Episode 63: Quarantine Self-Care w/ BJ Colangelo!

*This week, Michael and Brennan are remotely joined by writer and filmmaker BJ Colangelo to dole out some hot self care tips for this incredibly trying time!*

*Topics include cooking, actual professional social/emotional care advice, dogs, podcasts, and the spectrum of healing horror.*

*Plus, in Tea Time we discuss ROCK OF LOVE and its many spinoffs, CURSED (the Shudder show), THE EXORCIST, THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE, and THE SQUEAKER![1]*

## **Trivia**

Episode 8 of season 2, episode 63 overall. Nay was not on this episode because she was dealing with her family being directly impacted by the pandemic. Check out BJ's first movie (title). First-ever remotely recorded episode of the show. Theme by VonKiss.

Topics brought up during the episode: *Quarantine* movies, panic attacks, Ohio shutdown early for the pandemic, Wine with DeWine, hair metal, Bret Michaels, *Poltergeist* (1981), *The Omen* (1977), the making of *The Exorcist* (1973), the public's reaction to the release of *The Exorcist* (1973), the real exorcism that *The Exorcist* (1973) is based on, the "real" exorcist from the *Cursed episode on The Exorcist* (1973), the *Poltergeist* curse, Linda Blair, Linda Blair's animal haven, Carole Baskin, Kyra [ ] aka "Judy in the basement" from *Night of the Living Dead* (1968), Cinema Wasteland, Nicole from *Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead* (on a shirt?), house from *People Under the Stairs* being up for sale, Ted Geoghan, *We Are Still Here*, Friday Night Frights, Wendy Robie, gospel of Chingy with mommy energy, Shudder's quarantine promo

## **Tea Time**

**BJ:** *Rock of Love*, *Rock of Love* season 2, *Bus of Love*, *Daisy of Love*

**Michael:** Started Shudder's new original series *Cursed* (only the first episode on *The Exorcist (1973)* was available at the time of recording), rewatch of *The Exorcist* (1973),

**Brennan:** couple more entries from his krimi marathon, (one of them is a song, one of them is not) *Der Fuerger from Schloss Blackmoore*, which means *The Strangler of Blackmoore Castle, Der Sinka,* which means *The Squeaker*

## **Recommendations**

### **Movies/TV/Podcasts:**

**Michael:** "Trash horror", *Return of the Living Dead,* the *Final Destination* franchise, any franchise you love, the *Friday the 13th* franchise, The Dollop (specifically the one about Ronald Reagan),

**BJ:** *Fright Night* (1985), *Phantom of the Paradise, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead*, *Serial Mom, The Final Girls, Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2 U, Mayhem*,

**Brennan:** The "campy side of horror", *Bloody Moon* (English dub), *The People Under the Stairs*, *Were the World Mine*, *The Boy Next Door, Idle Hands, Nailed It!,* My Dad Wrote a Porno, Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids, Staying In with Kumail and Emily,

### **Video Games:**

**Michael:** *Until Dawn*, *Uno* on PlayStation 4

**BJ:** let's plays of Resident Evil 3 remake, *Animal Crossing: New Horizons*

**Brennan:** *Let's Go, Pikachu!*

### **Activities:**

**Michael:** Cooking, doing the dishes

**Brennan:** Eyedrops to rest your eyes and help prevent eye strain, listen to other podcasts, play a game of Solitaire (with real cards), go for a walk, just sit in the dark and sit with an artist that you really love and experience a full album, masturbation (use your imagination rather than stare at a screen)

**BJ:** If you're quarantined with your partner, learn more about each other's bodies on an intimate level in ways that you normally wouldn't be able to

### **Food:**

**Michael:** "Homemade" tomato soup and grilled cheese, Kraft Mac & Cheese with cut up hot dogs mixed in

**BJ:** Classic comfort snacks, frozen character-shaped chicken nuggets, character-shaped Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Spaghettios, Lunchables, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Beefaroni,

**Brennan:** Carrot Cake Oreos

### **Self-care tips:**

**BJ:** if you're trying to find information about what's going on in the world but you just don't wanna be consumed by the everything? Google whatever topic it is, so maybe it's you know, wearing the masks or whatever. Just type, "How to explain COVID-19 to children". "How to explain wearing masks in public to children." Adding that little bit of, "...to children," will start bringing up resources that have sucked out all of the traumatic language, it sucks out all of the, "We're trying to get your clicks shocking…"

Social Emotional care question: I need you to think right now about how you're feeling in this moment. How *you're* really actually feeling. But rather than telling me, "I'm calm," or "I'm happy," I want you to try to describe your mood if your mood was a state of water. So, if your mood was a state of water, how would you describe it?

