Speaker 1: You're listening to an air wave media podcast. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Monster Talk. I'm Karen Stolsner and I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, very creature, part ape part net in Luckness,
Speaker 3: a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in the highlands
Speaker 3: of Scotland. It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 2: Monstertal Hi, Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 2: Today we're going to be talking about upcoming episodes and
Speaker 2: chat a little bit about the show and give some
Speaker 2: personal updates more instrut.
Speaker 4: I was thinking that it would be good to talk
Speaker 4: about just well, honestly, we used to do more episodes
Speaker 4: where we would, you know, get together before we did
Speaker 4: our interviews and just kind of shoot the breeze a
Speaker 4: little bit. And we don't do that as much as
Speaker 4: we used to, and I wish we had more time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we used to do that, definitely, and I think
Speaker 1: we've just been so busy in recent years that we
Speaker 1: have just met up a couple of minutes beforehand.
Speaker 4: I'm only made.
Speaker 1: Sure ell the equipment's working and gotten straight into it.
Speaker 4: And not only do we lose that sort of conversational
Speaker 4: tone I think it comes to in the inniverse. Okay,
Speaker 4: but I mean it is fun to just talk. I mean,
Speaker 4: we don't get to talk very much.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we don't live in the same city, and
Speaker 1: we used to catch up at TAM and various other
Speaker 1: conferences and things. And in fact, you've got dragon Con
Speaker 1: coming up next.
Speaker 4: Week, don't Yeah, And you know, foolishly, I haven't put
Speaker 4: any plugs for that in the show up until now.
Speaker 4: I'm not actually involved in any of the panels, but
Speaker 4: I will be there at dragon Con for the first time,
Speaker 4: and I think this would be the first time be
Speaker 4: really active in maybe three years.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I took a look at the schedule and
Speaker 1: I have to admit there are lots of names that
Speaker 1: I'm unfamiliar with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I was. There are some really cool stuff
Speaker 4: in the Skeptics track. There's a ton of things I
Speaker 4: want to do as just a fan, and I'm usually
Speaker 4: I guess I had been very busy and doing volunteer
Speaker 4: work and getting on panels and attending you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of the Skeptics Track stuff and Derek does a
Speaker 4: great job with that, and I love it and I'm
Speaker 4: really excited because it's it's caused, are inspired. I guess
Speaker 4: lots of other skeptical presence at these sort of fan conventions,
Speaker 4: but this year I want to do a lot of
Speaker 4: lurking in the in the in the paranormal track. They
Speaker 4: have a paranormal track there, and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: people that I'd like to talk to because you know,
Speaker 4: I think we've talked about this before that in the
Speaker 4: field of skepticism as a as a as sort of
Speaker 4: it exists as a sort of adjunct to scientific skepticism,
Speaker 4: this sort of casual I don't know how to put it.
Speaker 4: It's non academic skepticism, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 4: we do investigations, we do research, and many of the
Speaker 4: people who do this kind of work are credentialed and
Speaker 4: they have the right skills to do really good quality work.
Speaker 4: But in general, I don't think there exists a field
Speaker 4: of scientific investigation into paranormal and fringed claims as a
Speaker 4: as a as a field of study. But if there
Speaker 4: is such a thing, I think it exists as kind
Speaker 4: of a smaller group of people who are interested in
Speaker 4: skepticism as a methodology, because there are these huge topics
Speaker 4: like all mad is a huge one. People are really
Speaker 4: interested in that, and they do great work and they save.
Speaker 1: Lives, and that's an important one.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any kind of hierarchy some people
Speaker 1: about some topics being more important and others.
Speaker 4: But it seems like paranormal claims in popular culture get
Speaker 4: a huge amount of I don't want to say press,
Speaker 4: it's not ink per se, but I mean they get
Speaker 4: a lot of TV time, It's covered in the media
Speaker 4: a lot. But the sort of this whole show exists
Speaker 4: as sort of an alternative, an inverse view of those topics. Right,
Speaker 4: So if you watch the Discovery Channel or the History Channel,
Speaker 4: or any show or TV show that's trying to make
Speaker 4: an interesting bit of entertaining television, they're going to be
Speaker 4: more inclined to cover the claims, the paranormal claims or
Speaker 4: the fringe claims without really doing a lot of critical
Speaker 4: examination of the facts.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, yeah, yeah, My husband until recently worked
Speaker 1: for a production company that produced a lot of reality TV,
Speaker 1: and certainly they're not interested in the explanations for these things.
Speaker 1: They're interested in the folklore and the stories.
Speaker 4: And this is a long way of me getting to
Speaker 4: the part where but in this field, there are people
Speaker 4: like us who are really skeptical of the underlying causes,
Speaker 4: but are fascinated by the stories and the phenomena and
Speaker 4: the experience, and we're sympathetic to the people who are
Speaker 4: going through things, and we're interested in why people sometimes
Speaker 4: do hoaxes, all these various ways that this material could
Speaker 4: be processed besides just a creepy story to tell before
Speaker 4: the lights go out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, I think most skeptics that I'm friends
Speaker 1: with got into skepticism not because of skepticism, but because
Speaker 1: of a love of these topics of cryptis or ghosts stories,
Speaker 1: and that's really how they found their way into skepticism.
