Ryan joins a throuple, Jess is seasonally inert, Damien goes gaga for what's in his glass, patent separators - defined, and Rambo's true first blood? All this, and the gang gets psychogeographic! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pondering what could have been with our ninth book in the vast collection, Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond. In this episode, our featured story is: The Bad Lands by John Metcalfe.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin; drinking Yellowstone Toasted Bourbon.
Damien is playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025; VG); drinking a Last Word (Drumshanbo gin, Luxardo, lime, and green friggin' Chartreuse).
Ryan is watching Project: Hail Mary (2026; dir. Phil Lord and Chris Miller); drinking Glendronach 15 Year.
If you liked this week’s story, watch Jacob's Ladder (1990; dir. Adrian Lyne).
Up next: "He Walked Around the Horses" by H. Beam Piper
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Ryan: [00:00:00] this is my first tasting of the GlenDronach 15 year. Here we go. His nose is bleeding. Oh,
Jess: no. Oh my God, his head fell off.
Ryan: All right.
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird, the podcast that for the past eight seasons has been bringing you unrivaled literary critiques of the best- ... of yesteryear's weird fiction, as collected in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series.
Each season, we have journeyed together through one edition of this now voluminous series, and each episode, we've turned to one story for in-depth discussion, but never along the table of contents' prescribed path. If you don't want the story spoiled, make sure you take the road less traveled and read ahead.
[00:01:00] Alternatively, our summary's by the incomparable Jess and Damien will do the job for you. Boo-boo-boo. This season, friends, we were fated to pluck the strings of the multiverse and take a dimensional right at the corner of reality, to trek through, let me breathe here, Roads of Destiny and Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond.
Look there, though. Where? Through the fog. I see. Is that a, is that a road sign? It, it's, it's shimmering in and out of existence. Which way does it point? What does it suggest? And what time, time or, or even place, or even, oh, dimension? Where, where am I? Jess.
Jess: What is that sound? Okay, why don't we read The Bad Lands by John Metcalfe?[00:02:00]
Ryan: Ooh. I think that sounds like a good idea. All right. Well, Jessica, what are you drinking tonight?
Jess: Okay. So I have a glass of the Yellowstone Toasted Bourbon.
Ryan: Oh, that's a very good one.
Jess: Well, so I know I've had the Yellowstone Bourbon. I couldn't remember if I- No,
Ryan: this is a special, this is a special bottling.
I think you're right ...
Jess: if, well, it said new at the liquor store. There was a sticker. So,
Ryan: uh- Always trust liquor store stickers.
Jess: Well, it's like, could I go back and- I call it sticker
Damien: stores, actually ...
Jess: go back in time and figure it out? Sure. I didn't. I'm just enjoying this glass. It's great. Toasty. The only downside, of course, is that it is a tall bottle, and we know that that does not fit on my shelf.
That is a
Damien: bummer. No.
Jess: Where
Damien: do you put tall bottles? But it looks- In her house.
Jess: Yeah. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the- She lays
Damien: them down in her baby's crib ... on the- No, she lays them down with baby.
Jess: Yeah, yeah. It's in the pack and play. Ugh. Okay. Anyway, I read a book. It was pretty good. It was called Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin.
I feel [00:03:00] like it's- Hmm ... relatively new. The premise is basically, like, what if Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but they messed up, and they had to, like, send a letter to everyone and say, "Oh, whoops, we messed up. We told you we deleted your memory, but you can actually get it back if you want it." For the
Ryan: low, low price of $50.
Jess: So it's basically a story about a bunch of people finding out that they've had a memory deleted, but of course, they don't remember they've had a memory deleted. Oh. And then they have to decide if they want that memory back, and try to figure out what it was and why they would've had it deleted in the first place.
It's a-
Ryan: So
Jess: many existential questions. Yeah, it's surprisingly, like, thoughtful, but also kind of a just fun book about people doing sci-fi stuff and not really worrying about the consequences until there are a bunch of consequences. So.
Damien: I like the sound of it. I'm adding it to my list right now.
Jess: Okay. Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin.
Damian, what are you drinking?
Damien: Jessica- Mm-hmm ... I've probably [00:04:00] in very few instances in the course of this podcast have been as excited to announce what I'm drinking-
Ryan: Oh,
Damien: my. Hmm ... than I am right now. And the reason is, is- Bud Light. Is I found a pony keg of Southpaw Light in the trunk of my car. Now look, for a while maybe some cocktail heads out there, um, mixol- whatever you wanna call yourselves, you knew that the- Drunks
lawsuit against- ... the Chartreuse monks meant a, an absence- Oh, I know where this is going ... of Green Chartreuse in the market. Yes, yes. Right? Now, it was available to commercial providers, so they would still sell to restaurants and whatnot. So you could go to a restaurant and maybe if they had a strong cocktail program, you could get something with Green Chartreuse, but for the most part, in retail outlets you could not find it.
this has been going on for years. I wanna say five or six years. Years. Like, years. Well, I was at my local grocery store, and I [00:05:00] walked over to the liquor department- Mm-hmm ... and saw on their shelf Green Chartreuse.
Jess: How many bottles did you buy?
Damien: One. I'm not, I'm not a hoarder. I'm not an eBay pirate. But you do have two friends.
But I do have two -
Jess: And you got two hands.
Damien: I have three hams. So I bought one. I was so excited. It was $70. Drank
Jess: the whole bottle.
Damien: I drank the entire bottle in the store. I bought one. I brought it home. And so tonight I am celebrating with that green Chartreuse with what is arguably the most perfect cocktail, and that is the Last Word. Tell us. The Last Word is equal parts top quality gin, lime juice, green Chartreuse, and Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, or your Maraschino liqueur of choice.
Jess: Seems like too much lime juice.
Damien: This is like $100 cocktail. Perfectly, perfectly balanced, refreshing, transcend [00:06:00] seasons. Make yourself a Last Word.
Jess: Seasons.
Damien: If you want, you could have- What are you talking about? ... a Palabra Ultima. You could drink this- Which is, which is instead of gin using tequila ... any day of the
Jess: week.
Damien: Look, I'll tell you what, if you haven't had a Last Word before for yourself- If you haven't had this on a
Jess: Tuesday...
Damien: I'm glad I could take you through the journey of excitement. Listen, Jess, I think you're just jealous that you don't
Ryan: transcend seasons.
Damien: Yeah, exactly.
Jess: I barely transcend anything.
Damien: Jess has to sit and fall like a G.
No, this, it- If
Jess: only one of my friends would've bought me a bottle of...
Damien: I'm buying you a bottle. I'm sending you a bottle. It will be v- very illegal, but let's do it. You guys, the fact that this existed- You'll never see it again. Yeah. The fact that this existed in my grocery store is wild. It's wild. It's still not, I checked my other usual Packies and it's not anywhere else.
Was it, like, next to the bread
Ryan: or is there a specific like-
Damien: No, I mean they have like- Goes in the herb aisle I know ... they have like a beer- Is in the herbs
Ryan: and spices.
Damien: No, they have like a beer, wine, and liquor- Oh, okay ... section. By the, by the
Jess: green Gatorade.
Damien: But it's just sitting there all like [00:07:00] exposed just, "Hey, I'm not behind- What?
