Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Author Michael Allen Rose
Find more from Michael Allen Rose here, and also here.
Audio version of this ep can be found here.
00:00:00.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast. I am Wednesday Lee Friday, and we, as always, are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. This week, we have Michael Allen Rose, who is an award-winning author, musician, and performer based in Chicagoland.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
His novel, Jurassic Christ, won the Wonderland Award for Best Bizarro Novel 2021, the very next year, in 2022, he received the Wonderland again,
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Wednesday Lee Friday
he received the wonderland again for Best Collection for his ABC primer, The Last Five Minutes of the Human Race. He is the president of the Bizarro Writers Association and the editor-in-chief of the MicroPress Rochambeau Publishing.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
He also makes industrial music under the name Flood Damage. He loves tea and cats. Welcome, Michael. Thanks for being here.
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Michael Allen Rose
Hi, Wednesday. Thanks for having me. i'm ah It's my pleasure to be here.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. Well, you know, we tend to start out by asking guests to tell us the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing. It's such a good icebreaker. So let's hear it.
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Michael Allen Rose
Sure. The first horror movie. Well, you know, I have a weird history with horror, actually, considering what I'm doing now with my life. Because when I was a kid, I was one of those really squeamish, kind of like, I'm a little bit afraid of everything kind of kids.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Okay.
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Michael Allen Rose
um So it took me a while to come around, but I think back to like those formative years, and honestly, there are a lot of things that laid the foundation.
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Michael Allen Rose
like My dad was watching The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and all these old you know anthology series that I think really fired up my imagination
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
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Michael Allen Rose
you know and in when i was kind of before I really started to think about creating it myself. Um, and then when i became a teenager, of course, my friends were into horror and things and we were watching like Friday the 13th. And this was like, you know, classic slasher kind of, uh, era.
00:02:05.10
Michael Allen Rose
And i remember I couldn't handle like some of the gore and things at the time. And at some point in my teenage years, there was this moment where I thought about like the mastery of, of art that it took to make these things.
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Michael Allen Rose
you know, like the artifice of, of filmmaking, of storytelling, of whatever, a video games, programming, anything like that.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep.
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Michael Allen Rose
And I, I remember making a conscious decision going, i don't think I'm going to be afraid anymore. I think if I'm of the darkness, The darkness can't hurt me. So I'm going to learn how to, to create it and control it and be, be a part of that.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah yeah
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Michael Allen Rose
And, and it sounds ridiculous, but it worked like whatever mental trick that, that did for me, it's like, oh yeah, no, I'm going to be ah creature of the night as opposed to the thing that's being hunted, you know?
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Dude, I don't think that sounds ridiculous at all. In fact, I believe that that is Tom Savini's story as well.
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Michael Allen Rose
Really?
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Wednesday Lee Friday
ah the The great makeup artist. Yeah, he, um because he was in the war. He was in Vietnam and saw terrible things.
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Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And I don't know that he has described himself as having PTSD, but it seems a reasonable conclusion to draw. And that is how he, ah he he talks about, you know,
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Wednesday Lee Friday
and just getting a handle on horror and and controlling it because you're absolutely right.
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Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
one Once you're part of the thing and you have control over it like what what we're seeing, yeah that's that's power, man. like
00:03:38.73
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
ah All the people that read horror as kids or the people, like I read a lot of true crime as a kid. I was considered a very weird kid because I think I was maybe 10 when I picked up Helter Skelter.
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Michael Allen Rose
Oh, oh, okay.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And I was reading, you know, Stephen King and the Hillside Stranglers.
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Michael Allen Rose
Wow.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
that was ah That was a big read at the time. Everybody wanted to know about those dudes.
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Michael Allen Rose
Oh, wow.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And it just felt like, well, you know, knowledge is power. And if I have an understanding of these things, that will help me in life.
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Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course, now everybody wants to know about serial killers and it's people's like relaxation viewing.
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Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
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Michael Allen Rose
Right.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
But back in the day, I assure you, people said we were weird.
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Michael Allen Rose
Oh, for sure. You know, and and, and the resilience that you develop being the weird kid, like I think that that contributes to some success too, especially if you become a content creator of like, you know, boundary pushing things or, or, you know, difficult and challenging topics.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, I think that there are a lot of things that come from. you know, being a weirdo, being bullied, being even being straight up abused, you develop skills from that.
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Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And on the one hand, I think it's cool to acknowledge that. And on the other, i kind of hate it because it gives assholes an out, you know?
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Michael Allen Rose
yeah
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Michael Allen Rose
Right.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, well, see? Me treating you like garbage for your entire childhood was so good for you.
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Michael Allen Rose
It's like we've... Right. It's like we've developed the worst superpower.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no.
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Michael Allen Rose
It's like our origin stories just suck. Like the powers are cool, but oh my god, the origin story is terrible.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and some of those skills aren't even great skills. Like, you know, I can spot the red flags in my friend's new boyfriends by the second date, and they don't want to hear that that early.
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Michael Allen Rose
Right.
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Michael Allen Rose
you're Right. Right. No, no
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh, so he called his mom. So what, dude? It was during sex.
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Michael Allen Rose
yeah
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
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Michael Allen Rose
That might be a bit of a flag. Just saying.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
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Michael Allen Rose
Just, you know, something to watch. Something to keep an eye on.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, it's my keen eye. Only i would have noticed. so So what were you reading as a kid?
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Michael Allen Rose
um You know, I think um one of the first big ones that I remember in my head was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, yep.
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Michael Allen Rose
And I know that's a formative you know a formative thing for so many people in the horror industry.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
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Michael Allen Rose
But you know it wasn't so much the stories that I remember as the illustrations. Stephen Gammell's original illustrations in that book were so scary and and hung on like a nightmare.
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Michael Allen Rose
you know like They had these these wonderful, surreal qualities to them.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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Michael Allen Rose
And I remember being fascinated by stuff like that. um And I think that that gave me a sensibility of like, i kind of There was some part of me, even even in the scary days, that like liked the creepy stuff. you know And then I was also really obsessed with things like Greek mythology, um ah Greek and Egyptian, like a lot of the the myths, gods and monsters. Yeah.
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Michael Allen Rose
you know Back then I was being dragged to church every week by by my folks. And I remember when I got real bored and the only reading material available was the Christian Bible, I was reading the heck out of Revelation because it's like, man, there's like dragons and stuff in here.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
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Michael Allen Rose
These dudes with cool horses.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the good part, right?
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Michael Allen Rose
you know like So yeah, I think um you know formative for me was was kind of children's horror and also like classic mythology, monster stories, minotaurs and krakens and that.
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Michael Allen Rose
um
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I mean, the thing about religious literature is that while it's fascinating, it's meant to like get your attention and then get you to do things or think very specific things.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So there is a lot of horror in that. and They tried to raise me Catholic and it didn't go well.
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Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, for sure.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And I just remember them explaining to us about the Eucharist and a kid in my class just stopped everything and said, if we love Jesus, why are we eating him?
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Michael Allen Rose
yeah Mm-hmm.
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Michael Allen Rose
That's a good question.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, yeah, well, maybe don't introduce 10-year-olds to ritualize cannibalism, hmm?
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Michael Allen Rose
Right.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
um
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Michael Allen Rose
Well, and yeah, no, and a lot of the imagery, not only the cannibalism, but I remember being like, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse were an absolute obsession for me. You know, and is it any wonder that I ended up writing, you know, the last five minutes of the human race? it's like the, the idea of eschatology and the end of things and, and all the symbolism and, and chaos that come from that. It's fascinating storytelling stuff. I mean, there's, that's a rich tapestry of, of ideas and and images, you know?
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and even like the the Greek gods, you know, because they are, or the Romans is pretty much the same, but they were always getting up to like terrible things.
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Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
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Michael Allen Rose
Right.
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Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
They were petty and jealous and ah serially unfaithful.
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Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
And well, and it's just so...
00:08:39.27
Michael Allen Rose
Just gonna pop down to Earth, turn myself into a goose for a minute, and, you know, sexually assault somebody, because, you know, that's what we do here in Greece on Olympus.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. Yeah, goodness knows here in America, we'd never put a sexual predator in charge of everything anything, let alone worship them.
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Michael Allen Rose
No, never
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So, ahem.
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Michael Allen Rose
dear Dear God. Sure. there i'm pro
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Wednesday Lee Friday
but
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Wednesday Lee Friday
But I digress. So, okay, so you write bizarro horror. Now, let's pretend that I don't know what that is or how it differs from regular horror.
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Michael Allen Rose
ah sure Sure.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Clue me in.
00:09:10.73
Michael Allen Rose
So to me, um I've been around the bizarro scene for a long time, and i feel like you know after a decade or so in a scene, you kind of earn the ability to define it as you see fit.
00:09:22.51
Michael Allen Rose
And for me, it's actually an an idea um that you should expand the umbrella as far as genre tropes and things go. To me, bizarro is the genre of the genre-less.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:09:34.31
Michael Allen Rose
In a lot of ways, it's people who like to take genre tropes and screw with them, you know, like break down the walls between genres or play with the idea that's like, well, this is too funny for horror.
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Michael Allen Rose
Well, that's okay. and This is a spaghetti Western, but it takes place underwater with a bunch of, i don't know, toaster people. And that's fine. like But, you know, you're still...
00:09:57.12
Michael Allen Rose
ah essentially telling the story. And the idea behind Bizarro to me is to get to that purity of storytelling we had when we were kids where it's like, okay, I'm playing with my masters of the universe and I know he man can't fly, but in this particular adventure, he needs to be at the top of castle Grayskull right now. So right now he can fly like, because I'm telling the story. It doesn't matter if it could happen or couldn't happen or whether it's canon or anything like that.
00:10:22.89
Michael Allen Rose
I'm telling the story. So right now, He-Man's going to fly up here because he's needed for the next scene. And I think Bizarro Fiction does that a lot too, where it's like, what' what's the core of the story I'm telling here? I'm not going to worry about, well, that's unlikely or this is this is too silly.
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Michael Allen Rose
It's just a purity of storytelling that's like, this is fun. This is how the story goes. Sit back, buckle up, you know and don't allow yourself to be penned in by the you know the genre tropes, I guess.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Alright.
00:10:52.23
Michael Allen Rose
That to me is kind of the core of Bizarro.
00:10:52.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
See, I... i
00:10:54.74
Michael Allen Rose
You know, it's it's weird at its core, no matter what, i guess the the common denominator is it's weird. But I feel like there's a purity to that where you're not worried about what you should be doing.
00:11:06.57
Michael Allen Rose
You're just doing what serves the story best.
00:11:11.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you know, this is kind of a weird example. I don't know how well you know the Sharknado movies. um I'm discussing this in terms of of ah movies rather than books, just for the sake of, you know, people having more experience with them.
00:11:24.67
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:11:27.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
The first four Sharknado movies, which were written by Thunder Levin, they're really funny. Like, the first one isn't as funny, but the first, like, they get progressively funnier.
00:11:41.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
and But the later movies, the later two, are um they're they're just weird. You know, it's it's just like it's like they're trying to think of the craziest thing they can do, but it isn't it isn't funny and witty.
00:11:48.98
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:11:54.84
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:11:58.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, Frankie Muniz getting sucked out of an airplane and eaten by a shark. That is hilarious.
00:12:03.03
Michael Allen Rose
It is.
00:12:03.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ben Franklin just showing up for no reason and saying, you know, and it's it's Leslie Jordan. So, like, that's delightful. You would think Leslie Jordan as as Ben Franklin would be delightful,
00:12:10.52
Michael Allen Rose
That's amazing.
00:12:14.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And here's me high in my recliner watching it and not being delighted. I mean, that's, that's not fair. That's not right. And that the thing is, I was so poised to be delighted.
00:12:26.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
The fact that I wasn't means that I'm sorry, those writers failed.
00:12:30.59
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:12:30.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whoever was writing Sharknado movies after Thunder 11 left, y'all failed.
00:12:35.84
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:12:36.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's like,
00:12:37.60
Michael Allen Rose
Well, you know, and it's funny too, because like in Bizarro, of course, you know, we don't own the term. I'm talking about the community that surrounds like the original kind of the original couple of presses that started it and the Portland scene and all that stuff out West.
00:12:47.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank
00:12:52.23
Michael Allen Rose
um We don't own the term, but I do notice that once in a while someone will pop up and they'll sort of claim like I'm Bizarro and Bizarro is this. And a lot of times when when you see those books come out, they're very derivative of kind of the original wave of Bizarro, like Carlton Melech and people like that that kind of started it.
00:13:13.53
Michael Allen Rose
And it's like, I think it's kind of like when the fandom starts to write the series, kind of like what happened to The Simpsons, where you've got like the original, like the Golden Years seasons like three through nine or so.
00:13:26.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:13:27.29
Michael Allen Rose
And after that, fans of that started to write it. And that's okay, but it lost some of the initial sort of magic because I think the the innovation and the and the freshness and the rawness of it disappeared.
00:13:40.50
Michael Allen Rose
And then you've got people trying to kind of copy that. And I wonder if that's not what happens with stuff like Sharknado where they're like, oh, look how goofy it got. It got crazy and goofy. And what's the weirdest thing we can do?
00:13:51.26
Michael Allen Rose
But it's somehow maybe missing like the core or the heart of it.
00:13:56.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yeah, I think that's really accurate because if I could take it back to movies again, the Friday the 13th movies, or really any slasher franchise, you start out with someone who's probably essentially human.
00:14:05.59
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:14:10.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one of the changes that happens over time is that people like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees have to have supernatural elements because it's like, my God, 57 camp counselors are trying to kill this guy and he's still friggin' here.
00:14:10.24
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:14:18.04
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:14:22.67
Michael Allen Rose
you're Right. How many shotguns to the face can this guy take?
00:14:24.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
But the thing is,
00:14:26.24
Michael Allen Rose
I mean, really.
00:14:27.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
But in Friday of the 13th, I mean, they end up getting so innovative.
00:14:28.07
Michael Allen Rose
Two or three at most, you know?
00:14:33.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
I will tell you that I think Jason takes Manhattan and Jason goes to hell. but Jason goes to hell is brilliant. I, I,
00:14:43.26
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:14:44.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
i Honestly, I'm embarrassed because I'm a writer and I don't know who wrote it, but I need to meet the person who said, okay, here's what we're going to do. Because, I mean, let's start by killing him for real.
00:14:57.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're really going to kill Jason Voorhees, and then guess what?
00:14:57.87
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:15:01.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
His spirit is just going to jump from person to person. Like, I can't believe it.
00:15:05.92
Michael Allen Rose
Is that when they brought in Roy? You'll have to remind me. Is that when...
00:15:09.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Roy was, the well, no, Roy was earlier on. Roy is the
00:15:11.83
Michael Allen Rose
That was earlier. Okay, okay, okay.
00:15:13.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because that's five. That's the second Friday the 13th movie thirteenth where the killer is not Jason.
00:15:15.33
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, okay.
00:15:19.70
Michael Allen Rose
I got a little sad when they brought in Roy.
00:15:20.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's it's one, five, and nine.
00:15:21.50
Michael Allen Rose
That's all I remember.