Speaker 4: Do you feel sometimes, though, like, even though that's the case,
Speaker 4: that within the whole group, we're kind of in a ghetto,
Speaker 4: because I do. I feel like we're like we're in
Speaker 4: a ghetto of we're the ones who are interested in
Speaker 4: ghosts because a lot of skeptics will dismiss that, and
Speaker 4: I would say that that would be the wrong thing
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, I certainly had people say things to
Speaker 1: me over the years. I remember maybe two decades ago now,
Speaker 1: just writing an article for the Australian Skeptic magazine about ghosts,
Speaker 1: and an anti fan wrote in and complained that I
Speaker 1: was doing yet another ghost investigation and why was I
Speaker 1: bothering because ghosts clearly don't exist. Why was I wasting
Speaker 1: my time with this? And so I think that you
Speaker 1: get that attitude with a lot of skeptics that they
Speaker 1: think there's no points in researching that or Bigfoot because
Speaker 1: these things just don't exist obviously, and you know, why
Speaker 1: would we want to pursue them. But I think we
Speaker 1: have good reason to investigate claims on an individual level
Speaker 1: and not just a concept, but also because we're interested
Speaker 1: in these things, and you know, we just love the folklore.
Speaker 4: I agree with that, which is, you know, part of
Speaker 4: the reason why I think the show's still going well.
Speaker 1: Clearly many other people agree with us as well. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to say about drag and con if you're
Speaker 1: going to be looking into the parental track. I believe
Speaker 1: that a friend of mine is going to be appearing
Speaker 1: this year by the name of Aiden Sinclair. He's a
Speaker 1: magician and he's got a show called Illusions of the Past,
Speaker 1: and so what he does is he incorporates history and
Speaker 1: magic together and he gives a really great show. So
Speaker 1: there's nothing about him that speaks about belief for that,
Speaker 1: he's not a skeptic. He is a skeptic, but he
Speaker 1: basically does seances and just a number of other magic
Speaker 1: tricks that include ghost stories and historical stories. And so
Speaker 1: go and check him out and tell him.
Speaker 4: I said, Hi, okay, I will, let's remind me to
Speaker 4: put that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a gig, an ongoing gig at the
Speaker 1: Stanley Hotel and so he does shows there, I think
Speaker 1: or five nights a week, and so you get people
Speaker 1: who travel the country and the globe basically going there
Speaker 1: to check out the haunted Stanley Hotel, and whilst they're there,
Speaker 1: they hear about his salances and they attend those and
Speaker 1: they were a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: I had a really fun experience staying at the Stanley
Speaker 4: a few years ago. In fact, it was before we
Speaker 4: started Monster Talk. There was a ghost video, the Pinjara
Speaker 4: ghosts Cemetery video, I think it was where it was,
Speaker 4: and Kylie Sturgis and I collaborated on that and it
Speaker 4: was so interesting because there I was working it was.
Speaker 4: My wife was there for a conference and I got
Speaker 4: to go. I was working for my company and she
Speaker 4: was working for hers. But at the same time I
Speaker 4: was sitting in this famous old hotel and doing ghost research.
Speaker 4: And she was tied up with My wife was tied
Speaker 4: up with, not with ropes, but with the conference. I
Speaker 4: don't know where you thought I was wrong with that?
Speaker 4: Those are my dad ever got her? So I was,
Speaker 4: I was. I was tied up a lot with work,
Speaker 4: but I spent a lot of that free time wandering
Speaker 4: the Stanley at night by myself and trying to figure
Speaker 4: out what was going on in this ghost video. It
Speaker 4: was such a fun experience. And so I really like
Speaker 4: that place. It's really nice. I don't take it's on it,
Speaker 4: but it's really fine.
Speaker 1: Oh lots of great stories there. And I went on
Speaker 1: an investigation with Brian and Baxter years ago, and they
Speaker 1: were there with an author who was writing a book
Speaker 1: about the Stanley Hotel, and so they were they're doing
Speaker 1: an investigation debunking a lot of the claims, and there
Speaker 1: were some silly claims, things like the do you remember
Speaker 1: the rocking chairs that are out the front of the building,
Speaker 1: those old white ones that they were rocking with no
Speaker 1: one sitting in them, so clearly there were phantom people
Speaker 1: sitting in these chairs and rocking them.
Speaker 4: When you're a ghost, you get tired of walking through
Speaker 4: walls and scaring people. Sometimes you have to sit down
Speaker 4: and yeah.
Speaker 1: Take a break. But I always thought it was funny
Speaker 1: that they made toilet paper and a ghost hunting tool
Speaker 1: for the very first time. I think because people were saying,
Speaker 1: there is no wind here, there's no breeze, there's no
Speaker 1: way that these seats could be moving by themselves, So
Speaker 1: they taped toilet paper to the seats to show that
Speaker 1: there was a wind and that they were moving and
Speaker 1: being affected by the wind.
Speaker 4: So they confirmed that an invisible source was causing them
Speaker 4: to move.
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess that's it.
Speaker 4: I'm just imagining the headline, right.
