But I'm just wondering if there's any general advice but
I can get. I don't know, maybe someone else has
gone through this and uh still also say, hey, man,
I went and I got COVID. Don't go to anyone
else who has a weird family that's not canceling stuff. Sorry,
we're all in it. And also lost, we didn't make
this all safe. Cheer jol. Have a great week. That
(03:51):
was a really good call. Thank you for calling in.
Also an interesting follow up to last week's call about
going to Disney World. Yeah, totally. I think a lot
of people, especially as we head into the fall, there
are some things that have been on calendars for a
long time that now that we're like deep into COVID.
It seems like people are like, well, maybe we'll just
(04:13):
go through with it because we have it planned. Yeah,
And I can imagine I don't ever want to downplay
how much it would frustrate me and make me sad
if I had been planning a wedding or there was
another important event that had been sitting around for six
months and I had no idea when I could do it.
(04:33):
Um I I I think you can recognize that holding
a wedding right now is probably a terrible idea. But
to understand the impulse to continue on with life, I
guess yeah. I mean, I think with weddings especially, it's
like people think so much money so far in advance
that I'm sure it's hard to say goodbye to that
(04:56):
money if you can't get it back if you cancel
the event, however, I'm extremely I think you should cancel
the event. That's my opinion. Well, the caller doesn't have
the ability to cancel the event, no, totally. Um. I
just mean I think people I've been getting into this
a little bit on Twitter with people because I do
(05:18):
think that people shouldn't try to hold especially big family
events safely. Because I just don't think it can be done. Uh,
they should just postpone it because it's the idea of
getting somebody sick at the wedding seems so much worse
than like it would make the wedding. Yeah, you don't
(05:40):
want your wedding to be like the time when your
entire family got infected with COVID. I think there has
to be a wait approach that subject and just say, okay,
but what if we all went with the best of intentions.
What if something bad did happen and then your wedding
was for It's like the wedding in Maine. Um, that
bunch of people died after I think many of them
(06:02):
hadn't even attended the wedding. It's just that when they
were infected. You know, the people who went to the
wedding were infected, they went on to spread it to
other family members. But I also think a wedding that
involves a family might be kind of the most dangerous
of situations because you're going to have people who are older. Um,
you're going to have people who are in closer contact,
(06:25):
who are hugging and stuff like that. So it just
seems like a uniquely dangerous situation. UM. But I do
wonder about how to talk to family about this, and
I definitely think we would want to have more calls
about how to talk to your family about quarantine and
stuff like that on the show, because it's something that
we're all navigating to UM and it's really interesting to
(06:48):
get that perspective. But I think I don't think you
should go to this wedding. Yeah, I don't think you
should go. I know it's hard if you have relatives
that are like very non confrontational and just what kind
end of bury this under underneath whatever other feelings they
aren't talking about. But I don't I don't know that
(07:09):
going and trying to make it safer, I mean, I
don't know. What do you think, Tess? Well, My issue
is that I feel strongly also that with weddings, um.
I you know, weddings are really really emotional and tricky
times for everyone involved. I've been in the position of
not being able to go to weddings I wanted to
(07:31):
go to for whatever reason, and that has been like
a friendship ender in certain cases. But I also I
was very upset when a good friend of mine couldn't
go to my wedding, and in retrospect, I look back
and think about how self centered I was being that
I got so furious, like she was bed rest, she
was pregnant, but I just wasn't even I was like,
(07:53):
that's this is horrible, But it doesn't matter. If there's
a person who can't make it to your wedding on
the day, you really don't care. I do you think
people get bridezilla brain worms? I don't know. I didn't
even think I was that terrible of a bridezilla, although
I wonder if I had been putting it off because
of a pandemic, if I would go, if I would
(08:13):
be edged into bridezilla territory, because I would just feel
like it was so unfair, that like this was wrecking
my day. It's all. It all just sounds so awful,
but it's you know, it's like the one opportunity for
a lot of people to get both sides of your
family together, especially if maybe they don't get along um,
(08:33):
which is not the case with me, but for a
lot of people. I think it's a way for families
to put aside differences and celebrate something and acknowledge the
blending of a family. Maybe they won't see each other
ever again, and that's for the best. But it's like
this one moment when you're all coming together as a family.
I think now too, because I was saying that I
was starting to see people going to rich people weddings
(08:57):
on social media, and that definitely seems like there's a
certain financial level of people who are just going ahead
with weddings because they think they can just throw so
much money at it that it won't be a problem.
I saw one where people were getting COVID tests at
(09:18):
the door, like rapid rapid tests, rapid tests which somebody
else is saying aren't necessarily accurate. So it's kind of
like security theater where everybody gets approved to go into
the wedding, but then you know it could be it
could be a false negative. I have an idea for
(09:38):
our caller. Yeah, this is one of the times and
I'm going to say I like radical honesty, but in
this case, I think the best course of action is
to lie. And if you don't want your family to
be angry at you or feel like you're some if
you don't feel like you can take a stand and
tell them that you don't think it's a good idea
to have the wedding at all, or that they shouldn't go.
(09:59):
You could have a cough. You could have a cough
and then you wouldn't have to go. I mean you
could also try to gently execute some kind of you know,
advisory to them about not doing it. But I understand
that in certain circumstances that's not going to happen. I
think it's hard to It's like your brother, you love them,
(10:21):
you want to go to their wedding. It's not just
like I don't feel like it, but you also are
genuinely concerned about their safety and if there's nothing you
can do to get them to postpone or call off
the wedding, I see also being torn about like going
and being on site and trying to keep all the
old people from going inside. Yeah, I don't think you
(10:42):
can go. When you said that, Molly, I was like,
I don't think our caller can go because I think
that the if you think that you could somehow make
it safer by going there, what you're really going to
do is make the wedding like a statement against the wedding,
and I don't think that's going to fly. I mean,
I think it's such a sensitive topic for people because
(11:05):
people do not want to call off these weddings. And
I think like a lot of things where it's like
we see that rich people are doing some things that
regular people can't do, and it's like, well, why can't
regular people do that too. There was the pictures of
the people who had a wedding a few weeks ago
where they had Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the officiant, and
(11:30):
that way viral because it seemed super dangerous and a
terrible idea because yeah, nobody was wearing a mask. It's like,
even even then it just was like, ah, not worth it. Yeah,
And not to be a total downer, but on the
other side of things, I know people and I've also
(11:51):
heard from people who have not been able to hold
memorial services for their relatives who have died, and not
being able to get together of people after the loss
of a loved one is so awful to comprehend that.
I think that's like the context of wondering about having
a wedding, you know, well, I think it's hard because
it's like, weddings are this joyful event. Nobody wants any
(12:14):
negativity anywhere around it. Even with the thing of the
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wedding going viral, like some people who
were like, can't you just let these people enjoy their wedding,
And it's like, no, because of the circumstances, Like I
don't know, I wouldn't think it was a great idea anyway, probably,
(12:35):
but it just seemed like if you were going to
hold a wedding during coronavirus, and especially if you were
going to have a very vulnerable elderly person who the
entire country was like depending on to stay alive, um,
you should like never post any pictures anywhere. I agree
(13:00):
at that, you know, I think that's what I keep
getting struck by. It's like people can't just do these things.
They like are posting about it, and I think that
helps normalize it in this fucked up way that makes
other people be like, oh, well, some people are having weddings,
like why can't we have our wedding? Well, that's also
been a trend all through quarantine. Of the only real
(13:21):
kind of metric you have for for gauging how your
own experience is matching other people's is through social media.
And you know, when one person posts a picture of
them hanging out with some friends, you notice you notice
it in a way that maybe you wouldn't if you
weren't so cut off, and just thinking like, oh, I
will I wonder where they are. I wonder if it's
(13:43):
safer where they are. I wonder if they've all been tested.
I wonder if they're in a pod. And so you
draw these conclusions that maybe you should not draw. Um.
But also with your earlier point about rich people weddings,
I actually think that this that in a way, if
you're not a rich person, but you've put down expensive
deposits potentially when you still had a job that you
maybe now don't have, it's the same thing, if not
(14:06):
more pressure to somehow get it done. Um. I mean,
if you don't have a wedding and you give up
that deposit, then that you probably aren't going to have
a wedding ever or for a long time, depending on
how things go. And that's that's really depressing. I mean,
it's not terrible, but it's it's a bomber. Yeah. I mean,
I think we're acknowledging it's depressing. And I think nobody
(14:29):
wants to think about depressing things in the context of
a joyful event like a wedding. But I think we
just have to call call a moratorium on big family
events for the foreseeable future, because it's not worth it
to get grandma sick. Um. Here's a question for our callers,
(14:49):
if you want to call in at two four oh
four six night. I want to hear from people who
have attended or been in zoom weddings, because I've seen
some that actually looked great, and I think it's a oh,
it definitely probably feels weird, but maybe the safest way
to adapt and still be able to like see your
friends and celebrate. So if you've been to one of those,
let us know. Yeah, maybe just the couple could go
(15:12):
to the venue so that they get something out of
their deposits. Yeah, it's just a live stream, do a
twitch show. Let's take a little break. We have got
another night call TuS. You want to take this night call, well,
(15:33):
we'll both be taking the nightcall. Hi, nightcall. Lovely episode
this week, especially all to talk about social media, which
I feel like we all talk and think so much
about and can never be done with us. Something that
I think about a lot with regards to social media
is my like digital footprint. I'm a very archives minded person.
