Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Author and Activist TT Madden
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Find more from our guest here.
00:00:01.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday Lee Friday and with us today we have T.T. Madden who is a gender fluid mixed race author who refuses to keep politics out of their writing or to put AI Love it!
00:00:19.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Their work writing weird fiction often deals with the intersections of their various identities. Welcome T.T.
00:00:28.02
TT Madden
Hey, Wednesday. i am very excited to be here.
00:00:31.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sweet! Well, we're excited to have you. um As is so often the case, we tried a few different times to to schedule this interview, and now we're finally doing it, so that's good news.
00:00:42.39
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:00:43.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
um We generally do begin by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing, and because you and I have never met before, I have no idea what yours might be.
00:00:56.41
TT Madden
the first one that i remember seeing it was probably the mummy the brendan fraser one um there were definitely some other ones that um i watched at you know like sleepovers in elementary school and stuff um but the mummy is the one that like
00:01:05.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:01:19.64
TT Madden
really stands out to me because I saw that in the theaters um and i remember being like, oh my god this is like the scariest thing ever but also like the coolest feeling and like after that constantly going out and seeking things to replicate that feeling and to you know make my own stuff that also replicated that.
00:01:50.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. So how old were you when that happened?
00:01:54.07
TT Madden
Oh, I was nine and my dad got in big trouble for that one.
00:01:59.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. So horror, not, not encouraged in your household.
00:02:05.43
TT Madden
Well, it it was encouraged, um mostly ah not in front of my little brother because he was a little more sensitive to it. um But my mom could see how excited I was about like all of this scary stuff.
00:02:15.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:02:21.10
TT Madden
And she my dad was always like, oh, yeah, they'll be fine. But my mom took a little more to come around to be like, okay,
00:02:31.90
TT Madden
They really enjoy it. i don't entirely understand it, but it doesn't seem to be scaring them. so i'll I'll allow it.
00:02:42.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Well, yeah, I mean, there was a lot more hysteria around horror, especially like after the 80s. People just really flipped out about it then. So, yeah, people kind of felt the reverberations from that. I know a lot of people in in your age group that their parents were like really opposed to horror or at least were reticent, like watching the movie themselves alone before they showed it to their kids, that sort of thing.
00:03:11.99
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:03:14.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you are an author of weird fiction. Now is that, that's an industry term there, right? Like that is a legit sub genre that's just called the weird stuff, right?
00:03:26.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:03:27.61
TT Madden
yeah so there's... You know, like specific waves of it, you know, like there's new weird with like China Mieville and um Jeff Vandermeer.
00:03:40.06
TT Madden
um But I really like weird fiction because I think um like speculative fiction to me sometimes sounds a little too like hoity-toity.
00:03:52.41
TT Madden
um And though even though I mostly write horror, I dip into sci-fi and fantasy too. So I think really anything where it's just not reality, think good explain where want to live writer. Yeah.
00:04:13.05
TT Madden
explain kind of like where i want to live as a writer
00:04:19.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so who who's the audience for that?
00:04:24.18
TT Madden
I think, thankfully, I think there's so much more cross-genre than there has been recently.
00:04:35.99
TT Madden
um You know, there's a lot of stuff that is marketed to one genre. um Like, I'm thinking of um You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca.
00:04:53.46
TT Madden
um which is always shelved in the horror section, but it's also about like entering inside ah a video game and a virtual reality.
00:05:03.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
right.
00:05:04.66
TT Madden
and so there's a lot of you know sci-fi elements. um
00:05:11.22
TT Madden
And I think... when people hear these or they used to, um when people hear, you know, horror genre, um, they would tend to think more slasher or just kind of like buckets of blood.
00:05:28.95
TT Madden
um and i I, think that people, you know, gratefully are being a little more accepting of like genres kind of like becoming a bit more fluid than they have been in the past. Um,
00:05:44.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, wholeheartedly agree. I'm a big fan of using the broadest interpretation possible when just deciding what is horror and what is not.
00:05:56.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
People have come on this show to say that Jaws is not a horror movie because it's so action-packed.
00:05:56.75
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:06:02.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if you're not horrified by a child being eaten alive in front of you, I'm not even sure classification is your biggest issue. Yeah. You know, like ah horror is is where the horror is, you know? like Because I also, i encounter a lot of people that write in genres that I don't read, like romance, for example, is is probably ah the main one.
00:06:28.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they'll tell me that they don't read horror and then they'll talk about how much they love stuff like white oleander or the lovely bones, which are Yeah, it's it's like chick lit or whatever, but absolutely horrific things happening in the books.
00:06:48.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
But because there's no one in a hockey mask slashing people up, they presume it's not horror. ah Horror doesn't work that way. it's It's so much bigger than that. Maybe sinners.
00:06:58.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Maybe the popularity of sinners will help people understand that horror is a lot more than they're giving it credit for.
00:07:03.48
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:07:05.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Then again, maybe not, given how many idiots still compare it to From Dusk Till Dawn. um
00:07:11.29
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:07:12.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my God, it's infuriating. Um, I do want to talk about your diagnosis. Now I'm aware that you live with anxiety and depression and that you've experienced trauma in addition to gender dysphoria.
00:07:28.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, I'm guessing all of those diagnoses did not come about at the same time. Can you, can you tell us a bit about how that happened?
00:07:37.49
TT Madden
No, so the probably the first thing that I was diagnosed with was OCD and I had um like the biggest manifestation was um having to, um you know, touch things a certain amount of times or the right way.
00:07:58.74
TT Madden
or having to, you know, if I go through a doorway, my brain would go, no, that's not the right way. And I would have to take a step back through the doorway and then enter it the right way again.
00:08:13.43
TT Madden
um you know, certain ticks where if I'm, if I like go around a corner of my house, I had to tap the the corner of the wall.
00:08:24.18
TT Madden
Um, just a lot of stuff like that. Um, that was the big first thing. um and then ah diagnosed with um depression and anxiety in um like throughout high school and college.
00:08:41.27
TT Madden
And ah what I first really figured out that I had, like gender dysphoria, was um like around the time of the of the pandemic, you know everybody was doing a lot of like introspection then.
00:08:59.86
TT Madden
um
00:09:00.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:09:01.30
TT Madden
and once i sort of figured out what was going on there it made some of these other things a little lighter um so those are the things that i've been like like with a professional diagnosed with um the other the other one was, and I know we, um, you asked this question a little bit before we got on mic was, um, is it PTSD?
00:09:33.21
TT Madden
Um, this being from, uh, um, a couple traumatic, like physical incidents that happened to me. Um, and I'm not entirely sure. I'm a little hesitant to claim the status of something that a professional didn't diagnose me with.
00:09:51.96
TT Madden
Um, but Yeah, the the big ones were definitely the anxiety, the depression and the OCD.
00:10:00.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. So you were a child when you exhibited signs of OCD, is that right?
00:10:08.41
TT Madden
Yeah, I was really young, I was maybe in first grade, when the the big, um like ticks started first happening.
00:10:21.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
And was that a school counselor that got you aye diagnosed or did your parents take you in?
00:10:29.30
TT Madden
I saw a counselor in school and then I saw a um separate counselor that um I guess my parents like had through their insurance or something.
00:10:42.39
TT Madden
um
00:10:42.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. aye
00:10:43.48
TT Madden
But I worked with him for a while. um and sometimes it, you know, like initially it was like,
00:10:53.62
TT Madden
I hesitate say crippling because you don't have that much like um agency when you're in like first grade. um But i did like really, with his help, sort of lean away from you know like the example I used earlier of like having to enter and re-enter a room the right way, you know um stuff like that.
00:11:17.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
right my
00:11:22.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's really interesting because it's very different than a lot of what me and and my contemporaries experienced, which is that we were women and we're Gen X.
00:11:34.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
So as long as we could be quiet in class, nobody looked to see if we had any sort of, you know, autism, dyslexia, learning disabilities, OCD, like any, they they didn't even look.
00:11:45.14
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:11:48.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we're all looking at each other in our like 40s and 50s saying, wow, so we weren't just lazy and stupid. Isn't that neat? So
00:11:55.83
TT Madden
Oh, yeah.
00:11:58.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, like i actually, my my OCD thing is about, um being symmetrical. Like if I splash cold water on my left hand, I have to splash cold water on my right hand or nothing makes sense for the rest of the day.
00:12:12.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, up up to and including like minor pain.