Plexiglass." "I'm not like ask, ask an associate for more." It's just sitting there and so I was absolutely aghast. Again, nowhere else has this been- You know the nerve
Ryan: of, of that stock person.
Jess: They didn't even know what they had.
Damien: it was a pleasant surprise. I will not out who the purveyor is because I want it all for
Jess: myself and my friends.
When this episode comes out 12 months later .
Damien: Yeah, s- 17 years later ...
Jess: there'll be a rush on your Publix market.
Damien: It's like, bro, there's vending machines with Green Chartreuse now. What are you even talking about? Uh, no, but super excited. So drinking last word. Um, drinking last word, also playing.
Now I know that Ryan has mentioned video games in the past. I'm, I occasionally game. I used to be much more into gaming. I'm a console gamer. I don't have a ton of time now. When I find a game that sticks in my craw as it were- Hmm ... I figure it's worth bringing up here.
Ryan: I'm excited to hear it.
Damien: So I'm a year late to the party.
This one [00:08:00] I think won game of the year last year, 2025 but then had it taken away because of utilization of AI or generative AI. Yeah. I know which one this is. So this is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Yeah, it's amazing.
Ryan: It's so good.
Damien: , It is a role-playing game. It is turn-based. It is a little bit of a blend kind of very similar to I guess the Zeldas of the world or other like world transcending-
Ryan: Oh, it's
Damien: so
Ryan: sad too.
Damien: Look, here's like the script is gorgeous. The characters are lovely. It's like a steampunk future Paris called Belle Epoque.
Jess: Sure.
Damien: The entire conceit is around the fact that there is this entity called the Paintress that basically paints a number and anyone who's that age or older disappears during a ceremony called the Gremage.
It's how the game- Like in
Jess: the world?
Damien: It's how the game opens. Yes, everywhere. Yeah. They're gone. [00:09:00] It's how the game's open. And you basically when you sit there and you do the math behind it you're like, okay, so essentially they're counting down. So Expedition 33 are fighters who go out to try and stop the Paintress from going on to the next year.
The 33 is indicative of anyone who's 33 and above has now disappeared. Mm-hmm. So that's, that's what it means. You participate in this party of fighters to go and try and stop the Paintress, but the game opens with this beautiful narrative and it shows this ceremony called the Grimage where anyone who's older than 33 disappears off the face of the earth.
But then when you sit here and think about it, you're like, "Okay, this is ultimately the obliteration of the human race." Right. Right? Because you have kids and they eventually get older, but the numbers go down, you know, 33, 30... The next year is 32, et cetera. And so eventually all people will go away. And the weight of this kind of carries you through the story.
Key characters that you think that the entire s- [00:10:00] the entire narrative is pivoted around die. You cry when they die. You play this game. It is gorgeous. I leave this game on pause Just to hear the score For the music. For the music ... the music is absolutely beautiful. Like, I'm not usually into these type of games.
This is what I do. I'm surprised
Ryan: you like
Damien: this, but I
Ryan: loved this game
Damien: But this game is just sensational. So if you haven't heard of, and if you're a gamer, I'm sure that you, you're like, "What a tool. Of course I've heard of this." If you haven't heard of the play- What a tool ... Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, please dive into it immediately.
It is just such a lovely, lovely experience. Ryan, what about you?
Ryan: All right. This is something that we haven't done here yet on Whiskey and the Weird, but I, I wanted to do it tonight. This is a live first tasting of a new whiskey. At least new to me. So here's my- I think we've
Jess: done this several times
Ryan: Well, then I've forgotten.
So this is my dram. This is my dram here. This is,
Damien: this is a [00:11:00] bottle, GlenDronach. I'm showing it on the screen to my, my companions. Yeah, it's a- It's a deep, deep- ...
Ryan: visual
Damien: medium ... dark gold color. I was just gonna say, I was just gonna say this is like a, this is like a, this is like a B grade maple syrup. Yeah. It is very dark.
Ryan: Very dark. It's got a lovely dark hunter green label on it. This is the GlenDronach 15 year Oloroso Sherry Cask Matured Whiskey. Now, I have had the standard GlenDronach 12 year. It's very good. I have described the GlenDronach 12 year before as being a bold whiskey. This is the 15-year-old, so I assume that some of that boldness is gonna be tempered a little bit.
The sherry cask's gonna bring a sweetness that the regular one didn't have. And if- The regular one's more spicy ... stop talking, start sipping. I got this whiskey as a, as a present from my friends Ann and Charlie, whom I had the pleasure to marry over the last weekend. And to say thank you, they got, they- So you're a
Jess: throuple now?
Ryan: They, they know me.
Damien: Thanks, Ann and Charlie.
Ryan: God.
Jess: Thanks, Ann and Charlie.
Ryan: No, Jess. So here's to Ann and Charlie. [00:12:00] Many, many happy returns on your wedding.
Jess: My new spouses.
Ryan: this is my first tasting of the GlenDronach 15 year. Here we go. His nose is bleeding. Oh,
Jess: no. Oh my God, his head fell off.
Ryan: All right. So surprising, so surprisingly the spice from the regular GlenDronach 12 comes through.
The Oloroso Sherry cask did not sweeten this thing that much.
Damien: Mm. Okay.
Ryan: It has got ... It still has a boldness to it. It still has a spice to it. Is it
Damien: tempered at all?
Ryan: It is tempered. We got it in there. Okay. It is tempered. That's what's the difference here. It is, a much more smooth drinking whiskey than the 12-year-old is.
But I am ... Friends, I am really surprised at how spicy this, this sip was. I have to try it again. No,
Damien: Ryan's just grew an entire beard. On that one sip. Oh, he's going in for a second Oh my God, now he's
Jess: just drinking from the bottle. He's just drinking the whole bottle.
Damien: Yes, he just plugged in an IV. There's a
Ryan: dryness to this.
I think hair's coming out of my head. Which if, if you don't know me, is unusual. Never.
Damien: Never. Th- that, that, that, that [00:13:00] dome is an igloo until the end of time.
Ryan: Oh, that's a, that's a very good whiskey, but a, but a very unique whiskey. I should say that- Complexity, simplicity, w- what would we- Yeah, no, I would say that's a very complex whiskey.
Damien: Really?
Ryan: Very complex indeed because it ... There's several things competing, but in the end it is a smooth ride
Damien: All right. Ooh, so Fan, what would you say? 15 over the 12?
Ryan: You know, I'm gonna go with the 12 still here.
Damien: Still gonna stick with the
Ryan: 12. Yeah, I'm still gonna stick- Respect ... with the 12. I'm not one of these ones that thinks that an older, more expensive whiskey is always automatically better.
Damien: Thank you. Thank you, because price tag does not dictate quality.
Ryan: Price tag does not dictate quality. This is a very nice whiskey. This is a very generous gift, I'm sure, but I'm gonna say that the 12-year-old is a, is a better d- a better overall dram. This is... I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep coming back to this. I'll, I'll let you know.
This is, this is not bad at all. This is very good. Do you wanna pour it over some ice cream? But, yeah, no. W- what, I might just- ... get some celery sticks and blue cheese, Damian.
Damien: Stuff that olive. All right. [00:14:00] Well, thanks for that live tasting. It was- Yeah, there you go ... fascinating.
Ryan: As for what I've been doing, I've been seeing a lot of movies recently.