(15:54):
And then I'm going to school for archives management, and
I am very concerned with the idea that my Twitter, Instagram,
and Tumbler are basically the only record that I have
on Facebook, I guess, as the only record that I
have of my teenage years, and that I would love
to be activate. But then would I lose that record
(16:16):
and all of the embarrassing posts and photos and at
all that go along with that. So that's something I
think about a lot and sort of agonize over. And
even though I've mostly stopped using social media data day,
I still don't want to get rid of it because
I want to preserve that sort of archive of my life. Um,
(16:37):
let me know what you guys think about this, and
do you consider your social media is to be, you know,
a record of your life or just a place to
post thanks by What do you think, Molly? I mean,
I think it's a great question. We have all and
you used to print out chats, right you have some
like oh yeah, I still have them. Yeah. I think
(16:58):
everything used to be a lot more ephemeral when we
first started on the internet, with stuff like a well,
it doesn't you know theoretically stay around. You can just
sort of remember that you talked to a lot of
people on chat. But now it is kind of like, oh,
Facebook is like the wall where your height was marked
(17:19):
for a long time and then it became, you know,
a fascist instrument. So do you want the wall where
you marked your height to stand? I think this is
such an interesting question, especially coming from an archivist. I
think of myself as very, um like emotionally tethered to
(17:39):
my online selves of the past, and I my Tumbler. Um.
At some point I migrated, like I duplicated it for
a WordPress that's private so that I would have a backup,
And that was when um, there was like a panic
that tumbler was gonna shut down and erase everything. But
when I see people who are digitizing their photos or
(18:00):
digitizing all of um the stuff you know that they've
had from like the seventies or eighties or whatever, I
always think about how I want to like un digitize
all of that stuff. UM. And I think a lot
about like printing out old blogs and like putting them
in a binder or stuff like that that you can't
really do with Instagram or Facebook or things that are
(18:21):
more visually oriented UM, and I mean with Tumbler too.
There's lots of like picture posts that you couldn't really
print out and get like the sense of them. But
I think that the impulse to do that has a
lot to do with the fact that kind of our
online selves are almost like external hard drives, where because
you're you're doing it online, you're not really thinking about
it because you know that what is going on is
(18:43):
being preserved. Um. So it's in a way I don't
retain memories like I would I think without that backup,
and then there's the fear that you'll just kind of
forget who you were, but that also that would maybe
still exist on the Internet, but you couldn't access it,
kind of like a disembodied double. Is that too dystopian?
(19:05):
I like it. I have tried to take a very
detached attitude in recent years from all of the content
that I've made over time, because I feel like I
don't have that much control over if something gets wiped,
So I've tried to be like like tears and rain
a little bit. Um. I definitely like ripped my own
(19:30):
archives from websites to just try and keep them, but
even then I'm like, oh, it's just in a Google
doc now, Like I agree with tests with the idea
of the digitizing things, of having physical copies of photos
and writing so that then you can untether yourself from
the digital version seems really appealing now. It also kind
(19:52):
of seems like a fun quarantine project. Every time it's
a fun quarantine project, I'm like, not that I'm doing
any fun or being projects, but the idea of kind
of forcing yourself to sit down and sift through and
choose what's important, even if that would mean looking at,
you know, fifteen years of Facebook activity and distilling it
(20:12):
down to two or three or five or six things
that you can pull and maybe just like scrap book
it or something. Yeah, I agree because it comes down
to me, for like, what were the five things I've
ever written on the Internet that I would like, be
proud of and want to continue existing? And then a
lot of it is ephemeral, And I felt like it
was ephemeral at the time. Uh, And that was kind
(20:35):
of what I liked about It was just like, oh,
you you let go of the balloon. Every day. You
can't just keep working on it forever and overworking it.
You have to just kind of like let it go.
So I'm I try to have that attitude a little
bit of like you just let it go. But it's
also easier to have that attitude when your trusty friend
has all your instant messages printed in our closet. Yeah,
(20:57):
it's easier when your friend tests is the arch ivest
those earlier years. I I it's weird. I keep those,
but they're they're almost all just kind of dense, like nonsense.
I don't know what the real value is in having them,
other than the idea that if I really ever feel
like I have no idea who I was, that I
(21:19):
could find out. Uh. But I mean it's a it's
a strange it's definitely strange stuff to have. But I
kind of I like the idea of knowing that the
full body of your work, so to speak, is not important,
but that like little glimpses of your past self could be. Yeah,
I think, uh rip some photos. I mean, I do
(21:41):
think people should divest from Facebook. I really do you
think that if you can get yourself off Facebook, I
think it's okay to just kind of like leave all
your stuff there and go to It's harder with with
things like Twitter and Instagram. I mean Instagram in particular,
because that's obviously just as bad as Facebook. You're not
going to get the same misinformation, but it's owned by
(22:03):
the same evil company. And that's kind of part of
the reason that I have trouble with the idea of
leaving Facebook is that I'm like, well, I I think
it should be all or nothing in a way. Um,
But with Instagram, you you certainly could make like they have,
you know, ways to make books, make like photo albums
out of all your pictures and stuff like that, but
(22:24):
you wouldn't have the comments. I don't know if those
are important to you. I don't think they're important to me.
Maybe they are, um, but I mean it's also maybe
these are excuses that I make just in order to
make my life easier and not do what is clearly
the right thing to do. I've definitely been wanting to
just get completely off lately, go back and forth because
(22:46):
I'm like, oh, I also need it to promote this show,
And there's so many excuses and reasons in my mind
of like why I can't just get off everything. But
I certainly have the like throw my phone in a
in a river and never use it again fantasy constantly.
I think also talking about the social dilemma. UM. Last
(23:08):
week or the week before. I think one of the
things that we realized is that we all are very
aware of the dangers of these things. I think everyone
who uses the Internet a lot and who uses social
media a lot is maybe not the target audience for
the social dilemma because we're informed about why this is bad.
But it is kind of a mixture of a feeling
(23:28):
like a professional responsibility to remain in contact with people, um,
and also that little bit of like, but I've been
I've existed on this place for so long, and if
I leave, then I'm gone. You know. Tears and rain,
tears and rain, tears and rain. I endorse this too
before we move on to altered States, which we'll be
(23:51):
talking about in the second half. I don't have a
night call about this, but a friend of mine got
a very strange email that was apparently sent out um
randomly two people in l A maybe from an old
list of of like a party or a nightclub or something.
It is an email from a place called spank eas Um.
(24:13):
The Spanky's is apparently a speakeasy where you text Hello suckers,
which is I guess like a prohibition joke or something
two three one three three one three, and they send
you a location, a time, and a password. And it
is a party that goes from eleven pm until five am. Uh,
(24:34):
with mandatory masks, social distancing and forced they claim, and
no photos. Um. There is an emphasis on quote discretion, secrecy,
and safety. It is so bizarre to be doing this
during quarantine. Um. And it's especially strange to send this
out unprompted two people. I think, yeah, you hipped me
(24:58):
to this and then set me a Reddit throw out
of people who had received it who were trying to
figure out how they got on this list. It seems
like it comes from some other nightlife promoters. People were like, oh,
I guess I went to a sketchy nightclub one time.
Probably that's why I'm on this list. Uh. But I'm
(25:18):
not super surprised that people are throwing underground parties at
this point in quarantine. I guess the first one was
two months ago though, the only thing that you can
really find about this at at this point when we're
recording this episode is just this one Reddit thread um,
and the subject is spanky speak easy. And so two
(25:39):
months ago, you know, people started receiving this, and then
I guess this is like maybe a re launch or something.
But the address that's listed in the footer is like
this curve on Mulholland, totally empty of any building. Yeah,
it's not a real address, but the whole pitch is like, oh,
it's at a mansion. It's like an after hours party
(26:01):
at a fancy mansion in the hills. And so they
give this address that sounds like it could be because
it's like a mulhalland Drive address right that just is nowhere,
but it gives the the aura of like, this will
be somewhere around here, we just can't tell you exactly
where until you sign up. The other weird thing about
(26:24):
this is that UM in the Reddit thread, which again
the only way I can try and figure out what's
up with Spanky's UM, someone discovered that there was a
live stream that was maybe connected to this, with a
test video UM where a guy is saying can you
hear me? Over and over and the Reddit user did
(26:45):
a facial recognition match and the computers matched him with
a guy from a Russian YouTube channel. UM adding a
layer of an extra layer of what the funk to
the Spanky's email, but it's a it's a true local mystery.
So if you've ever been to Spanky's, won't you please
let us know? Yeah, I mean I looked into it
(27:05):
a little bit more because I got really curious when
you said that, and I was like, who's throwing eyes
wide shut parties right now? Not a good idea, but
I'm sure there's an audience for that of people who
want to go to after hours even now. Um, But
it seems like the people who threw it exists. They exist.
(27:27):
They're like a real nightlife shingle. And they had a
website even and when I went to their website, they
were honoring a DJ. We're like saying happy birthday to
a DJ who Then my boyfriend said, oh yeah that
DJ got got me too. Oh So I think maybe
(27:50):
these people are not the best people throwing the COVID party.
Have also been a bunch of big parties on Mulholland,
like hype house type of things. Um, and so there's
some speculation as to whether these are you know, influencer
parties or or what. Uh. But I just found like
(28:11):
the pros of this email to be gross. I mean,
it was like want to be celebs it's really grass.
It's like bring your drugs, do do the sex? I know,
um it does. I I have been thinking a lot
about uh dinner House m which was like uh brief.
I don't know actually how brief brief for me? UH
(28:33):
party venue in l A in the like mid aughts.
I guess. Um. I went there with Molly a couple
of times, but it operated after hours and it had
a usually great DJs, and had that feeling that it
wasn't really supposed to be there. Um. But I've definitely
been feeling nostalgic. But I've also been feeling nostalgic for
(28:53):
just going out to any literally any place. Yeah. I
mean I think people are very cooped up, and some
people would probably just take the risk and go to
a big party that they're paying for, they're promising, you know,
social distancing and masks and whatever. It seems impossible to
(29:16):
deal with to me personally, but I'm sure that that
will be happening more. It just seems crazy to me
to like in COVID to prohibition, I know, I mean,
that's kind of the wildest reach here is that. Um,
it's very different. Actually it is different, Yeah, because the
whole thing is like, Oh, they don't want us to party,
(29:38):
and it's like, yeah, yeah, we don't want us to party.
Your party, you die, don't party. Um. Also, I'm like
the thrill that one might get in the before times
from going to a super after hours, secret whatever, like
that kind of adrenaline rush of like what am I doing?
