Talking Weird #162 Vampires Myth or Reality with Melissa Dawn

Melissa Dawn has always felt drawn to the dark corners of the human story—not for fear, but for fascination. She is a podcaster, writer, researcher, and content creator devoted to the enduring mystery of the vampire. Alongside her research and writing, she hosts two shows: Velvet Bite Radio, where vampires in history and fiction take center stage, and Vampires of the Simulation, a deeper dive into mind, myth, and the hidden forces shaping our reality. Both are extensions of the same curiosity—what lurks beneath the surface, and why we remain haunted.

Visit Melissa's official Youtube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/@melissadawnharris

Velvet Bite Radio is on Podbean, here:
https://velvetbiteradio.podbean.com/

Melissa returns to Talking Weird to share her extensive knowledge of vampire lore, and to address the question: What are the myths, and what are the realities of vampirism?

This is a creepy and fascinating deep dive, that you do not want to miss!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Paranormal UFOs, Monsters Mysteries. As you're listening to Talking
Weird and Now from a Kevin Deep in the Northwoods,
your host, Doctor Dean Bertram.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Who greetings, or my fellow widows and Weddet's welcome to

(00:45):
Talking We'd live on the Untold Radio Network and I
am alive this week. I prefer to do a live show,
but last week I had to pre record because at
this time I was on my way to the Crossing
Realms conference in Richmond, Missouri, which was one wonderful I
had a lot of fun. I met a lot of
people in person for the first time, got to screen
my film The Shaver Mystery, and got to talk at

(01:07):
length about the Shave of Mystery. Anyway, thank you for
joining me for the next hour or so. I'm always
grateful that you're spending the time with me. Whether you're
watching it live when we go out now on the
on top radio nightwork, on Facebook and YouTube and x
or watching it archived on one of those platforms after
the live stream, or perhaps you're listening to the show

(01:27):
and one of the many podcast platforms that we go
out on the following day. Welcome wherever you are whether
in this great country of the United States of America or
wherever you are in the world. It's the fall here
now does just officially become full. We've just passed the equinox,
and the birds that are doing a crazy migration at
the moment, supposedly there was meant to be. I think
billions of birds in America's skies in this part of

(01:48):
the world at the moment, traveling from the north to
the south. My little daughter is so excited because she
loves birds. So every night she's looking out to try
to see their migratory patterns, and then the next day
checking the grounds of our property for any feathers that
she hopes may have fallen. Another thing you might be
interested in is last night, I was fortunate enough to

(02:09):
guess on Jimmy Church's wonderful show, Fader Black. I've been
a fan of Jimmy Church for years. I used to
listen to him when he was one of the hosts
on Coast to Coast AM and I got to talk
extensively about the Shaver mystery. So those of you who
aren't yet sick of hearing me talk about Ray Palmer
Richard Shaver, the Shaver mystery, marioilland all of those kind
of things. Gonna hear me do it at length with

(02:29):
the wonderful Jimmy Church. She was also already very cognizant
as you would probably imagine of most of these things.
We're gonna have a little change in tone tonight and
going into the spooky season. We're almost into October. We'll
try to keep this spooky tone. I think through the
October shows looking at things a little darker and a
little weirder with Halloween rapidly approaching us now. So Tonight's

(02:52):
guest has always been She's always felt drawn to the
dark corners of the human story, not for fear, but
for fast nation. She's a podcaster, writer, researcher, and content
creator devoted to the enduring mystery of the vampire. Alongside
her research and writing, she hosts two shows, A Velvet
Byte Radio, where vampires in history and fiction take center stage,

(03:15):
and Vampires of the Simulation, a deeper dive into mind,
myth and the hidden forces shaping our reality. Both are
extensions of the same curiosity what lurks beneath the surface
and why we remain haunted. So I'm absolutely delighted to
Welcome back to Talking Weird. One of my favorite guests
and my very good friend. So Dawn, welcome, Melissa.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Thank you for having me on. I'm glad to be here.
Happy Spooky season everyone.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I know, it's so great it's here.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Now.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Are you excited?

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I am. We're going to be doing a Dracula play,
me and my husband, who just should has comment in October.
So it's in this theater that's like an Art Deco theater,
Art Nouveau Egyptian style. We're going to see Dracula. So
I'm super excited about it. Spooky Seasons here, that.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Is super exciting. I'd love to go and see a
Dracula show on the stage. Wasn't wasn't Early on after
Stoke did the Dracular book, I think there was some
stage adaptation which was super popular back like in the
late nineteenth early twentieth century. Is that right?

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, well, I know there was the Hamilton Dean did
the stage play that was the basically basis for the
movie that would come about from Universal Studios. There was
an early rendition of a stage play done by Bram
Stoker in the Lyceum, but it was more like a
reading of the novel in his purpose was to establish

(04:41):
a copyright on his book, to make it official that
he did a reading, So it wasn't really a play.
It was just a reading of his book. But Dean
Hamilton really adapted it for the stage.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
That's fascinating, I suppose with all yours, And maybe this
is a good part to jump off as any into
the type of vampire stories we'll be looking at tonight,
because in many ways, Stoker's Dracula kind of sets the
tone for the modern interpretation of vampires in popular culture.
What do you think he got right in that as

(05:16):
far as what was based on factual type ideas or
at least at least mythologies which already existed about vampires.
And what did he just kind of inventors, literary devices
or just stuff to move his narrative forward.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well, what had already existed previous to that was the
idea of an aristocrat as a vampire. It was first
written about in The Vampire by John Polidori, who he
based that off of the poet Brain Fog, Sorry Lord Byron,
So that was already in existence, and I think he

(05:53):
got I mean, there's several elements in Brown Stalker's Dracula,
the novel that really strong and powerful one being this
sort of journey to the unknown to Romania. Because remember
at the time when he's writing this in London, England,
that whole area of Europe was considered like exotic and unknown,

(06:16):
and so he's writing about these fears and anxieties that
they have, or he has, and maybe the rest of
the culture has about the East essentially and going in there,
and that coming to England and that transportation of invading
good English society. He hits on that note, he also