00:12:12.92
TT Madden
yeah
00:12:16.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
i have to make it even or it will just, I will fixate on it. And I've never had treatment for that just because I think I had so many other things I needed treatment for. um so while you were getting your various diagnoses i'm also interested to talk about um gender dysphoria so late in life i i think that's something i don't encounter here often on the show a lot of the people i talked to with gender dysphoria knew about it much much younger and i think what i what i wonder is if that's because society is a little better at at talking about things now that
00:12:57.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, a lot of people that I know who became, that you know, they transitioned as adults even. And they didn't realize it was an option. Like, no one had ever brought that up in their presence, you know?
00:13:09.18
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:13:11.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So they're 40, like, well, what what do you mean I'm not the right gender? how how is Is that even a thing? You know, like finding out you should have had a second head. And you, you know, you never met a two-headed person, so nobody ever told you.
00:13:20.20
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:13:24.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
You didn't consider it. So... I don't wanna just sort of open-ended what was that like to be an adult realizing you had gender dysphoria, but I can't think of a wittier question. So what was that like?
00:13:38.78
TT Madden
Well, when I was young, i remember, there was in terms of like gender expression and sexual orientation.
00:13:52.18
TT Madden
When I was young, we knew that like gay was a thing. We were of the generation where it was, you know, still mostly used as an insult.
00:13:58.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:14:03.99
TT Madden
Um, Every once in a while there would be like an adult, like I remember there were um a couple gentlemen who lived across the hall from my grandmother um for years And it was it was literally the the cliche where she said, oh, that's these aren't their real names, but you know that's Jim and his roommate Tom.
00:14:39.32
TT Madden
And I was like, they they have wedding rings on, Grandma. Yeah.
00:14:48.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Roommates have their own bedrooms!
00:14:48.28
TT Madden
arms
00:14:50.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean
00:14:50.55
TT Madden
yeah um So we knew that that um like that was sort of like the only ah expression of queerness in my childhood we did have um a few kids who, um, throughout grade school boys who would dress as girls for Halloween because haha, isn't that funny?
00:15:24.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:15:25.43
TT Madden
And, um,
00:15:29.30
TT Madden
i I don't want to say that it was good natured because it it wasn't like they were female characters from any pop culture or anything. They were just like, hey, what if we dressed as girls?
00:15:41.85
TT Madden
um And then on November 1st, they put pants on again. Yeah.
00:15:48.86
TT Madden
But and in media as well, like the only thing that I really remember um like vividly from childhood that talked about um like transness or gender dysphoria was um not even gender dysphoria. It's just a bunch of terrible transphobic jokes was Ace Ventura.
00:16:17.10
TT Madden
Yeah. So for like way longer than I would have liked, I feel like I was brainwashed by modern culture into believing, oh this is like, it means something's wrong with you.
00:16:35.26
TT Madden
um And then as I got older and my worldview expanded and I met more people and I was exposed to more
00:16:37.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure.
00:16:45.30
TT Madden
queer art, I was like, well, wait a second. This fits with like the things that I have been feeling throughout my childhood where it's like you sort of turn your body off and you don't really feel it.
00:17:06.65
TT Madden
And then when you learn that you can express yourself in a different way, whether it's by um like wearing different clothes or like taking hormones or anything. It's like, oh, wow, I'm actually like, it feels like all of your senses are actually turned on for the first time.
00:17:32.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:17:35.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:17:37.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i'm I'm thinking back actually to early TV in the 80s, really. and And you seem like you're quite a bit younger than me. So perhaps you were not familiar with Soap, the this Susan Harris show that she did before Golden Girls.
00:17:55.54
TT Madden
No, I haven't seen that.
00:17:55.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
um It's a late night or you know, like a primetime spoof of of soap operas, and Billy Crystal played the first openly gay character on television.
00:18:08.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it was, by modern standards, not a great portrayal. Like, they don't even distinguish between, like, the presumption is that because he's gay, he is also trans.
00:18:22.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
He he wishes he was a woman because he likes men.
00:18:25.27
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:18:26.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that that was a big part of it. And also, um, just, uh, I mean, they were, they were trying, but like LA law, they were kind of patting themselves on the back for mentioning something that they were simultaneously playing for laughs.
00:18:44.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause LA law, the old legal show, they're opening their, their pilot episode. One of the lawyers died and it turned out that he had a trans mistress.
00:18:57.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, you know, the, the, I mean, even TV Guide was like, oh, it's so forward.
00:18:58.03
TT Madden
Oh.
00:19:02.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's so you know, modern and it's daring to to bring up these characters. It's not daring to have your main cast laugh at someone for an entire episode and then be like, oh, look how open-minded we are.
00:19:14.34
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:19:17.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I mean, even Iron Man, the the first Iron Man movie has transphobic humor in it. And that wasn't all that long ago. so
00:19:26.86
TT Madden
Oh, it does. I must have blocked that from my memory.
00:19:27.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
we're Oh yeah, there's a you know a military style joke about like, oh, ha ha ha, be sure to you know give Rhodey a good chuckle about the, you know basically that he the the joke is that he got with some person and then found out they were trans and isn't that funny.
00:19:48.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, I mean, it's it's not even a good joke. Like if you you have to make a joke that hurts someone, at least make it a funny joke. Like, you know, I'm um'm a fat chick, so I'm not wild about fatha about fat jokes.
00:20:01.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
But if you tell a funny one, I'll distinguish a funny joke from an unfunny fat joke. I'm not, you know, look that that that matters.
00:20:08.82
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:20:11.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Quality counts. um
00:20:12.82
TT Madden
right
00:20:16.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, um, when you were getting diagnosed, would you say that you had a strong support system in place that you were, uh, like, well, that you were supported, that you, that you, uh, were, were less judged and more like, this is something we're going to work through as opposed to, Hey man, you're a problem now.
00:20:39.16
TT Madden
Yeah, I think with a lot of people, it was really supportive. um There's always someone who is like, I support you, even though I don't entirely understand like what this is that's going on inside your brain, whether it's the, you know, the OCD, the anxiety, the depression, the dysphoria. um
00:21:13.75
TT Madden
And sometimes, even after you've, you know, explained it several times, and they still don't really get it, they're still supportive.
00:21:25.33
TT Madden
um I'm like, okay, that ah that is at least, at least you put in the effort to to try.
00:21:33.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Ugh.
00:21:34.10
TT Madden
um you know, it's okay to not get it as long as you give it a shot. um But yeah, there were some other people who um who thankfully I'm not involved with anymore who were like, you know, what do you have to be sad about?
00:21:57.66
TT Madden
you know, that kind of thing. um Or, you know, ah thinking that a romantic relationship would cure um like anxiety or depression, like that kind of mindset.
00:22:19.48
TT Madden
um But you know, on the whole, like the family and and friends that I have have been very supportive.
00:22:29.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's awesome. That is awesome. Um, because you know, a lot of people don't have that and it makes makes all the difference, I think.
00:22:41.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
So when, uh, when on your journey, did you start writing because it sounds like from what I'm i'm seeing and and reading of you that there's a strong connection between who you are and your journey of self-discovery and your writing career.
00:23:00.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
So when when did those two things meet?
00:23:04.89
TT Madden
yeah i I started writing I think I was in like the second grade when I wrote my first story and it was about like a, cause at that point I was really into, um, Redwall, um, which is still my jam.
00:23:27.19
TT Madden
Um, so I, I did that.
00:23:27.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:23:30.86
TT Madden
And then, um I went through a ah really huge and still am in a big, ah a never ending Lord of the Rings obsession.
00:23:43.83
TT Madden
um so I was doing a lot of like, um like fantasy stories and like, you know, second worlds and stuff like that. um But it was really all just like,
00:24:00.15
TT Madden
cool. And that was kind of like the surface of it. i was like, yeah, I kind of like this story because there's some cool, you know, world building or i like this, like magic system that i created or something like that.
00:24:16.50
TT Madden
um But I was always trying to find like something deeper. um
00:24:27.29
TT Madden
really starting to when I really started to look into like my own journey and my own self and realizing that like these are the things that I'm currently discovering and can write about and these aspects of myself really became like impossible to remove from my writing like i can't it's not enough for me to write something that's like just cool or just fun anymore
00:25:07.99
TT Madden
you know it's got to be about one of these pieces of me or you know something that's going on in the world um that really speaks to um to something that i'm authentically feeling and not just like oh this was a cool story with like a neat dragon not that i knock anybody that does that because i do love to read that from time to time but when you put so much
00:25:36.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, I think what you're saying makes so much sense because I think that a lot of neurodivergent writers in particular feel an obligation to share the insights that we've gained about ourselves with other people that we think will find them helpful.