Speaker 1: But it was a lot of fun being there, and
Speaker 1: I really think that we spent most of the night
Speaker 1: just explaining to people that their photographs of orbs were
Speaker 1: not photographs of ghosts. And we were there. At one
Speaker 1: point there was a number of people grew in a
Speaker 1: group and standing around and talking about how they could
Speaker 1: smell phantom cigar smoke, and so we identified the source
Speaker 1: the location where this was coming from, and it was
Speaker 1: a guy who was sick of paying hotel prices because
Speaker 1: the restaurant's really expensive there. So he had his own
Speaker 1: little barbecue and he was making bacon burgers.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that sounds delicious.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting interesting paradolia too, that people could
Speaker 1: smell bacon and meat and think that that cigar smoke.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but yeah, that's and I think that's a
Speaker 4: place that definitely primes people to be looking for the unusual.
Speaker 4: I mean, like that's an interesting trend in a lot
Speaker 4: of hotels, especially old ones, where they they don't necessarily
Speaker 4: advertise that they're haunted, but they know, well the Stanley
Speaker 4: they do, and I know, like the Driscoll.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that was the one with the painting of
Speaker 1: the little girl exactly.
Speaker 4: So the Driscoll. I didn't see any signs that or
Speaker 4: anything saying they were haunted, but if you go ask
Speaker 4: at the front desk, they will produce a print out
Speaker 4: with ghost stories.
Speaker 1: Yes, yep, yep. That happened to us as well, and
Speaker 1: we went and found that painting of the little girl.
Speaker 1: And I can't remember the stories associated with that, but
Speaker 1: I think it was claimed that she'd stayed in the
Speaker 1: hotel and that she died there, and that she's seen
Speaker 1: she might have died on the stairs.
Speaker 4: Maybe I don't recall there was. They told me that
Speaker 4: the best stuff was in rooms, and you have to
Speaker 4: stay in the rooms, which is very convenient.
Speaker 1: The room always changes and you get the same thing
Speaker 1: with the Stanley too. I mean, there are a few
Speaker 1: of the rooms that are allegedly more haunted than others,
Speaker 1: but certainly whatever rooms available for the night is the
Speaker 1: haunted room.
Speaker 4: The best spirits from the bar was my experience. But yeah,
Speaker 4: speaking of spirits, we've got I guess we should mentioned
Speaker 4: what we are working on, so I don't. We don't
Speaker 4: have an interview this week. This is just me and
Speaker 4: you talking a little bit.
Speaker 1: But lots of things planned though we do.
Speaker 4: We've got we've been making some really good progress on
Speaker 4: an episode on Demon Dolls.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so we're going to be interviewing Corey Convertito.
Speaker 1: I think is I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but.
Speaker 4: Barring unpreseen circumstances, we're certainly planning to.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and yes, she's from the Key West Art
Speaker 1: and Historical Society, and so she's the curated and basically
Speaker 1: the keeper of Robert the Doll.
Speaker 4: Robert the Doll, I'm Bob Doll, and Bob Doll.
Speaker 1: Said, but we've been wanting to do this one for years,
Speaker 1: so this is really for sure.
Speaker 4: I have a friend who is very disturbed by Robert
Speaker 4: the Doll, and I told him I was looking into
Speaker 4: it for our show. So I'm very excited about the
Speaker 4: opportunity to get to some of the facts in fulklore
Speaker 4: behind that case.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm really keen to ask about all the
Speaker 1: people who write in you know how that's said that
Speaker 1: if people have insolved the Doll, or they're rude to it,
Speaker 1: then they're cursed and they go away and bad things happen,
Speaker 1: so they write letters of apology to him.
Speaker 4: No spoilers, that's well, no, I just meant that's a
Speaker 4: phenomena that you find in a lot of paranormal stories.
Speaker 4: The Hawaiian legend about don't steal rocks from Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Don't think the lover oh y'are making me think of
Speaker 1: that old Brady Bunch episode.
Speaker 4: And definitely watch out for Vincent Price if you're on
Speaker 4: the island. That's a good just a good rule of thumb.
Speaker 4: And then we're also speaking of folklore. We're planning to
Speaker 4: actually talk with an actual academic folklore is because while
Speaker 4: we talk about folklore, we haven't really spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time talking about how that's actually studied as a
Speaker 4: as a field.
Speaker 1: And I think that all is systematic.
Speaker 4: It is and it comes up again and again and
Speaker 4: kind of being able to distinguish between You learn this
Speaker 4: as you study and research these kinds of stories, but
Speaker 4: you'll start to develop skills and figuring out whether the
Speaker 4: elements in the story are are they plausible or does
Speaker 4: this sound like an urban legend or folklore?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole Marx of folcal.
Speaker 4: But obviously, if you look at the amount of stories
Speaker 4: that are passed around as sort of spam or email
Speaker 4: or chain letters, many of which are really just urban legends.
Speaker 4: And I think if you get to like the Snope's
Speaker 4: website for example, that sort of study is not widely
Speaker 4: understood or widely I mean, people clearly are willing to
Speaker 4: pass along a story without really caring whether it's true
Speaker 4: or not if it interests them.