Breathing exercise: What you do is, I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about yourself as if you are a tire slowly losing air. So you breathe in through your nose and when you breathe out, you make an "S" sound. And don't worry about trying to make the "S" sound as long as possible, just slowly listen to how your air starts off strong and slowly disappears. (BJ demonstrates the "S" sound.) And by doing that, it should slowly help you calm all of your central nervous system, your heart rate. Everything should help slow down, and mentally it'll calm you down because you have the audio cue of what that sounds like of you calming down.

Grounding yourself: This one is recommended a lot by therapists and other social/emotional educators is to think when you start having that feeling of panic or just when things feel like they're out of control, try to think of five things in that moment you can see. Four things that you could touch. You don't have to touch them, but in that moment know there are four things in this room that you can touch. Think of three things you can hear. So, even if they're not in your room, think of three things that you know the sound of. Think of two things that you can smell, that you know what that smell is like. "This is the smell of my grandmother's perfume," or, "This is the smell of my favorite candy." Whatever. And then one thing that you can taste. What is one thing that you know for sure the taste of. And doing those sensory check-ins and giving numbers to them, they can really really help you just bring you back down to Earth.

**Brennan:** A buffer around bedtime: So an hour before I go to bed and an hour after I wake up, I'm not reading *any* news.

## **Quotes**

**Michael:** What did I say yesterday in the email about today's show? I might rage for a second at the top of the show before we get to the happiness

**Brennan:** Are you ready? Do you need to?

**Michael:** Well, you know, fuck Trump, fuck his face, fuck his whole family

**Brennan:** No thank you

**BJ:** About two A.M. last night is when I hit my breaking point, where I was just like, "I'm just gonna burn it all fuckin' down!"

**Michael:** Yeah. It's hard not to burn it down every other day

**BJ:** Just don't fuckin' touch people. If you have to go in public leave them alone. Don't go near them. Stop thinking that outside magically means, "Well there's six feet of air above us so we're fine!" No. Stop!

**Michael:** It's like the one time someone can avoid somebody else without being scolded for it. Do it!

**Brennan:** Honestly, that part of it is a silver lining. I don't care if you think I'm rude anymore. It's like, "I'm gonna cross the street, goodbye."

**Michael:** Yeah, when I'm out walking Scooby and I see a person coming, I immediately cross the street. I've actually taken to walking her in the middle of the street, 'cause to me that is like the safest buffer, is most people won't walk in the street and I thankfully live in a residential enough neighborhood that a car rarely does drive down while we're in the middle of the street. So Scooby has now gotten to the point that when we *do* go outside, she just immediately wants to run in the middle of the street. So when this is all over, we're gonna prolly have to re-train her on *not* running into the middle of the street. But who knew that a dog running in the middle of the street was safest for her and for us right now? She literally looks at me like, "Okay, let's go to the street, Dad."

**Brennan:** Do you identify as "Dad" for Scooby?

**Michael:** Yeah, in a lot of ways. I'll say she's my- Brian and I really take to the idea that she's our pet. I treat her like she's my child because I love her so much. So I'm okay with being a dog dad. But it seems weird to call her my "daughter". 'Cause someone has said that to me, like, "Your little daughter." And I'm like, "Mmm, she's my dog."

**BJ:** As long as you don't call her your "furbaby" I don't care. That's the one thing like, you're disgusting. Stop calling pets your "furbabies". That's gross

**Michael:** She's not my furbaby. She's my everything. I actually texted Nay last night and said, "If I were to die while Scooby is alive, I hope she eats my fucking face." That's how much I love her. I want her to eat me

**Brennan:** It's like, "I wanna exist inside her."

**Michael:** I want her, if for some reason, I were to die in the apartment and no one could get to her for a few days, eat me to stay alive as a dog

**Brennan:** Yeah. Get those calories

**BJ:** See, that's true parental love right there. You are dad.

**BJ:** I remember watching *Rock of Love* when I was younger but a lot of it didn't stick with me. And upon rewatch it is just this perfect time capsule of sort of Myspace era America

**Michael:** Oh my God

**BJ:** And the normalized way that we communicated with each other, the *horrible* fashion. I mean, even just the difference between one season to the next you can see like, "Oh, this is where scene music got really big," just based on their outfits. At the same time it's also wild as hell because so much stuff would just not fly today

**Michael:** Oh no

**BJ:** It's one of the most problematic things I've ever watched, but like, never was I like, "Buh, I'm offended at this!" Because I was like, no. In 2009, we legitimately called everybody a slut and a whore even if they weren't because that's just how people talked to each other. It's so strange to see how something so normalized is now like "Nope". Like hard line not happening. And it's been enjoyable trying to revisit that in a weird way

**Brennan:** It's an anthropological study

**Michael:** It is. Reality TV even ten years ago was so different than today. I don't think people realize, because there's so much reality TV *now*, but the true reality TV renaissance happened like fifteen years ago. It was such a different- like even *Bachelor* has been around this entire time but, and it's still really popular, but I feel like even that was so different ten years ago. And it's probably the same shit. Remember *The Simple Life* and that kind of reality TV?