00:25:57.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and that's where I think a lot of that comes from just
00:25:58.39
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:26:02.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
like the the obligation, like it's, you know, you've done the work. So once you get up a little higher that ladder, next thing that it occurs to you to do is look down to see if anybody else needs a hand.
00:26:17.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that I think is something that liberal people, poor people, creative people, neurodivergent people do far better than their opposites.
00:26:29.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, those sane, high functioning, financially comfortable, you know, types that can blend into any situation because they they tend to be oblivious to things that they aren't directly experiencing.
00:26:30.79
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:26:45.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whereas once you've had to do the the deep dive into yourself as a person, excuse me, it, excuse me it it just makes that much more sense to look around and say, well, how do I help other people with this?
00:27:00.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
How do I help what, what other people are are living with and going through? um
00:27:06.74
TT Madden
OK.
00:27:07.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
and and looking through your book, loading the machine child. um That's, that's one of the things that strikes me about it is that this is not just a book for you. This is a book for people that are figuring their shit out.
00:27:24.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
and uh and first i want to say like the book in general i love the layout i think whoever did your the interior design they make some bold choices with the fonts and the the layout i'm really impressed with it and a lot of publishers just don't emphasize that kind of design and i think it's It's so immersive. Like it's it's so effective in this context that I wish more publishers would look at at things like that. do you have any thoughts about that? About whoever did your design work here?
00:28:00.65
TT Madden
Oh, thank you. That was my publisher at Speculations Publications. That's um who was putting out Loading the Machine Child. um When I first started writing that book, it was the in terms of font, it was way crazier.
00:28:23.80
TT Madden
Um, and I have to give huge props to, um speculations because they were like, we really want to go big with this, but there are also some realities of, um, publishing and printing that I just, as a writer did not understand.
00:28:47.58
TT Madden
Um, so they were like, we want to really want to keep this as, close to what you initially sent us as humanly possible.
00:29:00.79
TT Madden
But there are some things that we just, for one reason or another, just can't pull off. um So they really did and an excellent job of trying to keep this like big, crazy idea that I had with like the font shifts and the POV shifts and, um, all those different like video game texts, um, keeping that intact.
00:29:28.54
TT Madden
Um, and that's just something, there's something that I like to see when I open a book, you know, there's always the one that people go to first is like house of leaves.
00:29:45.18
TT Madden
And for me, for me as a writer, I'm like, that's, I think a little excessive.
00:29:46.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right.
00:29:51.46
TT Madden
I'm never going to do something like that. Um,
00:29:55.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, the thing about House of Leaves is that at a certain point, it starts to feel like work.
00:30:03.38
TT Madden
yeah, yeah.
00:30:03.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like it, it, just it just, it, it reaches a level of frustration that I'm just like, I'm not even enjoying myself.
00:30:05.08
TT Madden
yeah
00:30:12.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why I sat down to read today was to enjoy myself. And now I feel insane. So. Mm-hmm.
00:30:19.35
TT Madden
yeah Yeah, I was like, if I could have something as simple as... um changing the font and the margins when a different character is speaking.
00:30:32.41
TT Madden
um That was something that was like, okay, that's a little thing that I think goes a long way when you're just opening the book and looking at it. And then when you're reading the story, you can really, hopefully, um you'll be able to feel the actual change on the page itself. um And that's just something that I always love to look at as a reader.
00:30:57.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's really interesting because, you know, when I looked at like before I started reading it, when I was just looking at it to get to get the vibe, um what I was thinking was that there are readers like, you know, stodgy boomery type readers.
00:31:14.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
that would dismiss a book out of hand for this, for it its non-traditional style, you know?
00:31:21.96
TT Madden
Mm-hmm. kind
00:31:22.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
And my initial reaction is, oh, what a drag, because people are going to miss out. But at the same time, Not every book is for every person.
00:31:33.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think it's it's perfectly okay to say, this is the audience. This is who this book is for. These are the people that I think this book will write will resonate with.
00:31:45.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So if you can't get with this, this is not the right book for you. You know, as opposed to the author philosophy of, oh, no we have to make the book accessible to everyone. Otherwise, you know, the publisher, blah, blah, blah money, money, whatever.
00:32:01.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
But you you emphatically did not make that choice. You made the book what you wanted it to be.
00:32:10.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
I have such mad respect for that because I don't always do that.
00:32:13.02
TT Madden
thank you
00:32:14.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
I've definitely, i mean, I took a book back from a publisher once, but the first time I was going to get like a legit advance, they wanted so many changes that I eventually just said, well, no, I'm i'm not doing that.
00:32:27.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not cutting out an entire character. That's one of my favorite characters, you know, that sort of thing. And these are, these are difficult decisions.
00:32:36.60
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:32:36.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think that people who don't write, Or who are, you know, they write their own book and then they self edit it and then they self publish it. They're not necessarily thinking about these kinds of things either.
00:32:48.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I'm a pretty philosophical person in everything I do.
00:32:49.39
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:32:54.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
I always want to look at the big picture and how... You know, like not just what something is, but what it it will mean eventually. So yeah, this this really speaks to this. Now, I have to ask you about something else.
00:33:10.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you have a quote, before the actual story starts, from Dan O'Bannon. Now, I have been a zombie fan my whole life. I was maybe seven when I saw Fulci's zombie in the drive-in.
00:33:25.78
TT Madden
Oh, that's so cool.
00:33:25.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
And uh, isn't it? Isn't it? I mean, zombies and sharks were my favorite things at the time because of, of Jaws and, and Night of the Living Dead. So when that happened, I lost my little wet nest mind. It was insane. Um, but Dan O'Bannon is the reason that people think that zombies can talk.
00:33:48.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um,
00:33:49.82
TT Madden
vi
00:33:50.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I, speaking of philosophy, i am opposed to that on a physical philosophical level. mean, now, obviously, zombies are, like, falling in love with people and becoming private detectives and shit. So, you know, it's a little different than than it was then. But back in the day, everybody thought zombies could talk because of that motherfucker Dan O'Bannon. And...
00:34:15.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and you know, when I first went on Facebook and it started to become a thing that regular people could talk to famous people, That was the first thing out of my mouth, man. Dan O'Bannon, what what are you thinking? What were you doing? what what the hell? I mean, thanks for Alien, but like, stop it. Stop saying that. Stop, you know?
00:34:37.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then when i when I finally talked to John Russo, I said the same thing. i was like, how could you let that happen? You worked on Night of the Living Dead and then you're the brains brains guy? Come on, man.
00:34:49.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
um so but it turns out those dudes didn't even take zombies as seriously as i do for for better or worse i guess but but why why did you choose a dan o'bannon quote is is my question
00:35:04.54
TT Madden
So i for a long time, I also really did not like um talking zombies or the whole um like a return of the living deadline.
00:35:16.02
TT Madden
um I really it admittedly was like really uptight about horror comedies. and was like okay there's already a bunch of people who don't like horror and think that everybody who likes horror is just some sort of freak ass degenerate and then if we don't take ourselves seriously then they're never gonna take us seriously um
00:35:47.54
TT Madden
a stance which I think is now horseshit because horror comedies are great.
00:35:51.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
00:35:53.81
TT Madden
I love Tucker and Dale versus evil. I love return to living dead. i love evil dead. Um, and I think it's part of the elasticity of the horror genre that you can have both, um,
00:36:13.46
TT Madden
Night of Living Dead and Return of Living Dead, like coexisting side by side. um But the real reason that um that I picked that quote in particular was because of the making of the movie um to have someone like there's always this narrative of, you know, you're going to discover what you love to do in your 20s. You're going to get married and have kids and everything is like if you don't accomplish these artificial life goals by X amount, X point in your life, then you're somehow a failure.
00:37:01.37
TT Madden
um
00:37:01.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:37:02.26
TT Madden
But I think it's okay to, you know, if you found something that you love and you're still alive, you've still got time to do it.
00:37:15.03
TT Madden
Like, and you can't get lost in, oh man, i I really wish I discovered this earlier or or something like that. um And in the case of of Dan O'Bannon, it being um specifically more directed at directing a film, but really to me, it was like art.