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely, definitely, if they've got something to gain from it,
Speaker 1: If they've got a bias.
Speaker 4: So and I think, you know, we've sort of always
Speaker 4: had a sort of passive approach to this. And it's
Speaker 4: interesting because when we look at our reviews on iTunes,
Speaker 4: and by the way, if you don't want to spend
Speaker 4: any money to support us, there's really no better way
Speaker 4: to support us than to go to iTunes and give
Speaker 4: us a free review. But when you look, we have
Speaker 4: almost all positive reviews, but the negative reviews are usually
Speaker 4: along the lines of these guys are so dismissive, they
Speaker 4: don't believe in anything, They laugh at the believers, they mock.
Speaker 1: Them, and they haven't listened to any other skeptic podcasts.
Speaker 1: Because I think we're not like that as much as ares.
Speaker 4: I don't know it's possible, but I mean, I guess
Speaker 4: it's one of the things people can interpret our voices
Speaker 4: without really knowing us.
Speaker 1: But well, yeah, sometimes if you listen to one sod
Speaker 1: or a snippet of it, and maybe it's about a
Speaker 1: topic that you're passionate with, well, right, if you.
Speaker 4: Love later coorns, you've seen a unicorn, you believe in unicorns.
Speaker 4: Unicorns you know cured your grandmother. And we do an
Speaker 4: episode of unicorns and say they're just folklore. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: I see.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, And if you don't give
Speaker 1: us a chance, then you could come to that conclusion.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: But I hope that we're doing a better job now.
Speaker 4: But I do want to get more interviews with people
Speaker 4: who are believers, which can sometimes be.
Speaker 1: We've done that occasionally. Yeah. Well, I think they're loathed
Speaker 1: to come on to a show like this because they
Speaker 1: think they're going to be attacked.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to attack people. I'd like to
Speaker 4: get their side. I mean, I don't want to like softball,
Speaker 4: and I would like to ask them, you know the subject,
Speaker 4: you know what you know. I'll give you example is
Speaker 4: I would really love to talk to guyline Playfair, who
Speaker 4: was the primary researcher on.
Speaker 1: The Infield Polta gust.
Speaker 4: That's an episode that we're definitely working on. I'm reading
Speaker 4: his book. He's had some very rough experiences working with
Speaker 4: skeptics in the asked, and I don't think it's wrong
Speaker 4: for them to be critical of his work. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't, but I don't also think it would be
Speaker 4: right to have him want to be rooted him.
Speaker 1: I mean, just politely, well, I think we can find
Speaker 1: some common ground in that we're interested in these topics,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be a good idea. In the past,
Speaker 1: we've had a few believers on and I think we've
Speaker 1: always we haven't had slinging matches at all. It's going
Speaker 1: on pretty well.
Speaker 4: I'd love to have Richard Sugback on to talk about
Speaker 4: poultry geist, and he definitely had.
Speaker 1: He's an interesting guy, he.
Speaker 4: Really is, and his research is just amazingly detailed. While
Speaker 4: he has reached a different conclusion than we have about
Speaker 4: the likelihood of poultry geist, but his research is great
Speaker 4: and his books, the writing he's done is interesting. I
Speaker 4: don't know where he's at with his book is whether
Speaker 4: they're getting it.
Speaker 1: Published, but you can teach us the thing or two
Speaker 1: to be given a different perspective.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, so I'd love to talk to them, and
Speaker 4: if we can get all that into our poultry gust episode,
Speaker 4: we will. If not, we'll still get somebody the worst
Speaker 4: case scenario. I'll talk about what I've learned by recent
Speaker 4: but I do like to bring in experts. Although this is.
Speaker 1: Fun, so yeah, yeah, we'll see what we can do.
Speaker 4: We've got some interesting archaeological ties coming in. So we've
Speaker 4: got the Archaeological Fantasies podcast. We're going to do a
Speaker 4: crossover episode with them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we've been talking about that on Twitter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I just delighted that the topic we're going
Speaker 4: to be talking about is fairies and the faithfolk. I
Speaker 4: am so excited about this because they I knew, you know, intellectually,
Speaker 4: that there were ties between fairies and claims about actual
Speaker 4: archaeological sites, but these guys have done a lot more
Speaker 4: research into it than I ever have, and it is
Speaker 4: good stuff. So I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1: Certainly a different topic, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: And we've got Ken Fader is going to come back
Speaker 4: on and talk about archaeological hoaxes.
Speaker 1: Oh he's much beloved.
Speaker 4: He is, and putting putting the rated R in our archaeology. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but we'll bleeve him out. Yeah. So that's the stuff
Speaker 4: we've got on tap. That's the stuff I'm working on.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure we've both got things we've been you know,
Speaker 4: lightly looking at or maybe even deeply looking at we
Speaker 4: haven't talked to each other about.
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, there's always something, isn't there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, and speaking of infield, I've got to finish
Speaker 4: Playfair's book because the next book in my reading list
Speaker 4: is by this author Carrine.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I've got Hits and Missus and I've started it,
Speaker 5: and then I've like, I felt like I'm obligated to
Speaker 5: not read anything else until i finished this Infield book.
Speaker 4: And thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't mind if you put it aside to finish.