00:15:23.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, the thing about Roy is that first of all, you've got your Tommy Jarvis, which is a character that I think they really tried to build and then didn't know what to do with. It's like, how do you go?
00:15:33.80
Michael Allen Rose
Didn't know. you're Right.
00:15:36.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
You start out being Corey Feldman and then you go downhill. That doesn't seem fair.
00:15:40.31
Michael Allen Rose
That's that's a difficult ah path to follow, I would say.
00:15:44.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Burn on you, Corey. But, um...
00:15:47.63
Michael Allen Rose
Hey, oh
00:15:51.01
Michael Allen Rose
Well, if Corey Feldman was a fan of Michael Allen Rose, he's not anymore.
00:15:57.34
Michael Allen Rose
Now I can never call the one nine hundred Corey hotline again.
00:15:57.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Darn.
00:16:03.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Glory. Story. Allegory. For all the Simpsons fans.
00:16:09.36
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
00:16:09.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um... Yeah, I'm actually not, I don't consider myself a Simpsons fan anymore. Although I was pretty religious about the first, say, 25, 26 years.
00:16:22.73
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:16:23.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I think the way that that Fox treated Alf Clausen is pretty disrespectful. Because, I mean, he scored the show for, you know, decades.
00:16:34.28
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:16:34.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i realize that fans don't necessarily think of the score as a character, but
00:16:40.77
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:16:41.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Theater people do. Musicians do.
00:16:42.62
Michael Allen Rose
Oh yeah.
00:16:43.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, Alf Clausen...
00:16:43.94
Michael Allen Rose
and And in certain shows, you know, certain shows are so musically inclined and a lot of modern animation.
00:16:48.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:16:50.98
Michael Allen Rose
Like I think of like one of my favorite animated shows these days is Bob's burgers. And that show is so propped up by musical stuff.
00:16:56.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:16:59.31
Michael Allen Rose
Like there, there's such a musically oriented, the voice cast and the the producers of that show and everything it's, So yeah, The Simpsons was similar, where for a long time, the score, and to some degree too, like the original songs they wrote and things like that, were so strong and such an important part.
00:17:17.46
Michael Allen Rose
And if you go back to the very, very early Simpsons, where they weren't really scoring much yet, it's jarring.
00:17:22.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm. Yep. Yes. Yeah. I mean, honestly, watch watch any episode from season seven, which is probably the best season.
00:17:31.92
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:17:31.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Watch it without the music. It's a completely different show. And it's it's just not as good.
00:17:36.26
Michael Allen Rose
Very weird.
00:17:37.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so Alf Clausen, you know, he got older, he got ill and wasn't able to travel. And said, hey, can you guys ah build me a studio in my home so that I can just work here?
00:17:49.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that, in my opinion, that's a disability accommodation. There's like no reason not to do it.
00:17:52.75
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:17:55.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
They didn't do it.
00:17:56.24
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
00:17:56.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he wasn't able to work anymore. He took retirement when he didn't want to. And they brought in somebody else who is, I'm sorry, just not as good.
00:18:05.28
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, that is that is sad. And that yeah, that would be a reasonable accommodation under ADA. like ah That would make sense, especially if it's somebody that's been with the show for that long and is such an integral part of its creation.
00:18:17.83
Michael Allen Rose
like It just makes sense. But you know I don't know.
00:18:20.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, and I just kind of lost my my love.
00:18:22.08
Michael Allen Rose
There's a lot of capitalism that doesn't make sense to me, so i don't know.
00:18:25.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, please.
00:18:26.19
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:18:26.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's, you know, mean we could talk all day about like why art and and products are are not, you know, they shouldn't be the same.
00:18:36.21
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:18:36.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah You know, that's that's the whole like, i mean, National Endowment for the Arts just sounds like a ridiculous phrase now when it's like, okay, he just threatened to not fund the University of Michigan if they don't hurt trans kids.
00:18:43.29
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:18:45.83
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:18:49.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I don't know if you heard.
00:18:49.83
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:18:51.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
i just found out this morning, actually, that the University of Michigan Hospital which is like one of the best teaching hospitals in the world, is not providing gender-affirming care for children.
00:18:59.74
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:19:04.07
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my gosh.
00:19:04.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm just fucking horrified. I can't even get over it. because i And the thing is I'm just so appalled by the cowardice of it.
00:19:14.05
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:19:15.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, how everybody is just laying down for these fucking fascists.
00:19:15.61
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:19:18.85
Michael Allen Rose
Yep. Yep. Well, and like, and I'm still reeling from the the whole let's purge the Smithsonian of anything that makes us sad.
00:19:24.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ugh.
00:19:24.94
Michael Allen Rose
Like, it's just, it's...
00:19:26.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and at first they said that they, that it was just a delay that they were gonna, you know, they, they took out information for like a reorganize reorganizing, but it's all going back. It's all going back.
00:19:36.86
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, right.
00:19:37.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're we're not going to forget about slavery. And no, that was a lie.
00:19:39.68
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:19:41.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's all getting worse.
00:19:42.10
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm. What a ridiculous world we live in.
00:19:44.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um,
00:19:46.23
Michael Allen Rose
i think that's why i make art. Yeah.
00:19:49.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's that's kind of the point here, is like, ours as a as a coping tool, as ah as a strategy to maintain your ah ethics, your morals, and also to to express yourself in ways that...
00:19:55.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:20:06.27
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. Well, to maintain your willingness to live in some ways. I mean, honestly, it's, you know, that's...
00:20:09.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well.
00:20:13.51
Michael Allen Rose
I don't need to tell the the host of the Mentally Oddcast that, but you know.
00:20:13.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
but Today... ah
00:20:18.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, and it's interesting because today, it's August 27th when we're recording. It'll be two weeks from an now or so when this goes live. But today is actually my life-aversary day. It's my third life-aversary because three years ago today, my husband came home from work and he could not wake me up.
00:20:35.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
And my blood sugar was down in the 30s and I was, by my heart, they call it heart failure, but
00:20:35.66
Michael Allen Rose
wow
00:20:42.80
Michael Allen Rose
oh my god
00:20:44.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
It was at 83%. You had to be some kind of tiger mom to call 83% of failure, but that is what they called it.
00:20:52.36
Michael Allen Rose
I mean, that's a B. Come on.
00:20:54.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Exactly. I've always been a B plus person. I never wanted to be at the top of the class, but, uh, you know, I, cause you know, from time to time we all get sad.
00:20:58.03
Michael Allen Rose
See, there you go. Yeah. Your heart included. Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:03.43
Michael Allen Rose
hmm.
00:21:08.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
I, you know, I'm,
00:21:08.83
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
00:21:09.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm intermittently suicidal have been since I was a teenager. Um, ah many of our guests talk about that kind of thing and how, not just like making art, but how art saves us.
00:21:17.43
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:21:21.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like I could point to a very specific evening when I had just ruined us financially because I had some kind of issue with a client and he charged us back for almost $5,000, which for us was, was
00:21:33.56
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my god.
00:21:36.32
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:21:36.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And I was sitting up thinking, okay, I have to decide whether my husband would want to come home and find out that we're financially ruined or come home to find me dead and know that he could have my life insurance.
00:21:50.14
Michael Allen Rose
Right as a hell of a decision
00:21:52.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I thought about it and I thought, ah right, right. Over not even, because you know, i have friends that would laugh at that much money being ruined, you know, like not at us, but just the idea of like, well, it's only that much money.
00:22:00.20
Michael Allen Rose
Right right Yeah, right
00:22:06.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
um But ah
00:22:11.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah what I ended up doing was I put on a movie. I put on a Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell. And then I watched it again. And then I i put it on again.
00:22:22.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I watched that movie over and over again all night until my husband got home.
00:22:28.20
Michael Allen Rose
Wow.
00:22:28.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I asked him what he would prefer. and he said, yeah.
00:22:33.72
Michael Allen Rose
I have a guess. i
00:22:37.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I mean, i wouldn't wish being in love with me on my work. It's, I can't imagine, like, I suck. as a person You know, I'm like, I get suicidal probably every other year.
00:22:53.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
I go through a, why am I alive?
00:22:54.14
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:22:55.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
What is this for?
00:22:56.65
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:22:56.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why do all my projects fail?
00:22:58.91
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:22:59.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like I check my book numbers and it's like, ah, what am I doing? But, you know, but then somebody said to me, well,
00:23:03.39
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:23:08.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
don't you want to outlive Donald Trump?
00:23:10.75
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, God, yes.
00:23:12.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
said, holy fucking shit. Yes, that's it.
00:23:14.55
Michael Allen Rose
you won You want to be at that party, don't you?
00:23:15.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the one.
00:23:16.78
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:23:17.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the one.
00:23:18.49
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
00:23:18.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and it's so funny because, you know, James Dobson died and my parents weren't even religious.
00:23:22.46
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:23:22.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I was just like, I want to celebrate along with everyone else because F that guy.
00:23:26.23
Michael Allen Rose
Yes, absolutely. No, I think, you know, that's, that's, that's something too. And, you know, I have a history of, with depression and, and I've occasionally had, I guess what I would consider suicidal ideation.
00:23:38.49
Michael Allen Rose
And, you know, it used to, it used to be kind of one of those, like, I, you know, I'd get through it or whatever, but I would kind of go like, what, where does art fit into that?
00:23:47.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:23:49.47
Michael Allen Rose
Or like, you know, yeah the classic, like, what am I doing with my life and all that other stuff. And I think, I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I'm just like, you know, in my twenties, I wanted success and success to me in my twenties looked like I want to be a rock star. I want to have a bestselling book. I want, to you know, like, like there was this one magical thing that would click. And then suddenly I'm like, Oh, that's success. There it is. I did it.
00:24:13.48
Michael Allen Rose
You know, like there's just one goalpost and you pass it and you're fine.
00:24:17.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:24:17.76
Michael Allen Rose
And I think, you know, we were done a disservice in the way we're raised, especially in the last, well, honestly, half a century here in America where we we have this pipe pop culture idolization. And I, you know, I was a teen in the 90s. Of course, I'm looking up at all these rock stars and stuff.
00:24:32.14
Michael Allen Rose
And Because of the way the media worked at the time, especially, we didn't have access to these people. they you know This is before social media and things. We didn't know they had normal, regular lives and normal, regular problems.
00:24:42.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:24:43.21
Michael Allen Rose
You just saw this golden city on a hill.
00:24:43.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:24:45.93
Michael Allen Rose
It's like, wow, that's completely inaccessible to me, but what an amazing thing. If I could reach that golden city, that means success. and As I got older, and I'm in my 40s now, um yeah as I've started to meet some of my idols, like some of these these rock stars I looked up to or these big authors I looked up to, and realized that they're just people, and some of them are very nice people who also struggle with self-doubt and imposter syndrome and depression and everything else.
00:25:17.90
Michael Allen Rose
I realized, oh, success to me now is I'm still doing this. I'm still making art. I'm still making music and writing books and whatever. I haven't burned myself out.
00:25:29.15
Michael Allen Rose
I'm not dead. And some people apparently like what I do. And and that's like, that is success. You know, and that really helps when I think when I'm i'm really down and like, what am I even doing?
00:25:36.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, yes.
00:25:41.38
Michael Allen Rose
I'm just making cool stuff and I'm going to make a bunch of cool stuff and then ah someday I'll die. And hopefully I'll have made a bunch of cool stuff along the way, you know, and and that that has to be the definition of success.
00:25:54.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Yeah, very much so. Well, you know, Jim Carrey has said that he wished that everyone had the opportunity to become rich and famous so that they could realize that that's not it.
00:26:09.36
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:26:09.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's not the thing.
00:26:11.35
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:26:11.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
And like, I mean, in terms of a project success, the way that I measure is the distance between what I was trying to do and what I actually did.
00:26:22.07
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:26:23.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
But when you get older, you're trying to do, like i said in the beginning, you know I want to have X number of sales and I want to have, you know I want to fill an auditorium of this size with people that want to hear me read.
00:26:32.14
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:26:37.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
and the closer I got to those things, the more my goals change because that those things just didn't seem very important.
00:26:42.39
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:26:46.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I decided that I wanted to be respected by my peers. And then at one point,
00:26:50.14
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:26:51.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
I got to be in an anthology with Jack Ketchum.
00:26:55.59
Michael Allen Rose
That's awesome.
00:26:56.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's what I said. Like, well, I've i've arrived.
00:26:58.88
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:27:00.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everybody, I'm here now.
00:27:00.91
Michael Allen Rose
That's it. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, the thing the thing we're not prepared for, too, is that the goalposts keep moving.
00:27:03.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it...
00:27:08.44
Michael Allen Rose
Because when you have one of those successes, it's wonderful.
00:27:08.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:27:11.08
Michael Allen Rose
And I am learning to stop and celebrate those things instead of immediately moving the goalposts forward.
00:27:17.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:27:17.54
Michael Allen Rose
Because we're artists. We're like sharks. We move forward or we die, right? like So we go, okay, I i made this goal.
00:27:21.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:27:24.22
Michael Allen Rose
That's amazing. Where's the next one? You're already looking at it. It's on the horizon. You have to, well, you know, or I had this one success. Well, one could be a fluke. So now I have to do it again. and that's, I think, one of the things that we're not really prepared for, you know, as as young artists and and you kind of have to survive long enough to to realize yourself is like, oh, it's never over.
00:27:47.44
Michael Allen Rose
There's not a moment where you know that you've made it, you've done it and you're done. you just You dedicate your life to making stuff, you know to creating art or creating content or whatever, and and and you just keep doing that.
00:27:59.74
Michael Allen Rose
And once in a while, it works out. But there's no stopping point, really, I think, for most of us.
00:28:05.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and it's interesting because the older I get, the more I think about that concept just in a general life way. You know, we'll say like, yeah, and then they ended up marrying so-and-so and that was it.
00:28:16.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's never it. You know, like, because
00:28:18.89
Michael Allen Rose
Right. Like, that's the end of the story? Are you sure?
00:28:20.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
was Well, right, because when we tell stories like Disney in particular, we all grew up watching Disney movies where most of the girls' stories end with them getting married and most of the boys' stories, not all, but the boys become king.
00:28:27.68
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:28:31.75
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:28:35.88
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:28:36.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, really?
00:28:37.63
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:28:37.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's...
00:28:39.95
Michael Allen Rose
You think about it, like, from a historical perspective, that's probably when life starts to get interesting. That's really the beginning of the story, honestly. Yeah.
00:28:47.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Well, I don't have any kids, but I'm told that they change you a lot. And they change your goals, and they change what you think is important, and the things that you... I mean, i have to think that kids change you a lot just because of what we've heard from Snoop Dogg this week.
00:29:04.79
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my God. Yeah, Snoop, you he has disappointed me.
00:29:06.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I'm sorry, Mr. Uh...
00:29:09.83
Michael Allen Rose
i'm ah I'm a big Snoop booster, but man, some of the things that come out of his mouth these days, I'm just like, you've turned into a cantankerous old man. I didn't think that would happen to you, Snoop.
00:29:19.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, to say something like, how do I explain this to my grandkids? Like, can't you just tell them you got bitches in the living room getting it on and they ain't leaving till six in the morning?