You could get that just from going inside grocery store. Now, well, yeah,
(30:01):
it sounds like the Disney World thing. It's like it
seems like something that might be fun in the moment,
and then you would have the world's worst existential hangover
afterwards of like, oh no, am I gonna die because
I went to an after hours Yeah, and you'd be
right to freak out. Well, let's take a little break
and when we come back, we will talk about Altered States. Hello,
(30:32):
So we recently watched Altered States. This was the first
time I had seen Altered States. Uh, in my mind,
but I've been told that I watched it a long
time ago and just let it fly away tears in
the rain style. Um, Molly, you just watched it. Was
that the first time you'd seen it? Yeah? I thought
I had seen it, but it turns out I had not. Well,
(30:52):
it rules this. This movie is UH released directed by
Ken Russell, which only happened after a shake up. UM.
The screenplay and source novel by Patty Chayevsky, and boy,
it does not sound like this movie was fun to
make a no but it's fun to watch, super fun
(31:16):
to watch. Um. But for background on the problems with
making it, I guess this was kind of came about
as sort of a goof between Chayevsky meeting up with
his best friend Bob Fosse and also maybe Herb Gardner
at the Russian Tea Room. UM, and they wanted to
make a movie with They wanted to pitch a movie
to Dino de Laurentis, and they were like jekyline High,
(31:40):
like King Kong, but he becomes a movie star. And
then Chayevsky went home and kind of came up with
Altered States. UM, would you like to summarize the plot
of this film? All? Sure, it was a novel first,
and it's about a scientist who gets really into isolation
tanks and then combining isolation tanks with taking intense psychedelic drugs,
(32:06):
and that's pretty much what is about. It's an eighties
guy pushing it to the limit and pushes it fucking
pushes it to the limit. He does. Um. There was
a director, Arthur Pen was originally uh slated to direct
this and he cast it, uh and it's a great cast,
William Hurt coming very close to Kevin Costner, territory here
(32:31):
um and Blair Brown, Bob Balaban. But I guess Arthur
Penn got into a fight with Chayevsky and quit, and
then Ken Russell was brought on after they offered it
to like a million other directors, and then Chayevsky and
Russell fought and uh so you know, Shayevsky is now
credited as Sydney Aaron because didn't want anything to do
(32:52):
with it, but this is Saevsky was eventually, i think
banned from the set because he would just tell Ken
Russell what he wanted, and Ken Russell was like, I'm
trying to direct mate the dialogue. Chievsky wouldn't let anyone
touch the dialogue. And the dialogue is the funniest thing, Like, yeah,
it's funny because it's based on a novel, and the
(33:13):
novels incredibly wordy and dialogue heavy and has all these
monologues about like spirituality, and drugs and and God and
finding yourself. And Ken Russell was like, oh my god,
there's so much talking in this book, and Tchaievsky doesn't
want any of it cut. So he did a smart thing,
which was to have people kind of overlapping talking, kind
(33:35):
of Altman style. And it works really well because it's
also said in this amazing milieu of scuzzy academics. Yeah,
it's it's a It also has like a Sorkin. It's
like Altman meets Sorkin or something. But it it really encapsulates.
I was not born in night when this came out,
but I do feel like the dinner parties where they're
(33:58):
playing the doors and smoke can a joint and all
of these academics are having these fast paced conversations and
they're talking about psycho analysis. Seemed very realistic too, and
also like a dream world to me for some reason.
Oh well, also, everyone's dressed fabulously. There's a lot of
aqua marine turtlenecks and flowing nightgowns. Yeah, it just feels
(34:20):
like you don't get to see the like scientists who
are laid back that often anymore. It's like when you
see scientists and movies. They're always like, dcor, we have
to do this. But it's like in poulter Geist how
the parents smoke pot. It's just that like long seventies
thing where it's like, oh yeah, everyone's like do an
(34:40):
acid and having weird key parties. There are so many
scenes where it's an emotional conversation but also intellect in
an intellectual conversation held between two completely naked people draped
on love seats, where it's just like I had a party,
I stripped down, I'm lying on a love seat now
I want to talk about my work as an anthropologist
(35:03):
and also what's going on between us. Babe. Yeah. The
horny academia and horny scientists of this movie are fantastic,
especially Bob Balaban, who's kind of the straight man. Just
like Bob Balaban floating around in this movie being like, hey,
maybe don't completely lose touch with your ego in order
(35:25):
to become the goath head god man, the six eyed
goathead god man. Um. Bob Balaban in this movie is
the solution to the question we've been posing, who does
Keith RNEI look exactly like, Oh my god, there you go. Wow,
the short guy energy. You have the bespectacled and beard
(35:47):
and also the kind of like lounging and judging. You know. Totally,
although I feel like Bob Balaban has too much sexual
charisma for the totally true. I find Bob Balaban just
like magnetic. I love him to be magnetic. He is
magnetic and he's great in this um. They also have
a funny relationship William Hurt and Bob Balaban in this movie.
(36:09):
Of like, William Hurt really wants to be in the
tank and he really wants to do the drugs, but
he also needs his crew there um, both to monitor him,
but also because in his mind and also maybe in
Chaievski's vision, they care so much about looking at what's
up with his brain. Yeah, I mean I was a
little confused about what the purpose of these experiments was.
(36:32):
It was just um, to go as far into your
brain as you possibly can. I looked into it more
based on a real guy. Oh what really? Yeah, it's
Lily who invented isolation tanks and also was the guy
that was famous for trying to talk to dolphins. So
(36:53):
he inspired like three movies and one of them is
Day of the Dolphin, which we also talked about on
Night Call, but we should watch some time. I think
he was just on the on the cutting edge of
weird science. Did he get addicted to his isolation tank?
It seems like one does. Wow, can you imagine would
(37:16):
you do the isolation tank? Let's get into it. I
feel like we've circled this and every time my answer
is different. Having been kind of in an isolation tank
via quarantine, I don't want more of that now. Um,
the idea of doing hallucinogenic drugs and then going into
an isolation tank is horrible. Uh, I don't know how
(37:39):
you feel about that. Isn't the womb and isolation tank? Man?
You're going back to the womb? I yeah? This movie also,
though the purpose is not stated, I guess William Hurts
character Dr Eddie Jessup doesn't realize what's going to happen
when he takes this drug in the isolation tank. But
(38:01):
what does happen spoiler alert, is that he somehow mutates
into an early form of man that he he saw
on his initial trip, which was in Mexico. I think, um,
he was given a stew of mushrooms and roots and
his own blood, and then he saw ape like creatures
(38:22):
that were moving very gracefully, and then he was he
became one of them, but only in his mind. Then
when he goes into the isolation tank and is taking
a I believe synthesized version of that drug, he grows
hair and like frosts at the mouth and wants to
eat a deer and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah,
this movie is just a feast for the eyes. It
(38:44):
is extremely fun to watch. Um. I don't know that
it makes drugs look like something you want to do,
but in in exaggerating what a bad trip is like,
it definitely is like a fun thing to enjoy. They
go to Mexico to get the experimental drug that will
(39:06):
push him even further. It's mushrooms. It's some kind of
magic mushroom, but it seems a lot more like ayahuasca,
just in terms of how it is done and how
it affects people. And they do it in a cave
with everybody wearing tribal face paint. Um. I just read
a thing about this guy who's like the psychedelics concierge
(39:28):
to the stars, Zappy Zappy. It said, like, would you
trip with someone who was the psychedelic concierge to lamar
Odom and Michelle Rodriguez, and the answer is, I do
not think I would like to trip with Zappy. You
wouldn't trip with Zappy. What's his deal? He's like a
former something else. And then he was like, I think
(39:51):
my true calling is to be your your trip buddy,
uh and take you take you to places where we
can score the hallucinogens and people love it. And I
guess lamar Odom was like really transformed by the experience
of tripping with Zappy. I think when I saw the
headline to it just said like Michelle, and my brain
(40:12):
filled in Obama and I was like, wow, I want
to know about like tripping with Michelle Obama and surprised.
But um, somebody told me because I was talking about
this movie a lot after I saw it, and a
friend was telling me about a coworker of THEIRS who
did ayahuasca a lot of times. They did it, like
(40:32):
five or six times, and they said only the first
two times were great. Oh no, really, they said, you
kind of like reach the thing you're going to reach.
She was like, in the first time, I like got
all the way down to like unmake myself and the
second time, I like rebuilt myself up, and then the third, fourth,
and fifth, and possibly six times I was just throwing
(40:54):
up a lot. It's like you can't treat your body
or mind like a lego set that you just disassemble
and reassemble a million times. Well, I think it's interesting that,
like with any kind of drug there is, there does
seem to be a limit to the amount of it
you can do that you'll get something out of it,
especially with psychedelic drugs and a theogens where you are
(41:15):
maybe going to have some kind of a revelation or
feel like you are, it does seem like it has
kind of diminishing returns after a certain point. Yeah, I
I'm interested in that. I have never taken a large
dose of hallucinogens. Uh, oh, you haven't taken a large dose.
I've never taken a large dose of hallucinogens. Have you
(41:36):
taken UM any smaller doses to us? Well, my good
friend who has taken smaller doses of hallucinogens has really
liked it. But they did report that UM it builds up,
so depending on which protocol you do, if it builds
up if you're taking it multiple days in a row.
There's the potential that you might find that one day
(41:59):
you are taking apart your brain of legos a little
more than you may have intended to. But I think
on this podcast were non judgmental about people who take hallucinogens.
Uh in general. Maybe I can speak for you, and
I think that we're like, alter your state a little safely.
We're all pro altering your state under the right circumstances.
(42:22):
The interesting thing though about altered states is that supposedly
you would. I mean, he's so Eddie Jessup is very
concerned with God and religion and like where he fits.
William Hurt is on one in this movie is amazing.
I kept thinking it was like a prequel to The
Big Chill. Well, that's why I was thinking of Kevin
(42:42):
Costner too, because I was like, Kevin Costner and William
Hurt are just two sides of the same coin. And
then of course in Big Chill we saw who prevailed.