(06:40):
inadvertently hits on historical figures, so he's taking from history.
His research was very much done in libraries, so he
never left England. He never left London. But he knew
of Vladchipesh, who was the ruler of Ilakia multiple different
times in a very you know, unstable time in history

(07:04):
where he was fighting against the Turks, so he read that.
He read German pamphlets about him impaling people. He read
a lot of travel guides about the East in Romania
and descriptions of it. So he brang that sort of
history that existed into the book. But he also adapted
things from his life, so he adapted. You know, people

(07:27):
he knew, like his boss, the actor Henry Irvin, probably
played a lot into the character of Dracula, as well
as maybe other figures. I mean, there were society had changed,
industrialization had changed things. You had Jack the Ripper that
had happened ten years before this book was released. You

(07:47):
also have like a lot of occult stuff going on.
I remember Bram Stoker was a member of the Golden Dawn,
so he's up there in society and he's they're kind
of weaving all this stuff about the unknown of the
East and the terror of it, and this idea of
this monstrous nobleman coming over to England to invade the

(08:07):
good stock of London and take their wives and turn
them into soulist demons. So there's a lot of other
subcontexts that we can talk about, but I think he
gets those elements right. And tying that the fact that
he tied in this this fellow that staked people and
made an impaled for us and had such a an

(08:30):
infamous reputation in Europe even at the time with his
people considered him, you know, a Christian hero. But the
fact that he ties that into the vampire is pretty
genius is whether he meant it or not, he hit
a nerve, and he hit a nerve with this character
because it's gone on in literature's never been out of print,

(08:51):
and every generation has their Dracula, and Dracula is this
really adaptive character that's able to transform and represent something
in each generation. And I mean he has a lot
of the playwrights and the movies to think for that,
because of course they've adapted it and changed it. But
he started the ball rolling and the blood drinking from

(09:15):
the neck as well, because in folklore the vampire sits
on the chest and goes for around the heart. But
he gives this really sensual sexual subcontext with biting of
the neck. So he really introduces that because, like I said,
in folklore, it's completely different. So he has those fear

(09:39):
of the unknown, fear of the outsider, a sexual subcontext.
It's sort of representing this lustful sex and not this
you know, unification between men and women who are married.
And then there's all those elements that he certainly does
get right. He also writes in journal form in the
book and makes it like it's like their seek great

(10:00):
feelings that they're putting up. So it's an interesting way
that he wrote the book.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
No, I really do like that book, and it was
I probably when you read as a teenager, like whenever
you read anything at that age, it has a massive
impact on you. So when I did my first European
holiday independent of my parents, which was kind of in
my gap year between high school and college, I had
the the In Search of Dracula book by Raymond Raymond

(10:29):
t McNally and rad I think, and I took that
book as a travel guide and I went to Romania.
It was still Communist occupied then c Chesscau was still
you know, the head of it. It was still literally
it was a it was a commed dystopia. It was
a horrible place.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
I'm kind of jealous that you got to see that, though,
I mean, I wouldn't want to live it, but I'm
glad you got to see it.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
I am too. And I got the I think the
trains and I think a bus out into the middle
of the kind of Carpathian oup area where where the
the totally run down Dracula Castle was. I think since
they've rebuilt it as a touristic place, but then it
was just a total It was ruins. There was nothing
there except ruins on top of the hill, and myself

(11:11):
and my teenage at the time, buddy, we were both eighteen.
We'd hiked up into the mountains to see these ruins,
and it got super dark, super quick there, you know,
the sun coast down. It's like a dracular movie. The
sun gets yeah, the sun goes down, and then we're
in the middle of nowhere, and we're like, are we
going to be able to get out in time? And

(11:31):
we're like trying to talk to peasants who had no English.
Do you know what I mean? It's not like you
maybe in some parts of Europe where you can kind
of you know, get by with a kind of you know,
a vague not they're vague knowledge of English. But we did.
They made it clear we weren't getting out that night,
and we just happened to bump into a group of
men who were sitting around a fire drinking. Lord knows

(11:55):
what they shared with us out of their bottle, some homemade,
you know, hideously strong whiskey. And then I'd like to
say they took us back to their old you know,
Carpathian cottages. But the Communists had tried to erase most
of the culture there. So instead they were these you know,
commie built kind of I don't know, like twin plexi structures,

(12:18):
but without any soul at all. And we and the
guy let us stay in his one of the guys
let us stay probably a great fear to himself, a
great risk to himself taking in a Westerner. And I
remember one thing I clearly remember is his his bathroom
sink had a fish in it, and I was like, oh, pet, pet, Like, yeah,
it's your pet. He said no, like he was keeping

(12:40):
it alive and was going to eat it. So yeah,
my v my memories of But anyway, so it was
a massive influence on me, that book, and probably because
of the sublimated sexuality you're right in there, which which
which Stoker captured originally, and then it's part of you know,
it's part of the vampire tradition now really all the
way through to things like twy a lot and you know,

(13:01):
and through to what's who's the famous vampire author with
the stat what's her name?

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (13:08):
And Ray and what I share with the sexuality in
all of those books. So now we think of the
vampire as being this super sexualized entity. With this incredible
erotic power over his victim. But of course you're right,
it used to be this you know, shambling revenant, undead, horrible,
stinky creature. It used to be terrified of, not that
we would want to seduce us and get into bed with.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
It was literally a rotting corpse. You would never and
it brain disease and death to you. It didn't bring seduction,
and even in the stories, the seduction that it brings
is a trick. It's allure and you become the walking dead.
So that is literally the mode to get in, right,
is the seduction. But the folklore vampire is just so

(13:50):
gross and grotesque, and it usually sits on your chest
and we'll take your breath away. It'll visit you in dreams.
It can infect entire villages and you become a rotten
corpse just like it. Like I think, like that new
nos Forattu movie they had. It's kind of demonic, but
he looks kind of like that movie grossed me out.
He looks like a rotten corpse. They were literally like,

(14:14):
you weren't having dreams and fantasies about these these nos
foratus or these you know vampires from from folklore and
I'm finally interesting. It was devastating for me to hear
you talk about how the Communists destroyed the culture in Romania.
I just that's why I don't like about this globalists
and these governments and all this crazy stuff, is they're