00:29:23.79
Michael Allen Rose
right
00:29:27.12
Michael Allen Rose
yeah exactly exactly so you had no problem no problem rapping about like smoking dope and and and banging and whatever but but hey those two people of the same gender presentation might like each other that that that was difficult for you like that was the concept where it was like i don't understand come on man so yeah
00:29:30.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, no yeah
00:29:47.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and... I think I've figured out why. i think that what I've figured out is that when people say, how do I explain lesbianism to my children?
00:30:00.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's because they only think of lesbians as being sexualized. And that's true, like of of any gay people.
00:30:06.03
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:30:07.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
So they're not saying, you know, how do I explain to my children that two people are in love with each other?
00:30:08.48
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:30:14.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
They're thinking about like, you know, anal and scissoring and stuff like that.
00:30:17.29
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. How, how do I explain?
00:30:19.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no, you probably don't need to take that to your kid.
00:30:20.03
Michael Allen Rose
sir How do i explain the plot of sorority sluts three to my grandchildren? Like you don't have to man.
00:30:27.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Pretty much.
00:30:28.79
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:30:30.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's like, okay, but that's the thing. And they don't do that with heterosexual couples.
00:30:36.31
Michael Allen Rose
No, no.
00:30:36.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, when you you tell your kids, like, oh, you know, daddy's getting remarried, you don't have to tell them about, like, wedding night blowjobs. You can just say that they're getting married with, you know, in an age-appropriate way.
00:30:44.03
Michael Allen Rose
No, you don't. In fact, right. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb right here on this podcast and I'm going publicly state, I don't think you should.
00:30:55.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
ha ha ha ha.
00:30:57.85
Michael Allen Rose
i know it's a controversial, um you know, stance to take, but I don't think you should have to talk to your children about your wedding night blowjob.
00:31:06.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I guess it depends on how low they lower the age of consent, isn't it? Because didn't Republicans want to make it 14 or some bullshit?
00:31:11.04
Michael Allen Rose
Oh dear god. We just keep coming back to politics.
00:31:14.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well,
00:31:15.55
Michael Allen Rose
God what a world we live in. ah
00:31:17.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
because it's everywhere, man.
00:31:19.31
Michael Allen Rose
i know.
00:31:19.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the thing.
00:31:19.95
Michael Allen Rose
It's pervasive.
00:31:20.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
people used to say When people used to say, I don't want to talk about politics, they were talking about like tax rates and foreign policy.
00:31:27.02
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:31:27.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you know now it's like, hey, is that trans person going to be thrown to jail if they see a doctor?
00:31:32.92
Michael Allen Rose
Yep. Right.
00:31:34.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know
00:31:35.14
Michael Allen Rose
We're in unprecedented times. Who is it? Like the Surrealists, I think it was, that came up with the may you live in interesting times quote. And and people people who haven't done much reading think that's like, oh, that sounds good.
00:31:42.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Yes.
00:31:47.13
Michael Allen Rose
No, that was a curse. You don't want to live in interesting times.
00:31:49.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:31:51.01
Michael Allen Rose
We are doing that right now, and it's terrible. I miss simplicity sometimes.
00:31:57.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
I like when I didn't have to know the names of everyone in the cabinet.
00:32:01.90
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:32:02.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
i should I shouldn't. I mean, yeah, I have a mail order business. Why do I need to know the name of the postmaster general?
00:32:09.23
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:32:09.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because he's an asshole who's fucking everything up.
00:32:11.07
Michael Allen Rose
Right. Right.
00:32:12.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, have to know it. I shouldn't know that, like, I shouldn't have to know who Stephen Miller is. I shouldn't have to know that one of Don Jr.'s hunting buddies is making decisions at the FDA.
00:32:19.27
Michael Allen Rose
right
00:32:24.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I don't want...
00:32:25.35
Michael Allen Rose
Well, you look back in history at like why we invented civilization in the first place, right? like why Why primitive humans came together and went, hey, we work better as a society.
00:32:37.88
Michael Allen Rose
Well, we created governance so that we wouldn't constantly have to worry about stuff. I mean, on a base level. So it's really doing the opposite of what we kind of invented it for at this point.
00:32:50.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:32:51.20
Michael Allen Rose
Like it's making everyone's lives arguably worse all the time. it's like, I think that's doing the opposite. i think we, somewhere along the line, we got it twisted.
00:33:00.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's always the argument when when I hear from people that say, oh, why should my tax dollars go to this or that? And I just say, dude, do you want to live in a society or not?
00:33:10.10
Michael Allen Rose
Right. Right.
00:33:10.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because if you don't, you don't have to.
00:33:10.93
Michael Allen Rose
Exactly.
00:33:13.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I think if someone wants to be in America, but they really don't want to pay taxes, fine.
00:33:13.62
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:33:19.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Go somewhere where there are no roads, where there is no mail, no electricity, grow your own food, you know, and and yeah, by all means, shoot up.
00:33:21.73
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. We've got it lots of woods. Just pick some. Yeah.
00:33:28.55
Michael Allen Rose
Pick some woods somewhere.
00:33:29.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
um on your land that's what you want to do because
00:33:29.71
Michael Allen Rose
It'll be great. Have a great time. Go off grid.
00:33:32.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
but you yeah like if If that's honestly what you want to do, we'll even credit you the free taxpayer-funded education and all the medical research that helped you grow to the age that you are now.
00:33:39.68
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:33:43.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
We'll just let you have all that.
00:33:43.37
Michael Allen Rose
Right. That was on us.
00:33:46.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're welcome.
00:33:47.45
Michael Allen Rose
You're welcome.
00:33:47.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're the J.D. Vance. Aren't you going to thank us? um
00:33:50.87
Michael Allen Rose
Right?
00:33:53.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let me ask you this.
00:33:54.45
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:33:54.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
a lot of A lot of the guests on my show are people that I know. or people that I've i' talked to online for a really long time, you are neither of those things.
00:34:05.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what made you want to come here?
00:34:05.43
Michael Allen Rose
ah huh Aha.
00:34:08.03
Michael Allen Rose
You know, so a couple of things. Well, one is and just like to talk to people. Like I have fun on podcasts. I have fun being interviewed. I have fun on panels because it's just it's fun to talk about this stuff. It's fun to talk about process. It's fun to talk about where ideas come from and things.
00:34:23.04
Michael Allen Rose
And I don't remember exactly where I came across the Mentally Oddcast. But as soon as I did, thats I reached out. i think I think when I reached out to you, was the same day.
00:34:34.12
Michael Allen Rose
Because I was looking at this and I'm just like, man, this sounds custom built for me. I'm an open book. I love talking about my own issues and whatever. Like I, you know, I very, very few secrets. I'm not a ah private person. I'm not a a tentative introvert. I'm just like, yeah, let's talk about stuff, you know, bring it on.
00:34:52.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah.
00:34:52.85
Michael Allen Rose
So I think that appealed to me and the fact that I was looking at your guest list. I'm just like, well, these are all like multi-threat content, you know, creators. These are people who do a variety of things.
00:35:00.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh yeah
00:35:02.24
Michael Allen Rose
And that's my thing. I mean, like for better or for worse, i don't know if this helps me with sales and things, but eclecticism is my brand. You know, it always has been like, I do some comedy here and some horror here and this crazy writing experiment here. And now I'm going to work on an album and now I've got a play that I'm producing. And, you know,
00:35:22.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:35:22.56
Michael Allen Rose
I'm not saying I do any of those things particularly well necessarily. and just do a lot of stuff. you know I like to follow the creative impulse wherever it goes, which I think is what people should do more. It's like you know don't pen yourself in and say, well, I'm a poet, so I can only write poetry.
00:35:39.67
Michael Allen Rose
Well, you're a poet, but maybe you had an idea for a painting. or a photo shoot or a one man show or whatever, like do that, see what happens, you know? So I think the eclecticism and the fact that you like to talk with people about like the very real core of what it is to be a person in the world and to be an artist in the world. And like that, that really appealed to me.
00:36:04.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. Well, that's great to hear. Because, yeah, I mean...
00:36:07.69
Michael Allen Rose
You're doing, you're doing the Lord's work.
00:36:11.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah let's Let's not be specific about Witchlord, okay?
00:36:15.17
Michael Allen Rose
A lord. Any lord. Pick a lord.
00:36:18.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Lord Farquaad. No, look, because I don't talk about like my own personal religion very much.
00:36:20.19
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, maybe.
00:36:25.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
i'm I'm a humanist. I'm just a regular old humanist. um And financially, I support Satanic Temple. Not a lot. $6.66 a month is the busy the Patreon.
00:36:37.34
Michael Allen Rose
That seems right.
00:36:37.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, right. But, yeah, I actually think one of the reasons that I do this is because I want to encourage absolutely everyone to cope with art.
00:36:52.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
The arts in general. Whether you are just doodling and then it becomes something you want to keep. and And also that it's art for art's sake.
00:37:03.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, art that, like, everything doesn't have to be a hustle.
00:37:03.15
Michael Allen Rose
Sure. Right.
00:37:06.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everything doesn't have to make you money.
00:37:07.34
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:37:08.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
It doesn't have to be an income stream.
00:37:11.55
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:37:11.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, because... Getting what's on your mind out, just out, out of your mind, out of it so that it's not just eating you up inside is so valuable.
00:37:18.88
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:24.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
If I had a lot of money, if I could get a grant, one thing that I would do is I would go to low-income places like Ipsy and Detroit and Flint and places where people are really struggling and just teach kids art, like how to tell a story.
00:37:42.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it doesn't have to be about you, but write a story about something that made you mad, you know, paint a painting of how you feel today and just just find ways to bring it out of people.
00:37:42.88
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
00:37:47.99
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:37:50.84
Michael Allen Rose
For sure.
00:37:53.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:37:54.28
Michael Allen Rose
Well, I think ah you know you're you're hitting on something really important. And that's it's one of the things that I get to occasionally do. in my So my day job is in a library. I work in a public library. And um I am lucky enough to work in a public library where even as a library assistant, as a part-timer, they give me some leverage to like create programming and things like that.
00:38:04.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
00:38:16.16
Michael Allen Rose
And we started doing a zines and chapbooks workshop of my friend Jericho and I.
00:38:19.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
00:38:21.25
Michael Allen Rose
last year.
00:38:21.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:38:22.51
Michael Allen Rose
And, you know, not even not only for just kids, but the idea behind me wanting to do it in the first place was like, there are a lot of people out there who don't have access to media representation, don't have access to any real platform, but they have something to say, or they want to create something.
00:38:41.15
Michael Allen Rose
They have an idea inside themselves that they want to express, and they don't know that they have a platform or a way to do that. So just teaching people, as you say, like that here's an option for you, that you can create something You know, that you have a platform, that your ideas are valid, um that you have the right to artistically express yourself, even if I don't necessarily agree with what you're expressing. Like, like just to give people those tools is so important.
00:39:10.61
Michael Allen Rose
And, you know, especially people with like ah in low income areas and poverty, things like that, they don't know that they have any option. But they do. and And so much of that comes through the arts.
00:39:23.33
Michael Allen Rose
So 100%, I'm with you on that. like it's It's so important to give people a voice and to let people know that they even have the possibility of creating something.
00:39:34.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Well, and you know what? I'm going to say something here and I think some people won't like it, but I think that that is particularly important for men and boys because men and boys are
00:39:39.31
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:39:45.45
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:39:47.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
openly actively discouraged that's like one of the worst things about toxic masculinity is that men aren't supposed to express themselves and when they do it's through anger because it just comes busting out of them but they can't cry they can't disagree they can't say hey don't do that that hurts me you know they they aren't under toxic masculinity they're not allowed to do any of those things and then they blame women for it so that is
00:39:50.45
Michael Allen Rose
Yep. 100%. 100%.
00:39:56.95
Michael Allen Rose
yeah. 100% agree. Yep.
00:40:01.89
Michael Allen Rose
hundred percent
00:40:08.23
Michael Allen Rose
oh yeah
00:40:13.15
Michael Allen Rose
ah hundred percent agree yeah
00:40:17.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's something that I would love to to really get into and address. I mean, even in like prison, you know that seems like a no-brainer. And I know that there are prisoners you know there are prisons where they have like art programs, but so much of that is going away because of for-profit prisons.
00:40:30.70
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:40:34.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
They'd much rather have the prisoners be like slaves than be...
00:40:35.01
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:40:38.09
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:40:39.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I know some people are offended when we call the for-profit prison system slavery, but it is slavery because...
00:40:45.23
Michael Allen Rose
yeah Yeah. Essentially, it is. I mean, you they look at the basic building blocks of it and that's what they're doing.
00:40:51.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, when I found out that prisoners were fighting the fires in California, they were making like two bucks a day or some crazy thing.
00:40:52.41
Michael Allen Rose
I agree. Yeah.
00:40:59.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, you know, they get like a week at training.
00:41:01.41
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
00:41:02.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's it's insane. it's It's like, okay, these are people and we lose our basic humanity.
00:41:03.85
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
00:41:08.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think, honestly, that is part and parcel to losing our relationship with the arts. that's one of the reasons I hate because the humanities are called that because the whole point is to express the human experience.
00:41:24.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that's what that is.
00:41:25.09
Michael Allen Rose
It's right there in the word, people.
00:41:26.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:41:27.20
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. No, i I'm with you too. And, you know, the toxic masculinity thing too. Like I was ah you know, I grew up in the middle of North Dakota. I grew up with a you know, fairly traditional conservative parents. i I get along with my parents, but I have some complicated feelings about, you know, certain things, obviously.
00:41:45.30
Michael Allen Rose
and And one of those things is growing up in the Dakotas in a rural area, conservative area. I was supposed to be into like sports and cars, you know, and I wasn't. I was a weird kid. I got into theater and I was into like music and, and you know, all this other just the weird stuff and read a lot, read a lot of books.
00:42:00.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
are you Are you straight?
00:42:03.05
Michael Allen Rose
I am.
00:42:04.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:42:04.34
Michael Allen Rose
i know it's crazy, but well, my my queer friends tell me I'm a little queer.
00:42:05.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just asking. Okay.
00:42:11.11
Michael Allen Rose
So I guess i'm I'm at least a safe ally, if nothing else.
00:42:14.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Are you even allowed to do theater if you're not a little queer?
00:42:14.99
Michael Allen Rose
But
00:42:18.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
i don't...
00:42:18.33
Michael Allen Rose
yeah, I think it's of the requirements.
00:42:19.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
is that even allowed?
00:42:20.43
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, yeah. it's part of the requirements
00:42:22.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was a theater major and we didn't really codify it that way, but yeah.
00:42:23.80
Michael Allen Rose
sure yeah yeah Right. But no, it's you know it's funny because it's like as an adult now that I'm i'm finally you know comfortable with who I am and everything.
00:42:34.48
Michael Allen Rose
you know of Many, many years, it was like, well, I have to put on kind of an, do I try to create this extra layer of masculinity so I don't get beat up or bullied or you know whatever it was?
00:42:44.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:42:45.63
Michael Allen Rose
Now I can kind of be who I want. And it's so funny because like one of the bands I'm in, I'm in a Nine Inch Nails tribute band called Now I'm Nothing in the Chicagoland area. And we play out a lot, and we do kind of the classic Nine Inch Nails look with the cornstarch and the leather and the fishnets and everything else.