So my most recent film that I've seen is the Project Hail Mary movie, and I looked it up, and I recommended Project Hail Mary the book- Yes ... in the first episode of last season, season eight, and now the movie has come out, and I, I went to see it. Really, really liked it. Uh, of course, I liked the book better.
The one thing that the book could do that the movie didn't do was sustain tension.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: So the movie ends up- Agreed ... being, if you, if you've seen it, the movie ends up being a very fun, feel-good adventure flick with absolutely no hint of the fact that everything is just near fatal catastrophe. Like, if any one thing goes wrong, everyone is dead, and the movie does not communicate that, but the book certainly does.
I enjoyed the movie. I think that anybody could enjoy the movie. You don't have to have read the book. The
Jess: p- I actually just read the book.
Ryan: I think Project Hail Mary is one of the best-
Damien: You just did?
Ryan: Yeah ... best books that's- 'Cause I wanted to- ... come out in the [00:15:00] last decade.
Damien: I, I did think that when I read Project Hail Mary, I was like, "This should be a movie, but it will be very difficult to pull off."
And again, I think they did a great job on pulling it off. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I would, I would place it above, I would place it above The Martian- Mm-hmm ... both in the book form and in the movie form.
Ryan: I would place it above The Martian in the book form but not the movie form. I think The Mart- I liked The Martian better as a movie.
Fair. Yeah. The other thing about it is the... and I'm not gonna spoil anything at all here. The ending of Project Hail Mary in the book-
Damien: Yeah, sure.
Ryan: Yeah ... was very awe-inspiring and emotion-filled. The ending of the movie was cute.
Damien: Yeah, felt, felt, felt served on a little bit of a- Yeah ... silver TV tray.
Ryan: I wanted Grace to be played by Paul Giamatti that appeared in Sideways.
Damien: Okay, fine.
Jess: What?
Damien: Your wish is granted.
Jess: Weird.
Damien: I
Jess: wanted-
Damien: Now we have Jambi ...
Jess: him to be played by Ray Lynn Givens
Ryan: We're gonna have- I want him to be played by a half- [00:16:00] Hmm ... package of Oscar Mayer's
Damien: thin-sliced turkey.
Ryan: We're not moving on now because- ... the oak casks is coming through now as I sip more on this GlenDronach 15.
Look out, it's opening up. The wood is coming through. It's opening up, yes. It's telling a
Damien: story.
Ryan: All right, we're now gonna move on- I'm, I'm- ... to our author and publication info for this evening. Please. We don't know much about this author. I already took
Jess: my headphones off earlier, so do
Ryan: whatever
Jess: you want.
Which,
Ryan: for some reason, I found strange. He seems like the kind of writer I'd be able to find out more about, but he isn't, and so I was a bit frustrated. Anyway, he was born on October the 6th, 1891, in Norfolk, England. In 1913, he graduated from the University of London and then taught English for a year in Paris.
But then the war came, and Metcalf served his country in the Navy and the Air Force. I don't know. Okay. I don't know how you do that, but the Air Force was young in those days, I guess. Following the war, he returned to teaching in London and began writing. His writing [00:17:00] was definitely of a weird bend, with his first collection being entitled The Smoking Leg and Other Stories.
Great title.
Jess: Pretty good title.
Ryan: One of those other stories was our story tonight, The Bad Lands. In 1928, he moved to the United States, continued writing, and worked as a barge captain on the East River in New York. When World War II broke out, he headed back to England to serve in the British Royal Air Force.
Jess: He stayed in- Just
Ryan: the Air
Jess: Force this time?
Ryan: Just the Air Force this time. Yeah, he specialized. He stayed in the UK for a bit after that, still teaching and writing, and then moved back to the US again.
Jess: Busy guy.
Ryan: Upon the death of his wife, Evelyn- ... he suffered a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized, released, and went back to England and died there a year later after a bad fall.
His writing, of course, lives on, and it's received some [00:18:00] notable attention. Recently, Metcalfe was given the Centipede Press treatment, which is, if you don't know, that's a, an extremely fine and rare artifact of volumes ranging in price from $200 to $600. But even in his own day, other writers recognized his skill.
In his famous essay called Supernatural Horror in Literature, none other than H.P. Lovecraft gave Metcalfe high marks saying, "John Metcalfe, in the collection published as The Smoking Leg, attains now and then a rare pitch of potency. The tale entitled The Bad Lands containing graduations of horror that strongly savor of genius."
And if you don't know much about Lovecraft and his comparisons of other writers, if he says, "Now and then a rare pitch of potency"- ... that's like 11 out of 10 for Lovecraft. That is the highest praise he's going to get. The [00:19:00] Bad Lands was originally published on April 15th, 1920 in Land and Water, a British zine noted for its commentary on World War I and its aftermath.
And that's all I've got for you- Hmm ... on John Metcalfe. But Jess has a lot more, and she's gonna bring you our summary for The Bad Lands.
Jess: Yeah. Let's see what's up with these bad lands. It's been 15 years since our main man, Brent Omerod, arrived in Todd. Todd is the town. I forget the last name already. The man is named Brent.
Well, so I had written, and I had to go back through my notes 'cause I wrote Omeron or s- like, something, and then I was reading and I was like, "Oh, that's so fine." And then I read the story again and I was like, "Oh, I'm way wrong." So we're just gonna go with Brent. Brent. Unfortunately- There we go ... Brent is worse, and we're in Todd.
So just pretend these names are better. Anyway, Brent [00:20:00] is in Todd. It's October, and he's looking for a cure for his neurosis. Aren't we all? Brent rides a fly into town in the evening, which he dislikes, but actually he dislikes everything. It's too late to enter town. The town is off-putting. The air is repellent and dusty, and even though the hotel that he's staying in seems, like, okay, he was seated for dinner with a guy with one eye, and that eye haunts his dreams.
So regardless, we are at this hotel for a little R&R, and the first eight or nine days are pretty unremarkable. He's exercising and, of course, taking cold baths, which are the only thing that you need to do for your mental health.
Ryan: Always takes me eight or nine days to really get into a vacation. Obviously just coldly bathe.
Jess: It's, yeah, great, great for your brain. He tells his sister, Joan, that, you know what, he's probably gonna be cured in a fortnight. Todd is known to be a relaxing town, but it does have some [00:21:00] foreboding landscapes. There's a weird tower near some sand dunes.
Damien: Mm-hmm.
Jess: But also a golf course. Everything just seems a little off.
The tower is a source of some uneasiness. Brent isn't sure why it bothers him, but there's a road that goes past it that looks too intentional. And every time he gets near it, he feels worse, and he decides that the solution is that he needs more exercise, so he starts walking to this weird tower that makes him feel weird three times a day instead of just once or twice.
And guess what? That doesn't make him feel better. But maybe walking past it onto the creepy road will? No, it doesn't. He actually feels worse, and it seems like the walk back is twice as long and tough as the initial walk to the tower. So instead of going on another walk that day, he decides to smoke and starts talking to another guy who's staying at the hotel.
And he's like, "Hey-
Damien: Over it [00:22:00]
Jess: Isn't it super weird back there behind that tower? And the guy's like, tower? Do you mean the family farm by the river? No, it does not seem weird." Brent tries again at dinner with a different guest, this time Mr. Stanton Boyle, who he knows has been at the hotel longer than he's been there, and he tries the same, "Hey, things are weird, right?"
tactic that he just did with the other guy. But this guy agrees. It's not just weird, it's abominable. And it didn't used to be. W- was this
Damien: snowman?