Oh yeah, and this was this was Hurt's first movie too.
And also Drew Barrymore is in this as Drew Barrymore
is one of the children who gets left behind by
her father doing too many drugs, which feels you know,
(43:06):
a little intertextual on the nose. Um. But if you're
a person who's so obsessed with losing your ego, like
finding god within and the singularity and all of that
kind of stuff, it just seems interesting that his journey
in this movie, William Hurt's character is to become is
(43:26):
to go from a self involved eighties guy who like
is really just obsessed with his inner workings and obsessed
with who he is and everyone else is just a
bit player in his life. To a thoroughly more self
obsessed person. Well, I like, I like that he becomes
like a homunculous Yeah, there are some great shots of
(43:48):
his arms bubbling. Oh my god. Yeah. The practical effects
in this movie are unbelievable, and I think it does
a really good job of trying to make visual things
that are not probably like corporeal when you are tripping,
but to try and replicate when it feels like to
(44:09):
trip balls using green screens and stuff. But this movie
does a great job of creating an aesthetic. And apparently
Chayevsky was really um particular about those scenes, the like
you know, kind of fireball like the iTunes visualizer scenes
basically and there's there's some great shots of Blair Brown
(44:31):
kind of sphinx like against a backdrop of the universe
that's glittering. Uh. If you've ever been served a targeted
ad from this one weird micro dosing company, um they have,
it looks just ripped from altered states. But also it's
interesting to me, I did not know that Patty Chayevsky
was in psychoanalysis for a super long time, starting in
(44:53):
the fifties, to deal with like rage and violent behavior.
And it does seem to be a movie about like
a man who is very witty and intellectual. Not witty,
I shouldn't say what. He has no sense of humor,
but an intellectual and a fast talking guy who's like
really in control, but he just longs to lose, to
(45:14):
go back to like a primal state where he like
rips a deer open and eats its guts. And it
seems like a personal a personal project in many ways, right. Well,
I mean, I think if you've seen Network you can
kind of catch catch that drift about Schaievski. But it
is sort of like this. These people are also talking,
(45:34):
they can't stop talking, they can't stop thinking, and all
they really want is to like be forced to stop
talking and thinking by something greater than themselves. But look
how much talking he does in the tank. Can you
imagine being in an isolation tank and just like going
the whole time. It's a very cocaine movie in that
sense too, where you're like, he's not just doing the
(45:55):
Iowa SA but he's also just like high on like
what an alpha he is. He's like tells his future
wife Blair Brown, He's just like, I'm not like husband material,
but like I'm going to fuck your brains out and
you'll never forget, you know. And he starts going on
about religion during and she's like, well that's when they're
like being naked and sitting in bed, just like, oh, well,
(46:17):
you know, the Holy Spirit comes to you when you're
in the tank, and can you fully get rid of
the sphinx that sits on your head? I don't think
I asked you the same question you asked me. Would
you go in the deprivation tank? I mean not right now,
but I think so. Yeah. My friend Mike, who was
a big Altered States fan, booked an isolation tank in
(46:41):
the Valley. They are not super surprisingly mostly located in
the San Fernando Valley at this point, Um he didn't
like it as much as he thought he was going to,
because I think he said he was just like too
conscious the water kind of smells like clary and stuff,
and that you start focusing on that because you can't
(47:04):
focus on anything visual. But friend of the podcast Marrow
Wilson sent a message to say that she's done isolation
Tanks and loved it really and was surprised to love
it because she is very claustrophobic. She said she lowered
the door, that you can kind of keep the door
(47:26):
propped open for as long as you want, and that
she was doing it like a little bit at a time,
leaving it like an inch open at the end, and
then finally she felt comfortable enough to shut it all
the way and that she totally got into it. I
don't remember, did you do the James Terrell thing that
they had at Lackman was kind of traveling around where
(47:47):
it was being shut in the light coffin. I didn't
do the pod. Yeah, I didn't do the pod the
light coffin. That seemed a little scary to me. Oh
you did it, I did it. I loved it. That's
so altered states. Yeah, it really was, and I was
I was very concerned about it because I too get claustrophobic. Um.
And it felt like I had read a lot of
(48:11):
things that implied that you could really not like it.
If you didn't like it, you were not going to
mildly dislike it, you were going to violently dislike it. Um.
But yeah, I thought it was really fascinating. I think
that to me being in water, um, when you said
the distracting chlorine smell, I was like, yeah, see that's
the issue. Uh. We've talked also, I think um off
(48:35):
pod maybe about an isolation tank that how to sign
no pooping in the tank, and you know, uh, you
get relaxed, well the thought that of anyone pooping in
the tank and then you being the next person in
the tank, it doesn't matter how well they clean it
like that. But if you're William Hurt, you've got your
own tank. Yeah. And also I mean he he started
(48:59):
off in a fair really fairly forced our tank, but
then had to move down to the more motel six
level tank, the like tank that they had to kind
of scrape the rust off of and it looks like
a giant locker. It's like he gets addicted to the tank. Yeah,
it's not the drug, it's like the being in isolation.
(49:20):
And and it's really I think he's also addicted to
having two of his smart friends studying him. He needs
to be studied. I mean, I think you could really
see it if you want to take it to Chayevsky
as like a metaphor for writing for somebody who's just
like being in their own brain all the time, because
that is what writing feels like to me. Sometimes it's
(49:42):
like I have to be completely in an isolation tank
of the soul to get anything done, which is why
sometimes it works well, like in the middle of the night.
I mean having Also this is another link to quarantine,
but the idea of having a tiny space that's just
for you and just for your work or just for
(50:03):
your thoughts is extremely appealing. It's just water was thinking too,
because in Quarantine the idea of like an escape pod.
I've been thinking about total recall a lot also, especially
when we were locked down with the fires and really
couldn't go outside. I was just like, would I would
(50:24):
I do the brain implant that lets me go on
like a vacation to grease right now, where I have
no idea that it's not real, you know. And then
somebody was like, no, you wouldn't because Elon Musk is
the person offering it. That's true. I mean much like
you wouldn't want to trip with Zappy necessarily, you wouldn't
(50:45):
want to uh total recall with Elon Musk, no set
and setting. I definitely was like, I would want to
go on like a virtual vacation right now. I wouldn't
pick the one where I have to save the world
and get the girl like he doesn't total recall. I
would pick the one that's like, you know, uh, very mundane,
(51:07):
just like eating a great shrimp taco somewhere else. Well,
that's like San Junipero, right exactly, Like just go on
a beach vacation safely, but it's an implant in your brain. Well,
I watched We talked about this on the pod, but
I watched San Junipero UM a couple of months ago
after we've been in quarantine for a while, and that
(51:28):
actually sums up a lot of what we've been talking
about in this episode in terms of like preserving your
digital past as well as trying to like create a
digital escape, you know, and and how those things are linked.
I mean, it feels like over the past couple of
months we've been kind of bumping up against the walls
of the Internet and realizing the necessity of creating different
(51:49):
ways to communicate, because like, obviously we're going to need
to communicate, We're going to need to work remotely, but
the structures that are in place to allow us to
do so are all kind of correct, you know, Yeah,
they're all really bad. I mean, I think if anything
would I really want is like an offline space. I
think what we really want is for everybody to be
(52:12):
in their isolation tanks and be able to combine brain waves.
I think that's the perfect solution. Is that what podcasting is?
I think? Yeah, it's just like, wait, that reminds me
of something something we're doing right now. Um, well, I
think that does it for this week. We are looking
forward to having Emily back next week. Thank you so
(52:32):
much for listening to the podcast. If you're enjoying the show,
won't you please leave us a review and subscribe on
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can
also follow us on social media. We are a Nightcall
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Bad Places. You can leave us a nightcall at two
four oh four six night and of course we would
(52:52):
always appreciate you supporting the podcast on Patreon. We are
patreon dot com forward slash Nightcall. We have a bunch
of great reward tiers. We do bonus podcast book club.
It's fun. Join us, Join us and leave us some
nightcalls about your best trips, your worst trips, your feelings
about isolation tanks, anything else, whether people should go to
(53:15):
weddings sky, if you've been to Spanky's, If Spanky's is
really just a brain implant where you say you're going
to go to an after hours and then when you
get there, they put a chip in your brain. That's
the conspiracy theory we will push. That's why it has
no fixed address. So yeah, we'll see you next week
(53:37):
for another Nightcall up.
It's eleven eleven PM in an isolation tank and you're
listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome to night Call,
a Colin show for our dystopian reality. I am Molly
(00:21):
Lambert and with me is Tess Lynch. And there is
no Emily this week because she's driving back across the country,
which sounds fun. Yeah, godspeed Emily. Hey Test, how are you, Daran?
I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. I mean is that
we've talked about this before, but there's no answer like
pretty good. I'm pretty good, I think is the only
(00:43):
right answer. I'm pretty happy that we can breathe the
air again. That's the main thing. Yes, that is the
main thing. Um. Yeah, it's clearing up a bit, but
it's still kind of it's still kind of chunky. And
I've been suspicious that the a q I is not
accurate it. That's my conspiracy theory, because there was a
(01:03):
day recently where it was an a QUI of I
think eighty three, which is considered moderate, but it was
I was sneezing and the air tasted like a grill
and I was not a fan. I think we're right
at the point where the moderate air feels like delicious
fresh air, because at least it's not the very bad air.
(01:26):
It's not the chunky, chunky air, chewy air. I like
the idea of the air tasting like a grill. It
had such a flavor to it. It was very and
especially because um, one of the symptoms of coronavirus is
a change in taste and smell. Yeah, it made me
very paranoid. But no, it was just the air. Yeah
it did. It did like kind of taste like a
(01:48):
Western bacon cheese burger. Yeah. It had the mesquite. Yeah,
it was mesquite. Uh. My boyfriend was like, oh, are
you burning a fall candle, and it was like, no,
it's just uh, the actual fire air, not a bonfire candle.