00:43:03.00
Michael Allen Rose
It's super hyper-aggressive music and whatever. And in that band, it's such some of the nicest guys. And behind the scenes, we we have tried to normalize saying that we love each other, that we like check on each other when we're going home from a gig to make sure we get home okay.
00:43:18.76
Michael Allen Rose
Because I think all of us are like that stupid toxic masculinity that keep men from being close and and keep them from being able to like express genuine care and friendship for each other is so stupid and so counterproductive.
00:43:32.92
Michael Allen Rose
So I'd like to think there are certain certain sectors where it's like, no, we're trying to normalize like having feelings as men like like and being okay with expressing gentleness.
00:43:33.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:43:46.54
Michael Allen Rose
And you know i always think about –
00:43:48.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
To people who aren't your, your primary partner, because those are the, that's the only person that men will be like open or honest with either their moms when they're little
00:43:52.20
Michael Allen Rose
yes, exactly.
00:43:57.71
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:43:59.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
or their girlfriend slash wife when they grow up and it puts so much pressure on that relationship.
00:44:00.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
00:44:04.27
Michael Allen Rose
Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Well, and i'm I'm lucky in that I've always been – I've always made connections easier with women in my life, even since I was a kid, which you know probably didn't help the is that guy straight you know when I was growing up and being a weird, sensitive kid who's hanging around the girls a lot. Yeah.
00:44:25.76
Michael Allen Rose
But I'm still like that. Like most of my best friends, i have some very good male friends, but most of my best friends are women. um And I think I don't know where that came from, but I'm i'm glad it happened because I think it gave me a ah slightly more nuanced, you know, look into kind of gender politics and stuff as I was growing up in an environment that didn't really allow for that, you know?
00:44:51.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure. Yeah. That makes sense.
00:44:55.70
Michael Allen Rose
I think so.
00:44:57.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
So on ah on the pre-interview questionnaire, we ask people about their diagnosis and you actually describe yourself as having plain old run of the mill depression with all the bells and whistles.
00:45:00.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:45:09.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
So tell me, like, what does that mean?
00:45:11.36
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:45:11.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
How does that present for you?
00:45:14.25
Michael Allen Rose
So, um, yeah, I, I call it plain old run of the mill depression because so many people that I know have like a bipolar diagnosis or, you know,
00:45:26.09
Michael Allen Rose
There's, there's comorbidities with all sorts of other things. And I joke with those I'm close to, like my partner, for example, I'm like, that like hyper focus and, and like having like manic energy look like a superpower to me because I don't get that side of it.
00:45:42.69
Michael Allen Rose
I just get the depressed side of it. So I'm either like normal and functioning or laying on the couch with my cat playing video games, not wanting to ever move again. Like there's no there's no, I'm going to clean my house today.
00:45:55.50
Michael Allen Rose
All of it twice. You know, I, I never get that part now.
00:45:57.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh dude Dude, that's that's not how it presents for everybody. I just want to be clear.
00:46:03.01
Michael Allen Rose
no no i
00:46:03.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
my mania My mania looks much more like I have had the best idea I've ever had, you guys. I need like $3,000 because I'm about to be rich.
00:46:11.57
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:46:13.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, the everything.
00:46:15.41
Michael Allen Rose
I'm going to start six businesses.
00:46:17.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
This is where it all turns around, guys.
00:46:19.29
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But no, i you know for the longest time, i went and i undiagnosed, as many of us do. and And um it wasn't until I was in graduate school, and this was in the mid-zeros, where I kind of had this moment where I was in a relationship at the time, and I realized that I was able to step back for a minute and look objectively at this relationship because ah we'd been having some problems.
00:46:44.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:46:45.48
Michael Allen Rose
And I realized that in certain ways I was being controlling and I was being jealous. And, you know, I started to kind of like try to identify well where was that coming from? Why was I like feeling paranoid and and things like that?
00:46:59.22
Michael Allen Rose
And a lot of that stemmed from just general depression, because I realized that, that when I'm going through those, those phases of, of severe depression, it's like, well, yeah, I don't feel like I'm worth anything.
00:47:12.37
Michael Allen Rose
I feel like even the people who are claiming to love me, well, it's, it must be, it's a joke or, oh, they must've fallen under the spell of a witch's curse, obviously, because you know, I'm not worth that.
00:47:24.30
Michael Allen Rose
And it,
00:47:24.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Have you ever had the, I must be a sociopath because I've tricked everyone into thinking I'm a good person?
00:47:31.41
Michael Allen Rose
You know, I i get that.
00:47:32.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
But...
00:47:35.78
Michael Allen Rose
But i don't think I don't think I ever felt that clever. I'm like, no, no.
00:47:39.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then your therapist will say, your therapist will say, well, but if you were a sociopath, you would never ask whether or not you would.
00:47:39.76
Michael Allen Rose
i
00:47:46.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's part of sociopathy.
00:47:46.82
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:47:47.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then I would say, well, but I know that though. I know that.
00:47:51.71
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:47:52.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
So see, that's, that's just the level of my trickery. That's just i how, how, how committed I am to convincing people I'm a decent person.
00:47:59.69
Michael Allen Rose
That's, yeah, exactly. That's how good I am. No, i was I was very lucky in that and that I had that kind of those moments of self-reflection. And i um i got a little therapy and that was fine. And I got on meds. And for me, I'm one of those people that medication absolutely saved my life.
00:48:15.96
Michael Allen Rose
um I was very lucky in that I found meds that worked for me. um And I have, you know, the emotional memory of how I felt before I was medicated. And I'm like, I don't ever want to go back to that.
00:48:30.10
Michael Allen Rose
Like, you know, it's, it's worked well enough for me to go. Yeah, no, this is my new normal is okay. I am all right with this. Um, so I was, I was lucky, you know?
00:48:39.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And was that antidepressants or mood stabilizers?
00:48:43.07
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. Antidepressants.
00:48:45.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:48:46.55
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. I'm a Zoloft guy.
00:48:48.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, all right.
00:48:49.52
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. I love the little, the little circle with the little frowny face on their commercials.
00:48:54.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it sounds like you got a diagnosis and that your first diagnosis was accurate.
00:48:54.61
Michael Allen Rose
He's so cute.
00:49:00.08
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, I ah it it was.
00:49:01.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's fun.
00:49:03.11
Michael Allen Rose
And, you know, I'm also the kind of nerd. I'm I'm kind of a spreadsheet nerd. So when I went into my therapist with a spreadsheet that I'd created through self-reflection about what I thought my various problems were, that was a really good jumping off point for us.
00:49:20.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:49:20.45
Michael Allen Rose
I'm like, well, I'm sort of possessive and controlling when I feel like this. And this is moments where, oh, and let's see, this is like super down and and tired all the time over here. and Well, this when this happens, I'm like, so i basically I made a flow chart.
00:49:34.34
Michael Allen Rose
um not because it was like important homework from a therapist, but because I'm that kind of a nerd where I'm like, I'm going to use some of my, my almost non-existent spare time in graduate school to sit down and make a flow chart about myself and what I think my diagnosis would be.
00:49:41.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
00:49:52.33
Michael Allen Rose
So that helped a lot. um They had a really good jumping off point to go, okay, so you feel like this, this, this, and this. I mean, we can do the questionnaire, but you kind of have more information on this than we'd get from that.
00:50:05.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that is so self-aware and
00:50:07.73
Michael Allen Rose
I don't know. i'm I don't mind being in a room by myself and thinking about stuff. So, you know, it helps, I guess.
00:50:16.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. I mean, that that's kind of amazing. So let me ask you this. So you were diagnosed in graduate school, which means that you went all through school, probably having ah depression impact impact you in various ways that you didn't see, right?
00:50:20.97
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:32.70
Michael Allen Rose
For sure. For sure.
00:50:34.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I guess in retrospect, do you think that there is knowledge that would have helped people recognize that earlier? Or maybe like if there were accommodations that would have helped you?
00:50:44.17
Michael Allen Rose
Oh yeah.
00:50:46.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what do you think would have helped at the time?
00:50:47.57
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:50:50.89
Michael Allen Rose
You know, it's, that's a, that's a really emotionally charged question too. Cause I think back sometimes, like we all do, i go, you know well, what what advice could I go back in time and give myself at 16 or something like that? you know
00:51:04.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:51:05.22
Michael Allen Rose
That would have helped. And looking back, I think one of the biggest things, and I think this is probably you know ah impacted by the depression, is I was so naive for so long.
00:51:18.18
Michael Allen Rose
I wasn't really socially apt. I didn't really know how to you know, get along with people. Like I was friendly. That's, you know, I don't mean I was unfriendly or unlikable, but I was just, I was so scared of people bullying me.
00:51:34.03
Michael Allen Rose
So scared of people making fun of me, targeting me that a lot of my interactions were colored with that. So I look back now and I think about these moments where I was like, oh, that's when this person was bullying me or this person said something really cruel to me.
00:51:49.49
Michael Allen Rose
And I'm trying to look at it objectively nowadays, you know, many years later going, I don't know that they had a cruel intention there. I don't think there was any malice in that. I think they just reacted and I took it as, oh, this is a personal attack.
00:52:05.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:52:05.92
Michael Allen Rose
This person is trying to hurt me and and usually succeeding because it was very easy to hurt me. I was really sensitive. And, you know, looking back now, I'm like, I think a lot of that was – was depression. you know it It really, really started in about middle school you know as teenager years were coming on.
00:52:24.37
Michael Allen Rose
And yeah, i went all through high school and and college without a diagnosis. And I'm like, yeah, there were lots and lots of moments, even sometimes with friends.
00:52:34.71
Michael Allen Rose
you know They'd say something and I would take it so personally and it would wound me so deeply. And I'm thinking back now, and I'm like, I think they were just, it was just friendly teasing. But I couldn't see it as friendly.
00:52:47.12
Michael Allen Rose
I couldn't see it as a normal interaction. I saw it as, oh my god, they're trying to hurt me.
00:52:51.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, when you have depression, youre fears have every chance of like just becoming your reality.
00:53:02.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
So instead of saying, you know i wonder if if my partner thinks less of me because of this or that, you say, oh my God, I've ruined it.
00:53:02.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:53:12.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
I've ruined everything.
00:53:12.67
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
00:53:13.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's all over with. You know, if if a friend makes an errant comment, you don't, it doesn't occur to you to say, oh, what a silly joke, because you're too busy dealing with, my God, everybody's looking at me, everyone's laughing, what are they thinking?
00:53:14.48
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
00:53:21.48
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
00:53:25.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
I need to leave. Why am I even here?
00:53:28.17
Michael Allen Rose
Exactly.
00:53:28.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
00:53:29.36
Michael Allen Rose
You know, and I still, i think on occasion, I still even struggle with that a little bit. Although i've I've, you know, curated this sort of persona. i'm I'm loud and gregarious and fun. And I like to bring introverts out of their shells at conventions and things. You know, I think some of that was curated partially as a defense mechanism against that.
00:53:48.71
Michael Allen Rose
Because if people are laughing with me and I'm the i'm the clown and I'm the, you know, the fun one in the room and whatever, well, then they're happy. then I know they're happy with me because they're not, you know, if if everything is too quiet and they're not laughing and they're not engaging, maybe they're thinking about how much they hate me.
00:54:11.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, maybe. Maybe they wish I would just leave.
00:54:14.22
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:54:16.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep. And I think that that, you know, that also um comes out in like our relationships. And I think that's why it's so difficult to live with someone with depression.
00:54:24.57
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
00:54:29.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think I was probably 10 years into my relationship with my husband and still being like, you know, he he would say, right, well, I'm going to go play video games for a while.
00:54:29.23
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
00:54:39.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why? Why do you hate me? Why don't you enjoy my company?
00:54:42.68
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:42.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like.
00:54:44.96
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my God.
00:54:45.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Bitch, we've been hanging out all day.
00:54:45.56
Michael Allen Rose
My poor,
00:54:46.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, he he would never call me bitch, but, you know, like...
00:54:49.06
Michael Allen Rose
yeah. My poor, my poor beloved partner. i we do have this wonderful relationship, but, but she's, she has her own mental illnesses as well. And, and I know that sometimes we are the same person because we'll,
00:55:02.10
Michael Allen Rose
what pulls us out of little arguments or whatever is the realization that it's like, Oh, you understand exactly how I feel right now and how irrational it is and how stupid it is.
00:55:09.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep.
00:55:12.54
Michael Allen Rose
And I'm not going to leave you because you you know, you said some stupid joke about the dishes or something. I'm not going to like, I'm not about to break up with you after 12 years because, you know, because you, you folded a towel wrong.
00:55:26.20
Michael Allen Rose
Like it's,
00:55:26.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's one of the eternal questions. Like if you're neurodivergent, should your goal be to find a neurotypical person who can deal with you or another neurodivergent person who is messed up in the same way as you so that you can have a mutual understanding of each other?
00:55:45.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
But then you've got two crazy people trying to work their shit out and in the same space.
00:55:48.20
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
00:55:49.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, right?
00:55:49.88
Michael Allen Rose
I think mileage may vary depending on that depending on the specific diagnosis.
00:55:53.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:55:54.33
Michael Allen Rose
But yeah, that is the eternal question. Mm-hmm.
00:55:57.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. So I looked over your your info and you've actually won some awards and I want to talk about that. um
00:56:05.30
Michael Allen Rose
sure
00:56:06.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awards are like not anywhere in my purview. It would never occur to me to submit myself for an award. And I don't know that anyone with any like say so has has done that on my behalf.
00:56:18.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
do Do you find awards to be validating?
00:56:21.78
Michael Allen Rose
um Well, in my case, I found there. um So I received the Wonderland Awards, as you as you said in the opening.
00:56:29.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:56:29.54
Michael Allen Rose
ah one won 2021 for Jurassic Christ for Best Bizarro Novel and 2022 Best Bizarro Collection for Last Five Minutes of the Human Race. And in those cases, they were incredibly validating to me.
00:56:42.52
Michael Allen Rose
partially because they're community awarded awards. They're not a juried award. They're something that the whole community votes on. um And historically, as as somebody famously once said when they won a Wonderland, sure, awards are a popularity contest, but who doesn't want to be popular?
00:57:02.03
Michael Allen Rose
And what they were kind of pointing out is this is a community award.
00:57:02.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ha ha ha ha ha.
00:57:06.26
Michael Allen Rose
It's given to people not only for the quality of their work, but also because the community feels that they're a representative force for the bizarro community in this case.
00:57:18.55
Michael Allen Rose
So I think, you know, depending on the award, it can be very meaningful if it's like in this case, it was, oh, Michael's been around forever. He's done the work.
00:57:30.11
Michael Allen Rose
He's, you know, like puts in all of the support and other people and whatever.
00:57:34.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
on
00:57:34.97
Michael Allen Rose
And he wrote this cool book. we can reward that effort by saying, Hey, you're doing good. Here's a reward because this book was cool. And, and, you know, to some degree, so are you.
00:57:48.84
Michael Allen Rose
So I think those community awards to me are very validating because they, they kind of point to the fact that you've stuck around, done the work and are doing good. Um, I suppose it's a little bit different from a jury to word, but I will say that, yeah, I do find them validating in the same way that like a short story acceptance.