00:37:41.85
TT Madden
whatever that art is, you know, I'm not a film director. um But I know that just from those lines that know that Dan O'Bannon and I have felt the same feeling like this art makes us feel alive.
00:38:03.35
TT Madden
And I think a lot of other people, you know, hopefully you get to experience that and have as much time with that as possible. But even if you don't, and you find it a little later in life, you still get it. And that's incredible.
00:38:20.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right on. Right on. Yeah. i want I want to go back and hit a few of the different things that you said because you said so many extremely relevant things.
00:38:32.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
um One of which is the idea that a horror comedy is horror not taking itself seriously.
00:38:43.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that I you've rethought that since you you first thought it, but um that's something that so many people think that comedy is not serious.
00:38:55.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
that the comedic actors, for example, comedy writers are less diligent and serious people than those who do dramatic work, you know?
00:39:06.93
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:39:07.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
and that's why it's really fun when you find out people that are known for being serious actually have great comedic timing. I was so excited to find out that Jon Hamm had great comedic sensibilities.
00:39:20.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, I was equally excited to find out that people like Will Ferrell, and Jim Carrey and Steve Carell were actually capable really punchy, poignant,
00:39:32.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
i authentic, serious work. I think Stranger Than Fiction is one of those movies that, and it it seems a little off base because it's not necessarily a comedy and it's it's not really a horror movie, but it is about a guy who you're worried is gonna die the whole time.
00:39:51.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
and it's not even about the death.
00:39:51.93
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:39:54.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like he's he's trying to keep himself alive, but only because he just found a reason to, like very recently. And up until then, he was just going through the motions.
00:40:02.78
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:40:05.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
So there's so much there. And when we dismiss comedy as, oh, ah ha ha ha ha, that's, that's you know, the the flip side of of saying that horror is all slashers.
00:40:18.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like people simplify things so that they're easier to denigrate.
00:40:19.04
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:40:22.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
But if you look at what passionate people are doing in the arts, I mean, horror and and comedy both reach people in ways that, you know, a lot of street drama, romance, even action movies, you know, they they don't necessarily resonate with people.
00:40:41.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
because horror and comedy both rely on drawing emotion out of people that they would not have otherwise felt. You know, making someone laugh is involuntary. Startling someone, terrifying them, involuntary. Like, they're there because they want to be. They want that experience, probably.
00:41:02.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
But to actually bring it out of them, you have to hit them in a way that they are not expecting, which is so powerful, so much more powerful than other genres.
00:41:13.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, it seems like whether conscious or not, you absolutely know that and you are taking full advantage of it. So kudos to you, my man.
00:41:24.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Now I also want to talk about trigger warnings because trigger warnings are pretty controversial in the horror and the bizarro communities, a lot of different communities that pride themselves on being weird or extreme, over the top, sometimes they get real precious about trigger warnings. Now I know that you use them, I use them as well.
00:41:51.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
What would you say to people who say, well, you just shouldn't read that genre if you need a trigger warning?
00:41:58.94
TT Madden
Well, I think, you know, like we've already talked a little bit about how um like elastic the horror genre is and the kinds of things that can happen in it. You know, for example, you could probably put the same set of trigger warnings on a straight horror movie as you could on a horror comedy. that's despite them being the same events, they would hit completely and totally differently.
00:42:34.84
TT Madden
um I think it was, um I can't remember the, there was a reviewer. i can't remember who said it. um Maybe someone will be able to help me out later. um That said um they like to use content warnings as opposed to trigger warnings. And just being that specific phrase of,
00:43:03.70
TT Madden
I can tell you what is in what is in this story that is potentially going to set someone off. But people may have legitimate triggers that I have never even considered.
00:43:18.84
TT Madden
um So it just seems like a
00:43:25.66
TT Madden
a bit of a nicer warning, I guess. um And there's also um one that I found that was really funny.
00:43:37.87
TT Madden
It's the um the trigger warning at the beginning of the Nat Cassidy novel, When the Wolf Comes Home. And I'm going to paraphrase it but it's because I don't have the book in front of me.
00:43:51.99
TT Madden
um But it's something along the lines of, you know, people who need this for mental health reasons need it. And if you're sicko like me, you get a little taste of what's coming, which I thought was really funny and a good sort of way to with that.
00:44:06.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:13.72
TT Madden
But but Yeah, I am a big advocate for for content warnings, trigger warnings, whatever you want to say, because they're on literally everything else. We just call them ratings.
00:44:31.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
yep
00:44:31.35
TT Madden
You know, when you look at a movie, it tells you why it's rated r When you look at a video game, it tells you why it's rated M or teen or whatever.
00:44:43.64
TT Madden
um but there's no like governing board for fiction in the same way that there is for these other forms of media.
00:44:57.37
TT Madden
Um, so I think that is an important thing. Um, and also, you know, just like,
00:45:10.85
TT Madden
it's impossible to tell how far someone is really going to go. You know, like I don't think that ah a content warning on a um especially if you're unfamiliar with the, the writer, if you're trying out someone new for the first time um to give you ah a little taste of, of what they're going to do.
00:45:16.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:45:34.57
TT Madden
yeah i think it's a I think there's upon no no reason not to do it. um And if you're so hurt by trigger warnings, then you can skip that page.
00:45:48.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, I mean, it seems like the only legitimate reason to be upset about a trigger warning or a content warning would be if it contains a blatant spoiler and you weren't able to avoid it.
00:46:00.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
So all you really have to do is put those on the back page so that if you're looking for it because you want it it's it's there.
00:46:04.44
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:46:07.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
and If you don't, then you can skip it. Now, I do distinguish between trigger warnings and content warnings,
00:46:11.27
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:46:15.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know if this is the official definition, but as I understand it, a trigger warning is about something that can literally trigger someone with PTSD.
00:46:26.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so that's things like certain kinds of death, you know, children, suicide, sexual assault, war violence, you know, stuff like that.
00:46:27.71
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:46:36.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
But the thing is, i mean, there's, there was an entire website called Does the Dog Die? which was about ah one very specific kind of of warning that has since expanded to a bajillion different kinds of warnings.
00:46:43.58
TT Madden
yeah
00:46:56.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And what it really allows people to do, like if you're a dickish person and you're against those kinds of warnings, you would interpret that as, well, some people just want to avoid reality.
00:47:07.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
But if you have any sort of empathy or kindness, you can say, well, you know, I'm relaxing at the end of the law of a long day. i don't want to read about someone's cat getting murdered by a crazy ex-boyfriend.
00:47:17.59
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:47:18.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I want to know whether or not something like that is coming. So I would distinguish it that way. But like, you know, if if you watch Disney, for example, Disney now has content warnings that say, hey, this movie came out in the 40s.
00:47:34.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's kind of racist. So just be aware before you watch it with your kid.
00:47:37.78
TT Madden
Yes.
00:47:38.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Or, you know, this is a movie where the good guys are smoking cigarettes. So maybe talk to your kids about that and if that's an important issue at your house. You know, that kind of thing, just so that people can be better informed.
00:47:52.76
TT Madden
Mm hmm.
00:47:53.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think that it's it is possible that if we had called it trigger information instead of trigger warnings, that people would be less like, e you need a warning to read a book, you know, like, sit down.
00:48:05.16
TT Madden
Oh, you're so right. Yeah.
00:48:09.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's all in the phrasing.
00:48:11.29
TT Madden
yeah
00:48:11.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
But in the in the horror community, though, i encounter so many people and it's it's just infuriating. It's like, first of all, nobody's story is so perfect and precious that it doesn't matter if it hurts the people who read it.
00:48:29.17
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:48:30.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
If you are a writer, you already know that words have power. And so to write powerful words and then pretend that either people that are, you know, feeling the power of your words are somehow wrong or wimpy for doing that, or this idea that like, what, I just wrote a story. I didn't do anything. And just completely try to absolve yourself of the responsibility of what you put out into the world.
00:48:58.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's just bullshit.
00:49:00.30
TT Madden
yeah
00:49:00.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not, I'm not hearing it. Take responsibility for what you do. And I just think at the core of that attitude like, I don't care if my book hurts people, know, like, I don't think Stephen King writes books with the intention of hurting people.
00:49:17.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
But as a fat person, he is absolutely said shit at his books that hurt me. You know, because the way he talks about fat people is not good.
00:49:23.91
TT Madden
oh yeah yeah
00:49:27.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's also the whole like magical Negro trope.