(14:36):
just you know, destroying the heritage of people. But it's
that's part of the heritage is as folk stories that
we talked about, that we put in that fortunately was
put in books and passed on.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, it's I mean, I think that I think that
we remember those things and why they're so popular isn't
just because of that sexualization, although that's certainly a big
part of it, but it does. I think it does
tie into ancient fears that we have of the dead
coming back and the dead revisiting us. And it's but

(15:12):
it's interesting just to see the kind of cultural transformations
I had. I did play a film at a Night
of Horror International Film Festival in Sydney years ago, which
I think was the first horror movie ever maybe produced
in Romania. And it was a film called STRGOI and
it was the Dead, the undead creature of the vampire,

(15:32):
and that was very much that repulsive version, you know,
we bloated and not attractive, and I think the I
think the original black and white. I know there's the
new Nosferatu, which I haven't seen, but the original Nosferata,
which I think they tied just because they couldn't get
the actual copyright for calling it anyway.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, they won Stoker's hit A one sued them.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
And I think they almost destroyed all the prints. I
think only one or two prints remained, and that's why
we have it.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Lucky for us, one print stuck around.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
I would also recommend people to watch the nineteen seventy
nine nos Fratu by Werner Horsok really good, really good,
visual beautiful. Werner actually lived in a after the war,
they him and his mother disappeared to a remote mountain
village like that, like they and so he had he

(16:24):
didn't even know about film until he's eleven or twelve.
He lived in this kind of mountain village, like a
gypsy almost, and so when he made that film, he's
using real gypsies. It's real mountain scenery in Europe. He's
traveling to the castle, you see rivers. He's literally making
the landscape a personality and a feature, and it's really good.

(16:45):
It's slow paced. Sorry, sorry, gen Z, but it's good.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
No, it is. It is great, and I'm curious to
say the who's the director of the new one. I've
certainly enjoyed his other films like The Witch and what
was his Lighthouse movie?

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you mean the
Nosferatu and yeah, that is that. I can't remember his name.
It's it's escaping me. I feel like I'm yeah, Eggertgert. Yeah.
And then I just did a review on the new
Dracula movie at Dracula Lovetaiale, which is Luke Bassong. It's

(17:22):
not available yet, but I found it online so I
was able to review it, and it's it has its
strength and it has its weaknesses. It really does kind
of follow a similar line to the nineteen ninety two
Dracula with Gary Oldman, but it has its own introductions
and new stuff. Amazing costume design, amazing set design. It

(17:42):
hits the nail on all the period that they go through,
multiple different periods through history, and just really good that way.
Especially and the actor Caleb Lantree Jones, who plays Dracula,
is a very powerful character. He pushes that he's the
most powerful. You know. Sorry, I'm just gonna.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's okay. It's interesting how many times this movie can
be made, or this story can be told again and
again and again. We don't seem to tire of it culturally.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
Well, and that's why I'm impressed with Caleb Andry Jones.
I mean, that's what he's up against. This movie has
been done many, many times by many different actors in
many different names, and you've got to come up with
something different, and you've got to impress people. You've also
got to seduce the audience and be this powerful character
now because it's a love story thing. And I think
he did a good job with what he had to

(18:33):
go with. I was impressed with his performance. There was
other performances I wasn't so impressed with.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
But Selve, do you track in your shows, because I've
watched a couple of them and they're very good. And
what are the titles of your two podcasts? Just for people.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Who so I kind of did some shifting around. So
on Tuesday nights at seven pm Easter and we start live.
We talk about a lot of how the occult factors
into life and rituals and things that are happening try
to say no politics, but we talk about that the
studies and and how that intertwines in our world and

(19:09):
how mind control things like that. But Thursday nights we
do nine pm Eastern and that is devoted to the vampire,
vampire fiction, literature, folklore, any kind of guests. We got
a great lineup for October of guests of authors, filmmakers.
We're gonna do a Dark Shadows Night. So I like

(19:29):
to focus a lot on the literature, you know, maybe
come up with ideas like I want to do one
maybe on you know, is the is Dracula linked to
certain other myths in America? Like could the when to go?
Or not when to go? But what do you call that?

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Shoot, it's literally in my state skin walker? Is that
a vampire figure? Like go different places with it and explore.
So that's that's gonna be coming. But I also want
a lot of guests talking about their literature, that people
are still writing vampire books out there, people are still
coming up with new ideas and new characters to get

(20:09):
them on. So I have a couple authors coming on
as well, and just kind of go in different places
and keep exploring the folklore and different narratives and maybe
do some film reviews. Like I said, we just did
Dracula a Lovetale tonight went through it. I like to
have a structure, so sometimes I'll do slide shows and

(20:31):
then I'll put the slides for free on substack and
people can follow, and I put articles on substack and
talk about it off the show, so people can go
to my website, go to substack. I would recommend subscribing
on the YouTube channel because I'm trying to build a
community there where we talk about this literature and things
from the past, maybe more obscure information. So yeah, it's

(20:52):
been an interesting go just the two nights a week,
and it keeps me away from politics, and it focuses
me on things I actually like that's me and not
all about some kind of political crap.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Won't we won't go down the political route. But it's
difficult when you're mentioning vampires and like, you know, a
cult kind of and I guess power history and you
know power conspiracies and that kind of things. Do you
do you think there's a vampiric idea or a vampiric
energy attached to various type conspiracy stories, Like there's an

(21:28):
awful lot of you know, serial killer or you know
people being trafficked or people being murdered in blood, which
was like these type of things, and the darker recesses
of conspiracy theory. You always pop up the idea of
you know, blood sacrifice and things like that. Do you
think there's a link there with with vampism.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Well, vampiresm certainly can be a metaphor for it. I'm
not going to say those people are real vampires like
in a book or a movie. I've had guests come
on and tell me they've seen real vampires. I have not,
so I can't testify for that, but I've had people
come on. But I think they're definitely a good metaphor.
And when you see it sell a lot of stories

(22:08):
and folklores, and you hear people talk about vampires a
lot of times in the history. They might be a
metaphor for an evil ruler or a dictator, or someone
who's using the population and abusing the population. Certainly, our
energies are used all the time, our minds are manipulated
all the time for our energy. We've got energy vampires.