00:58:06.96
Michael Allen Rose
If I get one of those, I find it validating, even if it's just that one person found it, what they were looking for on that one day at that one time.
00:58:08.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
who
00:58:15.66
Michael Allen Rose
Like that still counts. I think when, you know, it's like, okay, well the jury found this work to be good on this day at this time. I think it's just, it's not the end all be all, but I do find it validating for sure.
00:58:30.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to me, actually. I think if I did win an award, it would just give me scorching imposter syndrome. It would...
00:58:40.95
Michael Allen Rose
You know, in this case, it it took it away a little bit for me because I think for the longest time it felt very impostery.
00:58:41.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because the thing is, I...
00:58:49.82
Michael Allen Rose
But when, when your whole community comes together and, and says, you're, you're doing the thing. Like, I don't know. There's something about that. That's like, oh I'm seen in a way that maybe i didn't know that I would be.
00:58:59.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:59:03.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
That makes total sense. See, I have an abuser voice in the back of my head constantly telling me that I suck and I don't deserve anything. And if something good happens to me, that's kind of worse.
00:59:13.00
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:59:15.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like if I fail, it's like, oh, well, of course you failed.
00:59:16.19
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:59:18.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're a failing failure. But then if I succeed at something, it's like, oh, so now you think you're better than everybody else.
00:59:20.52
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
00:59:25.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like it's way worse. Because it's not just like, you know, reminding me that I'm a failure is one thing.
00:59:32.01
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
00:59:32.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause like, I already know that, but taking me down a few pegs when I feel good about myself, all my abuser was so into that, you know, cause they had a kid really early and they didn't get to do anything with their life.
00:59:34.16
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:44.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then they, you know, blame the kid instead of the people that made all those decisions.
00:59:47.07
Michael Allen Rose
Sure. Sure.
00:59:49.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:59:50.09
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
00:59:51.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um,
00:59:52.05
Michael Allen Rose
No, I can see that. I can see that being a thing for sure. Well, and I think I've come around because I imposter syndrome was very, very bad for me for the first. I mean, for the first quite a chunk of what I guess I would call my professional career, ah because my first book was published in 2011.
01:00:10.51
Michael Allen Rose
So I guess I've been at this on some professional level or so for over a decade now. And I would say for the first almost a decade, imposter syndrome was way high, you know just phenomenally high.
01:00:24.77
Michael Allen Rose
And it took until I started to get kind of I don't know. There's a certain quantity of like acceptances of short stories, winning the wonderland, getting enough stuff published by different presses, you know, where I guess it took a certain amount of voices to to start to overwhelm the voice of the imposter syndrome ah that had been so very loud for so long.
01:00:47.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
01:00:48.53
Michael Allen Rose
And I think for me, it took, it took, a certain bulk of people to be like, Oh, it's not just one or two people that like me or are pretending to like me. It's, you know, if, if, if this many people are pretending that I'm good, like not only is it the first real evidence of a real conspiracy theory I've seen, but what a dumb way to waste their time.
01:01:04.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:01:14.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? The popularity of my book is like the moon landing.
01:01:16.60
Michael Allen Rose
But yeah, you know what?
01:01:19.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's all fake!
01:01:19.40
Michael Allen Rose
yeah Right.
01:01:20.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:01:20.91
Michael Allen Rose
What really, what really did it for me actually was, um, so you want to hear, ah you want to hear kind of a sweet story.
01:01:28.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:01:29.03
Michael Allen Rose
This blew my mind. So, um, last summer, um So I've had a couple of cool experiences, you know, where it's like at a convention a couple of years ago in Texas, like somebody stopped me to get a book signed and stuff.
01:01:40.92
Michael Allen Rose
I'm like, oh my God, like, I'm like, are you, are you looking at me or like over my shoulder?
01:01:41.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
01:01:44.94
Michael Allen Rose
I'm like, am I supposed to give you a hug? But, but I remember that weekend.
01:01:47.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do you think I'm Joe Hill? Wow.
01:01:49.49
Michael Allen Rose
And four different people stopped me at um at this festival and and asked me to sign something. I'm like, holy crap. Okay, that's cool. Somebody knows who I am.
01:01:59.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's awesome.
01:02:00.01
Michael Allen Rose
Wow. Which was amazing. But then last summer, after all of this, you know I'm like, okay, well maybe I'm not complete crap, right? Um, we were going to visit my folks up in the Dakotas. So my partner and I are on this road trip and we're taking a big old road trip up from Chicago through South Dakota, up into North Dakota to see my folks and to see my, uh, my half sister from Holland who I hadn't seen in almost 20 years.
01:02:25.65
Michael Allen Rose
Um,
01:02:26.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:02:26.65
Michael Allen Rose
who had come over to to hang out with my dad for his birthday. and So it was like this big thing where I'm like, okay, I'm going to see friends. I'm going see family. getting away for a little romantic trip with my partner.
01:02:37.99
Michael Allen Rose
Can i also make this some kind of professional development? So we were we were looking into that and we were friendly with, there's a manager of a Barnes and Noble in in South Dakota who orders indie horror stuff.
01:02:54.01
Michael Allen Rose
So I reached out. I'm like, hey, going to drive through sioux Falls. Could we maybe do a little event or something? She was like, yeah, sure, we can set that up. So you know I'm like, well, nobody knows who I am.
01:03:06.34
Michael Allen Rose
you know And it's it's the middle of South Dakota. It's like the the likelihood of anything coming of this is fairly small. But let's do it. It'll be fun. We'll do another, like a little bookstore in my old hometown, you know, and in Minot, North Dakota.
01:03:19.74
Michael Allen Rose
We'll do this Barnes and Noble. We'll call it a little mini book tour, right? Just for fun.
01:03:23.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:03:25.23
Michael Allen Rose
So we get to this Barnes and Noble and I'm sitting there and they set up my little table and they ordered some of my books.
01:03:25.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
01:03:31.30
Michael Allen Rose
I'm like, this is cool. Like I've never gotten to do a signing at, you know, a a major retailer like this. And my partner, Sauda, is sitting next to me and I'm like, yeah i don't I don't think anyone's going to show up just for me. you know like I might get lucky and talk to some people and maybe they'll buy a book.
01:03:49.04
Michael Allen Rose
And she's like, well, yeah, but you know what? Just doing this is cool. like You'll be able to say, hey, I did a signing at a Barnes and Noble. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. you know That's something. Okay. So I'm looking at it a little more positively. And as we're sitting there, I'm getting to talk to people that come in and I'm starting to sell a few books.
01:04:07.69
Michael Allen Rose
And you know my my luck has always been at the table. like I'm ah you know i'm i'm i' goofy and I'm talkative and I like to chat with people. So um I'm telling them about my crazy books. And I've got ah Jurassic Christ there as well as I have a ah noir book called Embry um about a chicken detective in a world of eggs.
01:04:26.68
Michael Allen Rose
Uh, so I have those two books and I'm telling people about these, you know, goofiness and I'm starting to sell books.
01:04:28.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:04:33.40
Michael Allen Rose
And at one point the manager comes up and she's like, I just ran the numbers. I saw you've like sold like 13 books. I'm like, yeah, it's crazy. Like it's going really well. So I'm having fun and I'm like, well, this is good.
01:04:44.57
Michael Allen Rose
So we're getting toward the end of the event. And I realized that there's this kid standing nearby. It looks probably about like 14. i don't know. Something like that. 13, 14.
01:04:56.48
Michael Allen Rose
And his mom is standing there and I kind of give him my, Hey there, how you doing? You know, spiel and whatever. And we're chatting a little bit and she goes, yeah, he, he wanted to come over here and I'm like, oh and as I'm standing there, I realized, Oh, okay. that I think the kid is autistic. He's showing a lot of signs of of autism here. Okay. That's cool. She's doing a lot of the speaking for him. That's fine.
01:05:17.78
Michael Allen Rose
You know, he's having some trouble with eye contact and stuff, but I'm, I'm talking to him and you know, he's, he's, he'll mutter something here and there.
01:05:18.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
01:05:26.88
Michael Allen Rose
And I realize he's holding a copy of Jurassic Christ, but it's worn. It's not from the table.
01:05:34.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:05:36.17
Michael Allen Rose
And I'm like, oh, and and Sada kind of points this out to me. And she's like, hey, that's that's not, I'm like, oh my God, yeah. And I go, oh, so so what brought you guys in today? And his mom goes, well, we bought this book a month or two ago here in Sioux Falls and he saw you were coming.
01:05:53.00
Michael Allen Rose
So we drove an hour upstate here to come see you.
01:05:56.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:05:58.12
Michael Allen Rose
And I'm like, oh my God. Okay, sure. Of course. Will you sign it? Of course I'll sign it You know, and I'm, I'm signing it. I'm like, that's amazing. Like they, you know, this kid saw I was coming and, and they're like, we want to buy your other book too. I'm like, oh sure. Of course, you know, I'll sign that too. And then he says something quietly to his mom. He's like, she's like, oh yeah, we need to buy one more copy of each of these. Cause his best friend's birthday is coming up and he wanted to give his best friend your books.
01:06:26.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Aw.
01:06:27.00
Michael Allen Rose
And like, Oh my God, that's amazing. So I'm feeling like super touched, right?
01:06:32.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:06:32.66
Michael Allen Rose
It gets, it gets better. And this is what Sauda has told me every time I get down on myself, every time I get real self deprecating about my work, she's going to remind me of this kid. And I, I think it's probably okay.
01:06:44.89
Michael Allen Rose
We'll call him Alex for the sake of this conversation. She'll be like, remember Alex.
01:06:48.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
OK.
01:06:50.17
Michael Allen Rose
I'll be like, okay. So we're chatting and, um I'm like, yeah, of course I'll sign these things for you, whatever. So I'm talking with mom and I say, well, what, what kind of books does Alex normally like to read?
01:07:03.52
Michael Allen Rose
And she goes, he doesn't. This is the first book he's ever really loved.
01:07:09.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:07:11.07
Michael Allen Rose
And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, he's never really found a book he was that interested in. And I hear the kid go, yeah, it just sounded like an interesting premise. I'm like, oh, and I somehow,
01:07:24.18
Michael Allen Rose
the the The little weird books that I write taught the joy of reading to a kid who's struggled with autism. Like, how insane is that?
01:07:37.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn, dude, that is badass.
01:07:40.45
Michael Allen Rose
So like like, you know, talking earlier about like, what what does success mean? and And when do you know, like that right there, like, oh my God. Like that. And that is whenever the imposter syndrome screams at me, Sada will be like, remember Alex?
01:07:57.94
Michael Allen Rose
Like, oh yeah.
01:07:59.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you made a tangible, lasting difference in the life of a human that you did not know.
01:08:00.19
Michael Allen Rose
Like I did.
01:08:04.90
Michael Allen Rose
How, how, how crazy is that? Like I, yeah.
01:08:07.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's That's it, man. That's that's the game.
01:08:09.12
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:08:10.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's what it's about.
01:08:11.04
Michael Allen Rose
Right. So that, that to me was like, that was the moment where I'm like, maybe, maybe the stuff I'm making does matter. It doesn't have to matter on a mass scale. doesn't matter that I'm not hitting like New York times bestseller lists or whatever.
01:08:23.73
Michael Allen Rose
What matters is I made some art that resonated with somebody to such a huge degree that it made a real human difference in their life. And that's like amazing.
01:08:35.62
Michael Allen Rose
I will, I'll never, I'll never not get goosebumps when I talk about that.
01:08:35.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:08:40.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I would imagine so. That is awesome. That is awesome. So like on that note, um, what, uh, I guess maybe it's not on that note, but it's, I, ah but well, the note is you being inspiring.
01:08:53.43
Michael Allen Rose
That's okay.
01:08:56.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Because the question is what, uh, what advice do you have for younger, uh, creators that struggle with, with depression?
01:08:57.12
Michael Allen Rose
Oh.
01:09:06.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:09:06.77
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, sure.
01:09:07.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know, autism is often part of that. I don't want to say always, cause know, I'm not a doctor.
01:09:10.62
Michael Allen Rose
Sure. Sure.
01:09:12.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know the numbers, but I mean, I found out that I'm autistic, like way late in life.
01:09:14.01
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:09:17.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
It was like two years ago that a doctor was like, well, yeah, ah yeah.
01:09:20.08
Michael Allen Rose
sure
01:09:22.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
That, that seems obvious to me. can't, I can can't officially diagnose you, but yeah.
01:09:24.76
Michael Allen Rose
And suddenly everything falls into place.
01:09:28.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah. And I mean, aside from like feeling really angry, because I should have been diagnosed when I was, you know, five and not 50 something.
01:09:36.39
Michael Allen Rose
Sure. Sure.
01:09:38.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And that like my whole life would have gone differently. Like I worked service jobs for like 20 years. An autistic person who doesn't know they're autistic should not be anywhere near the service industry.
01:09:49.56
Michael Allen Rose
For sure. For sure.
01:09:50.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
No way. And yet, you know, and that's the thing the whole time.
01:09:53.82
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:09:54.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, why is this so hard for me? Other people can do this.
01:09:56.80
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
01:09:57.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why can't I do this? I'm not stupid. I'm not lazy.
01:10:00.10
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:10:01.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
So why does anything ever work the way it's supposed to for me?
01:10:01.17
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:10:05.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's why.
01:10:05.98
Michael Allen Rose
Right. Yeah, absolutely.
01:10:07.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it like, you know, and I had to almost die to to figure it out.
01:10:12.54
Michael Allen Rose
Jeez.
01:10:13.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I mean, then I think about like all the people you go through their whole lives with those pieces missing and they never get the help that they need. Like, how long has that happened through history?
01:10:23.56
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
01:10:25.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which is why I get so mad when people are like, eh, nobody had autism in my day. Like, yeah, they did.
01:10:31.28
Michael Allen Rose
yeah Yeah, exactly.
01:10:31.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
They didn't know what to call it.
01:10:33.08
Michael Allen Rose
There were a bunch of undiagnosed people running around having harder lives than you needed to.
01:10:33.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
01:10:37.88
Michael Allen Rose
That's that's what you're yeah that's the part you didn't see.
01:10:38.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. And that's the whole point. It's not about making excuses for people. It's about understanding what is happening with people so that everybody has a chance to be their best.
01:10:50.38
Michael Allen Rose
hundred percent
01:10:51.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what about kids?
01:10:52.00
Michael Allen Rose
Well, mike my advice, oh boy, coming off of that.
01:10:54.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:10:56.73
Michael Allen Rose
You know what? I'll give the same advice whether you're suffering from depression, whether you're you're a just starting out writer. like i think the best piece of advice i could give is don't be an asshole.
01:11:11.00
Michael Allen Rose
Be nice, be kind. It's not hard to be kind. um Find your people and make friends. It's just like we learned in kindergarten. You know, I, I've seen so many times where people, especially in like bizarro and horror and some of the, um the more extreme genres, they'll come out of nowhere and insist that they're like some sort of lone wolf They're this badass edgelord.
01:11:35.58
Michael Allen Rose
They don't need anybody, buth blah, blah, blah.