00:49:30.97
TT Madden
Yeah, I
00:49:31.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's some things in it that are just like, my God, how much fucking cocaine were you on when you wrote this little gangbang orgy between 11 year olds or whatever? Like, you know, but but nobody people don't look at Stephen King and say, oh, he's a terrible person.
00:49:46.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
He wants to hurt people. But at the same time, you can't buy Richard Bachman's Rage anymore because Stephen King wanted it out of print.
00:49:55.75
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:49:58.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I don't even agree with that decision, but I respect that he made it I can recall reading Rage in high school and as a ah weird kid that didn't fit in in an abusive household, i felt very seen by that story.
00:50:16.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's the kind of book that makes you not feel like you should go shoot up a school because look, that guy sees me. They see what I am going through. and and that's valid. But then we find out that several school shooters had it in their presence.
00:50:31.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so he didn't want it out for that reason.
00:50:32.28
TT Madden
Yeah.
00:50:34.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I mean, come on, we we all know what the the number one book that people have in their possession is when they go around hurting people. There is one book that stands out above all other books and we're still selling it.
00:50:50.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's the Bible, if anybody missed that. um
00:50:55.32
TT Madden
Yeah. yeah
00:50:56.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's the the King James Christian Bible. um But yeah, that's that's kind of ah a whole other tangent for a different day, maybe. um But but what what I was going to actually transition into here was empathy, because...
00:51:13.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're American and a lack of empathy, like an aggressive, proud lack of empathy is at the core of our our current political, socio-political scene, really.
00:51:28.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
i mean, for those of you who aren't following the news in America, we're being run by a bunch of fascist bullies who behave like over-sex teens. um How does that impact you as ah as a writer? Like, what what are you doing about that with your work?
00:51:44.82
TT Madden
I think first as a primarily as like a human. And I think I've i've seen a lot of people, um a lot of my friends, a lot of writers that I'm that I just know through like social media and haven't met in person yet posting things like, you know, it's okay to,
00:52:09.40
TT Madden
to you know like slow down it's okay if you're not creating right now because yeah like holy shit just look around um i can't remember who said it but someone someone said that you know want to say was david lynch i'm not entirely sure said that um
00:52:22.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know.
00:52:34.23
TT Madden
if you people think that like artists, um, depressed artists make good art, but it's really that no depressed artists just like lay in their bed and don't want to get up for, you know, days at a time.
00:52:51.42
TT Madden
Um, and that's like very real and something that I think everybody is, um, experiencing right now.
00:52:51.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. yep
00:53:00.71
TT Madden
If you have a soul, um it's hard to look outside and not immediately think bad thoughts.
00:53:12.12
TT Madden
um But I also think that as a any type of creative, um especially if you're a creative coming from a marginalized background, it's impossible to not reflect the things that you're looking at.
00:53:37.30
TT Madden
um
00:53:40.02
TT Madden
For example, I had a friend who wrote a um historical Viking book um that depicted, i'm I can't remember this, this man's name. Um, but it was like partially based on the true story of how, um, Christendom started to like take over Viking culture. and she,
00:54:10.59
TT Madden
unintentionally drew a lot of parallels with like modern demagogues and especially Trump. And she was like, I didn't mean to do that when I was writing it.
00:54:22.54
TT Madden
And I was like, yeah, it just sort of seeps in by osmosis.
00:54:26.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Right.
00:54:27.02
TT Madden
You know, we're just always going to be reflecting the world that's happening around us.
00:54:28.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
right
00:54:36.22
TT Madden
um And I think there is this idea from a lot of people who say something about like, oh, I want, I want to create something timeless, you know, something that's going to last forever.
00:54:54.58
TT Madden
um That has universal themes, you know, is always like the big one.
00:55:01.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:55:01.50
TT Madden
um And really just at and any, any point in history, just look outside, feel what you feel is going on right now. And odds are your gut is going to reflect those things back out without you realizing it.
00:55:25.72
TT Madden
And then, you know, as you keep working, working on it working on it, you'll be able to create a piece of art, whatever that art is of yours, um that has that message.
00:55:39.83
TT Madden
um That's something to respond to what's going on right now. um Like one of the books that I wrote um called the The Shapes of Our Screams was very deliberately about the Florida, the initial Florida drag ban in, gosh, what was it?
00:56:08.54
TT Madden
I think like 2021 or something, maybe even earlier.
00:56:10.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:56:12.25
TT Madden
um And, you know, it's timestamped in in the book too, even though it came out earlier this year. um And I still don't feel like that,
00:56:25.94
TT Madden
is a super old story, um even though it's placed in one specific moment in time, um you know we're still seeing the the ripple effects of of that kind of thinking.
00:56:41.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, totally. Totally. It's interesting because what you were just saying makes me think of the idea, like when you juxtapose artists who say, well, I need to i want my work to be well known, like right away. i want to be a young prodigy. want to you know, be this like huge person that impacts all these different people with my universal message that everyone can relate to But at the same time, you're a fucking kid. You haven't lived through anything yet
00:57:15.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So odds are when you, I mean, you need to live life.
00:57:15.32
TT Madden
yeah
00:57:19.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why AI can't do what artists do because the purpose of art is about making sense of the things that you've experienced, what you've seen and what you've lived.
00:57:23.43
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
00:57:30.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, the most impactful art comes from older people who have lived life and can compare things and see all those patterns, which I think is a little off off the point of that you were making, but but not entirely.
00:57:45.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Now, I'm aware that you live in Baltimore as a mixed race person. And I don't know really enough about that community to know how that, to guess really how that might be going for you. How is it going for you?
00:58:04.79
TT Madden
Well, growing up, I lived in a um predominantly white area. um i was not in the city. um So there was a lot of,
00:58:23.80
TT Madden
what is it called? It's like um romantic racism where someone says something racist, but they mean it as a positive. um you know, like one piece of romantic racism is like all, all Asians are good at math.
00:58:44.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh okay
00:58:44.28
TT Madden
You know, like it's a positive thing, but it's like, okay, what you said was so crazy racist.
00:58:52.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
mm-hmm
00:58:53.62
TT Madden
um So there's a lot of I explained it to someone once as to a lot of the white people that I grew up with, I was um considered black enough to be exotic and interesting, but not considered black enough to be a threat.
00:59:25.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's...
00:59:26.52
TT Madden
which is I think how a lot of people see like this sort of sliding spectrum when do you get into um mixed races.
00:59:27.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
damn.
00:59:45.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's, that's blowing my mind, honestly, because I'm married to a mixed race guy who very much presents as black. And when people meet him, one of the things that they comment about, i mean, they're, it's so offensive.
01:00:00.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
They'll say, oh, he's so articulate. Yeah.
01:00:03.60
TT Madden
Oh, I hate that.
01:00:03.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:00:04.86
TT Madden
I hate that so much.
01:00:05.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
He's a very intelligent man who reads a lot. Like, you know, like, like he's gonna just come in and start throwing ebonics at everyone. Like, I don't, like, what were you expecting? You know what?
01:00:16.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Don't tell me. Don't tell me what you were expecting. Because we might want to still be friends after this.
01:00:18.74
TT Madden
Yeah, I have.
01:00:20.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what?
01:00:21.75
TT Madden
Yeah, I have gotten that too.
01:00:26.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, because I've actually heard someone use the expression talking white. He really talks white. Like, well, I mean, he he is speaking English, but i I don't think that's what you mean.
01:00:34.76
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:00:39.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
i think you're saying something very offensive and I would like you to rethink it, please.
01:00:40.09
TT Madden
Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:45.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, boy, as a white person raised by conservatives, I thought I understood racism until I started hanging out with this guy and it just opened up new worlds of like...
01:00:58.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know, i mean, some of the questions that I was asked are straight out of like, get out. it Really?
01:01:06.33
TT Madden
yeah
01:01:07.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're honestly asking me that question. i'm not telling you what the hell. So, um,
01:01:16.38
TT Madden
Yeah, at at one time I met a a man who had recently emigrated from India um and he was unfamiliar with a lot of the like race stuff that goes on in America. um He was several also several shades darker than my skin and he didn't realize He was like, so why are people being racist to you when my skin is darker?
01:01:52.60
TT Madden
So then there's also that whole different thing of like um country of origin and colorism like bringing into it. So it's not just you know purely about skin tone.
01:02:10.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:13.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let me ask you this for people in vulnerable demographics. What advice would you share in terms of protecting themselves and their people?
