TV Guidance Counselor
TV Guidance Counselor LIVE! at NECC: Evan Michelson
- Wait, what? You have a TV? - No. I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. Don't need a TV. ♪ Double Ladies and Ladies ♪ ♪ Double Ladies and Ladies ♪ ♪ Double Ladies and Ladies ♪ ♪ Ah ♪ ♪♪ -Hello, everybody. Happy Friday to you. Can read here your TV guidance counselor with a special surprise. It is another Friday episode of TV guidance counselor. This time we have a live episode recorded last week at the Northeast Comic Con here in Massachusetts. I was very excited to talk to my guest today. My guest is Evan Michelson, who you probably best know from the television show Audities, which chronicles her store in New York, Obscura and Teaks. It's one of the few reality shows that I really always enjoy that isn't cops and feels a lot more realistic than many of the other shows, really fun show. And I would get caught in marathons quite often. And I really enjoyed talking to Evan. We have a mutual background in punk rock and a love of goth-y industrial art and music. So that was a lot of fun to talk to her about growing up in that sort of stuff, which we get into in this episode. we also talk about the show as you can imagine and a lot of other things and she's great really smart funny fascinating person I think you'll enjoy this episode so please sit back relax and listen to this week's special live edition episode of TV guidance counselor with my guest Evan Michelson. so what's on TV so what's on TV so what's on TV so what's on TV so what's on TV thank you guys for coming out to the recording my guess is Evan from oddities everybody is anyone ever heard my podcast before now I will explain to you the premise of the show I'm a I'm a stain of comedian mostly but I have a huge love of television I own every single issue of TV guide I pretty much television was my family growing up for the most part so I have an unusual knowledge of television and so this show is I have a guest on they kick an old issue of TV guide we kind of go through it and see what they would watch that we can television so that's what we are going to do and Evan selected this edition from 1969 for some reason why did you pick 1969 that was a good year for TV it was it was it was a transitional year I think it was and I was young enough that my brain was malleable so whatever I saw you remember I became yeah I think that most people it's like ages eight to twelve seems to be sort of a sweet spot but you don't you don't want to hang out with your parents but you're not old enough to like leave the house yeah watching a lot of TV did you have more than one TV in your house or do you have siblings we had one TV in the like a good TV in the living the good TV was in the kitchen really yeah but I used to take it with me is it portable but no yeah me and my friends we we loved watching certain shows so much we would actually wheel it out of we'd sit on the staircase watch TV because you had so many people that you wanted to sit on the staircase or just see no I didn't want to bother mom she was she was busy cooking it was like stadium seating yeah once we sat like stadium seating we watched TV and it was the best what were shows that warranted physically moving the television we physically move the television for I love Lucy so you were saying that Lucy was your favorite because you were redhead I was born a redhead and it went blonde but when I saw Lucy I started dying my hair red that's a red you're back literally back to your roots yes very well good so you did you watch Lucy like every day because that was yeah Lucy Lucy was the show that actually invented reruns people a lot of people don't know that previously that television seasons would be 52 episodes and they would do a new show every week like a radio show which is where a lot of the television sort of format came from but when Lucy got pregnant they said we're just gonna run old episodes and people were like you can't do that that's crazy and Lucy became one of the shows that everybody grew up with because they kinascoped all these things and was on every day and I've watched every episode like 10 times you know them like intimately not as well as other shows but I know I'm pretty well like Lucy becomes part of your DNA it does she's she's just the funniest damn thing did you watch any of her follow-up shows yeah no one ever likes those ones and it's not to say people aren't as great when they get older but she got here I'm gonna say no but she terrified me like I found her very scary older Lucy very scary because she she did a she did a made for TV movie called stone pillow you know everything I don't know I never tried to learn less which is why and it justifies my TV guide hoarding that I have a podcast basically but she played a homeless person in this movie called stone it was in 1986 it was a made for TV movie with Lucy and it was like the full eight packs a day Lucy yep and so she was like yeah give me some change kind of Lucy and that's that Lucy terrifies yeah well you know she went through a law she was hard she had to fight and she got kind of a thick skin she really did but in when she was young she had this sort of wild and oh yeah she was very harpo and harpo's my hero okay so you're a big like this is harpo so if you combine a harpo and Lucy you get harpo Lucy and Jean Wilder that's my yeah those are not bad first of all they're funny people I'm not that funny great hair beats funny cuz you can you can do great air at a distance but not funny at a distance yeah and harpo never said anything no he did in Jean Wilder it's a very good firm so you're really what did you first see Jean Wilder and connected with you I saw Willie walk on the chocolate factory in the theater it was instantly obsessed to the point where I think I've made my parents take me three times did you had you read the book before I had not it's all about Jean Wilder that yeah I mean I mean it's a great film but his energy and then Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite films of all time I have yeah I can do that backwards and forward I could do the dialogue with you I shouldn't say that because then you'll find a scene but the Jean Wilder in that movie became my dream of that's what that should be he was the iconic mad madman so is that is is that movie so you obviously will know you from the show oddities and you run