01:11:36.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:11:37.68
Michael Allen Rose
Like that's their brand. And dude, that's just called being unlikable. And it always, always bears out that way because then it's like they alienate.
01:11:45.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
I tell it like it is, man.
01:11:47.33
Michael Allen Rose
they Yeah, exactly.
01:11:47.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm real.
01:11:48.49
Michael Allen Rose
And they alienate everybody. And it's like, no, dude, make friends, be nice. You know, I'm at this point, I'm in my forties, but I'm still feel like I'm too old now to deal with assholes. I'm done dealing with assholes.
01:12:00.41
Michael Allen Rose
I'm done. um I want to deal with nice people, fun people, people who support each other, people who care, people who want to make art and collaborate and have fun. And over long term, turns out I was right because, you know, all through my 20s and 30s, I saw people surpassing me by taking shortcuts and stepping on other people and you know, like getting those short term gains.
01:12:21.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:12:22.81
Michael Allen Rose
And like, I don't think that's the way like and sure enough, I would say probably 80 percent of those people I'm I'm, you know, referencing either burn themselves out.
01:12:33.89
Michael Allen Rose
Or they no longer do stuff because nobody really wants to work with them anyway. And they're just like these curmudgeonly, you know, shut up assholes. And it's like, yeah, because you forgot that we are each other's best support.
01:12:48.27
Michael Allen Rose
It's not us against each other. It's us against the world. The rising tide really does raise all ships.
01:12:53.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:12:53.90
Michael Allen Rose
And, and like, I truly believe that and try to demonstrate that whenever I can, you know, whatever I'm doing in the scene or in an organization or whatever, it's like, I truly believe in collaboration and kindness.
01:12:54.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah and
01:13:05.93
Michael Allen Rose
So my biggest advice is don't think you can go it alone and be some kind of bad-ass, make friends, be nice, support each other's stuff. That's like the bottom line for me.
01:13:17.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great philosophy. It really is. um I do want to amend one thing, though, because if you are a broken person, if you are hurting and have unacknowledged issues, it's not always easy to be kind.
01:13:24.71
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:13:29.15
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm. Sure.
01:13:36.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's actually a good barometer for whether or not you need help, whether or not you need therapy, whether or not you need to
01:13:36.37
Michael Allen Rose
sure
01:13:45.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
reevaluate, maybe even think about medication. Because if it's your intention to be a kind and decent person, but you find that your behavior does not always reflect that, man, you don't know me from the internet, but I can be a real, real serious, sarcastic, smug bitch on the internet talking to MAGA people and whatnot.
01:14:07.09
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:14:07.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I am not always as nice or kind as I i wish I was.
01:14:12.37
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:14:12.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
So just just a little caveat there, because it's it's free to be kind. It doesn't cost you anything monetarily, usually.
01:14:19.58
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:14:19.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Unless you're...
01:14:21.31
Michael Allen Rose
Usually. No, I think, you know what?
01:14:23.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, depending on where you hang out, because there's this push against empathy now that like empathy can lead you into bad things.
01:14:23.81
Michael Allen Rose
That's a good caveat too. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:28.85
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
01:14:31.77
Michael Allen Rose
Ugh.
01:14:31.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, you know, that like the toxic empathy and all this weird shit that mean people are talking about. But. But yeah, like it, it can be hard to be kind.
01:14:44.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's why there are people that are deliberately fucking up the world right now, because the more desperate people are, the more frightened they are.
01:14:49.31
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:14:52.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
the more they lack resources for people that they love, the harder it is to be kind to each other, the harder it is to look at people and try to understand them.
01:14:59.68
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:15:03.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you're right.
01:15:03.89
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:15:04.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
the The antidote to that is is kindness. It's empathy. It's seeing other people as people and expressing what you actually want to express in a way that is not hurtful.
01:15:08.35
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. Right.
01:15:15.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
And again, that brings us back to the humanities, back to the era.
01:15:15.90
Michael Allen Rose
right
01:15:18.42
Michael Allen Rose
Well, and you know what, and your caveat is is totally justified. and And I'll even add one of my own. And I will say, remember too, that kindness doesn't necessarily equate to an inability to set boundaries or or um you know protect yourself.
01:15:36.14
Michael Allen Rose
Because I was often you know i was talking about my naivete as a younger person.
01:15:36.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Mm-hmm.
01:15:42.08
Michael Allen Rose
I was often taken advantage of because I was naive and just wanted everyone to be nice and, you know, assumed good intentions. And some people will take advantage of that.
01:15:53.71
Michael Allen Rose
So I have learned over time also that it's important to be able to build boundaries and protect yourself against those who would use cruelty to take advantage of your kindness.
01:15:53.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:16:06.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's the thing about bullies, man, is that bullies are the first people to tell you, hey, you got to have a sense of humor about yourself.
01:16:06.73
Michael Allen Rose
But
01:16:13.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there's a big difference between having a sense of humor about yourself and having to tolerate jeering and cruelty from assholes.
01:16:22.25
Michael Allen Rose
Yes, absolutely. So I think, yeah, I guess my default is be kind, be nice, make friends, but also get help if you feel that you need it and you aren't being your best self and be ready to protect yourself against cruel people who will take advantage of you.
01:16:44.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's another great reason to build community. Because I'll tell you, i was once accused of something bad that I did not do by someone in the horror community.
01:16:55.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I honestly, this person is a, well, they're white male that's been in the biz for a long time. And I'm basically a nobody and I can be kind of obnoxious. So I'm not everyone's friend.
01:17:08.32
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:17:08.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And I really was not sure if my reputation in the community could withstand that kind of accusation.
01:17:15.79
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:17:16.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, and it did, it did.
01:17:17.41
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:17:19.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
People that knew me were like, no dude, of course we know you didn't do that.
01:17:23.51
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:17:23.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, okay. But not everyone did. Like there was someone that I was like forming a a professional relationship with that just dropped me like a rock.
01:17:27.02
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:17:32.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, nope, I don't want any part of that. I don't care if you were accused. i don't want to be around it. I'm like, well,
01:17:36.80
Michael Allen Rose
sure
01:17:37.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, there's there's nothing I can do about that.
01:17:41.35
Michael Allen Rose
right
01:17:41.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it's also like I mean, it's kind of it's kind of none of my business. You know, it's like, well, if that's what you think, I'm not going to spend any time whatsoever trying to change your mind because, you know.
01:17:47.12
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
01:17:53.30
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And you you see it too, all the time. and Anybody who's online sees it all the time. There's always always drama in writing circles, always somebody, you know, he said, she said, always some controversy.
01:18:05.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm.
01:18:06.60
Michael Allen Rose
And, and you know what, if it doesn't, and that's, that's another piece of advice. If it doesn't affect you, it might be wise to sit for a minute and decide whether your voice is really needed.
01:18:18.79
Michael Allen Rose
Because so often people will jump in with crazy, like, either pylons or their take on things or whatever. And it's like, was it necessary? Really? Because you weren't involved in any of this.
01:18:31.95
Michael Allen Rose
And now someone else's dirty laundry is hanging on your line.
01:18:32.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:18:34.87
Michael Allen Rose
And that's not a good look either.
01:18:38.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yeah, I mean, it kind of depends because, you know, obviously public figures, but that that is one of the things that is is true of the internet now.
01:18:48.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
When something happens, everybody wants to share their opinion on it.
01:18:52.70
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:18:53.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
And for a while, I like hearing everybody's opinion, but then it's like, well, yes, pedophilia is bad.
01:18:57.82
Michael Allen Rose
It used to be novel.
01:18:59.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think we're all on the same page.
01:18:59.57
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
01:19:01.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, oh we're not.
01:19:01.21
Michael Allen Rose
Right?
01:19:02.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're not all on the same page.
01:19:02.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, yeah.
01:19:03.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:19:05.19
Michael Allen Rose
Well, it used to be novel to be able to share opinions.
01:19:05.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Didn't see that coming.
01:19:08.74
Michael Allen Rose
It used to be an exciting new thing.
01:19:09.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:19:11.49
Michael Allen Rose
And now it's like, oh, I've heard everyone's opinions about things that I don't want to.
01:19:15.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean,
01:19:19.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
well, but you know, it used to be exciting and novel to see what your favorite celebrities are having for dinner. And honestly, i think sometimes it still is, you know, it's like, wow, that guy from Breaking Bad puts caviar on everything.
01:19:24.64
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, yeah.
01:19:29.24
Michael Allen Rose
Sometimes.
01:19:34.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is wild.
01:19:35.58
Michael Allen Rose
Even ice cream, crazy.
01:19:39.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, they were putting it on donuts. I'm just like, I don't even, I don't even know what to tell you guys.
01:19:44.40
Michael Allen Rose
i don't think I want a caviar donut. Now that I think about it.
01:19:49.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
I would like a lifestyle where that is an option.
01:19:52.37
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:19:53.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Actually, that's not true. I just don't want to have to save up to go to the dentist.
01:19:57.22
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
01:19:57.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's That's the kind of lifestyle I want.
01:19:58.14
Michael Allen Rose
Amen. Yeah. I want the kind of lifestyle where I can like go to the doctor when I'm sick or not, you know, do like advanced calculus when I'm going to take my girlfriend to dinner.
01:20:10.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. Like, okay, my TV just broke.
01:20:12.01
Michael Allen Rose
I don't know if I can afford to eat. and
01:20:15.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Well, I know one time my TV actually broke and it was the first night of Shark Week. And, you know, first world problems and everything, but there was no way we could buy a new one.
01:20:21.41
Michael Allen Rose
so no
01:20:27.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
And this takes us back to community because I went online and I said, what cruel fate is this?
01:20:33.09
Michael Allen Rose
ah
01:20:33.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
My TV is is dead on the first night of Shark Week.
01:20:36.80
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, the horror.
01:20:37.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And within three hours, two people were like, yeah, I can bring you a TV right now.
01:20:42.58
Michael Allen Rose
That's awesome.
01:20:42.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I had a TV in time for Shark Week. Well, because first of all, those those big TVs that look like a box, you know, from when we were little, they're a dime a dozen now.
01:20:45.56
Michael Allen Rose
That's amazing.
01:20:50.73
Michael Allen Rose
The old CRT ones? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
01:20:52.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everybody's got one just sitting in a spare room in case their flat screen goes out.
01:20:57.23
Michael Allen Rose
It's like a tiny end table in our guest room at this point. So, yeah. No, I get you.
01:21:02.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. So we actually have a question in our questionnaire. Because we want affirmative consent to ask guests about a time in their life when they were in legitimate fear for their life.
01:21:16.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you indicated that you were okay with answering this question. So please tell us.
01:21:20.35
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:21:22.78
Michael Allen Rose
um You know, that was an interesting question, too, because i it made me think of you know, situations where I was in some kind of danger or something, I don't often get into dangerous situations, but the first thing it made me think of, and maybe this is in the context of the rest of the questions is, you know, when my suicidal ideation has gotten to the point where I'm like, is this, you know, am I actually kind of, how serious am I about this?
01:21:49.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:21:49.94
Michael Allen Rose
And I do remember a couple of times like when, And I've always been able to pull myself out of it intellectually because if emotionally I'm feeling very damaged and I don't have any emotional defenses left, a lot of times for me it comes back around to using logic to sort of diffuse the bomb. you know So i I'll think about, okay, well, if I did do this, that would be impulsive.
01:22:22.32
Michael Allen Rose
and I don't do well with impulsive. I I'm, I'm one of those people. And I think it's because like my dad was a yeller, um
01:22:29.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:22:30.17
Michael Allen Rose
I saw him you know fly off the handle for no reason. So I developed internal mechanisms to be like, okay, well, anger is unproductive most of the time. So I'm going to be able to stop that train from you know crashing into things.
01:22:44.45
Michael Allen Rose
And I know it's not necessarily healthy, but we were talking earlier about the superpowers we develop. and And one of mine is definitely being very emotionally in control of myself.
01:22:50.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
yep
01:22:54.46
Michael Allen Rose
So I think that's what always pulled me back from the brink is going – Well, this would be an emotional, impulsive thing to do. And if I think about it for half a second, there's lots and lots of reasons that this would be a bad idea.
01:23:09.67
Michael Allen Rose
And it's funny that, you know, we're talking about this because in that context, weirdly enough, so I just had a birthday and for a couple years there, I was really having trouble with the concept of getting older because in, you know, and part of my brain, I'm still in my twenties, you know, my body certainly doesn't feel that way, but I'm like, yeah, I'm still a goofy college, you know, dork I was then whatever, you know essentially.
01:23:27.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, Mm-hmm. oh yeah
01:23:36.14
Michael Allen Rose
And, you know, I, I was having trouble with the aging thing until just the last year or two, i started to think about all the people who have died young and whether through suicide or through addiction or you know a million other things, and all these rock stars and people that I looked up to, and how many of them you know didn't even get to 30.
01:24:00.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:24:01.16
Michael Allen Rose
And I got to thinking, as much trouble as I'm having with the idea of getting older, it's so much better that I can still experience things.
01:24:13.54
Michael Allen Rose
I can experience life. And, and, you know, I was, an I was an existentialist. Like I read a lot of Sartre and Camus and things in college, of course. And like the idea that it's, you know, there is no cosmic oneness that's guiding us or anything like that. We're just, we're a weird statistical anomaly on a ball of dirt flying through space.
01:24:34.65
Michael Allen Rose
And, and I take weird comfort in that. Cause I'm like, well then All we are is is the things that that we do and how we perceive the world and the universe around us.
01:24:45.45
Michael Allen Rose
And the fact that I can do that is such a statistical anomaly. I should really enjoy it while I've got it. So i I think it's like the fact that I have the ability to experience things, whether they're good or bad or happy or sad, is such an infinitesimally small chance of that happening.
01:25:07.67
Michael Allen Rose
I should embrace that for as long as possible.
01:25:11.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:25:13.13
Michael Allen Rose
I think that's what really, really keeps me keeps me motivated to just keep going.
01:25:13.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:25:21.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Love it. Love everything about it. I actually have to tell you, since you just brought up Sartre, that my senior directing project, because I was a double major, broadcasting and theater, um ah no exit.
01:25:35.40
Michael Allen Rose
Oh God, I love No Exit. I love i No Exit so much.
01:25:36.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah direct said No exit on the main stage. Yeah, it's...
01:25:39.54
Michael Allen Rose
So much.
01:25:39.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah It was something else. Yeah, I learned a lot about myself.
01:25:42.31
Michael Allen Rose
I was ah and was a theater major too, by the way, in case we didn't talk about that.
01:25:46.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Yeah, I figured.
01:25:47.04
Michael Allen Rose
Go figure, right? Oh God, I love No Exit so much.
01:25:48.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
I figured.
01:25:51.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:25:52.97
Michael Allen Rose
Ugh.
01:25:54.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's a good and um So so let me ask you this. um How often does your emotional and mental state or or just like the issue of depression, how often does that come up in your work?
01:26:11.09
Michael Allen Rose
You know, i it's hard to answer that. um I think because I experienced my work obviously so much differently from, from other people. But I think maybe it goes back to what I was saying earlier about like you know being a comedian, being the funny guy is is a self-defense kind of mechanism.