Speaker 4: Have you ever seen a picture of my nightstand?
Speaker 1: It's no, I haven't I built, but yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, I'm just very proud of this. I
Speaker 4: made my own. I kept having these stacks of books
Speaker 4: falling over all the place, and so I've built a
Speaker 4: nightstance specifically to keep up with my most active reading lists.
Speaker 4: I've got bookshelves everywhere in my house like most nerds, but.
Speaker 1: Wow, you are dedicated.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and so I mean, like it's very very
Speaker 4: very specifically built. So I put like a little place
Speaker 4: on the side to hold notebooks and pencils in case
Speaker 4: I wanted john any ideas down. And then I got
Speaker 4: two rows of bookshelves, and I have recessed LED lighting,
Speaker 4: and then I have a power strip on the side
Speaker 4: so that my chargers and stuff from my kindle and
Speaker 4: my phone are all there.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to put up a picture of this.
Speaker 1: I think everyone wants to say this and maybe you
Speaker 1: should copyright this or something.
Speaker 4: Well, she's like, would you please just shut up about it.
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, I'm really proud of my work, so
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's just plywould but it's a
Speaker 4: good design.
Speaker 1: I really like it, so oh but skeptical design amazing.
Speaker 4: But I had to I had to get that done
Speaker 4: very carefully because I did that in January when I
Speaker 4: had two weeks of free time to recover from some
Speaker 4: surgery that I had had, So I wanted to catch
Speaker 4: listeners up on that. If you're interested in my health,
Speaker 4: I about two thousand and eight, I got diagnosed with
Speaker 4: type two diabetes. And it's not something I've really talked about.
Speaker 4: It's not on the show, really not much at all.
Speaker 4: They call it the silent killer because well, people don't
Speaker 4: typically talk about it. It's one of those things that
Speaker 4: you're told you've got to cut down to your blood
Speaker 4: sugar and then you're told basically eat these things and
Speaker 4: that's kind of the extent of it. And unfortunately, that's
Speaker 4: really hard to do if you've been eating poorly for
Speaker 4: forty years you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've heard of lots of cases where people
Speaker 1: have been able to reverse that diagnosis.
Speaker 4: Though, yeah no, and it's not like an instant death
Speaker 4: sentence or anything.
Speaker 1: Well, it's really good of you to talk about this,
Speaker 1: because this is something that most people just keep to
Speaker 1: the chest. And I think you just want to help people,
Speaker 1: then I do.
Speaker 4: So when I found was, you know, I didn't have
Speaker 4: the will power to stop eating the way I needed to,
Speaker 4: And I looked at a lot of things, and I
Speaker 4: kept getting very concerned that I was going to start
Speaker 4: having some of the neurological problems that can be associated
Speaker 4: with it, and vascular problems. I wasn't having those things,
Speaker 4: but I was beginning to get really concerned. And my
Speaker 4: level so sugar had gotten so high they were talking
Speaker 4: about putting me on insulin. So I decided and to
Speaker 4: research like stomach surgery and.
Speaker 1: Was it recommended to you or it was something.
Speaker 4: You know, but I have several people in my life
Speaker 4: have gone through that and had dramatic results, and so
Speaker 4: something I was always interested in. But circumstances turned out
Speaker 4: that I was economically able to pull this trick off
Speaker 4: in January, and so I went to doctor Paul Massik
Speaker 4: at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, and they performed a gastric
Speaker 4: sleeve surgery, which essentially is just a stomach reduction. So
Speaker 4: by reducing the size of the stomach, they found that
Speaker 4: it not only does it like physically strict the amount
Speaker 4: of foods you can eat, but it also changes the
Speaker 4: enzyme of the hormones that are released by your stomach,
Speaker 4: and it can reduce your appetite. So it's very interesting.
Speaker 4: But by doing that in conjunction with like a much
Speaker 4: healthier diet, which is easier to pull off. Honestly, with
Speaker 4: the smaller stomach, it's much easier to like because it's
Speaker 4: basically what they do is they shrink your stomach. They
Speaker 4: take you and put you on a higher protein and
Speaker 4: vegetable diet, and then the like recommend that you don't
Speaker 4: eat carbs, or if you do eat carbs, it's like
Speaker 4: the last thing you eat, so you end up eating
Speaker 4: protein and vegetables first, and then you're full, and if
Speaker 4: you wanted to eat a dessert, you might be able
Speaker 4: to have a bite or whatever, but it's really your full.
Speaker 4: And that's a really cool feeling because I don't know
Speaker 4: that i'd been feeling full anytime in the past five
Speaker 4: or six years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, is this a temporary thing? Is it something
Speaker 1: that you can have taken out in future?
Speaker 4: This one is not reversible. It's a permanent shrinking of
Speaker 4: the stomach. And just a reminder, I'm not advocaat this
Speaker 4: as a solution to every listener's problem, just telling what
Speaker 4: happened to me and what worked for me, and it
Speaker 4: was interesting. So right now I'm not completely off. In fact,
Speaker 4: I'm actually getting tested tomorrow. The they do when you
Speaker 4: have diabetes that you can test your blood every three
Speaker 4: months to see how it's going, how it's trending over time.