01:02:29.46
TT Madden
Yeah, i i would say trust your community. You know, the people around you who you talk to every day. um Also, trust... Well, well i'll I'll do that later. um You know, the people who have been having the same experiences as you, um who know the...
01:02:57.24
TT Madden
specific struggles that someone like you is going through um like one this was very early on um but one of my friends asked me can black people really not get covid and
01:03:18.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whoa!
01:03:19.64
TT Madden
yeah um this was really near the beginning ah like maybe february maybe march or april of 2020 um and i like very very calmly sat him down and explained to him like the whole history of like how racist that was um and he just like genuinely had no idea um but now he knows.
01:03:46.87
TT Madden
Um, so yeah, there are people who have the same like lived experiences as you, um who know the things that you are going through because of whatever this is that marginalizes you, whether it's your, um, your race or your gender presentation um,
01:04:10.36
TT Madden
um neurodivergence or any one of a million things. um And I don't want to entirely sound like a old man with a tinfoil hat, but I would say that don't don't trust any um
01:04:28.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Bye.
01:04:34.87
TT Madden
official entities unless you really really have verified that they're going to do you know what they actually say that they are are going to do
01:04:48.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I mean, that was true 30 years ago, but it's alarmingly true now. i mean, I just saw a picture of the director of the FBI getting drunk in a locker room while, you know, Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped and missing and and never found.
01:04:54.46
TT Madden
yeah
01:05:04.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so yeah, that's, it's, it's terrifying. It's, it's comically terrifying what's going on now. And, uh, Yeah, even if they weren't a cadre of sexual predators and their enablers, it would still just be laughable.
01:05:21.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, if I found out that my new newspaper delivery person was Pete Hegseth, I would just plan to go pick up my paper on my way home because I wouldn't trust him to get it to me.
01:05:31.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So with that in mind, there is a line of thinking that says that it's silly to write fiction or, or you know, work on entertainment at all when the world is burning down around us. What is your take on that?
01:05:49.87
TT Madden
I think it can it can feel that way, and it definitely has felt that way to me a lot recently. you know I've looked at ah a story that I've been writing and gone like, like what the fuck am I doing? like I'm just sitting here behind my computer when there are like a million people in like ICE detention centers and Alligator Alcatraz and nine...
01:06:16.89
TT Madden
nine ah like decades worth of like rape kits that haven't even been opened and like so much other like terrible shit.
01:06:24.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:06:27.10
TT Madden
um And the first thing that you come up with is you're going to drive yourself insane. If you keep thinking about that, um which is not an excuse to block it out entirely.
01:06:43.42
TT Madden
um But i think it's a, way to make sure that you are more focused um in terms of what you can do and how you can help.
01:07:01.43
TT Madden
um If that's something like donating money to aclu or if that's taking food to a food bank or like volunteering your time somewhere um and sometimes that way that you can help is by making art like i remember a lot of terrible times in my life where i've like
01:07:37.30
TT Madden
read or watched or played something. um And sometimes it's just been like a goofy comedy that has taken my mind off of the horrors for 90 minutes.
01:07:54.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:07:54.26
TT Madden
um And other times it's been something that really just like changed my brain chemistry and, know,
01:08:05.69
TT Madden
I think that both of those things are equally valuable. um All of those things are equally valuable. um But you know, it's ah about figuring out what you can do to help like where you can do the most good.
01:08:28.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yeah, that's, that's so on point. And even things that do seem small or insignificant or frivolous can make a world of difference.
01:08:44.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
I had a friend who is about as routinely suicidal as I am. i don't talk about it as much as I used to because hurts my husband's feelings, but, uh,
01:08:55.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
I sent them a copy of the movie airplane because they had never seen it. Now airplane is a spoof movie. It's it's spoofed. It's a movie called, uh,
01:09:06.49
TT Madden
To Leslie Nielsen?
01:09:08.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah, yeah.
01:09:09.59
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:09:09.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
I forget. I forget the the name of the movie that it's, it's a spoofing, but it's like almost, almost a shot for shot from, from a a very serious airplane movie from the forties or fifties.
01:09:23.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, uh, And they watch it every time things get dark for them. They'll just pull it out and watch it and it gets them through because they will laugh for 90 straight minutes and realize, oh yeah, everything doesn't suck.
01:09:41.43
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:09:41.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Surely they can be serious. um that that And it's, you know, the people that made that movie, the suckers, they weren't saying, you know what, we'll make a movie and it'll keep people from killing themselves. Of course they weren't thinking that. They just wanted to make a funny movie because they knew some funny people and, you know, that's what happened. But the reverberating effect of that art is that people hold it and they pass it along. and they i mean, how many people have you met in your life who have a copy of Edvard Munch's The Scream somewhere in their home?
01:10:18.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like probably a third to a half of the neurodivergent people I know have that somewhere in their life.
01:10:19.13
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:10:27.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, you know, Monk, he was just trying to get through the day. He wasn't necessarily trying to inspire generations of people to embrace their mental illness and recreate in artistic ways.
01:10:41.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
He was just trying to figure out his own shit. And i don't even know that he he did that. You know, he he had a ah pretty tough life, tough life as I understand it.
01:10:48.91
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:10:52.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
But the work that you leave behind, you know, sometimes that's all there is. Like a lot of us, I didn't i didn't have kids, you know, i don't's I don't have an estate that I'm leaving to to the betterment of society.
01:11:08.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
but you know, the the stuff that I made, sometimes it helps people. And that's often the best you can do. And that's, and that's thing, like, if you help one person, that's more than a lot of people do.
01:11:17.94
TT Madden
yeah
01:11:26.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if one person's life is better because of a difference that you made, that's valid. And that's worthwhile. And that makes it worth the effort in in most cases.
01:11:38.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that's that's kind of why we do this here is so that those experiences and those those concepts get to people who wouldn't otherwise hear them.
01:11:39.13
TT Madden
Yeah, absolutely.
01:11:52.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I feel sort of... self-aggrandizing when i say that because that sounds like kind of a lofty goal like oh i want to raise awareness sure of the the dozens of people that'll hear this episode some of them will have their awareness raised but you know what that makes a big difference and maybe one of those people takes that information and goes off and does something amazing with it you know like people uh now if we bring up a like uh
01:12:10.18
TT Madden
Conrad Veidt.
01:12:22.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh, who's the guy that played the man who laughs? Quinn Plain. And his name is escaping me at the moment because he's not considered a big name in contemporary acting.
01:12:31.58
TT Madden
um conrad va
01:12:34.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, yes. But see, that's the thing. If you say, hey you know, you you know that Conrad Mayte movie? And people be like, no, what the hell are you talking about? But then when you say, oh you know the the Joker, everybody knows who the Joker is and they wouldn't without that performance from that particular actor.
01:12:42.78
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:12:48.17
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:12:52.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, that sort of thing.
01:12:52.82
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:12:54.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
that These things, they reverb. um Now, if I can get a little more serious with you for a sec, you have indicated a willingness to talk about a time when you were in fear for your life. And we discussed that law enforcement actually contributed to this, which I have no trouble believing. i have never in my life called the police to help with a situation and had them actually help.
01:13:22.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
They've literally never made a situation better for anyone involved.
01:13:22.65
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:13:27.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So what what would you like to tell us?
01:13:31.38
TT Madden
Yeah. I've had a few, um, not great encounters with the police. The only time that I i had a ah positive one um was when I got into a car accident. My friend was driving. Thankfully, everyone was fine. We just sort of skidded off the road into a ditch.
01:13:55.48
TT Madden
um But, you know, my white friend did all the talking. um
01:14:00.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ugh.
01:14:01.53
TT Madden
So you can sort of guess how that went. um
01:14:04.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
the
01:14:06.46
TT Madden
Also, a so crazy disproportionate amount of times that I've dealt with police officers. They've had their hands on their guns, which is insane to me.
01:14:25.59
TT Madden
Um, the first time that it ever happened was, um, there is a, um, a sort of a well-known speed trap around where I live. There's a highway, the speed limit is 70. Then for about three or five miles, it drops down to 55. think I was going 75.
01:14:51.74
TT Madden
and i was going so i think i was going seventy five so i was over what was posted and then I went into the the speed trap. didn't realize it got pulled over. um i pulled over, um the police officer came up to the side of the vehicle.
01:15:13.91
TT Madden
um He said, um Can you turn the music down? I was listening to music, I turned the music down. He said down means off That was my first solo.