01:26:30.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:26:30.84
Michael Allen Rose
um I write a lot of funny stuff. like even in some of my more Even some of my more serious work will have moments of comedy, but a lot of my stuff, whether it's horror or sci-fi or bizarro, there's comedy elements in it.
01:26:45.30
Michael Allen Rose
And i think comedy is so important to me because it's, I don't know, it's its it's special in a lot of ways, but one of the things is it's a defense mechanism.
01:26:59.07
Michael Allen Rose
So I think you see less of my depression in my work and more of what I use to fight it, if that makes sense.
01:27:08.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Yeah, very much so.
01:27:11.08
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, I don't think, you don't you're not going to read my stuff and be like, it's like the Sylvia Plath sort of like, wow, you know, this is, this is I'm going to slip my wrist after I read this with the page and paper cut myself to death.
01:27:21.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just describe a leak already, gee.
01:27:24.78
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, exactly.
01:27:25.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:27:27.42
Michael Allen Rose
But yeah, like, I'm like, you know, and I always think back and it's it's it's cliche at this point, sadly, but like, you look at Robin Williams and and they often cite his suicidal ideation and depression um When they talk about the old um the old joke about, you know, like the guy goes to the therapist and he's like, I'm depressed. He's like, oh, you should see, you know, this great clown. He's in town and like, but doctor, I am that clown, you know?
01:27:54.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:27:55.38
Michael Allen Rose
I mean, that's the thing, right? Like funny people are are often hiding trauma and wounds. And I'm sure I'm no exception to that, but I like to think that I've come out the other side for most of it.
01:28:09.20
Michael Allen Rose
And what's left is the ability to make people laugh. And, and, you know, ideally that's doing something good for that, that came from, you know, the traumas that it was originally designed to combat.
01:28:27.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know what? I am actually being so rude right now because what you just said gave me an idea for a story and I had to write it down because now I want to explore Roger Rabbit's childhood trauma.
01:28:41.27
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my God, that sounds awesome.
01:28:43.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
01:28:43.93
Michael Allen Rose
And that right there, that is, no, that's, that's bizarro right there.
01:28:43.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
I shouldn't have even said that. I don't want anyone to steal that idea because it's so good. but it's
01:28:49.23
Michael Allen Rose
And you know what? You know what? You just, as far as I'm concerned, you just claimed the idea. Like you did it publicly in broadcast form. And I'm saying that right there, that's a bizarro pitch, man. That's, that's, that's, that's something of beauty.
01:29:02.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:29:03.91
Michael Allen Rose
Yup.
01:29:04.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
My parents, you know, when I was a little rabbit, they just couldn't stop breeding.
01:29:07.61
Michael Allen Rose
Yup.
01:29:08.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Bred like rabbits. There were so many of us.
01:29:09.72
Michael Allen Rose
The ah, i
01:29:11.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
We were always hungry, always hungry. And after a while, it just made Dad angry. Right?
01:29:18.06
Michael Allen Rose
I like where this is going. This is good stuff.
01:29:21.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
so ah So, hey.
01:29:21.41
Michael Allen Rose
Give me the give me the the seedy underbelly of Toontown, you know?
01:29:26.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Tell me about Jurassic Christ.
01:29:29.43
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely. ah so Jurassic Christ is the story of the second coming of Jesus Christ, but because he is an extra spatial deity, time and space don't really apply to him.
01:29:40.37
Michael Allen Rose
So on his way back, he misses and ends up in the Jurassic period fighting dinosaurs.
01:29:45.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
01:29:45.57
Michael Allen Rose
So it's it's nonfiction. um It's the ah the one true gospel. Yeah. No, it's a, it, it starts out and, and what's fun about it is it seems when I describe it to people, they think they know what they're getting into and it's going to be okay. So it's like Jesus Christ running through the jungle commando style with a machine gun fighting dinosaurs.
01:30:06.18
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. It starts that way, but then it goes to much weirder places, believe it or not. Like um he essentially discovers that the dinosaurs had a whole civilization going and what we thought of them or thought about what we knew of them is completely wrong.
01:30:20.82
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah. um mammals, we were never supposed to make it this far. Somebody tweaked the settings on evolution and screwed things up because mammals were these disgusting creatures that were obsessed with basically made on TV or as seen on TV products.
01:30:37.85
Michael Allen Rose
And somebody decided to put them on the top of the heap. So now he's got to get back to the metaverse to figure out who in this cosmic conspiracy has tweaked the settings and made things wrong.
01:30:50.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, who gave the Hubitz gunpowder? That was not a good thing to do.
01:30:54.13
Michael Allen Rose
Exactly. So yeah, it goes it goes from there. on this It becomes a space and time traveling romp through metaphysical and theological ideas. and you know Honestly, one of the best reviews I got of that book was from a a horror writer and sadly deceased now, Jay Wilburn, who was also a devout Christian and would really engage philosophically and theologically with people like in really cool ways.
01:31:14.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank
01:31:20.20
Michael Allen Rose
He was just the coolest guy. And he read Jurassic Christ and through his lens you know as ah as a religious man, but also as a horror guy. He loved it. And he said one of the best things I think anybody could have said about it. He said, you didn't punch down.
01:31:35.23
Michael Allen Rose
like It's actually thoughtful. And it's not just like low-hanging fruit. Religion's stupid. you know It wasn't that. It was like, I'm actually engaging with theology and philosophy and, and, you know, treating JC as sort of this rebel hero figure that we like to think he would have actually been.
01:31:55.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
01:31:56.70
Michael Allen Rose
It's a fun story.
01:31:57.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love that. I love that. Cause like, I've done a few short stories, um, that, that deal in religion. And I think that, that that's so important that you're saying something more than like, I don't agree with Christianity or look, there's hypocrisy in Christianity.
01:32:13.13
Michael Allen Rose
yeah
01:32:15.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause first of all, that's, it's just so fucking tired, but,
01:32:16.26
Michael Allen Rose
Exactly.
01:32:19.11
Michael Allen Rose
Yep.
01:32:20.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
to to say something new and to, i actually have a spiritual advisor. He's a a dude I went to college with and he's an Episcopalian minister.
01:32:27.37
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
01:32:29.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so whenever I'm talking about the Christian religion, i tend to talk to him about it instead of my husband, even though my husband's also a Christian, because I want to make sure
01:32:38.93
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
01:32:42.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, i'm up it should spark discussion, you know, and it it's cool with me if people disagree about it, but I never want to be disrespectful and I want to make sure everything I'm saying is true.
01:32:45.52
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
01:32:53.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't want to accuse people of having a theology that they do not have.
01:32:54.02
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:32:57.58
Michael Allen Rose
Right. Yeah.
01:32:58.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know?
01:32:58.78
Michael Allen Rose
My, ah my beloved Sauda, who I mentioned earlier, my partner, she was so instrumental in getting Jurassic Christ finished because she grew up yeah being Lutheran on weekends and going to Catholic school during the week.
01:33:12.55
Michael Allen Rose
So she had both sides of that particular debate and she was basically my religious knowledge reader, So she'd be like, you know, this would be way funnier if you if you mentioned, you know, Nicaea or whatever, you know, like just, I don't know.
01:33:26.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:33:27.91
Michael Allen Rose
like it was so So it was nice to have somebody who was armed correctly, theologically to help me you know tighten up the comedy. But yeah, it's um a lot of my stuff you'll find, Jurassic Christ being one example, is I like a very silly, high concept sort of goofy premise, but usually, and this is at least according to people who've reviewed my stuff, I wouldn't know myself, but ah there's something seriously being said underneath that. like A lot of social satire i like to talk about
01:34:02.22
Michael Allen Rose
you know class and religion and politics and things, but couch that in comedy and ridiculousness because I think it's like that's how you you get past people's defenses that way.
01:34:11.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:34:12.13
Michael Allen Rose
you know Comedy punches viscerally. It hits your gut before it hits your brain and then it's already inside. you know Right.
01:34:19.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep. Well, and I mean, people don't want to be preached at, but they will take in a message if you, if it's an entertaining time and if, you know, people care about the characters you'd you'd think, I mean, it it kind of weirds me out that there are so many, Maga boys that are star Wars fans.
01:34:30.23
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
01:34:41.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like, did you watch Andor?
01:34:42.40
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, and...
01:34:43.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because who do you think Andor is? He's not Trump.
01:34:45.90
Michael Allen Rose
Or for that matter, you know, listening to bands like Rage Against the Machine or Ministry, like, when did they become woke? What?
01:34:53.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
maybe
01:34:55.14
Michael Allen Rose
maybe what
01:34:55.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah what What did you think?
01:34:56.01
Michael Allen Rose
What are you talking about? Did you ever read a lyric sheet?
01:34:57.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
What machine?
01:34:58.64
Michael Allen Rose
What?
01:34:58.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
with it Well, yeah, like, I talked to somebody who had, like, just figured out what Born in the USA is about.
01:35:07.29
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yes. Yes.
01:35:08.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that is like, well, why do they play it at MAGA things? I'm like, dude, I don't know.
01:35:12.67
Michael Allen Rose
They don't get it.
01:35:12.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
i don't think anybody knows.
01:35:14.55
Michael Allen Rose
They don't understand.
01:35:14.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
they played They played Fortunate Son.
01:35:16.76
Michael Allen Rose
Do you remember the band Stained?
01:35:17.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-huh.
01:35:21.16
Michael Allen Rose
That dude, is is he's gone weird mega now. And he's super mad at Bruce Springsteen about Born in the USA. And he he had this whole screed about how like it was so ridiculous.
01:35:33.89
Michael Allen Rose
like, dude, were you not paying attention since like mean that song is older than your career?
01:35:37.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
No. No, they weren't.
01:35:40.97
Michael Allen Rose
and And now you're mad about it because you've swallowed the poop juice or whatever they're drinking over there.
01:35:48.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah It's Ivermectin, right? With a bleach chaser?
01:35:50.16
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, that's right.
01:35:51.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
further
01:35:52.38
Michael Allen Rose
Bleach.
01:35:54.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:35:57.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. So so we talked about this a little bit, but like the crossover between horror and comedy is something I feel really strongly about, obviously, because I'm the publisher of sometimes hilarious horror magazine.
01:36:06.55
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
01:36:10.10
Michael Allen Rose
Absolutely.
01:36:10.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it's so, I think, very much like what you were saying. Like once you you connect to someone with comedy, and you it it builds that trust between the reader and and the author and lets you take anywhere.
01:36:23.57
Michael Allen Rose
Oh yeah.
01:36:26.43
Michael Allen Rose
One, one of the, One of the big drums that I beat over and over again is how comedy and horror have something in common that's very special as far as like types of storytelling go, because both of them hit you viscerally.
01:36:40.79
Michael Allen Rose
So you know you laugh at something.
01:36:40.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Mm-hmm.
01:36:42.88
Michael Allen Rose
That's a gut reaction before you have a chance to process it. or you're scared of something, you scream or you jump. That's a visceral reaction before you have a chance to process it. And if you can combine those two things, that's like magic. Really the only, the only real things that do that horror, comedy, and sex.
01:37:01.36
Michael Allen Rose
It's like, you can scare somebody, you can make them laugh, or you can turn them on before their brains have a chance to really catch up, you know? and So if you can combine those things, and I think that's why, you know,
01:37:14.39
Michael Allen Rose
Horror and comedy, such a wonderful connection. And then, of course, comedy and sex and horror and sex also have long histories of, you know, of of being married together.
01:37:22.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:37:25.02
Michael Allen Rose
Because if you can control those things and hit somebody right in the lizard brain, man, that's magic. Like we're we're doing real magic there, you know?
01:37:35.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah.
01:37:38.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. So what is your favorite horror comedy?
01:37:43.93
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, gosh. um I'm going to give i'll give you two. I'll give you a movie and I'll give you a book.
01:37:50.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:37:50.99
Michael Allen Rose
um I would say the movie, probably ah Tucker and Dale versus Evil.
01:37:57.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my god, I swear to you, I almost peed my pants the first time I saw it
01:38:02.17
Michael Allen Rose
It's so wonderful.
01:38:02.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
When that guy goes in the wood chipper, I was, I mean...
01:38:05.00
Michael Allen Rose
Oh God, it's so good.
01:38:05.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:38:07.43
Michael Allen Rose
And they really get it, you know, cause they're, and they're doing what Bizarro does too. They're deconstructing the tropes, you know, they're taking, they, they know the horror tropes, they're deconstructing them. They're taking them and and turning them upside down or putting them backwards.
01:38:20.74
Michael Allen Rose
And then, you know, gives us that much more fodder for comedy. and And, and that's just, it's such a brilliantly done movie. And I think that's one of the fun things about horror comedy. Some of the stuff that seems the dumbest on the surface is the smartest underneath that because the thing they're making fun of, the reason it looks dumb on the surface is they're making fun of a dumb trope, but they're doing it in a smart way.
01:38:42.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:38:44.16
Michael Allen Rose
It's, it's satire, not parody, you know?
01:38:46.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, South Park.
01:38:47.05
Michael Allen Rose
Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and then the book I would say is actually based on a movie. Um, a few years ago, Jeff Strand, who is one of the absolute Kings of horror comedy did a, um, a novelization of the movie attack of the killer tomatoes.
01:39:02.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Yeah.
01:39:04.41
Michael Allen Rose
It's amazing.
01:39:05.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
I follow Jeff Strand and I figured.
01:39:06.93
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yeah. That book is so much fun.
01:39:10.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's it's so funny that like just just the concept of like, you know what needs a novelization is Killer Tomatoes. Like, I love that movie as a kid.
01:39:21.66
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yeah. Well, and in the book, then he he makes it even more meta. So it's like it's sort of a novelization, but it's also meta novelization where he's talking about the fact that it's a novelization. And he goes into like, oh, it's it's just it's a beautiful again, deconstructing the tropes, you know, taking what we think we know about how a genre works and completely fucking with it.
01:39:37.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:39:43.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
I have to say i was introduced to that concept when I was a kid because of Norman Bridwell, who most people know from Clifford the Big Red Dog, but he wrote a book called How to Care for Your Monster.
01:39:53.38
Michael Allen Rose
Oh,
01:39:57.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it was like a pet ownership manual, but the pets were the universal monsters.
01:39:57.86
Michael Allen Rose
wow.
01:40:02.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it was a werewolf, Frankenstein's monster, a vampire and a mummy.
01:40:02.64
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, that's cool.
01:40:07.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And it was one of my favorite, favorite books as a kid.
01:40:07.77
Michael Allen Rose
That's very cool.
01:40:13.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um... And so that, yeah, that was my introduction to like, hey, wait a minute, they're taking these things, but they're doing this thing with it. That's amazing. And then I had told my grandpa how much I liked it.
01:40:23.30
Michael Allen Rose
That's incredible.
01:40:26.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he told me about Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. And that was something else that was like very digestible for me as a kid. Like, okay, I know why Abbott and Costello are funny. And look how scared they are.
01:40:40.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I'm not scared with them. I'm like laughing at how scared they are. Like, it's totally different. So, yeah, that was very educational for me.
01:40:48.32
Michael Allen Rose
That's so cool.
01:40:50.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Plus, we had a horror host in Detroit. We had Sir Graves Gastly, who would do like, oh, yeah, he'd a man.