The air is just burning itself. Should we take a
nightcall to kick things off? Let's take a night call, Hey, Nicol,
(02:09):
this one is a little bit of a doozy, so
I appreciate you alful listening. I'm the oldest support kids
and my youngest brother. Basically, uh, it's not going to
camp to us as weddings this year in Rolla, Alabama.
I feel kind of crazy for even wondering how you
go because there's a general generational pandemic on and every
chance they have to spread it, it's like a chance
to further home people. But the only reason I'm even
(02:29):
questioning it is because I really love him and his fiance,
And it seems like the mainly reason they haven't called
it off is because my brother's feature father in law
mother in law have a bunch of deposits down on
a bunch of venues in Alabama. Their transporters, they're Republicans.
They think the virus is real. They just are also thinking,
like what we're doing is legal, and everything says it's
safe as far as like state and national regulations are concerns,
(02:49):
but we're also gonna like sign waivers to get into
a venue and the weddings inside, and uh, it just
used a fe of the sinker. I'm going to use
all agency on my house, say I feel about coronavirus
if that you can get up. So I'm really corn
Part of me wants to uh absolutely not go because
that's the ship and we shouldn't support it. And the
other part of me is like, if it's just going
(03:09):
to be my family who is like silent white people
that don't cough but aren't necessarily rich enough to be watched,
that like won't stand up for themselves, that are just
gonna accept how this like not say stuff. Someone needs
to be an advocate for them, advocate for them. And
then part of me also wants to go just to like,
I don't know, try to make it safer. It seems
crazy to even think about this, and I feel like
a lot of people that are facing these kinds of choices,
(03:30):
So maybe it's really selfish for me to even ask,
But I'm just wondering if there's any general advice but
I can get. I don't know, maybe someone else has
gone through this and uh still also say, hey, man,
I went and I got COVID. Don't go to anyone
else who has a weird family that's not canceling stuff. Sorry,
we're all in it. And also lost, we didn't make
this all safe. Cheer jol. Have a great week. That
(03:51):
was a really good call. Thank you for calling in.
Also an interesting follow up to last week's call about
going to Disney World. Yeah, totally. I think a lot
of people, especially as we head into the fall, there
are some things that have been on calendars for a
long time that now that we're like deep into COVID.
It seems like people are like, well, maybe we'll just
(04:13):
go through with it because we have it planned. Yeah,
And I can imagine I don't ever want to downplay
how much it would frustrate me and make me sad
if I had been planning a wedding or there was
another important event that had been sitting around for six
months and I had no idea when I could do it.
(04:33):
Um I I I think you can recognize that holding
a wedding right now is probably a terrible idea. But
to understand the impulse to continue on with life, I
guess yeah. I mean, I think with weddings especially, it's
like people think so much money so far in advance
that I'm sure it's hard to say goodbye to that
(04:56):
money if you can't get it back if you cancel
the event, however, I'm extremely I think you should cancel
the event. That's my opinion. Well, the caller doesn't have
the ability to cancel the event, no, totally. Um. I
just mean I think people I've been getting into this
a little bit on Twitter with people because I do
(05:18):
think that people shouldn't try to hold especially big family
events safely. Because I just don't think it can be done. Uh,
they should just postpone it because it's the idea of
getting somebody sick at the wedding seems so much worse
than like it would make the wedding. Yeah, you don't
(05:40):
want your wedding to be like the time when your
entire family got infected with COVID. I think there has
to be a wait approach that subject and just say, okay,
but what if we all went with the best of intentions.
What if something bad did happen and then your wedding
was for It's like the wedding in Maine. Um, that
bunch of people died after I think many of them
(06:02):
hadn't even attended the wedding. It's just that when they
were infected. You know, the people who went to the
wedding were infected, they went on to spread it to
other family members. But I also think a wedding that
involves a family might be kind of the most dangerous
of situations because you're going to have people who are older. Um,
you're going to have people who are in closer contact,
(06:25):
who are hugging and stuff like that. So it just
seems like a uniquely dangerous situation. UM. But I do
wonder about how to talk to family about this, and
I definitely think we would want to have more calls
about how to talk to your family about quarantine and
stuff like that on the show, because it's something that
we're all navigating to UM and it's really interesting to
(06:48):
get that perspective. But I think I don't think you
should go to this wedding. Yeah, I don't think you
should go. I know it's hard if you have relatives
that are like very non confrontational and just what kind
end of bury this under underneath whatever other feelings they
aren't talking about. But I don't I don't know that
(07:09):
going and trying to make it safer, I mean, I
don't know. What do you think, Tess? Well, My issue
is that I feel strongly also that with weddings, um.
I you know, weddings are really really emotional and tricky
times for everyone involved. I've been in the position of
not being able to go to weddings I wanted to
(07:31):
go to for whatever reason, and that has been like
a friendship ender in certain cases. But I also I
was very upset when a good friend of mine couldn't
go to my wedding, and in retrospect, I look back
and think about how self centered I was being that
I got so furious, like she was bed rest, she
was pregnant, but I just wasn't even I was like,
(07:53):
that's this is horrible, But it doesn't matter. If there's
a person who can't make it to your wedding on
the day, you really don't care. I do you think
people get bridezilla brain worms? I don't know. I didn't
even think I was that terrible of a bridezilla, although
I wonder if I had been putting it off because
of a pandemic, if I would go, if I would
(08:13):
be edged into bridezilla territory, because I would just feel
like it was so unfair, that like this was wrecking
my day. It's all. It all just sounds so awful,
but it's you know, it's like the one opportunity for
a lot of people to get both sides of your
family together, especially if maybe they don't get along um,
(08:33):
which is not the case with me, but for a
lot of people. I think it's a way for families
to put aside differences and celebrate something and acknowledge the
blending of a family. Maybe they won't see each other
ever again, and that's for the best. But it's like
this one moment when you're all coming together as a family.
I think now too, because I was saying that I
was starting to see people going to rich people weddings
(08:57):
on social media, and that definitely seems like there's a
certain financial level of people who are just going ahead
with weddings because they think they can just throw so
much money at it that it won't be a problem.
I saw one where people were getting COVID tests at
(09:18):
the door, like rapid rapid tests, rapid tests which somebody
else is saying aren't necessarily accurate. So it's kind of
like security theater where everybody gets approved to go into
the wedding, but then you know it could be it
could be a false negative. I have an idea for
(09:38):
our caller. Yeah, this is one of the times and
I'm going to say I like radical honesty, but in
this case, I think the best course of action is
to lie. And if you don't want your family to
be angry at you or feel like you're some if
you don't feel like you can take a stand and
tell them that you don't think it's a good idea
to have the wedding at all, or that they shouldn't go.
(09:59):
You could have a cough. You could have a cough
and then you wouldn't have to go. I mean you
could also try to gently execute some kind of you know,
advisory to them about not doing it. But I understand
that in certain circumstances that's not going to happen. I
think it's hard to It's like your brother, you love them,
(10:21):
you want to go to their wedding. It's not just
like I don't feel like it, but you also are
genuinely concerned about their safety and if there's nothing you
can do to get them to postpone or call off
the wedding, I see also being torn about like going
and being on site and trying to keep all the
old people from going inside. Yeah, I don't think you
(10:42):
can go. When you said that, Molly, I was like,
I don't think our caller can go because I think
that the if you think that you could somehow make
it safer by going there, what you're really going to
do is make the wedding like a statement against the wedding,
and I don't think that's going to fly. I mean,
I think it's such a sensitive topic for people because
(11:05):
people do not want to call off these weddings. And
I think like a lot of things where it's like
we see that rich people are doing some things that
regular people can't do, and it's like, well, why can't
regular people do that too. There was the pictures of
the people who had a wedding a few weeks ago
where they had Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the officiant, and
(11:30):
that way viral because it seemed super dangerous and a
terrible idea because yeah, nobody was wearing a mask. It's like,
even even then it just was like, ah, not worth it. Yeah,
And not to be a total downer, but on the
other side of things, I know people and I've also
(11:51):
heard from people who have not been able to hold
memorial services for their relatives who have died, and not
being able to get together of people after the loss
of a loved one is so awful to comprehend that.
I think that's like the context of wondering about having
a wedding, you know, well, I think it's hard because
it's like, weddings are this joyful event. Nobody wants any
(12:14):
negativity anywhere around it. Even with the thing of the
Ruth Bader Ginsburg wedding going viral, like some people who
were like, can't you just let these people enjoy their wedding,
And it's like, no, because of the circumstances, Like I
don't know, I wouldn't think it was a great idea anyway, probably,
(12:35):
but it just seemed like if you were going to
hold a wedding during coronavirus, and especially if you were
going to have a very vulnerable elderly person who the
entire country was like depending on to stay alive, um,
you should like never post any pictures anywhere. I agree
(13:00):
at that, you know, I think that's what I keep
getting struck by. It's like people can't just do these things.
They like are posting about it, and I think that
helps normalize it in this fucked up way that makes
other people be like, oh, well, some people are having weddings,
like why can't we have our wedding? Well, that's also
been a trend all through quarantine. Of the only real
(13:21):
kind of metric you have for for gauging how your
own experience is matching other people's is through social media.
And you know, when one person posts a picture of
them hanging out with some friends, you notice you notice
it in a way that maybe you wouldn't if you
weren't so cut off, and just thinking like, oh, I
will I wonder where they are. I wonder if it's
(13:43):
safer where they are. I wonder if they've all been tested.
I wonder if they're in a pod. And so you
draw these conclusions that maybe you should not draw. Um.