Jess: It's full of snowmen. This guy was here last year and everything actually seemed pretty normal. Mm-hmm. But now he thinks the whole area should be blown up. Cool.
That night- Natural
Ryan: reaction ...
Jess: Brent has a weird dream, this time not about a one-eyed man, but it's about walking around and seeing a spooky house. Nevertheless, Brent continues his strolling the next morning, walking up and down the foreboding landscape, regardless of how strange everything is and how it makes him feel.
But [00:23:00] later that afternoon he comes across a guy, and the guy looks like a laborer. Brent asks this guy, "What's the name of this place?" "Why, it's Hayes in the Up." And that-
Ryan: Hayes in the Up.
Jess: And that- That's a very British name ... well, "That's Fennington back there," pointing to Tod, where Brent has just walked from, and then the laborer walks away.
Also, did we mention it's, like, October and maybe now November, so in addition to the landscape being weird and ominous, it's also always about to rain, and everything is windy and gross. Anyway, Brent wonders about Fennington and feels like maybe it has something to do with that dream he had last night, and yeah, apparently it does, because after walking just a bit further, there's that weird white house from his dreams.
Ryan: White house from his dream.
Jess: It is just windy as hell now, and he wanders up to the house to peer in the window. It's pretty bare. [00:24:00] What little furniture there is is covered in dust. There is one big thing, though: a spinning wheel, and it's so pointy and it has so many points, and it's just- There's
Ryan: a spinning wheel with so many points
Jess: I think I only know what a spinning wheel looks like from Sleeping Beauty, which only had one point. 100% what
Damien: I thought of at that point. That's where we all know it from. Okay. Yes. That's what we all thought of when you got to that point.
Jess: Okay, so imagine that, but somehow a lot of points. And it's just in the middle of the room and it freaks him out, so he starts trudging back to the hotel.
On this return journey, he meets his good friend Mr. Stanton Boyle from the hotel again, who's also walking back to the hotel. They commiserate on just how weird everything is, and Brent describes what he just saw, and he, he starts yelling that it ought to be destroyed. Yeah. Good plan. He's gonna burn this weird empty house down tomorrow and destroy the spinning wheel.
Stanton Boyle is totally on board. "Yeah, man, good idea," he says, while maybe kind of floating above the [00:25:00] ground. Don't worry about it probably. When they get back to the hotel, he has a telegram waiting from his sister, Joan. He's forgotten to reply to her for a while, so she's coming to Todd. Brent knows that she's not gonna understand this, of course, desire to burn down a random mysterious house.
Ryan: It does bear some explanation.
Jess: So he decides he needs to burn the house tomorrow morning before she arrives. So he sets off. Stanton Boyle accompanies him as far as the tower, leaving him alone to trek the rest of the house, but then Stanton Boyle just returns by himself. And when Joan shows up a couple hours later, he intercepts her and, like, kind of vaguely explains Brent's little walkabouts.
And then when Brent returns, it's in police custody. We get snippets of gossip. Police custody. He tried to burn down the Hackneys' farm, and he's been sleeping in their barn, and maybe there's [00:26:00] another guy involved. But Brent is confident that he burnt down the weird house and the spinning wheel. Look, he even has one of the needles as proof, and it's in his coat pocket.
Stanton Boyle, meanwhile, starts explaining strange realms, interconnectedness, and how some regions need specific stimuli which only certain minds can perceive as real. He calls them the Bad Lands. I think a cop laughs, and he's just like, "No, it's just a farm, and the Bad Lands are in the US."
Damien: Wait, what do they call it?
Jess: The Badlands.
Damien: Yeah, but what's, like, the French term that they call, like, the terre no-
Jess: Oh, yeah. I
Damien: don't know ... terre
Jess: mal-eh. Anyway, they- It was
Ryan: referenced in the intro ...
Jess: they decide to look in Brent's pocket where he said he put the proof, and Stanton Boyle's excited to see a patent separator, which is [00:27:00] obvious to everyone familiar with farms, with the initial GPH, George Philip Hackney, like the farm, apparently.
The end. Da-da. All right. That's all I got.
Damien: Nice.
Ryan: Terre Mauvais. Yeah.
Damien: Terre Mauvais. Terre Mauvais.
Ryan: I'm just not pronouncing the last three letters 'cause it's a
Damien: French word. I say ze Badlands- I think that's how they do it ... because I am from ze United States, but to you I will say Terre Mauvais.
Ryan: So there we have it, The Badlands by John Metcalfe.
Thank you Jess, for that brilliant summary, as per usual. So I think it's easy to read a story like this and brush it off as only a descriptive and perhaps entertaining way of detailing a man's descent into insanity. What I wanna know is, is the weird present in this story at all, in your [00:28:00] opinion? And if so, when do you think it enters the story?
Damien: Tell you what, you're jumping in early and asking a very, like, prescient question. Yeah. And my answer to that is no, I don't think this story is weird at all. I think that what we- ... discover at the end is that this guy is just hallucinating.
Ryan: He's just nuts.
Damien: And he found some artifact in an old burnt-out building, and that's it.
End of discussion. So it is a interesting inclusion. I would love to hear Jess's take. I would love to hear- Jess, yeah ... your take, Ryan. Because I am sitting here after w- after reading this story and going, "What?" I, I hit all the five W's. Uh-huh. I was like, "Why?"
Jess: Who, what,
Damien: when. When, who, how. That's a-
Jess: Reading- And was he
writing, arithmetic.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Jess: So I was expecting it to be more weird. Okay. Like, the, there were [00:29:00] little hints of it where it's, like, Stanton- Yep ... Boyle is seeming to glide over the pavement. But even that's written as, like, maybe he's just kind of a graceful dude.
Damien: Or maybe he's got a long, like, clinical robe on and you just can't see his feet.
Jess: I guess.
Damien: Or maybe he's on ice skates.
Jess: Yeah, any of these are extremely possible. So I was, like... Also, when the twist is that, like, he just has whatever, a patent separator, I think it's something for a dairy farm.
Ryan: Did you look this up? I didn't look this up
Jess: what a patent separator was. Yeah, it's like, it's something for a dairy farm.
Yeah, it is. So you should know what it is. It
Ryan: sounds terribly boring.
Jess: It was just the least climactic th- Yeah ... like, it could have at least been, like, a cow or something if you're gonna go dairy farm. And I was expecting something weird, like maybe it's part of this dairy thing, but also in a certain light it looks like a needle.
You know, like, it definitely had the vibes of weird. Like, a story we read a long time ago where the guy's just, like, [00:30:00] gorsing through the gorse for the whole story. Oh, gors- yeah. And, and that one gets weird. Maydar or whatever. But, like, this had that kind of Blackwood feel of the environment is-
Damien: Really?
Jess: something
Damien: I challenge that, Jess. Okay. I don't, I don't know if it had any- Get your own podcast ... blackguard feel. I I have one. It's with you. We're doing it now. It's happening. I don't know. I, I don't think there was any level of depth here. It was a surface story through
and through. It was the epidermis- Hmm
of narratives, and then at the end it was like this... It was almost like a joke. It was like a, it was literally like a practical joke or a hidden camera show where it was like, "Ha ha, you fool." And it- I, so I wanna challenge this ... raised any level of depth. Fine, go for it.