Speaker 4: And so I'm down to like the lowest dose of
Speaker 4: medicine I've ever been off. Fantastic, and it probably will
Speaker 4: be able to get off of them completely soon, I'm hoping.
Speaker 4: So my goal is to be at my goal weight
Speaker 4: and to be off the medage by the end of
Speaker 4: the year. We'll see.
Speaker 1: It's congratulations on what you've achieved so far, because I've
Speaker 1: just we've been watching photographs of you on Facebook and
Speaker 1: you're looking amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't have cancer, that's the important thing.
Speaker 1: No way, No, it's.
Speaker 4: Actually all good. You know, there's been really inspirational people
Speaker 4: in my life who've sort of hacked their body and
Speaker 4: diet by doing you know, non surgicals dellusions. You know,
Speaker 4: Pinchulette's lost almost exactly the same amount of weight as
Speaker 4: me and from the same starting weight, and he's done
Speaker 4: it all through changing his diet to a vegetarian program.
Speaker 4: And he's got a new book out called Prestow How
Speaker 4: He Lost, and it's about how he lost more than
Speaker 4: one hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: You know. So I think you've seen I've lost a
Speaker 1: lot of weight over the years, But with me, I
Speaker 1: didn't have bariatric surgery or anything like that. I think
Speaker 1: when you first met me back at Dragon Conn in
Speaker 1: about two thousand and eight, I was considerably bigger.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, you looked fine to me, but you mentioned
Speaker 4: that you had been bigger, and I just like, okay,
Speaker 4: And I was sympathetic because yeah, I've been up and down.
Speaker 1: But you know, i'll be honest here since you're being honest,
Speaker 1: and I lost over one hundred pounds. Nice, and I
Speaker 1: went from a size twenty four down to a size eight.
Speaker 4: Wow, we've lost like another like a couple.
Speaker 1: Of people yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that was over a period of about five years.
Speaker 1: So I did it very gradually, and that was mostly
Speaker 1: by exercise and diet changes. I went pescatarian, so I
Speaker 1: grew up vegetarian because my mother was vegetarian, and so
Speaker 1: I went through a period of eating meat, and then
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I'm going to cut out a
Speaker 1: lot of things that I'm having in my diet which
Speaker 1: can lead to me being larger, which is burgers and
Speaker 1: sausages and various things. And so I just went with
Speaker 1: seafood and predominantly vegetarian diet and just did a stack
Speaker 1: of walking. I went walking every day, maybe one two
Speaker 1: hours a day, and just just dropped it very slowly.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: But it's been a way of life, you know, diet
Speaker 1: in the sense of a way of life.
Speaker 4: It seems like it has to be. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 4: I know that there are people who get the bariatric
Speaker 4: surgery and then gain weight back, and I guess I
Speaker 4: don't want to turn this into the diet show, but
Speaker 4: I do. I mean, well, we.
Speaker 1: Should do an episode on that. I'm sure that we
Speaker 1: can have a monster angle to it.
Speaker 4: Oh you know, actually I wrote a story one time.
Speaker 1: Of course, it has to be a link somewhere.
Speaker 4: Well, it was one of the I was trying to
Speaker 4: do it for like a short film, and it was
Speaker 4: you know the old urban legend about that they put
Speaker 4: razor blades in the candy.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the apples.
Speaker 4: And so in the story, a kid's going to a
Speaker 4: like he's coming home from trigger treating. His mom's driving.
Speaker 4: They're listening to the radio and they mentioned on the
Speaker 4: radio that they're offering free X rays for candy at
Speaker 4: the hospital so that they can check for razor blades.
Speaker 4: And so the mom drives them over there. And then
Speaker 4: when they take the candy and they run it back
Speaker 4: through the X ray machine. It's a crazy idea now
Speaker 4: that I'm older, but I remember when I wrote it,
Speaker 4: I thought, yeah, that's a great community service. Now, yeah,
Speaker 4: your insurance won't pay for that. It's going to cost
Speaker 4: you thousands of dollars or something ridiculous. Anyway, the proofs
Speaker 4: of the story is, though they x ray the candy
Speaker 4: and something happens. The guy spills a soda on the
Speaker 4: X ray machine and too much x uy energy goes
Speaker 4: into the candy and it starts to grow and it
Speaker 4: becomes a candy monster, right, and it's chasing a kid
Speaker 4: through the hospital, and it's just the kids being like
Speaker 4: relently chased by this monster. It's entirely composed of candy,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's Halloween night, and the monster's alive
Speaker 4: and he's running and he's running, and finally he runs
Speaker 4: into one of these like, you know, meeting rooms they
Speaker 4: have at hospitals. You can kind of see that, the
Speaker 4: kids running, and then the monster kind of comes in
Speaker 4: after him and then stops. And then all the people
Speaker 4: in the room turn and stop, and it's like an
Speaker 4: overeater's anonymous thing, and they're all these huge, fat people
Speaker 4: and they look at the candy monster, and the candy
Speaker 4: monster looks at them. And then the next scenes, all
Speaker 4: the fat people standing there with candy all over their
Speaker 4: faces and there's no monster.
Speaker 1: You know, how old were you when you heard this?