But also with your earlier point about rich people weddings,
I actually think that this that in a way, if
you're not a rich person, but you've put down expensive
deposits potentially when you still had a job that you
maybe now don't have, it's the same thing, if not
(14:06):
more pressure to somehow get it done. Um. I mean,
if you don't have a wedding and you give up
that deposit, then that you probably aren't going to have
a wedding ever or for a long time, depending on
how things go. And that's that's really depressing. I mean,
it's not terrible, but it's it's a bomber. Yeah. I mean,
I think we're acknowledging it's depressing. And I think nobody
(14:29):
wants to think about depressing things in the context of
a joyful event like a wedding. But I think we
just have to call call a moratorium on big family
events for the foreseeable future, because it's not worth it
to get grandma sick. Um. Here's a question for our callers,
(14:49):
if you want to call in at two four oh
four six night. I want to hear from people who
have attended or been in zoom weddings, because I've seen
some that actually looked great, and I think it's a oh,
it definitely probably feels weird, but maybe the safest way
to adapt and still be able to like see your
friends and celebrate. So if you've been to one of those,
let us know. Yeah, maybe just the couple could go
(15:12):
to the venue so that they get something out of
their deposits. Yeah, it's just a live stream, do a
twitch show. Let's take a little break. We have got
another night call TuS. You want to take this night call, well,
(15:33):
we'll both be taking the nightcall. Hi, nightcall. Lovely episode
this week, especially all to talk about social media, which
I feel like we all talk and think so much
about and can never be done with us. Something that
I think about a lot with regards to social media
is my like digital footprint. I'm a very archives minded person.
(15:54):
And then I'm going to school for archives management, and
I am very concerned with the idea that my Twitter, Instagram,
and Tumbler are basically the only record that I have
on Facebook, I guess, as the only record that I
have of my teenage years, and that I would love
to be activate. But then would I lose that record
(16:16):
and all of the embarrassing posts and photos and at
all that go along with that. So that's something I
think about a lot and sort of agonize over. And
even though I've mostly stopped using social media data day,
I still don't want to get rid of it because
I want to preserve that sort of archive of my life. Um,
(16:37):
let me know what you guys think about this, and
do you consider your social media is to be, you know,
a record of your life or just a place to
post thanks by What do you think, Molly? I mean,
I think it's a great question. We have all and
you used to print out chats, right you have some
like oh yeah, I still have them. Yeah. I think
(16:58):
everything used to be a lot more ephemeral when we
first started on the internet, with stuff like a well,
it doesn't you know theoretically stay around. You can just
sort of remember that you talked to a lot of
people on chat. But now it is kind of like, oh,
Facebook is like the wall where your height was marked
(17:19):
for a long time and then it became, you know,
a fascist instrument. So do you want the wall where
you marked your height to stand? I think this is
such an interesting question, especially coming from an archivist. I
think of myself as very, um like emotionally tethered to
(17:39):
my online selves of the past, and I my Tumbler. Um.
At some point I migrated, like I duplicated it for
a WordPress that's private so that I would have a backup,
And that was when um, there was like a panic
that tumbler was gonna shut down and erase everything. But
when I see people who are digitizing their photos or
(18:00):
digitizing all of um the stuff you know that they've
had from like the seventies or eighties or whatever, I
always think about how I want to like un digitize
all of that stuff. UM. And I think a lot
about like printing out old blogs and like putting them
in a binder or stuff like that that you can't
really do with Instagram or Facebook or things that are
(18:21):
more visually oriented UM, and I mean with Tumbler too.
There's lots of like picture posts that you couldn't really
print out and get like the sense of them. But
I think that the impulse to do that has a
lot to do with the fact that kind of our
online selves are almost like external hard drives, where because
you're you're doing it online, you're not really thinking about
it because you know that what is going on is
(18:43):
being preserved. Um. So it's in a way I don't
retain memories like I would I think without that backup,
and then there's the fear that you'll just kind of
forget who you were, but that also that would maybe
still exist on the Internet, but you couldn't access it,
kind of like a disembodied double. Is that too dystopian?
(19:05):
I like it. I have tried to take a very
detached attitude in recent years from all of the content
that I've made over time, because I feel like I
don't have that much control over if something gets wiped,
So I've tried to be like like tears and rain
a little bit. Um. I definitely like ripped my own
(19:30):
archives from websites to just try and keep them, but
even then I'm like, oh, it's just in a Google
doc now, Like I agree with tests with the idea
of the digitizing things, of having physical copies of photos
and writing so that then you can untether yourself from
the digital version seems really appealing now. It also kind
(19:52):
of seems like a fun quarantine project. Every time it's
a fun quarantine project, I'm like, not that I'm doing
any fun or being projects, but the idea of kind
of forcing yourself to sit down and sift through and
choose what's important, even if that would mean looking at,
you know, fifteen years of Facebook activity and distilling it
(20:12):
down to two or three or five or six things
that you can pull and maybe just like scrap book
it or something. Yeah, I agree because it comes down
to me, for like, what were the five things I've
ever written on the Internet that I would like, be
proud of and want to continue existing? And then a
lot of it is ephemeral, And I felt like it
was ephemeral at the time. Uh, And that was kind
(20:35):
of what I liked about It was just like, oh,
you you let go of the balloon. Every day. You
can't just keep working on it forever and overworking it.
You have to just kind of like let it go.
So I'm I try to have that attitude a little
bit of like you just let it go. But it's
also easier to have that attitude when your trusty friend
has all your instant messages printed in our closet. Yeah,
(20:57):
it's easier when your friend tests is the arch ivest
those earlier years. I I it's weird. I keep those,
but they're they're almost all just kind of dense, like nonsense.
I don't know what the real value is in having them,
other than the idea that if I really ever feel
like I have no idea who I was, that I
(21:19):
could find out. Uh. But I mean it's a it's
a strange it's definitely strange stuff to have. But I
kind of I like the idea of knowing that the
full body of your work, so to speak, is not important,
but that like little glimpses of your past self could be. Yeah,
I think, uh rip some photos. I mean, I do
(21:41):
think people should divest from Facebook. I really do you
think that if you can get yourself off Facebook, I
think it's okay to just kind of like leave all
your stuff there and go to It's harder with with
things like Twitter and Instagram. I mean Instagram in particular,
because that's obviously just as bad as Facebook. You're not
going to get the same misinformation, but it's owned by
(22:03):
the same evil company. And that's kind of part of
the reason that I have trouble with the idea of
leaving Facebook is that I'm like, well, I I think
it should be all or nothing in a way. Um,
But with Instagram, you you certainly could make like they have,
you know, ways to make books, make like photo albums
out of all your pictures and stuff like that, but
(22:24):
you wouldn't have the comments. I don't know if those
are important to you. I don't think they're important to me.
Maybe they are, um, but I mean it's also maybe
these are excuses that I make just in order to
make my life easier and not do what is clearly
the right thing to do. I've definitely been wanting to
just get completely off lately, go back and forth because
(22:46):
I'm like, oh, I also need it to promote this show,
And there's so many excuses and reasons in my mind
of like why I can't just get off everything. But
I certainly have the like throw my phone in a
in a river and never use it again fantasy constantly.
I think also talking about the social dilemma. UM. Last
(23:08):
week or the week before. I think one of the
things that we realized is that we all are very
aware of the dangers of these things. I think everyone
who uses the Internet a lot and who uses social
media a lot is maybe not the target audience for
the social dilemma because we're informed about why this is bad.
But it is kind of a mixture of a feeling
(23:28):
like a professional responsibility to remain in contact with people, um,
and also that little bit of like, but I've been
I've existed on this place for so long, and if
I leave, then I'm gone. You know. Tears and rain,
tears and rain, tears and rain. I endorse this too
before we move on to altered States, which we'll be
(23:51):
talking about in the second half. I don't have a
night call about this, but a friend of mine got
a very strange email that was apparently sent out um
randomly two people in l A maybe from an old
list of of like a party or a nightclub or something.
It is an email from a place called spank eas Um.
(24:13):
The Spanky's is apparently a speakeasy where you text Hello suckers,
which is I guess like a prohibition joke or something
two three one three three one three, and they send
you a location, a time, and a password. And it
is a party that goes from eleven pm until five am. Uh,
(24:34):
with mandatory masks, social distancing and forced they claim, and
no photos. Um. There is an emphasis on quote discretion, secrecy,
and safety. It is so bizarre to be doing this
during quarantine. Um. And it's especially strange to send this
out unprompted two people. I think, yeah, you hipped me
(24:58):
to this and then set me a Reddit throw out
of people who had received it who were trying to
figure out how they got on this list. It seems
like it comes from some other nightlife promoters. People were like, oh,
I guess I went to a sketchy nightclub one time.
Probably that's why I'm on this list. Uh. But I'm
(25:18):
not super surprised that people are throwing underground parties at
this point in quarantine. I guess the first one was
two months ago though, the only thing that you can
really find about this at at this point when we're
recording this episode is just this one Reddit thread um,
and the subject is spanky speak easy. And so two
(25:39):
months ago, you know, people started receiving this, and then
I guess this is like maybe a re launch or something.
But the address that's listed in the footer is like
this curve on Mulholland, totally empty of any building. Yeah,
it's not a real address, but the whole pitch is like, oh,
it's at a mansion. It's like an after hours party
(26:01):
at a fancy mansion in the hills. And so they
give this address that sounds like it could be because
it's like a mulhalland Drive address right that just is nowhere,
but it gives the the aura of like, this will
be somewhere around here, we just can't tell you exactly
where until you sign up. The other weird thing about
(26:24):
this is that UM in the Reddit thread, which again
the only way I can try and figure out what's
up with Spanky's UM, someone discovered that there was a
live stream that was maybe connected to this, with a
test video UM where a guy is saying can you
hear me? Over and over and the Reddit user did
(26:45):
a facial recognition match and the computers matched him with
a guy from a Russian YouTube channel. UM adding a
layer of an extra layer of what the funk to
the Spanky's email, but it's a it's a true local mystery.
So if you've ever been to Spanky's, won't you please
let us know? Yeah, I mean I looked into it
(27:05):
a little bit more because I got really curious when
you said that, and I was like, who's throwing eyes
wide shut parties right now? Not a good idea, but
I'm sure there's an audience for that of people who
want to go to after hours even now. Um, But
it seems like the people who threw it exists. They exist.
(27:27):
They're like a real nightlife shingle. And they had a
website even and when I went to their website, they
were honoring a DJ. We're like saying happy birthday to
a DJ who Then my boyfriend said, oh yeah that
DJ got got me too. Oh So I think maybe
(27:50):
these people are not the best people throwing the COVID party.