Ryan: I'm, I'm, but I'm not gonna go for it yet 'cause it's embedded into a, a question that's coming up soon.
But I'm reserving my right to challenge-
Jess: [00:31:00] Okay ...
Damien: Damian's assertion that this story- Garbage ... has
Ryan: no depth.
Damien: Yeah. Well, yeah, reference a future question. Like you don't, like you don't remember who produces and edits these episodes.
For which we
Ryan: are all very grateful, Damian. You get a cookie and a sticker and a pat on the back.
Damien: Follow @whiskeyandtheweird.
Ryan: I think that two options are presented to us in this story for, for if it's weird, and if so, when does the weird enter? I think Damian has already given one of those options, which is very defensible, that the weird is not present in this story at all.
This is just a tale of a man going nuts, and it may even be a comical one. I think that's a defensible literary criticism of this story. On the other end of the spectrum, I think you could argue that the weird enters this story very early and hums lowly all the way through. This is never gonna be a story where the weird jumps out at you or, or [00:32:00] where there's a guy with a, like, a rotting jaw like we had in the last story or something as, as graphic or grotesque as that.
on page two of the story, which is page 120 in the volume, we get these sentences: "It has been pronounced restful by those in high authorities," talking about this Norfolk coast here For time there has a way of passing dreamily as if the days too were being blown past like the lazy clouds on the wings of wandering breezes.
At the back, the look of the land is somehow strangely forbidding, and it is wiser to keep to the shore and the more neighboring villages. Salterton, for instance, has been found quite safe and normal. And just- ... you could, you could read that paragraph and think, "Okay, so this is a nice description of a seaside town where the surrounding area is a little different."
It's that, it's the inclusion of that last sentence that some neighboring villages [00:33:00] described as both safe and normal, which indicates to me, as a weird fiction reader, that the place that we're in is neither safe nor normal.
Jess: Which I think we know immediately- So I would argue that- ... because it's called Todd
Ryan: Yeah.
Right.
Damien: Yeah. Nomenclature here plays-
Ryan: I think the weird comes, can come in very early here.
Damien: Nomenclature plays a huge part. Calling your town Todd.
Ryan: Right.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Right. So I, so I think you, you- Decisions made ... can read the story in both ways. I think you can read the story as this is a perfectly normal story. Uh, and, and, and we'll talk about reasons, reasons for why that could be.
But I also think you could, you could read this as a low-level weird story through and through from start to finish.
Damien: And I guess where I would challenge, not necessarily that perspective, but the initial side, is show me where it's deeper, is dive in. Fair, fair enough.
Ryan: We're running out of gloves here to throw, but I'll [00:34:00] pick that one
Damien: up.
Drop a gauntlet. Let's make it happen.
Ryan: I'll pick that one up. Uh, we'll, we'll get there. I think I may be able to convince you, Damien.
Damien: We'll see.
Ryan: But there is an order here, and so we, we progress apace. There's several characters in this story, and the town is obviously populated. So why does this story feel so lonely, if you agree, in fact, that it did?
And how do you think Metcalf accomplished that in the writing?
Jess: The guy just wandering off by himself three times a day. He's out going for- Mm-hmm ... three times a day long walks, only returning basically to, like, eat. I think part of it is the setting. So we know that other people are staying at this hotel, we know the hotel's in a town, and there's obviously, like, a laborer in the woods or whatever.
But similar stories, if you're staying somewhere for your [00:35:00] health, it's usually, like, a clinic or an institution- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... or a wellness spa or something, and we don't have that. It's just a guy staying at a hotel, so he's not interacting with, like, who would be patients or-
Damien: There's no clinician here.
Jess: Yeah.
Yeah. There's no one treating him. You- There's no doctors. He's just-
Damien: Come on. We have to get past that perspective because at the time, like, barbers were bloodletters. Like, that's how the entire barber pole came to fruition. Speaking of
Ryan: Todd.
Damien: Yeah, seriously. Speaking of Todd. Maybe a little homage. The accreditation of, practitioners I don't think factors into this.
Like, literally anyone could do anything.
Jess: Yeah, but nobody's- So like- ... doing anything.
Damien: Well, what I'm saying is that- ... that's the, that's the presumption, right? But if we look at the fact that barbers could be bloodletters, like, there are other people who could be practitioners for mental health and wellness that are [00:36:00] non-traditional,
Jess: and they can- Sure, but they're not in the story.
They're not treating him. That- Well, but we- And that's what I'm just saying ... we don't- It stands
Damien: out ... but we don't, but we don't know that because all we know is his interactions with his domicile as, like, a hotel, but we don't know what other kind of interactions he has. Because everything is either the perspective of encountering this-
Jess: Yeah, but that's every story.
We have- Okay ... we have this to go off of. He's narrating his day, and he's not narrating any treatment. He just is talking about going and getting some R&R at a hotel. Anyway, that stands out to me as in a, in a story that's has this vibe, there would usually- Mm-hmm ... be a cohort of people. He tries to talk- I- ... to one guy- Yeah
at the hotel, and the guy's just like, "You're weird. Don't talk to me."
Damien: Sure.
Ryan: I, I think for my money, Jess, you've hit on it. In a, in a village that is clearly populated, he keeps absenting himself from that population. He keeps moving away from it, which, which really heightens the sense of loneliness that the story [00:37:00] details.
And the, the, the, I don't know, the, just the melancholy of it was, was all a bit heavy.
Jess: And he tries to talk to, other than our man-
Ryan: It just doesn't work for him, though, does it?
Jess: No. Stanton Boyle goes along with his neuroses. The other two guys are just sorta like- Nope. Not weird Yeah ... is regular.
Ryan: Not, yeah.
Jess: Get out of here.
Ryan: So m- moving on then towards the end, what do you think is going on with the ending? And we, we joked about it a moment ago, so I can take a stab at it on your opinions. Was the ending satisfactory?
Damien: Please do. I wanna hear what you have to say, because to me it was like a joke. It was, it was literally what's Ashton Kutcher popping out from behind the curtain- Right
and being like, "Aha, you got punk'd." Right.
Ryan: So Damian, I'm not far from that. I thought the ending was stupid.
Damien: Okay. Good.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I, the, the whole-
Damien: Well, not good, but- Right ... glad to hear we have some solidarity
Ryan: here. No, we have some agreement there. I did not, I [00:38:00] did not like the ending. I did not like the way it was...
It was so different from the way that the rest of the story was written, I felt. I felt that the rest of the story had a heavy overtone to it, and the ending was flip. And- Well, we switch to- ... I, I didn't like it,
Jess: and
Ryan: I was annoyed by that ...
Jess: we switch from Brent's perspective-
Ryan: Right ...
Jess: to Stanton Boyle's too.
Stanton.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. And he's obviously also either seeing the same things or suffering from the same delusions.
Ryan: And I didn't know what a patent separator was.
Jess: That was, I think, the biggest thing, was like-
Ryan: Well, a- and then when I looked it up, like, there's absolutely no reason you would have your initials inscribed into it.
Jess: No. It's just a piece of, like-
Ryan: It's a mechanical piece, right?