Speaker 4: It's like twenty five, you know, just a kid.
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, you're making me think of a show
Speaker 1: I watched. It was a documentary. I watched it some
Speaker 1: time ago, and there was a real life case, I guess,
Speaker 1: of life imitating art and there was a guy who
Speaker 1: did put razor blades or something or poison into some
Speaker 1: sort of candy and fit it to his own kids.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: In fact, we actually talked about that on Monster Talk
Speaker 4: in the Slenderman episode. Oh there's a name for that
Speaker 4: phenomenon when when a folklore item is acted out. I
Speaker 4: can't think of the word. It's a really cool word.
Speaker 4: We need a folk well, or we need better records
Speaker 4: of what said in her episode.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well you know there's so let me interrupt again to
Speaker 4: say the narrative. I guess to say thank you to
Speaker 4: all the people who have been responding to our request
Speaker 4: for support. I don't know why we never thought of
Speaker 4: it before, but the idea of having books from our
Speaker 4: wish list on Amazon has been phenomenal. I think I've
Speaker 4: already gotten four books just and my wife's Like, I
Speaker 4: thought we were saving money. Why are all these books
Speaker 4: showing out like you won't believe it?
Speaker 1: Oh, how kind It's the best thing.
Speaker 4: So I'm super excited because all that work, I mean
Speaker 4: all the By the way, if you do that, please,
Speaker 4: if you buy a physical book, buy a used one.
Speaker 4: I can read a used book just as well as
Speaker 4: an expensive new one or a kindle or kindle. If
Speaker 4: you get a kindle version, then I can share it
Speaker 4: with Karen and we don't have to we only need
Speaker 4: one copy to share the information. So those are great though.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate that, and we're going to have to
Speaker 4: figure out a way to thank everybody besides me just
Speaker 4: say thank you.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think maybe, I mean, we can start
Speaker 1: answering questions as well from people. We get a lot
Speaker 1: of questions on the Facebook group, and I think be
Speaker 1: fun to start talking back to the listeners.
Speaker 4: I think so too. I do try to mention it
Speaker 4: when we get quite well. Of course, what we usually
Speaker 4: do is respond to the questions via email. Right, So
Speaker 4: you're right, we don't really talk. We talk, we'll talk
Speaker 4: extensively via email, but it might make sense to answer
Speaker 4: them right online. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we do get a few emails every week,
Speaker 1: you know. I get people messaging me on Facebook and
Speaker 1: following me on Twitter, and I follow back and then
Speaker 1: they send me direct messages and so yeah, we have
Speaker 1: people who are really into the show and very interactive
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: I love that. I really do, me too.
Speaker 1: I love hearing from people, and I love the suggestions
Speaker 1: that people have for future shows.
Speaker 4: And I was also thinking about that we've got Patreon.
Speaker 4: The reason I haven't made it active is because I
Speaker 4: want to make sure that for me, at least I
Speaker 4: know you've got one. But for the show Patreon thing,
Speaker 4: I haven't made it active until I could figure out
Speaker 4: what I can do to make it like it's like
Speaker 4: it's built to have returns, like if you do it,
Speaker 4: we'll do these things like rewards if you will the
Speaker 4: only one this come to mind. And I don't know
Speaker 4: how people would feel about this, or whether they would
Speaker 4: want it or not, but I was thinking about if
Speaker 4: you contribute even a dollar, maybe we could do a
Speaker 4: monthly newsletter and so for a dollar a month or
Speaker 4: whatever that you get the newsletter.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great idea. It'd be good
Speaker 1: to have feedback from listeners and see what they think.
Speaker 1: But I think to certainly answer questions and I can
Speaker 1: throw in some books.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. I should write a book.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be doing that.
Speaker 1: You get it done.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited about it. The more i'm I'm getting
Speaker 4: very active in the writing now instead of just the
Speaker 4: problem is I've got that condition. I guess the same
Speaker 4: one we talked about Montague Summers, where you just want
Speaker 4: to keep researching it, like, well, that's interesting. What does
Speaker 4: that lead to? Oh that's interesting, what does that lead to?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, what point do you finish? Right?
Speaker 4: This strange world where I've my insatiable curiosity has met
Speaker 4: the bottomless well of the internet, and it could be
Speaker 4: a really tough thing to break away and just get
Speaker 4: the work done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll get there. You need a good edison.
Speaker 4: I do. I do. I need to slap on the
Speaker 4: back get back to work, you know. Oh wow, But
Speaker 4: I am delighted in that. So what we'll do? Also,
Speaker 4: I want to like have some kind of clever way
Speaker 4: to you know, not rank that's the wrong word. I
Speaker 4: appreciate a dollar as much as fifty dollars. I appreciate
Speaker 4: it all. I'm well, not exactly as much, but I
Speaker 4: appreciate it. I don't want to turn it into the
Speaker 4: kind of thing where people who want to give a
Speaker 4: thousand dollars can just come be a co host for
Speaker 4: an episode, because it's like, that's not really fair because.