Have also been a bunch of big parties on Mulholland,
like hype house type of things. Um, and so there's
some speculation as to whether these are you know, influencer
parties or or what. Uh. But I just found like
(28:11):
the pros of this email to be gross. I mean,
it was like want to be celebs it's really grass.
It's like bring your drugs, do do the sex? I know,
um it does. I I have been thinking a lot
about uh dinner House m which was like uh brief.
I don't know actually how brief brief for me? UH
(28:33):
party venue in l A in the like mid aughts.
I guess. Um. I went there with Molly a couple
of times, but it operated after hours and it had
a usually great DJs, and had that feeling that it
wasn't really supposed to be there. Um. But I've definitely
been feeling nostalgic. But I've also been feeling nostalgic for
(28:53):
just going out to any literally any place. Yeah. I
mean I think people are very cooped up, and some
people would probably just take the risk and go to
a big party that they're paying for, they're promising, you know,
social distancing and masks and whatever. It seems impossible to
(29:16):
deal with to me personally, but I'm sure that that
will be happening more. It just seems crazy to me
to like in COVID to prohibition, I know, I mean,
that's kind of the wildest reach here is that. Um,
it's very different. Actually it is different, Yeah, because the
whole thing is like, Oh, they don't want us to party,
(29:38):
and it's like, yeah, yeah, we don't want us to party.
Your party, you die, don't party. Um. Also, I'm like
the thrill that one might get in the before times
from going to a super after hours, secret whatever, like
that kind of adrenaline rush of like what am I doing?
You could get that just from going inside grocery store. Now, well, yeah,
(30:01):
it sounds like the Disney World thing. It's like it
seems like something that might be fun in the moment,
and then you would have the world's worst existential hangover
afterwards of like, oh no, am I gonna die because
I went to an after hours Yeah, and you'd be
right to freak out. Well, let's take a little break
and when we come back, we will talk about Altered States. Hello,
(30:32):
So we recently watched Altered States. This was the first
time I had seen Altered States. Uh, in my mind,
but I've been told that I watched it a long
time ago and just let it fly away tears in
the rain style. Um, Molly, you just watched it. Was
that the first time you'd seen it? Yeah? I thought
I had seen it, but it turns out I had not. Well,
(30:52):
it rules this. This movie is UH released directed by
Ken Russell, which only happened after a shake up. UM.
The screenplay and source novel by Patty Chayevsky, and boy,
it does not sound like this movie was fun to
make a no but it's fun to watch, super fun
(31:16):
to watch. Um. But for background on the problems with
making it, I guess this was kind of came about
as sort of a goof between Chayevsky meeting up with
his best friend Bob Fosse and also maybe Herb Gardner
at the Russian Tea Room. UM, and they wanted to
make a movie with They wanted to pitch a movie
to Dino de Laurentis, and they were like jekyline High,
(31:40):
like King Kong, but he becomes a movie star. And
then Chayevsky went home and kind of came up with
Altered States. UM, would you like to summarize the plot
of this film? All? Sure, it was a novel first,
and it's about a scientist who gets really into isolation
tanks and then combining isolation tanks with taking intense psychedelic drugs,
(32:06):
and that's pretty much what is about. It's an eighties
guy pushing it to the limit and pushes it fucking
pushes it to the limit. He does. Um. There was
a director, Arthur Pen was originally uh slated to direct
this and he cast it, uh and it's a great cast,
William Hurt coming very close to Kevin Costner, territory here
(32:31):
um and Blair Brown, Bob Balaban. But I guess Arthur
Penn got into a fight with Chayevsky and quit, and
then Ken Russell was brought on after they offered it
to like a million other directors, and then Chayevsky and
Russell fought and uh so you know, Shayevsky is now
credited as Sydney Aaron because didn't want anything to do
(32:52):
with it, but this is Saevsky was eventually, i think
banned from the set because he would just tell Ken
Russell what he wanted, and Ken Russell was like, I'm
trying to direct mate the dialogue. Chievsky wouldn't let anyone
touch the dialogue. And the dialogue is the funniest thing, Like, yeah,
it's funny because it's based on a novel, and the
(33:13):
novels incredibly wordy and dialogue heavy and has all these
monologues about like spirituality, and drugs and and God and
finding yourself. And Ken Russell was like, oh my god,
there's so much talking in this book, and Tchaievsky doesn't
want any of it cut. So he did a smart thing,
which was to have people kind of overlapping talking, kind
(33:35):
of Altman style. And it works really well because it's
also said in this amazing milieu of scuzzy academics. Yeah,
it's it's a It also has like a Sorkin. It's
like Altman meets Sorkin or something. But it it really encapsulates.
I was not born in night when this came out,
but I do feel like the dinner parties where they're
(33:58):
playing the doors and smoke can a joint and all
of these academics are having these fast paced conversations and
they're talking about psycho analysis. Seemed very realistic too, and
also like a dream world to me for some reason.
Oh well, also, everyone's dressed fabulously. There's a lot of
aqua marine turtlenecks and flowing nightgowns. Yeah, it just feels
(34:20):
like you don't get to see the like scientists who
are laid back that often anymore. It's like when you
see scientists and movies. They're always like, dcor, we have
to do this. But it's like in poulter Geist how
the parents smoke pot. It's just that like long seventies
thing where it's like, oh yeah, everyone's like do an
(34:40):
acid and having weird key parties. There are so many
scenes where it's an emotional conversation but also intellect in
an intellectual conversation held between two completely naked people draped
on love seats, where it's just like I had a party,
I stripped down, I'm lying on a love seat now
I want to talk about my work as an anthropologist
(35:03):
and also what's going on between us. Babe. Yeah. The
horny academia and horny scientists of this movie are fantastic,
especially Bob Balaban, who's kind of the straight man. Just
like Bob Balaban floating around in this movie being like, hey,
maybe don't completely lose touch with your ego in order
(35:25):
to become the goath head god man, the six eyed
goathead god man. Um. Bob Balaban in this movie is
the solution to the question we've been posing, who does
Keith RNEI look exactly like, Oh my god, there you go. Wow,
the short guy energy. You have the bespectacled and beard
(35:47):
and also the kind of like lounging and judging. You know. Totally,
although I feel like Bob Balaban has too much sexual
charisma for the totally true. I find Bob Balaban just
like magnetic. I love him to be magnetic. He is
magnetic and he's great in this um. They also have
a funny relationship William Hurt and Bob Balaban in this movie.
(36:09):
Of like, William Hurt really wants to be in the
tank and he really wants to do the drugs, but
he also needs his crew there um, both to monitor him,
but also because in his mind and also maybe in
Chaievski's vision, they care so much about looking at what's
up with his brain. Yeah, I mean I was a
little confused about what the purpose of these experiments was.
(36:32):
It was just um, to go as far into your
brain as you possibly can. I looked into it more
based on a real guy. Oh what really? Yeah, it's
Lily who invented isolation tanks and also was the guy
that was famous for trying to talk to dolphins. So
(36:53):
he inspired like three movies and one of them is
Day of the Dolphin, which we also talked about on
Night Call, but we should watch some time. I think
he was just on the on the cutting edge of
weird science. Did he get addicted to his isolation tank?
It seems like one does. Wow, can you imagine would
(37:16):
you do the isolation tank? Let's get into it. I
feel like we've circled this and every time my answer
is different. Having been kind of in an isolation tank
via quarantine, I don't want more of that now. Um,
the idea of doing hallucinogenic drugs and then going into
an isolation tank is horrible. Uh, I don't know how
(37:39):
you feel about that. Isn't the womb and isolation tank? Man?
You're going back to the womb? I yeah? This movie also,
though the purpose is not stated, I guess William Hurts
character Dr Eddie Jessup doesn't realize what's going to happen
when he takes this drug in the isolation tank. But
(38:01):
what does happen spoiler alert, is that he somehow mutates
into an early form of man that he he saw
on his initial trip, which was in Mexico. I think, um,
he was given a stew of mushrooms and roots and
his own blood, and then he saw ape like creatures
(38:22):
that were moving very gracefully, and then he was he
became one of them, but only in his mind. Then
when he goes into the isolation tank and is taking
a I believe synthesized version of that drug, he grows
hair and like frosts at the mouth and wants to
eat a deer and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah,
this movie is just a feast for the eyes. It
(38:44):
is extremely fun to watch. Um. I don't know that
it makes drugs look like something you want to do,
but in in exaggerating what a bad trip is like,
it definitely is like a fun thing to enjoy. They
go to Mexico to get the experimental drug that will
(39:06):
push him even further. It's mushrooms. It's some kind of
magic mushroom, but it seems a lot more like ayahuasca,
just in terms of how it is done and how
it affects people. And they do it in a cave
with everybody wearing tribal face paint. Um. I just read
a thing about this guy who's like the psychedelics concierge
(39:28):
to the stars, Zappy Zappy. It said, like, would you
trip with someone who was the psychedelic concierge to lamar
Odom and Michelle Rodriguez, and the answer is, I do
not think I would like to trip with Zappy. You
wouldn't trip with Zappy. What's his deal? He's like a
former something else. And then he was like, I think
(39:51):
my true calling is to be your your trip buddy,
uh and take you take you to places where we
can score the hallucinogens and people love it. And I
guess lamar Odom was like really transformed by the experience
of tripping with Zappy. I think when I saw the
headline to it just said like Michelle, and my brain
(40:12):
filled in Obama and I was like, wow, I want
to know about like tripping with Michelle Obama and surprised.
But um, somebody told me because I was talking about
this movie a lot after I saw it, and a
friend was telling me about a coworker of THEIRS who
did ayahuasca a lot of times. They did it, like
(40:32):
five or six times, and they said only the first
two times were great. Oh no, really, they said, you
kind of like reach the thing you're going to reach.