(22:30):
I certainly don't doubt that there are truths to those
stories of children being used in rituals or trafficked, and
that there's still some kind of weird blood obsession with
certain people. There's the idea that if you torture someone
that certain chemicals release in their blood, and that is
like the prime element that certain people won't say who

(22:54):
want because it gives them some kind of power. You know,
whether or not it's true, I don't know. I've done
a show about Dracula as a narcissist. I've done a
show about adrenochrome stuff like that, so it's certainly out there. Again,
it's conspiracy, it's I mean, I can't I can't show
you the video. I'm not like at Bohemian Grove, like

(23:15):
Alex Jones, Like I don't have a camera on me
and I can't film that. I'll probably never get that ability.
But there's something weird about elite people, and there's something
weird about elite politicians. It doesn't matter left right, Flying
spaghetti Monster, there's something weird going on, and I think
they all throughout time, you know, help manufacture these stories

(23:40):
or they're really real. There's something, there's something to it.
It may some of it may be elaborated upon and
not real, but at the core there's probably some real
element there that gets exaggerated, the idea of.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
The baron, you know, or the count living up on
the hilltop in the castle and abusing and you know,
taking virgins and various people from the t And there
are real examples, like the Elizabeth Bathory vampire case is
a classic example in history of somebody who's obviously got
serious you know, psychological problems and is seriously gets this

(24:14):
family show so we can't go to graphic, but enjoys
hurting people and thinks that there's some type of life
force in the blood. And this is an This is
a real, genuine, historical example of elite individuals taking advantage
of an underclass for their depravities and for their longevity.
So there are real historical well parallels.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
And let's be honest today in science, there is real
science pointing to certain procedures that say that, you know,
human placentas different things in blood. They do a vampire
facial where they do some kind of puncture to the
wound and blood does something. There are sciences that says, hey,
there are certain elements that gives you longevity. It may

(24:58):
not be directly drinking blood. But I think there's something
to it, you know, biblically one of the brown Stoker
got the idea from the Bible because in Leviticus it
tells you not to drink the blood of a living creature.
It's not about protein or me. It's about taking the
life blood of a creature. Not supposed to do that,

(25:19):
total sin for sacrifice nothing. And I think he pulled
from that and used that as like the ultimate sin
that Dracula could do, or in a vampire could do,
is take the blood of the living. And now we've
kind of transformed that it's all good, it's okay, there's
like cults and all these people that do it. But originally,
if you're biblically informed, it is like the greatest sin

(25:43):
that it's one of the greatest sins that you can do.
It actually turns you into a monster. It turns you
away from God. You're taking someone else's life force when
God's like, no, you're not allowed to do that.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, it's weird how that became a part of I
think kink culture, right, like people doing blood drinking things
within this And it wasn't even Billy Bob thought and
Angelina shole. Didn't they wear each other's blood around their
necks sort of vials?

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yep, she's a good candidate for borderline personality. She's a
strange one. They did that. I don't know what they think.
It's a really really dysfunctional way of bonding with someone,
that's for sure. And I think the blooding, like I'm
married and I would not share drink my husband's bladder
tell them to drink my blood. That is just that
is a weird bounding that I'm like, I'm sorry, and
that's not okay, and that's too weird. That's weird, Like

(26:33):
that's a boundary that I don't think people should should cross,
but some people do and that's what they want. And
I think they have really weird and distorted attachments to
say the least. That minimal.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
I mean, i've met people who don't. I've never known
anybody well, but I've certainly met people who have told
me that they are into the vampiric activities and again
as a family show, within the within the kick scene
that they operated, do you know what I mean? They
think it's so consensual, fine, but it's certainly super strange,

(27:07):
Like it's just it's a very strange thing too. And
again maybe it's through in culturation. If you grow up
watching and consuming all of this stuff which is romanticized
and eroticized, I guess it's it's really not surprising that
it's become a practice for people, you know, in alternate
sexual practices.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
No, And I think in our culture where we've come
to a point where we are so saturated with sex
that regular healthy intimacy becomes like this thing that no
one's interesting anymore, and they have to keep pushing these
boundaries that are not really healthy for them. And I

(27:44):
think that's what the whole kin scene is about, is
these people are just they become obsessed, they become addicted.
It's an addiction, and they have more and more and more.
It's like I was saying, uh, I needed more and
more coffee, but this is even more. They need more
weird sex that can become dangerous. I mean blood drinking
someone's blood is dangerous. It's yeah, it could be contaminated.

(28:07):
It's a dangerous thing. I don't advise people to do that.
It's very risky.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Not to mention wounding a person and actually like causing
you know, some serious bloodless anyway, perhaps to bring it
back to a less kinking note and a more supernatural note.
As you're aware, a lot of the older vampire legends
had the idea that these things came back from the
dead and primarily became attached to and haunted and made

(28:34):
it difficult for family members and people people that they
knew in their actual lives. Do you think have you
ever heard of, if not a vampire itself, some idea
of somebody or some spirit returning from the dead and
trying to do ill to the descendants that are left behind.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well, there's a whole entire village in Newfoundland that claimed
how like old hag experience, so you could see that
as something similar. But I believe even in America there
were certain families that don't remember their exact name, but
they had a daughter die this is like hundreds of
years ago, and they said she was coming back and

(29:17):
she was drinking the blood people that the childer children
were having nightmares about her and pressing on their chest
and drinking their blood. And of course in those days,
it was a chest that they would go for, not
the neck. It wasn't a sexual thing. It was about
taking life force predominantly and everyone kept having dreams about this,
and then other children started to die, crops started to fail,

(29:40):
they start to have a problem. So they literally did
what you would see in folklore. They went to the grave,
they dug it up, and they you know, nailed her
chut the the staking it's gonna miss, where they steak
the body that was to hold it in place, and
then they do whatever else, whether it's garlic or holy
water or tying it up with nods. There's all these
different variations, depending what country you're going to or what

(30:03):
region in Europe that you are focusing on. And apparently
after they handled it, nobody had any more problems. So
whether that was psychosomatic and it helped them, or they
did something that stopped the spread of disease, or whatever
it was, it worked for them and it seemed to
have an effect. And there's lots of stories like that,