Jess: And then you have
Ryan: to remember- It's not your father's watch, which he carried through all the wars up his you know what Was what? Oh, come on, from Pulp Fiction. "I have this watch." There you go. Thank you. We're gonna get a little, I think, a little deeper here.
Yes. So in my, in my [00:39:00] research into who John Metcalf was, I discovered and unearthed this long and storied military career that he had. He served in both World Wars, in the Navy and in the Air Force.
Damien: Wow.
Ryan: We, we know from multiple records that both of those wars were horrific, particularly the First World War, in which humanity was being leveled by technology that had never been unleashed on the battlefield before.
A- and, and it was just absolutely horrific, the effect of that. You have to imagine that anybody that fought in World War I and survived did not survive unscathed, even though they may not have taken a physical wound. So when I learned that and then I reread this story and overlaid what we would now call PTSD, what they then called shell shock, that really colored my interpretation of this story.
I saw this story as a man attempting to recover from [00:40:00] PTSD following a wartime effort, and being unable to do that, being unable to reconcile the two worlds in which he lived, being unable to reconcile the experience of the war- Mm-hmm ... with, with the humdrum of normal seaside village life, and losing his grip on reality on account of it.
I'm wondering how you, how you react to that interpretation, if, if maybe you, you, you got some of that yourself or, or what you think about it.
Jess: I think he says pretty early on, the narrator, that he's, he's suffering from something, right? Mm-hmm. Some mental health issues. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I, I don't think it's a far cry to kinda map that history onto this story of he's already coming into this weird place with something that he's battling.
Ryan: Oh, yeah. I mean, it... You might laugh when I say this, but in many ways, this is, this is the story of the first Rambo movie.
Jess: I mean, it's bad enough that, [00:41:00] like, he doesn't get back to his sister for a couple of days. Right. Right. And she's just like, "Yep, on my way out there."
Ryan: And he can't deal with society. He's turning away from society.
He's trying to escape, and he, he can't escape the reality of his reality. He's having nightmares. Right. I was, was close with a, with a person who served in Afghanistan and, and in Iraq too, I guess we'll call it. And when they came back to the United States, they discovered that they could not attend a neighborhood barbecue.
Why? For an
Damien: olfactory
Ryan: reason. Oof.
Damien: The smell of smoke?
Ryan: Not the smell of smoke.
Damien: Carbonization?
Ryan: The smell of meat cooking.
Damien: Yeah, okay.
Ryan: Yeah. And I, that image, that idea has never left me, and, and I, I don't know how that person got over that.
Damien: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: We, we ask of our soldiers to do really difficult things and to endure really difficult things.
And [00:42:00] I'm sorry if this is getting a little heavy. We, we then, we then ask them to reinsert themselves into our normal society among those of us who have not done those difficult things, and we are surprised when it doesn't go well sometimes. And I don't think that we should be. And I think this story is an example of it not going well.
I
Damien: mean, we got a little heavy. I would... I guess my one counter would be I don't think this story went as deep for me as you saw it.
Jess: This is also one that I think we're suffering from not reading it directly post-war. You know, like we lose- Post, yeah. 100% ... we lose a lot of this context too- 100% ... of like- And
Ryan: it's-
Jess: Why would this- We lose the
Ryan: context, and it's published, it's published in a magazine that specialized in post-World War I
Jess: commentary.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. That's, that's... Like, we're reading it a bajillion years later with-
Ryan: Right ...
Jess: nothing in our brains. Right. We're not reading it as, "Oh, I wonder why this, 40-year-old man isn't doing so hot right now."
Ryan: Well, our editor, [00:43:00] Alistair Richmond, describes the story as, quote, "A weird psychogeography."
And I'm curious, have either of you ever heard that term before, psychogeography?
Damien: I can't commit to whether I've heard psychogeography before- ... but I can commit to the fact that- Damian, eight
Ryan: Last Words deep ...
Damien: the concept of psychogeography has popped up a lot, but mostly in contemporary fiction-
Ryan: Mm
Damien: multi-channel, like, film, literature, et cetera. Yes. It's not an entirely, like, novel concept to me, even though maybe chronologically it preceded a lot of what's existing now. But yeah, I don't think it's a entirely-
Ryan: I- it was a new term to me. Jess- Really? ... what about you? Yeah, I, I'd not heard it.
Jess: When I read it the first time, it, like, pinged enough that I was s- I was familiar with it, but kind of in the way of, like, how people navigated cities.
In my [00:44:00] mind, it was related to cities.
Ryan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jess: And this is not that, obviously.
Ryan: Well, I don't think... I just don't think you're far off, Jess, because , I looked it up, and it's a term that comes from '70s and '80s literature really, where the city, and it is an urban term mostly, the city is as much a character in the story as any of the people characters, and where the city, the geography or the layout of an urban environment imprints upon the emotions of the reader.
Jess: Okay, so just he's in the woods instead of a city, and it's affecting him.
Ryan: Right. So this is an early, an early example of it, I guess. I looked, I looked up, there's a list on Goodreads of, like, the 200 best examples of psychogeography- Weird. Okay ... in novels.
Jess: What's number
Ryan: one? And so I read through the list and, and, and I had read none of them except for one.
Really? I'd read [00:45:00] one, which was a nonfiction book. But I recognized the names of several of the authors, not many, but several. , And the one I recognized the most was J.G. Ballard, who's an author that I have heard a lot of my favorite contemporary weird fiction writers reference as being an influence.
So, maybe I should go read some J.G. Ballard. Oh, it's a lot of,
Jess: a lot of nonfiction too.
Ryan: There is a lot of nonfiction. Which makes sense. Yeah, there is a lot of nonfiction in this. The one that I read that's on that list is Ghost Land by Edward Parnell.
Jess: Yeah, it's on my list. The one
Ryan: that I talked about.
Yeah.
Jess: And you purchased for us, and it's on my shelf, and I never finished it.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's really good, but it is truly according to that definition of psychogeography, so... That was a, that was a new term to me in terms of, of literary analysis, and I was very intrigued by it.
Jess: There's a book called Scarp.
It's number 32.
Ryan: Yeah. So look... I would say look for ones by J.G. Ballard- ... or look for ones that are by a French author. Those seem to be the biggest-
Jess: Or are
Ryan: called [00:46:00] Scarp. Or are called Scarp. Those are the biggest examples. All right, so given all that, and given what I just said, what do you think about the idea in general, which I guess the word psychogeography describes-
of landscapes imprinting onto someone's subconscious? Can geography affect emotion?
Jess: Yeah, man, obviously. Like, that's... I think this one seems so obvious that it's... I know that you have to have a term for things, right? Gravity is obvious, and we have a term- ... for gravity, but it's just like if you are in a very busy city all day, every day- Your mental state is gonna be affected by that differently than if you're on a farm or in the woo- you know, like
Ryan: I guess so.
Jess: Yes.
Ryan: I mean, your mental state, but is that... I guess, I guess there's overlapping Venn diagrams between mental state and emotion.
Jess: Yes. I'm sticking with yes.
Ryan: Damian appears to have just gotten to the grass clippings [00:47:00] in the bottom of his chartreuse- He's chewing his drink ... cheering his drink. It's so vegetal.
Yeah. It's
Damien: so vegetal.