obscure and it's sort of dark gaffy weird which falls into place with Young Frankenstein yeah was that the first thing that you saw that sort of attracted you to that because I think everyone has a TV show or a record or a movie where they go oh this is the thing I like that was yeah a bride of Frankenstein okay well same sex yes something about it you know Dr. Pretorious yes Ernest this girl yep if I'm pronouncing it correctly I that that's one of my favorite movies of all time as well that scene where he's eating off a coffin in the yep that was my aha moment in my youth and I said I have to do that I want to be that I want to be Dr. Pretorious and he wasn't a nice man no he was the villain of that maybe he was the villain but he was unpredictable yes mercurial you didn't know where he was coming from he was clearly dark and very smart very smart he made it all the trouble Victor would you want to graver out I didn't know I wanted to send her bodies right well that's good I just want I want to be around coffins and I want to have confidence in the places of death I want to own it when you when that kind of hit oh man that's a little right really little yeah and so just double digits probably did you share that with me like were you watching my movie and you're like yeah this thing no my parents knew I was a very weird kid were they into any of that stuff no not at all so they would indulge you though like if you wanted to go see don't Frankenstein yeah they would go they didn't see where it was going to later when were they like we thought you would go out of this that's my dad most of my life yeah I think the best of us had that yeah that's true it's just because I was a industrial got so I was all about dark places yeah darkness yes turning pain into art yes always still and still but he didn't think I got over till TV is that when your dad was like now that I've seen you on TV I'm okay with this yeah that makes him sound shallow he's not no I think but I think for a lot of people that's like oh you can do a live you this is a living it's apparent so you can't live on darkness yes and I but I did and you're like but don't you remember the 90s we lived up dark the 80s were pretty damn dark the 80s were dark I think socially and there was all the innovation in darkness happened in the 80s but people monetized it in the 90s the good point I mean as it got so industrial got in the 80s it's like early 80s right when it was an actual underground movement I was there I was on the street and was this in New York in New York and a friend and I sort of ran away to London okay before college I shouldn't say run away makes it sound grand but we took everything we had and we went to London with no money we didn't know anybody there and we just kind of had our picture taken on the street yeah put on a fake accent I'm embarrassed to say you pretended to be British yeah because they could the American tourists came there to see yeah to see it yeah yeah just so yeah so so that and and polystyrene of X-ray sex tried to convert me that she was in an ashram yeah yeah so she tried to save us she save our souls that I was a huge fan so it's weird that she so a lot of people may not know this now given how like sort of alternative culture and you see people it's almost anything goes with with looks and things that but when when punk first happened the UK was sort of the ground zero for extreme looks and gentler and so it was a it was a big tourist thing like you would go get your picture taken with the guard at Buckingham Palace and with a guy with a mohawk yeah and people like you know the cleavers would come from Ohio and get their picture taken with someone who looks like he's in GBH so you were and that was that was made people would like give you like a ticket daily circle yeah we went there with nothing with no plan no place to stay well yours like 80 45 this oh well dating myself this is about 82 okay so it was just starting to see a calm man the back case discharge and yeah yeah yeah we were there when the birthday party had moved birthday party saw yeah but just bad seats yes into birthday party I also ran away to London and in the late 90s and did the same thing I had no money and I actually lived under a stairwell how romantic yes but no but only because I had no money and it was it was under a stairwell above a championship shop and next to a Moroccan brothel oh what neighborhood a new cross oh okay yeah South London which is I was living in Brixton okay that was a little little kid when the skinhead writes the Brixton writes I lived in Brixton and hern Hill for a while wow yeah so when did you move back that was that was brief okay then I moved back and went to college and became a proper young lady right so you were getting the goth out of your system getting in the goth I was built I was feeding the goth because goth exploded here slightly later right yeah probably the late 80s yeah it was like early mid 80s my gothic industrial van was E4 okay and did you tour with that band not that band no subsequent band we toured internationally I could say which means Canada yeah well that is international that is we cross borders did you watch any television when you were in the UK or in yeah the English at the best TV yeah oh yeah they were way ahead of America absolutely they had a like Channel 4 tainties yep and they had they had what was it called I'm blanking out on it now but they had like oh sorry I'm not sorry I met the young one no that that I saw here but they had like some very subversive things and on their mainstream television and we were quite it was quite amazing even like their version of Saturday live in the UK was called Friday Night Live and it was hosted by this guy Ben Elton who was like oh Ben Elton yeah he was like a communist comedian an elective sale and these people who are like radical leftist people were the mainstream comedy in the UK and the 80s which is very very weird also a queerous folk that's what I'm thinking yes who was on in the oh yeah we way before we had much more progressive like 1985 or something I mean Monty Python raised me right so in addition to my parents I had Monty Python do you watch that on PBS here I did which was a weird thing to show on PBS what it was a weird thing for PBS the smartest guys in any room yes they still are so it's so a lot of the things you're mentioning are comedy things