01:15:26.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, it doesn't.
01:15:27.88
TT Madden
Yeah, that was my first solo interaction with a cop.
01:15:29.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:15:33.56
TT Madden
So I just turned it off. But my brain said, why didn't you say off then? um And then his next question was, have you been smoking weed tonight?
01:15:48.54
TT Madden
And obviously, I wasn't. um And he asked me these questions with his hand on his gun. And i was like, what, what are you doing, man?
01:16:01.91
TT Madden
um but eventually through all of the scariness, I, you know, just got a speeding ticket and I paid it and I well went about my life. Um, another time we I was at a friend's house.
01:16:18.97
TT Madden
We called the police because the next door neighbor was harassing this friend's family. um Specifically,
01:16:31.89
TT Madden
um a dark-skinned guy who was also there at the house. um The police came up. They wanted to speak to our friend, the subject of harassment alone.
01:16:47.80
TT Madden
um And this guy had also recently emigrated. so um there was some English that he didn't understand.
01:16:59.35
TT Madden
um He looked over to us for assistance and we took another couple steps closer to help out with the translating and the cop that came to help again immediately put his hand on his gun.
01:17:17.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, for fuck's sake. They're such cowards. Such cowards.
01:17:21.34
TT Madden
um
01:17:24.90
TT Madden
Eventually that all, you know, ah we we solved it. Things were okay there. um I also worked at a place where we, um, our routine, it was a library, where our routine for disruptive customers, because we didn't have the security guard at the time was if someone needs to be escorted from building, uh, call the non-emergency number.
01:17:54.04
TT Madden
Um, it happened very, happened very often.
01:17:54.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yikes.
01:17:58.33
TT Madden
um If it's an emergency, you call 911, obviously. um
01:18:03.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, but having to have someone escorted from the building is an emergency because you don't know what's going to happen.
01:18:10.26
TT Madden
Yeah, um but the really bad thing was was um at one point, the local police station told us to stop calling them because we called too much.
01:18:27.51
TT Madden
And that wasn't necessarily a a fear for my life moment like the other ones were, where, you know, it was dark and I'm here alone with somebody who has a firearm that's two seconds away from being pointed at me.
01:18:41.18
TT Madden
um But it wasn't great. Yeah.
01:18:46.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, mean, i mean I don't want to think of myself as an ACAB sort of person. i would like to think that I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I don't know, man.
01:18:59.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean, wanting to be a cop now is like wanting to be an ICE agent. Like, well, what are you doing there if you're a decent person?
01:19:06.42
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:19:07.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's not a benevolent reason to do that in the majority of cases.
01:19:10.37
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:19:12.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
So i appreciate you sharing that, man, because that is good Lord. Now, I'm also aware that you are gender fluid, and I am hoping for those who don't know, can you explain how that would differ from being cis or trans or NB?
01:19:32.66
TT Madden
So typically the, you know, obviously everybody has a different definition. um But you know, if you're cis, typically it's like you are the gender that you were assigned at birth.
01:19:47.77
TT Madden
um
01:19:48.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:19:48.89
TT Madden
If you're trans, you typically transition from one gender to the other. um If you're non-binary, you might not have a gender at all.
01:20:01.46
TT Madden
You might fluctuate between genders. um For me, the definition of gender fluidity in in my particular case is um it's really just almost mood-based.
01:20:20.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:20:20.31
TT Madden
You know, there's like, there's some days where I feel more masculine and I may dress accordingly. And there are some days where I feel more feminine and may dress accordingly.
01:20:36.28
TT Madden
Um, or where, um, you know, makeup or present myself in a different way. like using different mannerisms, um,
01:20:49.75
TT Madden
And sometimes it can last, it can last a ah bunch of different amounts of times. You know, if I'm feeling more femme that may last for a couple hours, it may last for like a week or longer. Um, but for, in, for my personal experience, um,
01:21:19.54
TT Madden
it's really not being like tied down to one specific way of being or one specific way of presenting or, um, holding myself, um, you know, really just not being tied down to all of the things that people expect of, you know, X, Y, Z gender.
01:21:46.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so if I'm hearing you correctly, it's not so much that you feel like you're a different gender on a different day, but that there's a general sense of telling established gender norms to go fuck themselves.
01:22:02.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, you know, some days I, like I'm a cis chick, but some days I feel like putting on makeup and a dress. Some days I don't feel like getting out of my pajamas. Some days I'll put on, you know, overalls and no makeup and a ponytail and just not, you know, care.
01:22:21.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I think that it, is it possible that because some people put so much emphasis on like, oh my god your culottes look like a dress you must be wanting to be a lady or whatever that that people put that on people as opposed to people actually saying well no I'm this gender this day and this gender a different day that it's it's really more about rebelling against the stupid friggin gender rules that some people would voice on us
01:22:55.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because we're we're better than we used to be with gender rules.
01:22:56.12
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:22:58.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, there was a time when women were supposed to wear bajillion petticoats and skirts because if men saw legs move, they would just be like uncontrollably excited or something. And it's it's always about what people are trying to force on you.
01:23:12.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then they want to label you for not being down with whatever restrictive nonsense they've come up with.
01:23:20.06
TT Madden
yeah i i i definitely think there is some of that you know like the idea of we only very recently um decided to we i mean like as a culture um decided to switch the baby colors you know pink used to be for boys and blue used to be for girls
01:23:39.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Yep. yep
01:23:42.42
TT Madden
um razor companies decided, Hey, women have two legs. So why don't we sell more razors and tell them to shave those legs and we can make money.
01:23:57.66
TT Madden
Um, so I think there's some, there is some degree of that. um but also just from like how I was talking about a little bit earlier about what that sort of feeling is to exist in my own body there are definitely days where how I appear in the mirror does not reflect how I feel on the inside and it makes me want to like
01:24:37.72
TT Madden
on my bad days, like really just kind of like shred my own body to pieces. You can tell I'm a heart writer.
01:24:43.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yikes.
01:24:49.11
TT Madden
um
01:24:49.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, say it with knives.
01:24:51.16
TT Madden
But yeah.
01:24:52.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wait. and
01:24:56.09
TT Madden
um Yeah, so and I think that um there is a lot to be said for, you know, if you are a cis man and you want to wear a skirt, it doesn't mean that you're trans. it Maybe it just means that you're at the Ren Faire and you want your beans to breathe because it's hot.
01:25:17.43
TT Madden
You know? which so Which I have a friend that wears a kilt to the Ren Faire and because he goes all the time he goes commando and it's hot because it's the summer and he's drinking all day and he's like, yeah, I just i just want to be comfortable.
01:25:36.38
TT Madden
um And that doesn't make him a trans woman.
01:25:41.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course, of course.
01:25:42.49
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:25:43.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right, well that's yeah I think that's that's a solid explanation. Um, we're getting toward like the last leg of the interview and I want to make sure we're hitting all the important points now.
01:25:58.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
With regard to your catalog if someone is unfamiliar with your work, where is the best place for them to start?
01:26:10.39
TT Madden
I usually would say, so i i work with um I work in libraries a lot. So a lot of the people that i work with are um the almost stereotypical librarian, older women.
01:26:28.09
TT Madden
So I tend to ask what um are like what's your scary threshold? if they have a pretty if If they scare easily, I'll usually say try Gorman's House. It's the young adult book. um It doesn't really get above the equivalent of like a PG-13 rating.
01:26:50.81
TT Madden
um So that's a good place to start. But if you are are well-versed in horror, um i would probably say either um The Shapes of Our Screams, which is a story about a punk band with a, um, gender fluid main character that fights, um, sentient neo-fascist music or the, have or the neon revelation, which is like a, um, revenge against a, um, Christian nationalist cult with a angelic pregnancy.
01:27:18.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, damn.
01:27:34.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, geez. Wow. Wow.
01:27:39.06
TT Madden
Yeah, so it it all gets a little strange.
01:27:39.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're going to need to.
01:27:41.34
TT Madden
But I say depending upon people's, um you know, your individual scare thresholds, there's a different place to start.
01:27:42.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did you get.
01:27:51.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not sure if I have a link tree for you or not, because I'm going to want to make sure to find those for my own reading pleasure. work um
01:27:59.96
TT Madden
I think it is in our email chain somewhere.
01:28:00.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:28:03.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Yeah, ill I'll seek it out. Because yeah, my my TBR race list gets pretty long for the show, but there's just so much stuff that I get to be acquainted with that I wouldn't otherwise. So...