Ryan: I don't know. I've, I've, I've been affected by landscape before. I've been affected by geography, but I-
Jess: You go to the beach- I've never- ... and you're happy. I don't know.
Ryan: I don't... Yeah, I, I guess, I guess that's true, but I've never thought of it in terms of emotion like that. That's why
Jess: it's just like it's weird that there's a term for it- Yeah
where it just seems so obvious.
Damien: Yeah, and also, like, I don't think that this story really delivered any sort of emotional impact for the geography.
Ryan: I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I've, I've visited places that have, geographical places that have awed me, that have left me with a sense- Sure
of wonder. And, and- Not me.
Jess: I'm not impressed by anything.
Ryan: Screw you,
Jess: nature.
Damien: If I can see it, I don't give a crap.
Ryan: Go to Yellowstone, Jess. Go to Yellowstone- No ... once.
Damien: Doesn't matter
Jess: I've seen better.
Ryan: But I don't know that I've left a place and said like, "I feel happy, I feel sad, and it's on account of this rock formation."
Damien: Right.
Ryan: Or this [00:48:00] shoreline. I mean, I've felt peace at the shore.
Damien: So I will share that in my and my wife's explorations of the Pacific Coast Highway, we stopped at Pfeiffer Beach, and one of the things that stood out is... You know, and I grew up in Florida, so a Florida beach is you go out, there's sand, there's 37 people between you and the surf break, and it's probably about 30 feet.
When you go to Pfeiffer Beach, no one else is out there. There are stones that are the size of four-story buildings.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Damien: The start of this, of, like the beach until where the water breaks is literally 150 yards. Everything makes you feel so minuscule, and I wanted that from this story. Mm-hmm. I didn't get it.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Damien: I got, here's a weird building in a weird place, but I didn't get any sense of grandeur, and I thought that that's [00:49:00] where this sort of alternate version, cosmic horror effect could really come into play and really punch the reader, and I got none of that. I didn't feel small. I didn't feel insignificant.
I didn't feel like the characters were insignificant. I just felt like it was like a... What are those viewfinder things where you- Where you click, click, click? Yeah. Yeah. Where you click the thing, and it's like, here's a different iteration of what you could be seeing, and that's it. And so it was so underwhelming for me.
Ryan: I, I appreciate the
viewfinder image. I disag- For me, it was not underwhelming.
Damien: That's fair.
Ryan: Fair, yeah. Yeah. What about the writing? How was the writing for this? Yeah, I agree. Real strong.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Excellent is what I wrote down, in fact. I
Jess: mean, immediately where it's just, like, even instead of calling it a, wagon, I don't know what anything is, but-
[00:50:00] he says, "A decrepit fly bore him-
Damien: Mm-hmm ...
Jess: to the one hotel." Yes. And it's just, like, you could just say, like, a gross old wagon, but decrepit fly. Like, you're just- Yeah ... you're coming in hot with that one.
Damien: Everything is purposeful. Like, everything was a $10 word.
Jess: There's a repellent- Yeah ... quality about the air. The-
Ryan: There's so many, there's so many passages that I highlighted for, for writing examples.
I'll just read this one. This is from page 127, and this is, this is the image straight out of Sleeping Beauty. "This was a large and cumbrous spinning wheel of forbidding mien. It glistened foully in the dim light, and its many molded points pricked the air in very awful fashion. Waiting there in the close stillness, the weather fancied he could see the treadle stir."
I hazard a guess that if we were given pen and paper and read that description and each asked to draw the [00:51:00] image, we would come up with remarkably similar images. The writing is that strong.
Damien: Okay. I, it... To be fair, yes. But it would be this- I agree the writing was strong, but it would be the same because we all have- 'Cause we've all watched Sleeping Beauty
pretty much the image of a, of a spinning wheel. Yes.
Jess: And also, I don't know where all the points are supposed to be. I thought it just said one point. They're just... They're all-
Damien: Like, I thought, I thought it was spinning- Pricking
Ryan: the air? That's so good. That's so good.
Damien: No, I thought, I thought the spinning wheel, like, extended to, like, a, like a ship's helm.
Like, but then each of the little knobs that you would grab- Is spiky. Yeah, spiky ... would be spiky. Yeah. Mm. That, that's how I pictured it.
Ryan: Yeah. Exactly. Hey, I
Jess: don't
Ryan: like that. Exactly right. No, it's, it's like, it's, like, this thing should be comfortable to hold and grasp- No ... but it isn't, and it's dangerous. Mm.
Damien: Yeah. It's, it's also a little scandalous. It's also a little pointy.
Ryan: Oh, I don't know about scandalous. Okay, Damien. All right. That's gonna take us to Did It Destiny, and here's the question for that. How many spinning wheels of destiny would you give this [00:52:00] story out of one?
Damien: Out of one?
Ryan: Out of one. Out of
Jess: one.
There's just one?
Damien: I say zero. Like, I saw this as a mirror alternate reality, but it just didn't land with me. It was like a step through a portal, you're here. Mm-hmm. Step through a portal, you're here. But also that portal was just, like, any credibility was dashed in the last act I just, I, I didn't, I-
Ryan: No, it did not destiny for you.
Damien: Right. It did not destiny for me, so I would say- It didn't
Ryan: wheel ... zero out of
Damien: one ... it didn't destiny. Yeah.
Ryan: I gave it a half of a wheel. Wow. It didn't feel like an alternate history or a different destiny so much as a melancholic eventuality to me.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: But I definitely f- What about- And I felt like I was, I was...
I felt like I was somewhere else, but it didn't- Did you? ... feel like a destiny thing. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Jess? I felt like I was, I was in a different place.
Jess: Yeah. Jess? I, I get that part. Like, the walking out past the tower, like, [00:53:00] it had kind of those, like, annihilation vibes of like- Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, definitely.
Jess: Yeah
this, something about this is off. But then at the end when he's just- But then it never came to
Damien: fruition.
Jess: Right. At the end when he's just like, "Nah, I just burned down a farm."
Damien: Right. Exactly. It was like- That is the fruition ... okay, so all this was for naught. That is the fruition. But that's not, but that's not the fruition that we need to get weirdness on the wheel.
Ryan: Okay.
Damien: That doesn't move up the wheel score.
Ryan: Please leave me out of that we.
Damien: What's the number? Give a numeric value.
Jess: I'm gonna say three points on the pointy wheel.
Ryan: How many... Out of one, how many is that? Like-
Jess: Yeah, out of one. Yeah ...
Damien: two, 12. Like, point
Ryan: three. It's-
Damien: Goon, so I had- Point three? ... zero. You had what?
Ryan: Point five. Half
Damien: the wheel. So we're, we're at a point two is what it boils down to.
Ryan: Fair enough.
Jess: I'm the... Yeah, I'm going with three.
Ryan: Okay.
Damien: Low on the destiny
Ryan: wheel. No
Damien: destiny. No destiny. Yeah. No destiny.
Ryan: Well, on the... We're gonna rate this story according to our standard Whiskey rating here on Whiskey and the Weird, which is zero fingers to [00:54:00] five fingers of whiskey.
Jess, what are you giving The Bad Lands by John Metcalfe?
Jess: Two and a half. The writing was strong. The story was good until I had to pretend I knew what a patent separator was. I think it would've been much higher had I, you know, been-
Ryan: Mm-hmm ...