01:40:54.75
Michael Allen Rose
Sir Graves ghastly.
01:40:59.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was, you know, because later we had Count Scary and he wasn't really as good. yeah You know, it's like, oh he's trying. But, yeah, he's he's no Sir Graves.
01:41:07.17
Michael Allen Rose
Sure.
01:41:08.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:41:09.20
Michael Allen Rose
Nothing's like nothing like the originals, right?
01:41:11.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Indeed. Indeed. So do you read Christopher Moore? Because
01:41:16.37
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yes. Yep. I love Christopher Moore.
01:41:18.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
it seems like Gospel According to Biff would be right up your alley.
01:41:19.45
Michael Allen Rose
Um, Yeah, Lamb was one of my, that was my first Christopher Moore.
01:41:22.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh,
01:41:25.09
Michael Allen Rose
I read Lamb and I was like, I need more of this.
01:41:25.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay.
01:41:29.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, mine was actually, my first was The Stupidest Angel.
01:41:29.85
Michael Allen Rose
um
01:41:32.54
Michael Allen Rose
Okay, sure.
01:41:32.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then I was like, okay, Pine Cove, I need to know what what else is happening here. And it turned out a lot.
01:41:37.22
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, when I... ah
01:41:37.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
A lot was happening there.
01:41:39.47
Michael Allen Rose
When I get real goofy, I've been compared to Douglas Adams. I've been compared to Christopher Moore. you know, like when I get when I get real silly, I get those comparisons sometimes, which is great because I'm like, yes, those are people who who understood genre fiction and understood how to bring comedy out of genre fiction and and use those.
01:42:00.15
Michael Allen Rose
those tropes and those classic calls and things to be like, yeah, we can make fun of this and we can still love it. You know, it can be a love letter to a genre, but you can also have fun while you're doing it.
01:42:10.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep.
01:42:13.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Very much so. We're actually, we're kind of nearing the end of our time, so I want to make sure there was, a was there anything that we you wanted to talk about we didn't get to?
01:42:24.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I know when we first arranged this, you were talking about a Kickstarter, and it took us a while to get this interview done.
01:42:25.58
Michael Allen Rose
You know, yeah. Yeah.
01:42:33.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
So is that, is your Kickstarter still going on?
01:42:36.41
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah, well, I'd love to talk about that. Actually, um the Kickstarter is over, but the thing it funded is just beginning.
01:42:38.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Please.
01:42:44.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ah.
01:42:44.76
Michael Allen Rose
That's coming up. So I was able to start a little micropress last year called Rochambeau Publishing. We put out our first anthology last year ah called Fragile, which was – it's 20 different stories all started with the same prompt, which was a delivery person is helping move in a house.
01:43:07.94
Michael Allen Rose
Everyone else has gone home for the day. They're finishing up their shift, dropping a box. They think they see the box move. And they're like,
01:43:15.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:43:15.95
Michael Allen Rose
That's none of my business. And then they think they see it move it again. They're like, okay, well, I, maybe I have to deal with this. So they're going to flip a coin to see whether or not they should open this, this family's box that they're moving in. Cause it's not in their purview, obviously.
01:43:29.80
Michael Allen Rose
ah But they don't have a coin. They have a 20 sided die. And before thinking, they roll it. And each of those 20 outcomes is a different thing in that box and the aftermath thereof. So you've got all sorts of horror, bizarro, and other genre people tackling what's in the box and what happens next stories.
01:43:40.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah wow
01:43:48.98
Michael Allen Rose
So that was super fun. um And Rochambeau, the idea of Rochambeau for me was just very slowly not coming out of the gate with a million books, just like doing a cool thing.
01:43:59.98
Michael Allen Rose
And then next year, maybe we'll do another cool thing. Well, this year's cool thing is called Stories from the Motel Sick. And the Motel Sick is a place that I invented back in my very first published novella called Party Wolves in My Skull.
01:44:16.73
Michael Allen Rose
That was on Eraserhead Press back in 2011. But there was a place in that book called the Motel Sick, which is one of those theme motels, you know, where all the rooms are different themes.
01:44:26.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-huh.
01:44:26.41
Michael Allen Rose
But every possible theme you could possibly think of exists somewhere in the metaphysical, metafictional motel sick. um So we've got 18 different authors ah that have created their own room at the motel sick and created a story about what happens in it. We've got horror, bizarro, noir, sci-fi, ah crime fiction, erotica, everything.
01:44:51.86
Michael Allen Rose
All the terrible things that could happen in a weird CD motel with none of the rules of physics or thermodynamics. Um, it's so much fun. I'm so proud of this crazy anthology.
01:45:03.37
Michael Allen Rose
We got some great authors. We got some big fish. We got some little gems, like hidden, you know, your next favorite author kind of people. Um, and it's, it's very community oriented. Like everyone's in it together.
01:45:16.47
Michael Allen Rose
um everyone was super helpful in trying to get the Kickstarter off the ground. We ended up 495% funded, which is crazy
01:45:24.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Dang! That's awesome!
01:45:26.62
Michael Allen Rose
yeah It's nuts. So, I mean, of course that's more work ah for me, but we're doing all kinds of fun, cool stuff for the Kickstarter. Like we're doing motel six or motel sick key fobs, like the old seventies style diamond looking, you know, acrylic ones.
01:45:42.12
Michael Allen Rose
Um,
01:45:42.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah.
01:45:43.16
Michael Allen Rose
tea towels with the motel sick logo on them. I'm writing a bunch of flash fiction for some of the high tier people. um
01:45:49.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
01:45:50.13
Michael Allen Rose
and that should come out. Uh, I believe our projected date is November 26th in just about three months from time of recording. So you'll see more about that.
01:45:59.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
01:46:00.90
Michael Allen Rose
Um, as we get ready to like promote, ah the actual book, but I'm, I'm so proud of it. I'm so happy with it. It's bizarre. It feels like it fell in from a reality just like next to ours.
01:46:12.47
Michael Allen Rose
It's to be so much fun.
01:46:14.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
wow That is really exciting.
01:46:17.06
Michael Allen Rose
i'm I'm super stoked. And everyone's been so cool. And again, you know, like I was saying earlier, making friends, being nice, like so many of these, like the big fish in this book, they're they're working for less than they can demand just about anywhere.
01:46:32.32
Michael Allen Rose
And it's because I asked them nicely and they were like, for you? Yeah.
01:46:35.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah.
01:46:36.66
Michael Allen Rose
And that's so cool. It's just like, you know, again, i guess the idea is be the kind of person that you'd want to work with.
01:46:45.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep.
01:46:47.73
Michael Allen Rose
So yeah, I'm super excited.
01:46:47.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Absolutely.
01:46:49.45
Michael Allen Rose
um You'll be able to find it wherever books are sold, you know, come November. um We'll have our little website up, rochambeaupublishing.com. it's There's not much there yet, but I'm kind of working on it.
01:47:01.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. Cool.
01:47:02.77
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:47:03.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And we'll have links for all that in the description, guys.
01:47:06.50
Michael Allen Rose
Totally.
01:47:07.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
um You have a link tree, right?
01:47:09.29
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, yes. Yeah, you can just link them to Malinktree. That'll send them sending them down a million rabbit holes.
01:47:13.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Alright, so before we get to the Mad Lib, do you have a question for me? Because I do like to give guests a chance to ask me something if they want to.
01:47:23.71
Michael Allen Rose
If you were ah flavor, what flavor would you be?
01:47:33.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. um I guess I would be Cherry Lime.
01:47:40.79
Michael Allen Rose
Cherry lime. Why is that?
01:47:41.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, because... Well, because I'm sweet and and fruity, but underneath there's ah there's a tartness there.
01:47:49.79
Michael Allen Rose
Ah, there's an acidity hidden beneath the surface.
01:47:52.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:47:53.60
Michael Allen Rose
I like it.
01:47:55.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
01:47:55.88
Michael Allen Rose
Also, that's just a great flavor combo.
01:47:58.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, yes, I'm a fan of it in life. Actually, my shop my soap shop, we have one of our biggest selling lip balms is Cherry Lime Ricky.
01:48:01.28
Michael Allen Rose
Well chosen.
01:48:07.60
Michael Allen Rose
um my god, that sounds amazing.
01:48:07.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's a favorite Yeah, our lip balm flavors are great because we do blue strawberry lemonade. We do a chocolate strawberry and a cherry cordial, which is like chocolate and almond and cherry.
01:48:14.15
Michael Allen Rose
Whoa.
01:48:18.35
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my god. That sounds awesome.
01:48:21.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah.
01:48:21.77
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, almond and cherry is such a good combo too.
01:48:21.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you know, it's...
01:48:24.43
Michael Allen Rose
Oh my god.
01:48:24.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah. and And we do like some of them, people requested them and I didn't know if they were going to be good or not. Like we did one that's vanilla mint and I wasn't sure that that was a thing that would work and it totally did.
01:48:31.51
Michael Allen Rose
Yeah.
01:48:33.98
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, nice.
01:48:36.89
Michael Allen Rose
There it is.
01:48:38.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then big we do baking flavor.
01:48:38.97
Michael Allen Rose
you have a You have a soap shop? I need to do a deep dive on you now.
01:48:42.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah You really do.
01:48:42.92
Michael Allen Rose
That's exciting.
01:48:43.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, our shop, it's, you know what, we don't do bath bombs.
01:48:44.14
Michael Allen Rose
you don You don't do bath bombs, do you?
01:48:49.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's like one of the things that we don't do.
01:48:50.61
Michael Allen Rose
Mmm.
01:48:51.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
We do soaps. We do, soap and lip balms are the main aspects of Scared Soap List, but we also have a separate resin shop now.
01:48:54.48
Michael Allen Rose
Okay. Okay.
01:49:00.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we do soap dishes and little trinket boxes and stuff.
01:49:00.65
Michael Allen Rose
Oh.
01:49:03.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
All of our resin projects are useful because I don't like when people do this, like, here's a crystal frog that's the size of your coffee table.
01:49:06.95
Michael Allen Rose
Mm-hmm.
01:49:11.23
Michael Allen Rose
You're right.
01:49:12.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what does it do?
01:49:12.71
Michael Allen Rose
Right.
01:49:14.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, even a paperweight does something.
01:49:14.84
Michael Allen Rose
What do I do with it?
01:49:17.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
So all of our stuff has a function, whether it's wearable or it's a key chain or a magnet for your fridge or you know.
01:49:23.23
Michael Allen Rose
That's cool. Well, I may have to check out your soap shop.
01:49:25.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
horror is our focus. Yeah.
01:49:27.11
Michael Allen Rose
I'm i'm kind of excited about some of those flavor combinations.
01:49:29.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, we're we're on coffee, so it's coffee slash scared soapless is where you find us there.
01:49:32.51
Michael Allen Rose
Cool. Perfect.
01:49:35.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
So in the meantime, I'm going to need some words from you.
01:49:36.32
Michael Allen Rose
Perfect.
01:49:39.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
I need adjectives.
01:49:40.38
Michael Allen Rose
Yes.
01:49:40.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven adjectives. My goodness.
01:49:46.13
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, my gosh.
01:49:46.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Let's have them.
01:49:46.81
Michael Allen Rose
So many adjectives. Okay.
01:49:48.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:49:48.48
Michael Allen Rose
All right. This is seven. All right. Here we go.
01:49:50.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:49:52.31
Michael Allen Rose
Soapy.
01:49:56.10
Michael Allen Rose
Smooth.
01:50:02.38
Michael Allen Rose
um
01:50:06.39
Michael Allen Rose
Polychromatic.
01:50:09.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, I was about to say, i was about to say, you know, colors are fine if you're having trouble, and then you said polygrammatic, so no trouble there.
01:50:09.92
Michael Allen Rose
Don't hear that one every day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Filthy.
01:50:25.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
01:50:25.52
Michael Allen Rose
Uh, sticky.
01:50:30.41
Michael Allen Rose
Round.
01:50:35.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, one more.
01:50:37.11
Michael Allen Rose
Squirming.
01:50:42.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, and I need an animal plural.
01:50:46.52
Michael Allen Rose
Turtles.
01:50:49.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
A verb ending an ing.
01:50:54.15
Michael Allen Rose
Dancing.
01:51:00.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
A person in room that is always the guest. And a plural noun.
01:51:07.15
Michael Allen Rose
Hmm, okay. Let's see a person say that one again oh a plural okay plural noun.
01:51:12.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Plural noun.
01:51:16.35
Michael Allen Rose
um Let's go with hats
01:51:21.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, I need another plural noun.
01:51:25.12
Michael Allen Rose
um Let's go with slime balls
01:51:34.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, I need a noun, a singular one. Actually, I need three, three nouns.
01:51:39.74
Michael Allen Rose
Oh, okay. um Voodoo doll.
01:51:45.15
Michael Allen Rose
Diamond.
01:51:48.15
Michael Allen Rose
Postcard.
01:51:53.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
And two adverbs.
01:51:57.24
Michael Allen Rose
Let's do deliciously.
01:52:02.36
Michael Allen Rose
And quietly.
01:52:07.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, so this is The Curse of the Billy Goats, and this is from the sports section of the Mad Lib book. It's a big giant book.
01:52:16.39
Michael Allen Rose
Interesting.
01:52:18.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, the Chicago Turtles are famous for their bad luck and long dancing streaks. Many people call it a soapy curse.
01:52:30.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
As the story goes, Michael, an immigrant from Transylvania, had two tickets to the 1945 World Series against the Detroit Slime Balls.
01:52:42.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Having no place to leave his smooth pet goat, Dracula, he brought it to the ballpark. Unfortunately, before the polychromatic game was over, it started to rain cats and hats.
01:52:58.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
The goat, soaked to the voodoo doll, began to smell so filthy that the owner of the sticky baseball team deliciously ordered the goat out of the stadium.
01:53:11.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
The owner of the goat was madder than a diamond and said he was putting a round curse on the squirming team. To this day, that st that team still struggles quietly in postseason play.
01:53:26.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
They haven't won a postcard series since 1908.
01:53:33.12
Michael Allen Rose
There's a lot of truth in that.
01:53:33.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Irreverent. I know, right? Yeah, well, I mean, I've been a fan of the Detroit slimeballs for years, but...
01:53:40.61
Michael Allen Rose
Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, they always have a rough season with the, they're, they're sticky. They're very sticky. And, and that's, that's not, it's not productive for baseball, but you know, what are you going to do?
01:53:51.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you know. mean, you soak to the voodoo doll. What are you going to do?
01:53:54.93
Michael Allen Rose
That's right.
01:53:56.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
01:53:56.37
Michael Allen Rose
What are you going to do?
01:53:56.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, dude, I'm so glad you could be here. This was a great conversation. i very much enjoyed it.
01:54:03.35
Michael Allen Rose
Well, thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.
01:54:06.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, right on. So we want to remind all our listeners to find us on coffee, where we are sometimes hilarious horror because... The magazine sponsors the show. So if you want to support us, that is the way.
01:54:19.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And you also get the magazine, which, oh my God, it's so good. um Because the stories are sometimes hilarious and they're also horror. It's exactly what it sounds like.
01:54:30.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we will see everybody next week.
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