which people might be surprised where you have this sort of dark comedy comedy you have to be damn smart I think so and I think I'm not just saying that because you're a comedian oh thank you but I think that comedy and horror are the same thing mechanical they have the same mix so a few so a punchline and a scare are the same thing and you can do a shock joke which you see a lot of comics will say like you know some horrific rig joke or something and people will react but they'll be mad it's the same as like a cat jumping out in the movie yes you don't see it coming right and then you you jump but you're angry but you some but if you do character if you care about the character something funny happens it's funnier something horrible happens to them it's scarier and if it's good if it's good hard exactly yeah or in good humor yeah and to me the same exact that's very well observed well I've noticed a lot of people that like horror also like comedy yeah and magic and magic are also magicians are also the smartest guys in the room they are they know how to fool you yes they can read you it's it's never trust in magician I shouldn't say that because I have many many friends but they know what you're thinking yeah well that's it's I mean comedy and magic there's a few things that I always say help me with comedy and it's doing martial arts when I was a kid and taking magic lessons because you're you're assessing people and then you're anticipating their reaction to things and then you're making them react a way that you want and it's all three of those are sort of the same skill set little-known facts so many famous people famous men certain age they're all magicians yeah Johnny Carson and yeah no Patrick Harris did magic yeah he's big into it yeah he still is the magic castle and also you've been to the magic castle yeah they have never been there and I've heard nothing good things yeah I'm not gonna tell you what it's like it's right I don't think you're loud yeah you're not allowed to there's probably chairs like this there like we're sitting I'm not saying I'm just gonna theorize the only magic castle information I have is based on the Clyde Barkham repeat Lord of allusions did he did well he claimed to have there's a scene that takes place in there I don't know if actually the best thing about the magic castle is that whatever you're thinking about it whatever it's building up in your mind it's not true it's not true yeah when you get there you go oh yeah that's magicians it's the heart of magic is that it's what you think it is it isn't yes but you know what you do in your own mind is much more dramatic than anything that's actually oh absolutely and again with horror it's the same thing yeah comedy that doesn't work that's the one difference where what you imagine with horror is always better than what you could show but with comedy you're not like you know I thought that was funnier it's funnier in my mind some humor to the imagination is never what she wants so there's sort of this mixture then of like things like I love Lucy and money Python yes and horror things yeah and you mentioned you really love the Adam show the bloody hell yeah I mean and that's family were the the most highly functioning people ever on television yeah I mean Gomez Adams was rich and knew everything yeah he they loved each other yep they showed it they showed it in the 60s yeah yeah really passionate way it was the most sign sense it does seem like the most well rounded family on television in 1960 this is the Adam family yeah well there was Tic van Dyke and his wife they were lovely and insanely funny yeah Adam's family were hands down the most romantic oh yeah because they were so beautiful their own thing they did not care no it didn't have to I love that they made him rich so he could just be like whatever my favorite Adam's family episode is the Christmas episode where they all end up playing Santa for the kids and there's a scene at the end where you have cousinate and Uncle Fester and Gomez and Morticia and they're all Santa Claus and it's such a sweet Christmassy moment and the Adams family of all things which is very very weird and we were talking about the monsters earlier yeah which I think visually people yeah but as a show not as sort of gothic and dark and weird I don't want to talk to save bad things about the monsters no but they were essentially normal people yes and that was the joke of different and they the Adamses were yes just operating on another level total weirdos and loved it yeah people were like I don't under passionately weird the you've seen that family in the Midwest who built a replica of the monsters house I had not so there's these people in I think it's like Ohio and they watched every episode of the monsters with an architect and were able to reverse engineer blueprints to build an exact replica of the monsters house and they live in it and every Halloween they open it up for people to come in and see well the monsters house is basically second Empire Victorian right and he had he lived in Westfield which is I live in a place well I live near West Field where he's from and the town I live in is nothing but Victorian house Adams from you Charles Adams yeah yeah sorry yes but the monsters fuck it happens cardinal yeah I broke a cardinal rule it happens I apologize well the monsters were sort of like the Adams family in that they lived in a Victorian second Empire home yes anyway you can actually own one of those for very little because nobody wants them because they're today you can move into one of those and because they're falling apart yeah nobody wants them I live in one I live in an 1872 Empire it is it's the monsters in the Adams family have you decked it out like the Adams family is that you dream no because it to get it Adams family you have water coming in yeah it would not be livable yeah it's but anyone out there save one of those houses yeah oh yeah please buy them don't don't let them be carved up into condos like someone building the Adams family house is nuts because you couldn't actually buy one but it won't be where you want it to be no well that's the thing yeah we my wife and I when we were looking for houses we found a house in Maldon, Massachusetts with people may nose and it was a huge old Victorian house with Butler quarters yeah wallpaper from the 1800s and all this stuff but it was like $99,000 and if you put a hundred thousand dollars and it would have been amazing but no one would give you that money to do a house up in the place that it was because it would not be worth it yeah and we were like heartbroken but we're like we can't live in the money pit well I live in a tiny version of that yeah so I got to live the dream I'm living the dream right now living the dream right now a little tiny version of the dream sometimes a small version of the dream is better it's more manageable heating the heating that home forget it yeah that's why they were mostly dead people that lived in the yeah people don't think about that yeah they're so cool and have it big old Victorian houses because oil is expensive yeah exactly and they didn't have baseboard heating no absolutely yeah it says stuff on fire with the candle you just have to have big fireplaces it's better to be cold-blooded yes if you're a vampire you want to live in a house like that because otherwise you're just spending money on it's exactly it makes perfect sense if you think about it so you're in this industrial band and here which is like 83 which is very new at the time like there was like two bands or three bands from Germany which means collapsing in England and throbbing gristle was kind of doing some of this stuff yeah how did you find out about those bands then because a lot of people don't realize that some of that stuff got shown on TV here which is weird about like public access public access or USA Network had a show called night flight yes I remember night flight that was informative all night and they would show I thought it was it yes this good stuff maybe that's right found out about it that's where I found out a lot of this stuff I don't think you'd ever get a thing like that I was in art school though in New York City you can't pay posters everything that ever happened that was worth anything it was wheat-pasted on a wall right in the East Village so you were in like the complete center of the world and stuff yep so you could not avoid cool stuff see I'm very very jealous of that because Boston we didn't really have that going on here we had some cool clubs but there definitely wasn't we would get stuff from other places but I don't think we originated you said it yeah no I'll stand by that I'll stand by that okay you're gonna get beat up I will I absolutely a bunch of people and and Bruinsters yeah with still wearing it Doc yes mine fell apart well you can get new ones I know but I don't want to go through the pain of six months of breaking them through that you know what you're talking about yeah it's Doc's are the most comfortable shoes you've ever had after they're the most painful shoes you've ever had they break your feet they were really rough yeah yeah I remember I actually was in England and I had this pair of Doc Martin's that were like this this purple color that they only made very briefly yeah and I had them for like 12 years and they had fallen apart and I went to like the official Doc Martin store and I was like I need a pair of these and this guy was like you need a time machine mate and I was like no so I wore vegan Docs what are they made out of it well and they stopped making vegan Docs when they sold the company so like I bought I had to I had boxes of them in my closet had the last about 12 years right but it was about five years they're either yeah they're not but look they look like you never know they look look at me I would not know they do and you know you can kick just as much shit with them and if you want to eat them if you're trapped somewhere you wouldn't feel morally opposed to it no you would not but it is petroleum that's related so you can't win life is death life is death but you know they last a long time so would you learn their own age by watching Dr. Matorius that's right Dr. Matorius is the is the man but there weren't a lot of women in horror ghoulish it was meant you Victor Frankenstein I mean yes like the women were always the day I say right although that definitely started to change in the 80s you started getting more sort of women in horror and yeah controversial but Elvira sort of lovely lady very very very funny her life story is crazy she was a showgirl in Las Vegas she's naked on the cover of a Tom Waitelbaum oh a young age on a what I forget what record it is Priel Vira but people who are sort of into the things that that we enjoy there's some controversy with the vampire versus Elvira and all that kind of stuff but she really popularized I think for women in the 80s mainstream wise that sort of look and thing yeah in that resurgence but that's not really subversive is it because it's still beautiful yes yeah you know it still was like Morticia and in the monster that's true that is true it's slightly different though especially when you go back to the comics true to the comic version the New Yorker version yes it's much more grotesque yeah she was Margaret she was not that beautiful as she was conceived right in a population she wasn't played by a movie star yeah not a problem no I have no problem with that but you know women have really made it when you're just when you can be a grotesque and be famous that's when you when you're beloved and grotesque who was the first beloved grotesque that you remember um lashing on to the she oh on TV she was she played latkes girlfriend oh yeah carol cane door carol cane yes from he note um from uh uh when a stranger calls and she wasn't even grotesque but you know she wasn't yeah she wasn't put together she was real yeah and she played a crazy and she was wild had very curly busy smart yeah she was she's great so you love to do you watch taxi all the time not particularly yeah if she was on it yeah yeah yeah I mean I think I feel like in the in the late 70s early 80s with sitcoms you got cast members that were just funny and they stopped trying to just have here's a beautiful woman and will write her funny lines it was kind of like this is the right person for this role you got it was a little more sophisticated yes yes it became more human they're making more human which you don't have like mirror time and more was very funny but she was also a movie star basically yeah beautiful yeah teeth yeah your hair was done you could have people that looked more like real people or looked more like the character they were playing yeah which led to you know