(30:25):
you know, back in the day where people and I'm
pretty sure in Romania, even in the past twenty years,
in some of those countries, they still were doing those
ancient traditions where they would go to the grave and
deal with a body that they felt had the signs of,
you know, being a vampire. Whether it's they committed suicide,

(30:46):
they had a violent death, or a drowning, or they
just died of diseases, and people were seeing them revisit
coming out of the grave like a corpse. They would
go back and do the job and make sure they
were protecting the people who were still living, their cattle,
their crops, whatever it was that they believed.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Here, I find those that those traditions extended so recently.
I don't know whether it's indicative of the strength of
myth and superstition, or whether it's indicative of people were
having experiences that they had to somehow develop systems which
seemed to work to stop the threat. I do. I

(31:29):
find it fascinating that the steak, which is always used
in you know, vampire movies from and books from from
from Bramstoker's Dracula onwards through all the Hammer movies and
you know, universal horror movies and everything else. The idea
is the steak you're somehow plunging through the heart to
kill the vampire. But you're right, Originally, the whole purpose
of the steak was that you were you were trapping

(31:50):
the body in the grave so it couldn't get up
at night. And come and bother.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
You were actually right, right, it was so practical. Yeah,
it's super practical. It's like, let's just stake this sucker
so we can't move.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah. Sometimes they cut off the head as well, right,
which I suppose is a pretty you know, a fairly
sure way of making sure that the thing isn't functional.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Well, no one's gonna be functional just lending everyone, you know,
no one's gonna be functional after that. But yeah, I
guess that they're just making sure double get the job
done that it can't move around. They would also do
things like put a net in with knots, and the
belief was that the vampire likes to count, so it

(32:31):
would count the knots and stay there for eternity, which
you know, gives you a different concept of count on
count in Sesame Street. I mean, maybe that's why he's
not biting people, because he's too busy counting. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
I do know. Including that movie String where I told
you about, and I've read about it in books as well.
Another technique I think was to scatter like seeds or
some flower seeds or you know, rice or something, and
the vampire would stop to pick it up and to
count when it was leaving the tomb at night or
something so that it had too many It have this yeah,
almost compulsive disorder to count things. I didn't know about

(33:08):
the net and things being put in the tomb, but
I'd heard about other techniques that were meant to slow
it down doing what it might do.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, like if you had the net would trap it,
or it would be trying to untangle the knots of
the net to get out. And there's all sorts of
renditions of it. I don't know. I don't know where
it can I don't know why they would be obsessed
with counting. I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's strange how then things catch on and I'm trying
to remember a vampire is also unable to cross to
cross flowing water like creeks and rivers and things.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
There is there is that there, and I think it depends.
I think there's something specific. I can't quite remember, but
there is something about they have a fear of water,
running streams and running water. But of course in brown Stockers, Racula,
you know, Dracula gets on the ship and comes over,
so maybe they can go across oceans because he travels

(34:07):
to England via ship and it crashes because I mean,
he kills the whole crew.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I haven't. But they made that film, the Demeter or
whatever it was, based on the boat's name. Have you
seen that. I've been meaning to say that.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
I have to you know what, I have to go.
I watched the little clips of it, but I haven't
seen the whole thing. I should go watch it, you
know that? And that that's another thing. A lot of
the myths we have, they're not even from folklore. They
may not even from Bromstock or Stracula. Like in bromstock
Er Stracula, sunlight does not kill the vampire. Weakens it

(34:44):
a little bit, doesn't kill it. That comes in the movies.
That comes from Nosferatu, the first one. You said. So
we have the book, we have folklore, and then we
have film that adds on, and every director is like, okay,
well we've got to, you know, make up our own
myth or they add to it.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
It's a great visual vie as well, of course in Hollywood,
to see something like you know, dissolve when the sun
comes up, or why you know, it gets blistery skin,
or it looks great visually, and that's probably the reason
it's remained a popular, you know, trope within a lot
of vampire movies.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah, and it's this idea that sunlight is cleansing, you know,
it's disinfecting, it gets rid of evil. So I think
it was a good add on, although it's there in
the book. But it only weakens him. He doesn't he's
not at full power. Let's just put it that way.
He's at full power at the night.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
They just glimmer in Twilight. That doesn't bother them, right.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
The sparkle, Yeah, they just sparkle, and they just sparkle
and have dysfunctional relationships with human girls.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Apparently it's crazy. I've never read the books, mind you,
I've seen some of the movies.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
I tried. I put it down. I live in Utah,
and apparently Twilight's written by a Mormon. And once I
knew that, I was like, oh, yeah, I get it now.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
But that's a classic example the romanticization of the vampire.
Rod like that these vampires can be good and loving
and protective, and.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Well, I think I think they present that. But like,
even if you look at Twilight's it's a really toxic love.
It's not like a healthy love. It's toxic. Even in
almost every Dracula, whenever they falls in love, it's this
narcissistic love. Like I was watching count Yorga Part two

(36:38):
the other day and he falls He's falling in love
with this girl, so in order to get her, he
sends his zombified vampires over and they literally slaughter her
whole family, so it kidnaps her beau. That's love, you know,
It's like that. It's like, I love you, so I'm
going to take you and own you and possess you
and totally destroy your life. That's what they can't help it.