Speaker 1: Other people who don't have a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: I can't explain why exactly. I mean it's like, I
Speaker 4: appreciate it, but I'm not really doing the show for
Speaker 4: the money. I'm doing it these little these contributions help
Speaker 4: offset the cost of what we've dumped into the show
Speaker 4: financially and buying resource materials, and just all the time
Speaker 4: that we put into it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, an enormous amount of time. And it's just
Speaker 1: got to the point where I think we've kind of
Speaker 1: had to ask for a bit of support.
Speaker 4: I would say that while we couldn't do the show
Speaker 4: or I definitely couldn't without my wife's support, the delight
Speaker 4: that she showed on her face when she realized that
Speaker 4: all four of the Amazon packages that came didn't cost
Speaker 4: us a penny were really worth it.
Speaker 1: It was totally Oh, that's not a call out for
Speaker 1: more books. That's really kind. Our listeners are fantastic.
Speaker 4: They are They are really lucky. And now, personally, if
Speaker 4: you just say, oh, man, I like Karen so much,
Speaker 4: but I hate Blake, well she's got a Patreon page.
Speaker 4: It's like if you're like, oh.
Speaker 1: I haven't really done it. I haven't done a launch,
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything with it. It's just one of
Speaker 1: those things that you know you're thinking I'm doing all
Speaker 1: of these things. Perhaps I should start monetizing.
Speaker 4: Well, you could review a hit or missus and you
Speaker 4: could buy a copy, not in that order.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely appreciate that, and I can't wait for
Speaker 1: you to read it and to get an editorial review
Speaker 1: from you.
Speaker 4: Well, I like that the first chapter was very sexy,
Speaker 4: and I'm.
Speaker 1: Hoping it to really hook people and drag them in.
Speaker 1: And certainly I've had a lot of feedback about this chapter.
Speaker 4: Made me consider changing careers to psychic Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 4: yeah so. But also I don't want to harp on
Speaker 4: that too much. This is no.
Speaker 1: We just want to thank everyone.
Speaker 4: I do want to thank everyone, even just.
Speaker 1: Just listening to the show. We just appreciate your support.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, And you know again, if you have zero
Speaker 4: dollars and or if you have lots of dollars and
Speaker 4: don't want to give any but you want to support
Speaker 4: the show. An iTunes review is great?
Speaker 1: Yeah, are even a download?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah? Yeah. Or when friends leave their phones, subscribe
Speaker 4: them against.
Speaker 1: The will the right recommend the show?
Speaker 4: Yeah, or recommend the show. I guess you do it
Speaker 4: that way if you don't want to sneak around one
Speaker 4: all the other awesome, Well that was all the things
Speaker 4: on my list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. I'm excited about everything we've got coming up.
Speaker 4: I am too. I wish it was all in the can. Basically,
Speaker 4: I want to be like putting these episodes out. I'm
Speaker 4: so excited. Every one of these conversations we've got planned
Speaker 4: is just.
Speaker 1: Well a lot of these things are finally catching up
Speaker 1: on stuff we wanted to do for years.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is great. So and I'm sure we'll have
Speaker 4: many more things. That's one more thing to say. The
Speaker 4: idea about the newsletter is I thought it would be
Speaker 4: fun because there's topics that we know about or want
Speaker 4: to talk about, like maybe profiles of specific small monster
Speaker 4: cases that aren't really probably suitable for a whole episode.
Speaker 4: But what I was thinking is if we did mini
Speaker 4: profiles in the newsletter, like one a month, then maybe
Speaker 4: like quarterly or something, we could do an episode where
Speaker 4: we kind of bring it all to them as an
Speaker 4: audio thing. But if you're a subscriber, then you would
Speaker 4: get that information early.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great idea. That's a really good one
Speaker 1: because there's just lots of little stories and there isn't
Speaker 1: much information out there to go by, but they're still
Speaker 1: worth mentioning monster.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to Monster Talk. I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 1: And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 6: Monster Talk is an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. The
Speaker 6: views expressed here are those of myself and my co
Speaker 6: host and do not necessarily represent the views of Skeptic
Speaker 6: Magazine are the Skeptic Society. If you'd like to support
Speaker 6: Monster Talk, please give us a review on iTunes or
Speaker 6: go to our support page as Talk or forge Slash support.
Speaker 6: Thanks to everyone who's given us a book or contributed
Speaker 6: to the show. I plan to get some kind of
Speaker 6: formal thank you page together to acknowledge your generous gifts,
Speaker 6: and if you do send us a book, be sure
Speaker 6: and shoot us an email to let us know who
Speaker 6: to thank. Monster Talk theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys.
Speaker 6: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 3: Want to stay abreast of the latest from Skeptic Magazine
Speaker 3: and the Skeptic Society. Want cutting edge skeptical articles delivered
Speaker 3: straight to your inbox every week, then subscribe to e Skeptic,
Speaker 3: the free electronic newsletter of the Skeptic Society. Visits skeptic
Speaker 3: dot com to sign up.
Speaker 4: It's a slow and insipid is as you yes, white,
Speaker 4: It's tepid and it's a pastiche. It's terrible what you
Speaker 4: have as many wrong words as I possibly can, So
Speaker 4: allow me to circumcise for a moment about diabetes.
Speaker 1: Not without condiments.
Speaker 4: That's right,