rosanne and these things where they would actually be real people on the shows amen which i'm very pleased with although we sort of have come back around yeah it's everyone beautiful everyone is perfect teeth now and they're very very white and i think she's always weird i'm like walking dead to me because i'm like how are these people keeping up with dental work and brushing their teeth on a regular basis and post-apocalyptic things they never show tooth care and i think that's a that's a big role i think it's the clean teeth are destroying the third wall it is it is because i'm like if you have to go back to real teeth if there's no society teeth are going to be the first time i'm not taking care of them you don't have a good diet you're eating god knows what yeah you don't have toothpaste you're not shaved all the time either no where you get if you have raisin you're going to use them for like i don't know carving up animals to eat not for shaving you know to get rid of the good grooming if they really really that's the difference between good post-apocalypse and bad post-apocalypse that's right is the grooming is the facial hair it is absolutely what's your favorite post-apocalyptic thing yeah like movie or television show oh i really love post-apocalyptic books yeah what's some of your favorite movies don't do it so well i am legend's probably my favorite post-apocalyptic really haven't seen it it's uh it's we should mathison um he wrote more than half of the twilight zones and the incredible shrinking man and it's it's the book that the omega man is based off of and i think they made a version of it with Will Smith and the last minute on earth the Vincent Price movie oh yes yeah that that's pretty well i you know when i really let that um twilight zone time enough at last yes with the glasses every everybody's favorite because that's what the post-apocalypse is going to be like yes it's not mad max it's not adventure your your glasses are going to break and then you're screwed forever did you wear glasses a kid yeah everyone everyone i know that we're glasses as a kid that saw that episode you're worse than i can't and that must have sold so many glasses i'm still wearing them now like i can imagine like the american opticians association was just like thank you rott serling thank you so much we've sold double the amount of glasses we planned so they didn't have high impact plastic now now but i think intentionally yes just so they could sell extra and if you're wearing contact lenses in the post-apart you're even more screwed yeah because you're not going to find contact solution now if you need water you're going to use the drink not to make sailing solution to wash your lenses so i like i love costume dramas that get the filth right and post apocalyptic films they get the despair right and that's a very money python thing too i think they made the best okay the other movie that made me who i am yeah it's it's the holy ground yeah which is a good than pictures and forwards as well you should have you ever done it backwards oh like not literally backwards yeah i bet there's someone online that has a video that reciting if you play it the other way tell the lights no that is the most realistic depiction of none of us have ever been in the right medieval period but that's how we imagine it to be when you watch like people watch things like i've actually not seen game of films but these sorts of things where i imagine it's like princesses and people are like very nicely put together and it's like no they died of dysentery when they were 18 years old because there was no sanitation well part of my business is so a lot of um old medical preparations right and i had just lectured on the history of uh the refined refining of opiates people died very young if you got diarrhea on the 19th century you're dead yeah a good chance is you would die it's not funny yeah people underneath all those clothes they were suffering terribly with things that are curable with one or two bills right now yeah and i mean actually not to not to get dark here but uh one of the reasons that like Ebola was is so deadly in Africa is because people dehydrate that's right and it's a place so full treatment but in medieval times they died of those things because there was no sanitation so it's very weird to see a sort of uh no pun intended sanitized version of these things even as late as the 19th century they're still yeah absolutely the modern age they were dying of things that we can hear and Ebola is probably a little touch of how they fell yeah but you know they didn't have adequate disinfection of anything they didn't have plumbing and sewage well they were but you know the sewage wasn't treated and it would just go through the town and your child would get sick and people don't want to depict that in historical fiction no but when they do it's the best thing ever because that's where we came from yeah coming from suffering we don't come from pretty costumes and why do you think that so now more than ever i think that people are into costume dramas and historical fiction i feel like right now it's more popular than i've ever said better than what we got is that what you think it is i mean it seems that you know people are so into it but it is not remotely accurate like i feel like i feel like the historical fiction of you know something about Jack the Ripper now you mean books or TVs or movies it's kind of all but specifically tv and movies when they depict something that like uh that happens in the 1800s it's about as realistic as a movie set on Mars it's a heck of a lot better than the 1940s like when i like Sherlock Holmes they'll look like it was the 19 for well it was they said 1940s but whenever like gone with the win yes that was not accurate yeah but i don't think people question that stuff then too exactly so we're actually better but not as good as we could be not as good as we could be and then yeah throws you off when did you start collecting the sorts of things that obscure as known for like when did you when did you take that step i actually wasn't a collector because i was a musician for so many musicians have no money it's nomadic as well it's nomadic and you have no money right so i i didn't start until i went into business right yeah then i started accumulating i still don't really collect accumulate right but um basically it passed