(36:58):
They're the undead, they're narcisses. This stake they cannot help
but make everything awful. Every single movie there, everyone fawns
over them. I'm like, dude, that guy just killed her
whole family.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Do you think buried in there too. That's some of
the appeal. The analogy or the allegory for a narcissist
is the vampire or oh.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, I actually do a whole show on that. You
can find out my channel. He's definitely highly narcissistic. And
one of the reasons I point to you is, you know,
people will say he's based on all these figures, and
that's probably true. But he based a lot of the
character of Dracula on his stage manager or not. He
was the stage manager for the actor Henry Irving, and

(37:40):
Henry Irvin was a terror. He was self absorbed, everything
you would say, was your classical narcissist and very demanding.
Literally Stoker couldn't even have a good marriage because of
this guy. And he had to write Dracula, you know,
on vacation or in the evening. It took him over
six years to write because Henry Irving demanded so much

(38:02):
of his energy in his time. So literally the narcissist
and a lot of those characters are installed or embedded
in Dracula. But it's like you know, probably exaggerated. And
of course Dracula has all these kind of supernatural powers
ethereal things. He literally turns crawls up the castle wall

(38:23):
like the lizard. He's got Harry palms. And I'll tell
you in the book, Dracula is not suave or attractive either.
He's got like he's a mustache. He's old and then
he goes younger as he drinks more blood and goes
to England. But he's not some good looking handsome chap
like dapper seductor. Either he's old, he's got foul breath,

(38:45):
he's got long fingernails, Harry palms, he's crawling around like
a lizard in his castle walls. He's not appealing either.
He's just very arrogant and this kind of like aristocrat
that is know, feels like you don't question him. He
rules everybody.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
He's not like the handsome Gary Oldman, even in the.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
No and even Gary Oldman's a little demonic in certain places.
And same with this new movie You Dragged Your Lovetail.
It is this love story, but he's kind of awful
in some scenes.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
The original Nosferatu kind of got it right because the
Count Orlock or whatever he's called, and that is a
hideous spectacle of an entity, like he doesn't he's not
handsome at all. It was maybe it was the universal
version where they had where Bella Lagosi. Whether you could
argue how handsome he was or not, he was certainly
suave and had this you know, mesmerizing you know, they

(39:42):
did this kind of close up on his eyes and
they'd light the eyes and he'd look all mesmerized.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
I think I think for the time he was handsome.
We may not consider that time, but I think for
the time he was considered handsome. He certainly and ugly,
and he has a suaveness, and he had the accent.
He had that that Transylvanian. He's Hungarian, he had that
accent that he was able to convey that kind of

(40:06):
European menace to American audience. And Americans were, you know,
bought it. Some of them say they have Spanish version
is better. I've never actually watched it. I think they've
got a lot of good shots. They were shooting on
different sets at night, and I think they did a
lot of different camera work. But I think it's Lugosi's
accent and some of the ways he holds his hands
and stuff. He had done it on stage for a while.

(40:29):
I think it wins over and he's the iconic version.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, the Spanish language version. Apparently the Spanish language crew
would watch the English crew at Universal as they shot
and then so they would have seen it done once
and then they go, ah, we could do this instead,
and we could be a bit angle if we could
hear so then they would just reshoot it. And they so,
of course they'd already done a practice around watching the

(40:52):
American crew. They were able to change it up a bit.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
And they were shooting at night, so they were really
in naytime.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, and that Spanish, that Spanish version used to be.
I had a special and I'm guessing you can get
it here. I don't have any of my Australian collection anymore,
but I had a special edition of the Universal Dracula
which had a couple of discs, and one of the
discs had that Spanish language version on it. But I'm
assuring probably when they do the specials for Halloween and
Walmartin places where they do all these kind of universal

(41:22):
specials and things, you can probably still get it. It's
worth watching. But I mean it's not as mesmerizing as
the original one, perhaps just because culturally it's so solidified
in US now as Belle Legosia is the original Dracula
really right?

Speaker 3 (41:35):
And I think it's hard when it's a different language.
I think that creates a little bit of a barrier
as well, if you dive. Even though the shots are
good and the acting is good, I think if it's
a different language, it just creates a barrier for you.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, No, I think I think that's totally fair. It's
interesting too, I know there has been some kind of
woke modern interpretations, and in fairness, there's some justification to it,
the idea that Dracula represents a foreign threat and an incursion,
like it's this, as you were saying, it's this Hungarian
or Romanian influence coming to polite English society, bringing its strange,

(42:12):
potentially sexual mores, bringing potentially disease, corrupting the very stage
socially controlled, you know, middle upper middle class English culture.
It's corrupted by the intrusion of the foreign, the intrusion
of the count from elsewhere.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah, certainly. And I think that'll always be a fear
amongst people because I am. It's not that one culture
is better than the other. It's just that when you
start having different cultures come in, it creates confusion for people.
And I don't think it's because people are racist or
bigots or anything like that. I just think people are,
you know, they if you have different cultures, you know,

(42:53):
you're not likely to unite as a people against the
elites're you know, you're you're going to be separated and
not understand each other because you come from a different background.
So there's a fear that gets you know, embedded, and
so it's just something that is there. It was there
in Brown Stocker's signment, could still be there now and

(43:13):
be interesting to see a movie on it. But yeah,
it just it plays out in a lot of different ways,
and I think it could change, like it's you know,
it's that culture then sorry, my dogs are decided to
come in make a sting. It could be that, you know,
the Eastern European culture then because it was unknown, and
who knows, it could be a different culture now that's

(43:35):
unknown that people are unfamiliar with.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Right because even in movies where there isn't the idea
of a cultural difference, it's often the outsider comes into
the community and he kind of reeks, you know, havoc.
I'm trying to. I'm thinking of eighties movies like, for example,
Fright Night. I think the person comes from outside of
the community and brings you in these you know, problems,

(44:01):
and I'm trying to there's a number of those movies
where there's this introduction of the vampire from outside and
when this outsider comes into the suburban, you know, it
just destroys us, you know, it misses it up and
so so the vampire in many ways is that it
encompasses that fear of the other, that fear of the outside.
Who comes in and misses everything.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
He destabilizes everything. He doesn't have the same morals. He
is literally feeding on your blood, and it's it's it's
definitely there. But he's also irresistible in a way. It's
funny because I mean, Jerry Dandridge, the vampire in Fright
Night is like, he's a good looking vampire.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, he's a good looking vampire. And and it plays
in it's interesting because it plays into this idea that
women are weak and they can't resist that. Maybe that's true,
maybe that's not. I don't know. I was on TikTok
watching the women post tiktoks about this new vamp Dracula,
and they are swooning over Caleb Andry Jones. So I
don't know. They like it. They like that figure. They

(45:07):
want to be seduced, and so yeah, it's certainly certainly
a case in Jerry Dandridge, that's a threat. If you've
got this character coming in who doesn't really love any
of the women, doesn't really want family and community, He
just wants to seduce people drain him dry and to
toss them aside. That's that's not a beneficial for anyone.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, and that's definitely part of at least Hollywood vampire legend.
I think the idea that you have to somehow then
compete for the woman you love about this against this
incredibly toxic but also incredibly seductive, you know new force,
which probably I imagine a lot of people can associate with