Jess: a post-war reader. But I still... I mean, I liked reading about this guy wandering around in the gorse having a weird time.
Ryan: It's an honest opinion. Damien?
Damien: A gorse belongs to Algernon Blackwood, not this story. I give it a two Other people can gorse No.
Jess: There's one gorse story Anyone can gorse if they want to.
Damien: It's my time, Jess. Step back.
Jess: Gorsing it up. Two gorses.
Damien: I give this two fingers, which is a respectable amount of whiskey, but not a great rating for the story.
Ryan?
Ryan: This is gonna be controversial. 10
Jess: gorses.
Ryan: I'm giving this four and a half fingers of whiskey.
Damien: You gotta be nuts! No,
Jess: I
Damien: think that's fine.
Jess: I am
Damien: off of this [00:55:00] podcast. I am leaving your scene. I
Jess: already told you that earlier. You have to get your own podcast.
Damien: That is the most ridiculous rating I've ever heard.
This story is not a four and a half finger story. I tell you, Damien- Ryan, explain yourself right now ...
Ryan: Damien, I thought about this story, and I thought about this story, and I thought about it again, and I thought about it the day after I thought about it. You think too much. This story stuck with me in a, in a really bizarre way.
I really, really enjoyed this, and I wanted- No ... I actually wanted to go full fist on this, but I hated the ending. I will
Damien: kick you
Ryan: through the screen.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: I hated the ending. I agree with you about that. I felt that the ending was oddly weak for how I felt the strength of the rest of the story was. The ending felt obvious, and it felt inevitable in an unpleasing way.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: And I was annoyed by whatever a patent separator... I don't even know what that is- ... but I was annoyed by it. I wanted the weird spinning wheel to actually be more than it was, so, so that's part of my- Yeah, for sure ... my knock-off there.
Damien: Garbage
Ryan: [00:56:00] But given the author's wartime experience, and I know that y'all didn't know that.
Oh,
Damien: shut...
Ryan: No, I'm gonna keep going. I'm not gonna shut up. Because I felt, I felt very passionately strong about this dude's PTSD experience, though he had no words for that. He had no verbiage for that, and so he wrote this story to try to get over it. He wrote a story in which a man was unable to live in society, even though he was there s- supposedly to rest and recover and recuperate.
But he kept having to leave, he kept having to, to absent himself from what was supposed to be a healing or a recuperative effort. Mm-hmm. And when he did, he found nothing but loneliness and, and despondency, and ultimately disaster, and ridicule and embarrassment. And that, to me, is the story of a lot of veterans of war.
Damien: Man, don't bring this down to the veteran experience level. This story was weak sauce, and you're trying to tie in, okay, so-
Ryan: I stand by what I say.
Damien: Sure, Ryan. But [00:57:00] let me ask you one quick question. If you didn't realize his previous militaristic experience, would you still give it the same number of fingers?
We're talking about a story, and not the impact of the author. All right.
Ryan: So here's, here's the deal on that. Probably not. Okay. Done. But once learned, I can't separate it.
Damien: Yeah, but that's not cool.
Jess: Well, it's like saying, like-
Ryan: Sorry. You can do the same research I did. It's
Damien: a Google
Ryan: search.
Jess: Like, we read The Yellow Wallpaper.
Like, you can't read that without understanding the context.
Damien: Jas, was- Yeah ... The Yellow Wallpaper a better story than this one?
Jess: Yellow Wallpaper is a better story than every story.
Damien: Ryan, was The Yellow Wallpaper a better story than The Bad Lands? I don't know, but let me, let
Ryan: me turn back to
Damien: my- No, no. Don't re- Yeah
don't refer. Tell me- I'm referring to my notes ... was The Yellow Wallpaper a better story than The Bad Lands? Yes.
Ryan: Yes. I will
Damien: say
Ryan: yes.
Damien: Thank you. I agree, yes. That's three yeses.
Ryan: But I gave The Yellow Wallpaper four and a half fingers, too.
Damien: Yeah, but that's a tie, sir. That's not a better story, then. The Yellow Wallpaper got four and a half.
Ryan: [00:58:00] Yellow Wallpaper, 4.65.
Damien: I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight something. I'm gonna go punch a puppy. I'm gonna kick a kitten. I, I gotta get this energy out.
Ryan: Listen, I
Damien: know that you- Take it to me if this... Uh, we
Ryan: need to
Damien: move ...
Ryan: I know that you disagree, but- We need to move ... this, this is... To me, this was a very serious story.
Damien: I'm furious
Ryan: Well, if you're not Damien and you liked the story-
Jess: Yeah ...
Ryan: I guess unsurprisingly, I have a suggestion for you. Please, please bestow it upon us, Ryan.
And that is the 1990 film, yes, I said 1990 film starring Andy Dufresne, I mean, I mean Tim Robbins- Oh ... called Jacob's Ladder. Great
Damien: movie.
Ryan: Jacob's Ladder is super creepy, for one. Mm-hmm. But it is the story of a soldier returning with PTSD, even though he doesn't have the words or the verbiage to describe that.
It's super trippy. He has no idea what's real or what isn't, and I mean, apparently, as I've learned, there are elements of [00:59:00] psychogeography to Jacob's Ladder as well. It takes place in a city, and the city is very much a part of his trippy experience. So 1990, Jacob's Ladder starring Tim Robbins. Nice.
Jess: Solid.
Ryan: That's gonna take us to the end- ... of this episode, and I don't know, Frank's, if, uh, Damien's gonna be back next week. We'll see. I'm pretty upset, folks. But thank you for joining us for this potentially final episode of Whiskey and the Weird. Yeah. This is
Damien: it, folks. Sorry.
Ryan: If you liked it, please give us a rating and a review or tell a friend.
Spread the word on social media. Let others know that you enjoy listening to Whiskey and the Weird so they can enjoy too. We always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for us here on Whiskey and the Weird, and Damien, if they want to talk you off the ledge of quitting- ... where can they do that?
Damien: Look, I'll never quit. I love you all too much- Even when we come to highly differentiated conclusions for these stories. So respect, respect even though you're wrong. If you wanna follow us on [01:00:00] social, you can find us at WhiskeyandtheWeird, @WhiskeyandtheWeird on the Meta properties, along with Bluesky, I believe we're still out there- Eh
tinkering around. Eh, a little bit. @WhiskeyandtheWeird, we spell our whiskeys with an E, and we hope you do, too. If not, may you join Ryan's camp- ... in finding too much value in a story that is very thin, like a veneer, and will sink on the open water. But if you do want to join us and be like, "Damien's super cool, and we get you," then please do.
Again,
Ryan: that- Damien, go sit on a patent separator.
Damien: That's it. Sounds uncomfy. It's @WhiskeyandtheWeird, we spell-
Jess: We'll never know ...
Damien: whiskey with an E. We'll see you soon. Jess, what's up next?
Jess: It is one that has a very funny name. We are gonna read He Walked Around the Horses by H. Beam Piper.
Ryan: Oh, I hope that story is fantastic. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Ryan: And
Damien: I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together, at least for tonight- ... we're Whiskey and the Weird. Damien, why don't you send us home? It could be the [01:01:00] last chance.
Damien: Hey, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye, everybody.