through your your possession it passed through but some stick but i have an i grew up inside books and 19th century literature so in my mind is a chamber that i'm recreating okay so i started accumulating beautiful objects okay of the period that told a story right so i don't keep the most valuable things but i keep the most beautiful things that are true okay to the period so i live in the 1870s in my head i live in 1870s home my i light with old Edison bulbs not reproduction Edison but actually you know you find them at flea markets and they still work because they will they will never they don't burn out yeah so when you have i'm trying i'm time travel it's time travel so that's i but it started relatively late so i just couldn't afford it right but you always wanted to live i always lived in the 19th century what was it what was the first 19th century thing that appealed to you was that frankenstein oh books it was both inside books it was books oscar wild is my hero okay i say that but everybody right harpo and oscar harpo oscar wild it's all true though well he's not my hero he was my idol he was my her idol he's my sex god sex gene wilder and you know what i'm not the only woman to say that in young frankenstein he's like the sexiest guy well he's very uh he's passionate yeah funny yeah but it really won't go not as it's not so sexy but mesmerizing yes yes but oscar wild like in the 19th century yeah all my heroes are dead so do you ever watch adaptations of the books that you yes i watch every adaptation of every book i love do you get angry about it or do you is there anything got it right i've seen so many jaynares yes can't even and they all have something going for them William hurt was not the best runchester no but um last one was a damn fine elephant man no that's john hurt thank you that hurt guy yeah and it's not nice to see but the last one with um uh the last jaynaer that came out what's his name a fast binder oh yes yeah brilliant yeah yeah books that especially 18th century the 19th century books serve more of the function that television serves now yeah you've disappeared into characters and it's exactly things came out serially people don't i just told the original frankenstein in my hand i held the very first edition of frankenstein really yeah it was an uh private collection that and it was like the most if you ever get a chance to read your favorite book and its original incarnation do it yes it's different book absolutely that's my back i've worked at rare book options and when you read it as it was printed on that paper you fall into it so i think there's a whole generation of people that don't have that tactile connection to books and that probably also is what connected you to these objects that you're collecting as well because you have people that watch things on tv they watch things on the internet and it's very gone it's just they assume it will always be available electronically you can don't think they have this you can know you can you can know something intellectually but until you have tactile knowledge of it right yeah i agree yeah then it's then you can enter into the world of that thing whenever you have that so that's what antiques are for right i one of my favorite things i ever got to do is i was very into hp love craft in the eighties he's the voice of hp love crap oh really so it's it was very difficult to get hp lovecraft stuff in the eight they hadn't really been recruited yet there was well august uh it was named august dariff was like worked with him he was doing a lot of like things credited himself craft that he was writing and so you could get those very easy but um you couldn't find there wasn't a lot of short third collections so hp lovecrafts were problems were island yeah and i would go down to brown and they had his manuscripts uh you could sit and you could read them there that's you cannot do it now see you've no lovecraft in a way most people yes and i'm so glad in a way i'm so glad that i didn't have access to that stuff easily because then i wouldn't have gone there and sat with a manuscript while librarians i don't know what they would have done if i tried to take it they were definitely not right but you know i had to put gloves on and read you know reanimator at a table in a library and i don't think people will have those kinds of experiences now yeah it's lost it really it just sounds like one of those people when i was young but if you don't tectylie know something if you read it you know it but if you feel it you understand it right that's a huge difference and it goes with literature and it goes with art and it goes with everything and that's why our store like everyone's like why don't you have an online store it's not the same experience of going there it's experienced you have to be there if you smell it smells really super important which is the one thing that doesn't come across on television which is interesting yeah yeah if we could only smell the adam's family interior right that would be a good debate what did the adam's family house smell i know exactly what it smelled like it smelled like dead roses and uh taxidermy okay we had that kind of hide smell yes yeah and they've heard incense maybe copile okay very exotic okay yeah and then they had the greenhouse so all that wet green smell tropical can you imagine how good that smells i like this they just sold me on the smell of the adam's family yeah i think i'm i think you should make a perfume yeah that's it really could easily be put together do you wear that or would you guys wear adam's family perfume i'd i'd smell i'd buy it as a gift i can smell it right now yeah i kind of smell it as well i think this would be a good yeah it's a good business okay your idea that's fine i would make a million dollars yeah did you guys could easily release a branded set of sort of dark perfumes that i think would probably everyone says that you don't think that it would work yeah it's different on every chemistry and that's true yeah it doesn't work with everyone yeah that's true it would be different for everyone yeah so you how long has the show been on now four seasons five long time five seasons by some counts right because it's a it's not a it's not a network season no it is not a network season so how are we first approached about doing that show uh mike and i have been running the stores since the early 