(45:51):
in the real world. But when you put that supernatural
you know, angle to it, it kind of it spins
into an even more powerful direction. What some What are
some of your favorite vampire you know books and or
films or popular cultural you know.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Well, I like Anne Rice, obviously I read it when
I was young. I'm not sure I like the Mono stuff.
It could just because I'm old. There's Chelsea Queen Yorbo
does some good books about Saint Germaine. Of course, I
like the original novel. I like how York. I like
a lot of seventies vampire films are kind of fun
and funky, but I also want to go check out

(46:26):
I was watching a film and this might be up
you're Ali Dan, because it's kind of like UFO or Aliens,
but I want to do a show on the movie
Planet of the Vampires.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, the movie, I.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Haven't finished it yet, but it's look Mario Baba.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, it's what inspired Alien.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, it's good. It's so far, it's good, and it's
an interesting concept where you go to this planet that's
like got these creatures.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
On it that Yeah, it's literally alien, but you know,
not quite as you know, Hi guy goe wee. But
that's apparently where they got the idea of alien. Suppose.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Interesting. Well, I think I think I'm gonna like it
because Mario Barber has a very unique style that's a
lot different than Ridley Scott. Although I do like Aliens.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, have you There's other Mario Barber movies which have
that vampire element in them as well. There's several of
them which capture the and they're not out of space
ones like Planet of the Vampires, but they I'm trying
to think, what is Kill Baby Kill? I think is
one of them. I think one of the stories in
is it Black Sunday or Black Sabbath the trilogy One

(47:38):
Sabbath is that the one with the different stories in
it with yeah, as a vampire story in it. So
and when he has images of the vampires in that
and the backdrop of you know, Eastern European villages and things,
they're super suspenseful and they're super atmospheric. I love those
Barber movies so much.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
He gets atmosphereic good. And in those days. People have
to remember when they were shooting films. In those days,
there was a lot less restrictions. They could go into
these castles, they had access to certain things. In the seventies,
a lot of times for these films, they would just
show up on the streets of San Francisco and start
shooting and wait until someone called the cops and just disappeared.

(48:17):
So you're like, literally seeing the backdrop is real. Like
they had less restrictions or they got away with more.
They didn't do permits, so these indie filmmakers could make
things happen. So it's it's I love watching the older
films just because of that. It feels like they're more creative.
Today things feel too template it and I mean it's

(48:40):
already done. Film's already done and been done, so you
have to figure out how you're going to breathe more
life and make it anew So it is challenging, and
then you've got all these restrictions.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
You know, have you seen Toby Hoops? Have you seen
Toby Hoop's Life Force speaking about vampires special?

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I haven't.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
I have not really. I mean, people criticize it a lot,
as well as junkie and other stuff, but I really
like it. I think it's superstyle is super weird, and
it's like, yeah, nineteen eighty five film, I think by
the director of the Texas Change so Massacre very different,
you know, very compared to Texas Change So, but it's
worth saying. I wonder what your take of it will be.
You know, sexy vampires, space but super you know very

(49:20):
much ance.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Yeah, I gotta check it. There's so many vampire movies
I've never seen. I get it's just so little time.
Right now, my friend wants me to watch Near Dark.
I was a huge Lost Boys fan, massive fan of
that movie throughout my like even when I was a kid,
all the way still now I love watching it and
everyone's like, you should watch Near Dark, But I think
it's a little that one's a little darker and a

(49:44):
little more mature. So people want me to check it out.
That's from the eighties.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
There's Catherine Bigelow directed Near Dark. I think right, The Woman.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Who Went I'm not sure. I don't know. I still
have to watch it.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
But Thence Hendrickson, it's a great movie. It's yeah, it's
very much a Hollywood version, you know what I mean,
with the sunlight being a problem and all these other things.
But yeah, I think you'd enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
I like I said, when I became really fascinated with vampires,
it's not that I hadn't heard of them before. I
knew about that, but it was Bram Stokers, the nineteen
ninety two Dracula, Francis or Coppola, very operatic, very art nouveau.
It was like they were doing some kind of art
house practicing art style in the main movie. And I've

(50:28):
always liked a little bit of a romantic Dracula. I
like the chick like Draculas. I'll be honest with you.
I think that's probably my thing, but a lot of
women do. But I'm open. Like I said, the Planet
of the Vampires, I started watching that. That looks really good.
And I do like the idea of good versus evil,

(50:49):
that kind of concept. It's more strong. Like I said,
when I was reviewing this new Dracula a love story,
very weak Van Hilsen character priest not like not like you,
Peter Cushing. He just wasn't contending with this. There was
no way anyone was contending with Caleb's Dracula. So there's
this change where Dracula is the anti hero instead of

(51:13):
the ultimate evil now. And I do like those films
where it's Christopher Lee versus Peter Cushion. I mean, I
love those.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
There's something weird happen I think sometime between the eighties
and into the nineties where, maybe because it had been
the traditional horror tropes had been done so often, there
seemed to be this change in an attempt to humanize
or hear or even turn them into the hero or
the anti hero, as you said, who was the traditional villain.