She was like, in the first time, I like got
all the way down to like unmake myself and the
second time, I like rebuilt myself up, and then the third, fourth,
and fifth, and possibly six times I was just throwing
(40:54):
up a lot. It's like you can't treat your body
or mind like a lego set that you just disassemble
and reassemble a million times. Well, I think it's interesting that,
like with any kind of drug there is, there does
seem to be a limit to the amount of it
you can do that you'll get something out of it,
especially with psychedelic drugs and a theogens where you are
(41:15):
maybe going to have some kind of a revelation or
feel like you are, it does seem like it has
kind of diminishing returns after a certain point. Yeah, I
I'm interested in that. I have never taken a large
dose of hallucinogens. Uh, oh, you haven't taken a large dose.
I've never taken a large dose of hallucinogens. Have you
(41:36):
taken UM any smaller doses to us? Well, my good
friend who has taken smaller doses of hallucinogens has really
liked it. But they did report that UM it builds up,
so depending on which protocol you do, if it builds
up if you're taking it multiple days in a row.
There's the potential that you might find that one day
(41:59):
you are taking apart your brain of legos a little
more than you may have intended to. But I think
on this podcast were non judgmental about people who take hallucinogens.
Uh in general. Maybe I can speak for you, and
I think that we're like, alter your state a little safely.
We're all pro altering your state under the right circumstances.
(42:22):
The interesting thing though about altered states is that supposedly
you would. I mean, he's so Eddie Jessup is very
concerned with God and religion and like where he fits.
William Hurt is on one in this movie is amazing.
I kept thinking it was like a prequel to The
Big Chill. Well, that's why I was thinking of Kevin
(42:42):
Costner too, because I was like, Kevin Costner and William
Hurt are just two sides of the same coin. And
then of course in Big Chill we saw who prevailed.
Oh yeah, and this was this was Hurt's first movie too.
And also Drew Barrymore is in this as Drew Barrymore
is one of the children who gets left behind by
her father doing too many drugs, which feels you know,
(43:06):
a little intertextual on the nose. Um. But if you're
a person who's so obsessed with losing your ego, like
finding god within and the singularity and all of that
kind of stuff, it just seems interesting that his journey
in this movie, William Hurt's character is to become is
(43:26):
to go from a self involved eighties guy who like
is really just obsessed with his inner workings and obsessed
with who he is and everyone else is just a
bit player in his life. To a thoroughly more self
obsessed person. Well, I like, I like that he becomes
like a homunculous Yeah, there are some great shots of
(43:48):
his arms bubbling. Oh my god. Yeah. The practical effects
in this movie are unbelievable, and I think it does
a really good job of trying to make visual things
that are not probably like corporeal when you are tripping,
but to try and replicate when it feels like to
(44:09):
trip balls using green screens and stuff. But this movie
does a great job of creating an aesthetic. And apparently
Chayevsky was really um particular about those scenes, the like
you know, kind of fireball like the iTunes visualizer scenes
basically and there's there's some great shots of Blair Brown
(44:31):
kind of sphinx like against a backdrop of the universe
that's glittering. Uh. If you've ever been served a targeted
ad from this one weird micro dosing company, um they have,
it looks just ripped from altered states. But also it's
interesting to me, I did not know that Patty Chayevsky
was in psychoanalysis for a super long time, starting in
(44:53):
the fifties, to deal with like rage and violent behavior.
And it does seem to be a movie about like
a man who is very witty and intellectual. Not witty,
I shouldn't say what. He has no sense of humor,
but an intellectual and a fast talking guy who's like
really in control, but he just longs to lose, to
(45:14):
go back to like a primal state where he like
rips a deer open and eats its guts. And it
seems like a personal a personal project in many ways, right. Well,
I mean, I think if you've seen Network you can
kind of catch catch that drift about Schaievski. But it
is sort of like this. These people are also talking,
(45:34):
they can't stop talking, they can't stop thinking, and all
they really want is to like be forced to stop
talking and thinking by something greater than themselves. But look
how much talking he does in the tank. Can you
imagine being in an isolation tank and just like going
the whole time. It's a very cocaine movie in that
sense too, where you're like, he's not just doing the
(45:55):
Iowa SA but he's also just like high on like
what an alpha he is. He's like tells his future
wife Blair Brown, He's just like, I'm not like husband material,
but like I'm going to fuck your brains out and
you'll never forget, you know. And he starts going on
about religion during and she's like, well that's when they're
like being naked and sitting in bed, just like, oh, well,
(46:17):
you know, the Holy Spirit comes to you when you're
in the tank, and can you fully get rid of
the sphinx that sits on your head? I don't think
I asked you the same question you asked me. Would
you go in the deprivation tank? I mean not right now,
but I think so. Yeah. My friend Mike, who was
a big Altered States fan, booked an isolation tank in
(46:41):
the Valley. They are not super surprisingly mostly located in
the San Fernando Valley at this point, Um he didn't
like it as much as he thought he was going to,
because I think he said he was just like too
conscious the water kind of smells like clary and stuff,
and that you start focusing on that because you can't
(47:04):
focus on anything visual. But friend of the podcast Marrow
Wilson sent a message to say that she's done isolation
Tanks and loved it really and was surprised to love
it because she is very claustrophobic. She said she lowered
the door, that you can kind of keep the door
(47:26):
propped open for as long as you want, and that
she was doing it like a little bit at a time,
leaving it like an inch open at the end, and
then finally she felt comfortable enough to shut it all
the way and that she totally got into it. I
don't remember, did you do the James Terrell thing that
they had at Lackman was kind of traveling around where
(47:47):
it was being shut in the light coffin. I didn't
do the pod. Yeah, I didn't do the pod the
light coffin. That seemed a little scary to me. Oh
you did it, I did it. I loved it. That's
so altered states. Yeah, it really was, and I was
I was very concerned about it because I too get claustrophobic. Um.
And it felt like I had read a lot of
(48:11):
things that implied that you could really not like it.
If you didn't like it, you were not going to
mildly dislike it, you were going to violently dislike it. Um.
But yeah, I thought it was really fascinating. I think
that to me being in water, um, when you said
the distracting chlorine smell, I was like, yeah, see that's
the issue. Uh. We've talked also, I think um off
(48:35):
pod maybe about an isolation tank that how to sign
no pooping in the tank, and you know, uh, you
get relaxed, well the thought that of anyone pooping in
the tank and then you being the next person in
the tank, it doesn't matter how well they clean it
like that. But if you're William Hurt, you've got your
own tank. Yeah. And also I mean he he started
(48:59):
off in a fair really fairly forced our tank, but
then had to move down to the more motel six
level tank, the like tank that they had to kind
of scrape the rust off of and it looks like
a giant locker. It's like he gets addicted to the tank. Yeah,
it's not the drug, it's like the being in isolation.
(49:20):
And and it's really I think he's also addicted to
having two of his smart friends studying him. He needs
to be studied. I mean, I think you could really
see it if you want to take it to Chayevsky
as like a metaphor for writing for somebody who's just
like being in their own brain all the time, because
that is what writing feels like to me. Sometimes it's
(49:42):
like I have to be completely in an isolation tank
of the soul to get anything done, which is why
sometimes it works well, like in the middle of the night.
I mean having Also this is another link to quarantine,
but the idea of having a tiny space that's just
for you and just for your work or just for
(50:03):
your thoughts is extremely appealing. It's just water was thinking too,
because in Quarantine the idea of like an escape pod.
I've been thinking about total recall a lot also, especially
when we were locked down with the fires and really
couldn't go outside. I was just like, would I would
(50:24):
I do the brain implant that lets me go on
like a vacation to grease right now, where I have
no idea that it's not real, you know. And then
somebody was like, no, you wouldn't because Elon Musk is
the person offering it. That's true. I mean much like
you wouldn't want to trip with Zappy necessarily, you wouldn't
(50:45):
want to uh total recall with Elon Musk, no set
and setting. I definitely was like, I would want to
go on like a virtual vacation right now. I wouldn't
pick the one where I have to save the world
and get the girl like he doesn't total recall. I
would pick the one that's like, you know, uh, very mundane,
(51:07):
just like eating a great shrimp taco somewhere else. Well,
that's like San Junipero, right exactly, Like just go on
a beach vacation safely, but it's an implant in your brain. Well,
I watched We talked about this on the pod, but
I watched San Junipero UM a couple of months ago
after we've been in quarantine for a while, and that
(51:28):
actually sums up a lot of what we've been talking
about in this episode in terms of like preserving your
digital past as well as trying to like create a
digital escape, you know, and and how those things are linked.
I mean, it feels like over the past couple of
months we've been kind of bumping up against the walls
of the Internet and realizing the necessity of creating different
(51:49):
ways to communicate, because like, obviously we're going to need
to communicate, We're going to need to work remotely, but
the structures that are in place to allow us to
do so are all kind of correct, you know, Yeah,
they're all really bad. I mean, I think if anything
would I really want is like an offline space. I
think what we really want is for everybody to be
(52:12):
in their isolation tanks and be able to combine brain waves.
I think that's the perfect solution. Is that what podcasting is?
I think? Yeah, it's just like, wait, that reminds me
of something something we're doing right now. Um, well, I
think that does it for this week. We are looking
forward to having Emily back next week. Thank you so
(52:32):
much for listening to the podcast. If you're enjoying the show,
won't you please leave us a review and subscribe on
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can
also follow us on social media. We are a Nightcall
pod on Twitter, Nightcall podcast on Instagram and Facebook The
Bad Places. You can leave us a nightcall at two
four oh four six night and of course we would
(52:52):
always appreciate you supporting the podcast on Patreon. We are
patreon dot com forward slash Nightcall. We have a bunch
of great reward tiers. We do bonus podcast book club.
It's fun. Join us, Join us and leave us some
nightcalls about your best trips, your worst trips, your feelings
about isolation tanks, anything else, whether people should go to
(53:15):
weddings sky, if you've been to Spanky's, If Spanky's is
really just a brain implant where you say you're going
to go to an after hours and then when you
get there, they put a chip in your brain. That's
the conspiracy theory we will push. That's why it has
no fixed address. So yeah, we'll see you next week
(53:37):
for another Nightcall up.
Host
Molly Lambert
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