90s right back when rent was really cheap and so was life right in the east village people don't but you would hear gunshots oh yeah it was 10th street was famous new york was terrifying you didn't walk in a neighborhood no especially a woman would not walk alone in what you did yeah because that's where everything was happening right right right and uh we just we ran it uh a gentleman started it and then we took it over and we just did it until something better came along right which nothing ever did because there isn't anything better well that thing came along in a bigger format it's the same thing well tv kind of fell in our lap it came to us we didn't pitch the show we didn't ask for it it wasn't our idea were you were you kind of didn't want to do it well mike's an extrovert okay so he loves the energy and he'll write i am an introvert right so i'm very uncliked guarded so i was like oh god no i hope we don't get it right so we did like a little 12-minute reel thinking about it back to the network yeah like everybody has it and they would call every once a while they go okay we have 20 people on the list okay now they're 10 okay now they're five okay now they're just two oh you got a show and that's in people people recognize you presumably it was an instinct yeah people love it instantly yeah it's been nothing but positive feedback i think that show tapped into probably what you felt watching the Adams family but for this current generation where wow that's i feel that's just about the nicest thing anyone's ever said well i i think it's true i mean i think that you're you're presenting things that a lot of people would have no idea about but then they see and they go that's the thing that i like yes then it's true a lot of people say that and it's presenting a very attack time and we can't smell the story can go this thing yeah it's a real thing and you probably have people that like it's made pilgrimages to yeah yeah we got people from all over the world it's still kind of zooming all over so when it's finished in one place it just keeps zooming on in another place and like someone came in from french and didn't he endo sorry no french endo china that would be romantic yes i'm not a french micronesia okay let the show air the Congo do they dub your voices yeah they dub them yeah we're dubbed have you seen it i have seen a few of the dubs how weird is that it's pretty weird yeah yeah yeah i didn't know i spoke such good in Spanish yes i was pleased to hear that it is always nice to find out you're speaking for a good spin if you watch something dubbed you're not getting it either no you're really not i don't know why they don't subtitle it i wonder if people wouldn't they're like i will watch pickled punks but i won't read about them on television wow yeah i don't know maybe that's a weird cultural thing i i wouldn't there's it's it's been popular everywhere it goes it's because it but we're also positive you know it's yeah it's not it's not free pointing uh it's not the opposite it's this is our life and these are our people and there's nothing really weird about it yes this is history and science it it's been happening for centuries it's right this isn't weird actually right people who run away from it are weird and you're presenting things that were mainstream entertained like a lot of the artifact and then come from sort of things that were mainstream entertainment in america and other places for years and years and years like carnival uh memorabilia and this sorts of things that you know block heads and that's traditional yeah that's wholesome family fair exactly people forget and now they're reproducing it on tv right like american horror story right so now they're taking something old and they're updating it but you can still see the real thing yeah like kony island and but it's a lost it's a lost form of entertainment and i wonder if that sort of stuff will come back whereas you know now since everyone can watch listen to or read anything they want at any time on their phone i feel like one good thing about that though is that people are looking for more real experiences i was going to say if you don't have to leave your home you're not getting it yeah yeah so i think that these things might come back and i think that's why you're seeing the rise of things like pearlesque shows seem to be coming back yeah well that never died now it didn't but the volume of it is a lot more and i think people that didn't that didn't go to those sorts of things now i'm going to get well i was also a fetish performer so it was kind of in that underground scene in new york in the 90s right was it hadn't gone mainstream yet and that had the same feel as like punk rocket right really interesting people going out and doing interesting things that you kind of had to know about before the internets right where it was easy to find out about anything to go over yeah well the world is so much smaller but now you're getting probably seen through like that in the middle of nowhere places where people don't have to travel i think new york especially at that time was as a mecca for people who are like i feel different where i'm from but when i go there yeah that's now you can feel different you can feel different in your own home right now wait am i putting that right now i feel different but you can make where you live more like what you want it to do now yeah which is great but if you if it gets to the point where you don't leave your home you're not experiencing no you're not getting your services you get out of your safe spot and go to wild travel is the the best thing ever and you know in the post-apocalyptic we're just going to have carnival that's all there's not going to be tablets and phablets and it's just we're going to go right back to carnival 18th century carnival living that's right people are going to have diarrhea yep and they're going to juggle swords and this is a good pitch for i get this post-apocalyptic series one word diarrhea yeah that's that's what we're going to this is kind of it's funny now but up until a hundred years ago it was horrific yeah yeah people don't think about it in those terms yeah you could die of anything yeah that's a key to the 19th century is knowing how much people suffered so the precipice of death was sort of the key i mean that is the key to all of history is the alleviation of suffering yes