(51:43):
So demon's become the good guys. And you can look
at Buffy to see that, Like Buffy, the two main
vampires in Buffy, probably Spike and Angel, both become good guys,
Angel first and then Scrap right like, they ultimately become
the show's male protagonists that the antagonists who become the technists.
Angel gets his own spin off series. You know, he's
just wonderful, loving vampire, you know who somehow seeing the

(52:06):
light is a good guy.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
The first to do that was Dark Shadows High Good Point.
Dark Shadows did that with Barnabas Collins. So they're just
kind of repeating it and it they're doing it because
of the audience, not just because they want a narcissist
or want to do that. The audience response. The audience response,
you know, Jonathan fred As Barnabas saved that show. It

(52:29):
shot the ratings up, and they had to figure out
a way for him not just be a villain but
turn into a hero of the family and bring other
villains in. So you could say the Hollywood studios are
doing it or they're manipulating us, but they're also responding
to what we respond to and what we think is great.
So apparently we like the seductive vampires and we want
them to, you know, be the good guys.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Do you in your your interest in vampires now, particularly
your focus with your shows, do you track modern reports
like do you look I don't know on news wise
or search forty in type magazines for stories of people
making claims of being bothered by contemporary vampires, like in
a modern sensibility like there are there real vampire stories

(53:15):
still being reported. I guess is a simple thing.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Well, I've had a guest on who's a vampire researcher
to talk about it, so I've had him talk about
his vampire experiences. It's certainly something I'll keep putting out there.
I want to talk to people who might have been
in cults or were a handler in a vampire cult.
So those are out there. So I certainly haven't done
tons of it, but it's there and it will continue
to be something that gets mentioned on my podcast as

(53:39):
it grows and as I expand, because I've never, like
I said, I've never seen a vampire, but there's people
who swear they have, and I want to hear the
stories for sure.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Have you heard a modern, chilling vampire story or an
interesting vampire story, you can shut up.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
I just had a fellow on, Dennis Carroll, who told
me that he had experience in a graveyard with someone
who he believed was a vampire and disappeared. So and
that was in South Carolina. Then he had that experience,
So I have heard of it. I've been to South

(54:16):
Carolina down I should go back there and check it out. Yeah,
I'm sure. I'm sure there's tons of stories in Louisiana
and New Orleans. So I just have to I just
have to find them. I got to get that time
to go out in the field and find them.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
New Orleans is a weird city too. I can imagine
if there were vampires walking in New Orleans. It has
a dark energy. Like a lot of people love New Orleans.
I appreciate it, but when I was there, I was
very conscious that it was there to me, and I'm
not an energy guy. I don't walk through life going, oh,
there's you know, but I have been in places in
my life where I felt, you know, this just feels

(54:51):
a little whacked, and New Orleans was that kind of place,
like you could tell there was a kind of darkness there.
So if there were vampires wandering a modern, you know,
North American city along with any so, I can imagine
that would be the city.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
According to my guests, that's a hub for that kind
of activity and cults and beliefs. And then there's voodoo
and whodoo and all that stuff there, so that's a hub.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Yeah, the voodoo stores probably added to that apprehension I
had there, like they seemed they didn't seem just tourist trappy,
although they were, they also seemed there was a much
more sinister feel to them than if you just walk
into a new age esoteric bookshop. In most cities, like
those stores felt like there was something actually there, at

(55:37):
least to me, any went to them, but they felt
that they seemed to be a genuine I don't know
what the word is, a genuine influence or force or
something hovering around them.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, I don't doubt that. I've actually never been to
New Orleans, so maybe one dal I'll have to go.
I have been to Charleston, South Carolina, where that guy
saw that vampire, and it's one of an old city,
was named after King Charles the second, so it's an
old city and I've been there and it's got a
spooky vibe in certain areas. It's old, so I can

(56:09):
believe it.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
So, what are some of the topics you have coming
up in the near future. There's some shows looking forward.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
To well this month of October, guys, I'm starting off.
I have on the thirty. They had to switch around
this week because I have Malia Graham coming on and
she's going to be talking about some vampire cults in California.
That's on Tuesday the thirtieth. I'm kicking off on the
second talking about because I do talk about some ocult

(56:37):
stuff about history of Halloween, just for Halloween month. But
I've got Dan and Ava from Vampchat coming on in October.
Their authors and they run a vampire podcast, so they're
coming on and talk about literature. Gary Parsons is coming on.
He's going to talk about Hammer Horror in Dracula. His
father worked for Hammer Horror. He's a filmmaker himself, so

(56:58):
he's heavily into a lot of cult films and creating that.
Walter Bosley and Todd are coming on. We're having a
Dark Shadow show on the thirtieth. I got Jared Niche
from The Obelisk coming on, and I'm sure we'll talk
something vampiric. That's just for October, so you know it's
gonna be a good Halloween month of vampire literature, vampire film,

(57:21):
a little occultism in there, some history of Halloween and
pagan belief. So we're gonna cover that area all October,
and if anybody else out there is listening and you
want to come on, of course, you can always contact
me websites Melissa Downharris dot com, all the email links
on there. If you want to be a guest and
you are doing something on vampire literature, vampire experience or

(57:45):
anything like that and you want to be a guest,
you're more than welcome to come on the show.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It sounds great. And when people actually want to watch
the shows, where's the best place for them to do that?

Speaker 3 (57:55):
The best place is the YouTube channel. You can type
type I mean the links are at my website and
type in Velvet Byte Radio that's what it's called, or
Melissa down Harris is a handle, and that will get
you to the YouTube channel. That's the probably the best
place for the community to live stream. It's going to
go on that. I don't do it on x anymore
because X is too crazy. I literally shut my account

(58:18):
down that had forty thousand followers on because it was
two nuts and it was all, yeah, that's a long story.
So it's going to be on Facebook X. It streams
on Rumble, and I'm going to be streaming on substack
as well. Once Substack turns their live stream from beta
to a wider audience, I have to wait for that.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Now that sounds great. Now I have the I already
have it in the YouTube and Facebook show notes now,
but I'll carry it across to the audio only show
notes as well. I have your link to both, I
think your podbean for your shows as well as your
YouTube channel for your show, so both of those links
will be.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
And guys, I have a lot of free articles, well
summer paid, but a lot of free articles over at substack,
so please subscribe on my substack and help me build that.
It's Melissa don Harris dot substack dot com.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
I'm gonna go check that out myself. You're a great guest.
Thank you so much for coming on again, Melissa.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Thanks so much for having me, guys, and thanks everybody
for watching.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Next week I'm going to have Heather Mossa to kick
off the October month, although you in many ways were
to kickoff Melissa with vampires and next next week, so
the beginning of October, we'll be talking about the bell
Witch and cursed objects, which is going to be a
great way to start our October. And so until I

(59:39):
talk to you again, Melissa, which hopefully will be very soon,
and until I talk to everybody else out there, which
will be same weird time Thursday's nine pm Central, same
weird network, the Untold Radio Network. Please keep it weird.