01:28:17.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, and we're going to get a short reading from you at the end of the episode, right? you want to set that up for us?
01:28:25.27
TT Madden
Yes, that is correct. I am going to be reading a short story. This was first published in um an anthology by Bag of Bones Press.
01:28:40.31
TT Madden
um It is a story called um
01:28:46.27
TT Madden
Oh gosh, I had it in front of me and now I lost it. Um, it is a short story about the, um, Mandela effect, um, in ah a horror version.
01:28:51.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
So spent.
01:28:59.59
TT Madden
for those who don't know, the Mandela effect is a, um, like psychological thing where you,
01:29:10.58
TT Madden
recall something that no one else seems to recall um and the big example for that is um people remembering a movie called shazam starring sinbad um but it is really called um kazam and star shaquille o'neal um the title is the absence you cannot remember
01:29:32.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:29:38.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. Cool. So that that will be here after the interview. We're gonna add it in post because I'm magical that way. um
01:29:49.49
TT Madden
sinces
01:29:49.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
So was was there anything that you wanted to talk to that we did not get to? Seems like we covered a lot of great ground, but I want to make sure that we hit all your main points of focus.
01:30:02.14
TT Madden
Yeah, we did a lot for me. um So one thing that I wanted to ask, because I was unfamiliar with this um podcast before my publisher sent it along to me.
01:30:16.25
TT Madden
um And I know there's a lot of talk about in the horror space about you know like damaged characters and a lot of stuff that happens on the page.
01:30:34.90
TT Madden
So I just wanted to ask, what was your inspiration to begin this podcast really talking to the the actual people behind all of this like the writers and seeing how um because we did talk a little bit about craft but we talked a lot about personality um and just the way
01:31:08.86
TT Madden
with your inspiration to focus on the people behind, um, these works as opposed to, um, just like the work itself.
01:31:20.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, yeah, that's, that's a great question. I think, um, just to give you a little backstory on me in 2022, I got real sick and I thought I was dying and I was actually dying, but I got to the hospital in the nick of time.
01:31:35.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, and, uh, I was in a heart failure and by the time I got better, I mean, I realized that I was going to live.
01:31:47.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so I said, all right, you know, i did the the kind of stereotypical, I have a second chance at life. I have to do things. And so I threw myself into a couple different kinds of work.
01:31:54.01
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:31:58.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
I got a lot more serious about sex writing, which was my day job at the time. um And I took some strides with that. I started Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine, which was going to initially be a way for me to make sure that I was writing a new story every week, a new short.
01:32:17.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then started putting them together and featuring other artists. And before I knew it, it was a whole magazine. And so I was featuring other artists, other authors, and then a cover artist.
01:32:30.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I was doing interviews with everybody every week. And one of the things that I noticed was that pretty much everybody, like the people that were sending me the very best work that i enjoyed and that resonated with me the most, were neurodivergent people.
01:32:47.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that regardless of the discipline, i knew so many people that were using their art as a way to work through their, their mental health, their emotional health, past trauma, um, maintaining sobriety, like all these different things.
01:33:05.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I said, you know, this is the kind of thing that more people need to know about because it's hopeful and it's informative and it often can provide actionable tips for people that are are struggling and it really goes back to what what we were saying earlier about the world is falling down around you what can you do well this is a thing I can do. I have a degree in broadcasting and I'm kind of a loud mouth and know a lot of people. So it's, it was my hope that by sharing these stories that it would inspire people to, to a greater understanding, to more discussion, to more empathy.
01:33:50.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, And if i do say so myself, I think that it is effective and on a pretty small scale because our listenership is not enormous.
01:34:02.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I hear from at least one person about every episode. Someone will tell me something that was helpful to them. We had a gentleman on here who is a great writer and a fine person.
01:34:15.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he has a stutter and he was really afraid to do a podcast because he's got a stutter. And he he did it.
01:34:21.40
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:34:22.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know he He took that leap and I managed to, you know I was able to cut it together in a way that did not hide the fact that he had a stutter, but that that made it, I think, a little more comfortable in that way that it can sometimes be uncomfortable.
01:34:39.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
to to have a talk with with someone with a stutter.
01:34:40.41
TT Madden
Mm-hmm.
01:34:43.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And the episode was barely up for a day. And I heard from a friend of mine saying, you know, my daughter has a stutter and she had that big speech and she didn't want to do it. And I had her listen to this episode.
01:34:53.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And by the end of it, she could. you know, and something, right?
01:34:56.70
TT Madden
Oh, that's so great. Yeah.
01:34:58.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it's so small and it's so simple, but it makes a big difference, you know?
01:35:04.47
TT Madden
yeah
01:35:04.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then it turns out that the speech that they were giving, they're in medical school, which means that that could have, you know, i mean, who knows what that could, like, you know, did the, the,
01:35:19.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's it's hard to to, even grasp this, the scope of that sort of thing. Like, so I inspired a medical student just by introducing them to my friend, you know, which, yeah.
01:35:30.91
TT Madden
that's That's really cool.
01:35:34.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so that's, that's what I hope to do. you know, If I can keep doing it and if if I stay alive for another couple of years, who knows, you know, can I can reach more and more people. So that is the goal. And just to let people know, like we say at the beginning of the show, that whatever you're going through, you're not alone.
01:35:57.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you can make art about it because art helps. Even if you're the only person it helps, it still helps.
01:36:02.42
TT Madden
instance
01:36:06.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
But that's almost never true. When you share your art with people, it, you know, like we like we said, it it can create just like a chain reaction. So I hope that answers your question.
01:36:16.25
TT Madden
Yeah.
01:36:19.99
TT Madden
Yeah, that was excellent.
01:36:22.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Sweet. Well, guess what, man? It's time for the Mad Lib. So I hope you are ready for this. Let's see.
01:36:32.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're going to start with some adjectives. I need one, two three, three adjectives.
01:36:43.03
TT Madden
Three adjectives. Let's see. Spiky.
01:36:50.90
TT Madden
Dark. Wet. Yeah, I'm a writer, a hard writer. Okay.
01:36:59.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, i need, let's see, nouns. One, two, three singular nouns.
01:37:07.64
TT Madden
Cat.
01:37:10.46
TT Madden
cat tree lamp
01:37:19.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, need two verbs that end in ing.
01:37:26.99
TT Madden
to the end in ing walking biting. biting
01:37:39.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
And let's see, person in a room, that is always the guest. A place.
01:37:50.95
TT Madden
Saturn.
01:37:54.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, I need an animal plural.
01:38:03.07
TT Madden
Worms.
01:38:07.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. And a celebrity.
01:38:14.09
TT Madden
John Cena.
01:38:17.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. And there's another person in room here. So that's me. Um, I need a number.
01:38:28.16
TT Madden
42. Plural noun.
01:38:31.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
right. And a plural noun.
01:38:35.38
TT Madden
Cars. Stomp. cars
01:38:41.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
and of verb.
01:38:47.03
TT Madden
stop
01:38:50.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so this is called A Morning Person. Are you cheery and spiky at the crack of dawn?
01:39:01.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do you leap out of bed early in the morning, ready to greet the world with a dazzling cat? As a journalist, you can quickly switch gears from interviewing the ruler of Saturn to quizzing an expert on the effects of global walking on the planet to judging a beauty contest for worms.
01:39:22.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Then you could be the dark morning show host we're looking for. The number one red show, Good Morning Tree, is searching for a co-host to join the current host, T.T.
01:39:38.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
The show combines wet, hard news stories with lighter pieces, such as cooking and biting segments, interviews with A-listers like John Cena and Wetness, and fashion tips, such as a Hundred Stylish Ways to Wear a Feathered Lamp.
01:39:56.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
The salary is $42 a year plus a generous allowance for clothing and cars. Are you qualified? Then stomp by today for an application.
01:40:10.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yay.
01:40:12.94
TT Madden
That's incredible.
01:40:14.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
I always enjoy the Mad Libs so much.
01:40:19.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. We want to remind our listeners to please find us on coffee. That's KO hyphen F I supporting us. There is the best way to support the show. And we want to thank TT for being here.
01:40:34.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
And is there anything else you want to say before we go?
01:40:39.51
TT Madden
No, just that thank you for having me. i had a blast.
01:40:43.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. We'll stay tuned and we'll have a short story coming right up and then we'll see everybody next week. Bye.
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