the religion did that's what science does right that's and when science and religion they were one thing then they broke apart it was basically centered on the fact that people were seeking relief from pain right so that you know and people when you see the recreated 19th century it's not the same thing no you if they let you know how unpleasant it was how many layers they were right how hot those women were how course it is right but people don't want that they don't want the behind the scenes do they not i don't know that's the interesting part i i think that's interesting you think that's interesting people who watch your show i think that's interesting but i wonder if in a narrative format people don't you don't want to see people suffer i don't but you know the beauties in overcoming the suffering true it wasn't handed to them but that's difficult to convey probably but when they do convey it it's beautiful absolutely yes absolutely is that's when that it's a much harder thing to convey in a in a television series yeah they weren't all walking around corseted just to have lovely manners that's not the 19th century they were repressed and suffering and worried about that itch and probably all had bad breath yeah i imagine everybody's smell badly yeah yeah yeah which moni python really conveys exactly yeah what's your uh what's your favorite post-apocalyptic movie or television series oh um i really liked the one about the favorite made you violent oh uh 28 days thank you 20 days later not 28 days there was 47 and came after but yeah 28 days it might not be my favorite but it was it was a good depiction of the breakdown yeah cybers beta there was a great uk 70s post-apocalyptic show called survivors that they remade recently it's not the remake wasn't that great but it was it was very quiet show and it was very terrifying because there's a there's a scene in the pile essentially that the plot of survivors is there's a government virus that gets out you know so he's a government always the government 80 percent of the population dies overnight and it's not like a hero schloss fluff buckling sort of storyline this woman uh her husband and her kid die from this thing and she's just on the road and there's a scene where this guy makes a speech about how we don't know how to do anything and he has a light bulb and he goes when this light bulb burns out how do you know how to make a light bulb do you know how to smelt metal and get electricity into your house and and do these sorts of things and i remember seeing that as a kid and i was ab it was one of the most terrifying things more terrifying than seeing a zombie or you know mad max i was like i don't know how to make oil i don't know how to how can we find it yeah but we should all learn these things we should experience this important that's true that's your fire yes this yeah that's what you learn from these things it's true be everyone's very we think we're full of knowledge and that we know more than past generations because we have devices but you know we know less well you see these people it happens a few times a year where they'll go hiking and they'll only bring their smartphone and they're like i have GPS and then they get lost in the top of a mountain and have to be rescued because you don't have cell phone reception at the top of the mountain and you shouldn't know that the GPS changed human it did major step forward human evolution and i know because my business requires me to go places in the dark that are off road right and i used to have a map yeah and you would look at the map before you left you can chart your route and then when you got lost you could we create where you were not i have no idea where i am i was driving to a show with a younger comic and and he had this GPS and i was like don't use the GPS don't use the GPS and he was like and he legitimately asked me these questions sincerely he goes how do you know how to get places i said i go there once and then i remember and he was like oh my god like it blew his mind how do you know how to get places we're dead we're dead we're all dead it's over it's it's over i think you wrote our epical i did i did wow we're just about out of time on that high note yeah that is a good ending yes i think it is we don't know how to get anywhere thank you so much for for for doing this uh thank you for asking anything you watch now you know i don't i don't watch tv do you watch your own show i don't watch my own show you ever seen no one watches their own show do they oh some people do well they're scary they are scary people they are yeah i'm trying to think of um rupa's drag race okay yeah that's the only reality because she's another east village yeah you know that was like wake stock that was revolution oh yeah yeah yeah so i i find that riveting yeah but no the occasional movie yeah that makes sense well thank you so much i'm doing the show thank you there you go even from oddities everybody really great show i'm presumed you've seen it if you haven't definitely check it out if you go to new york go to obscure antiques it's a really cool store they have all kinds of bizarre great interesting things she also runs the morbid anatomy museum she's the executive board member and scholar and resonance there and check that out it's in brooklyn i hope to make a pilgrimage down there myself i also want to mention that we will be doing some more live shows i'll be doing uh live west coast show at the riot la festival on saturday january 17th 2015 pretty great guest uh make sure you sign up for our mailing list on tvguidenscounselor.com or like us on facebook and you can find out all that uh super secret information email me tvguidenscounselor@gmail or candidikenread.com you can tweet to me @tvguidens or @canfwread if you have any questions if you have guest requests if you have a convention or a festival or something in your town and you'd like me to try to come to you to do one of these let me know i will do my best to see what i can do and as always wednesday we'll have a brand new episode so tune back in subscribe on iTunes however you are hearing this do that again and listen to the show i always appreciate you being here and we'll see you again on the next tv guidance counselor you know i didn't know i wanted to send her body i just want i want to be around coffins and i want to have confidence in the places of death.