**BJ:** Oh yes, how could we forget

**Michael:** There was a lot more of- *Rock of Love* is, I guess *The Bachelor*, right, in a lot of ways

**BJ:** It's essentially *The Bachelor,* but it came during that peak of VH1 reality shows where all the reality shows also had spin-offs. So there was *Charm School* and *Flavor of Love* and just all this *mess*, and these women became these certifiable stars for doing nothing. Other than being on these shows. I remember they would advertise, (sleazy announcer voice) "So-and-so from *Rock of Love* will be at the club on Saturday! Come and see her!" (normal voice) And that was a draw. You could go see these people who got kicked off of a show to try and date Bret fucking Michaels. And that was the world we lived in. It's *wild* to me

**Brennan:** Was Bret Michaels "the *prize*" on each of those seasons or was it different?

**Michael:** (chuckling) "The Prize"

**Brennan:** I don't know!

**BJ:** Bret Michaels was the prize on all of the *Rock of Love*, and then *Daisy of Love* is Daisy De la Hoya, who was second place on season two, and she got her own spin-off show where men were vying for her because Bret rejected her. And let me tell you, the toxicity of men in 2009 that were vying for this, it is just like everyone is a walking red flag. Like they all have anger issues, they all are like *way* too into appearances. They have all never been told "No" in their lives and freak the fuck out when she finally does. It is one of the most horrific things, because watching it, I was like, "I don't remember watching this," you know. A lot of stuff didn't register and it's like, "Oh. Because I blocked this out." Because this reminded me *way* too much of every dude that was interested in me in college

**Michael:** You would think by season three or four of *Rock of Love* that one of the girls would be like, "Mmm, the fact that this show is in season four means you can't carry a relationship." You know what I mean?

**BJ:** Sometimes the girls throw really nice shade about him. Because as we all know, Mister Bret Michaels famously had big beautiful hair in the eighties, and now wears very expensive extensions and wears a bandana to cover up the hairline because I don't think anyone ever taught him how to glue down a wig. Almost all of them, when they get rejected, they're like, "Whatever! He wears wigs. Fuck him!" And I'm like, "You know what? I can't be mad about this. He *does.*" There's nothing wrong with wearing wigs, but Bret Michaels, who ya foolin'? It's like when Trump says his hair's real. It's like, "Mmmmm. Okay."

**Michael:** "Mmmmm. Own it."

**BJ:** Exactly. Just own it! Be like, "I bought this, this is expensive, and it looks great." I'd be like, "Yeah."

**Michael:** I also rewatched *The Exorcist* (1973) for like the millionth time and came to the conclusion that it *is* the greatest movie ever made. It's just, *The Exorcist* is fucking perfect.

**Michael:** There are a lot of people in horror that we laud still to this day from something they did fifty years ago, but a lot of people don't look at them as anything other than that twelve year-old girl she was fifty years ago, you know what I mean? So it's like a give-and-take

**BJ:** Well, think about how many people still make Felissa Rose do the open mouth scream from *Sleepaway Camp*, and it's like, she's a mom now.

**Michael:** Right. Like they're royalty, but at the same time a lot of people don't let them be anything *but* the person they saw thirty, forty, fifty years ago. And it's like, y'know, it's just an interesting thing to view from the outside

**Brennan:** Yeah, 'cause how many things from that age would you say are a defining aspect of the character of who you are now? I don't think anything I did when I was twelve is something that I think about as like, *intrinsically* me. And if everyone in the world was like, "Oh yeah, remember that time you, I dunno, peed your pants at your birthday party when you were twelve?" And I'm like, "I'm *twenty-five*. This is not my life anymore."

**Michael:** Yeah. But then you have the Jamie Lee Curtis of it all, who in interviews in the last year or two always talks about how she knows when she dies, she's gonna be listed as, "*Halloween* actress Jamie Lee Curtis passes away," and she's fully embraced that. And it's really cool to hear her talk about how something she did so young defined her whole life and how she's embraced it. I'm sure it also helps that she had a hit movie playing the same  exact character forty years later, y'know, to kind of reignite the passion for that character of when she was nineteen years-old when she made it. But it's such an interesting thing to just watch royalty and the fandom around royalty when you set yourself outside of horror and just watch it play out. Like you said, sometimes it's really cool and then sometimes you're like, "Stop asking Felissa Rose to make that open-mouth face from thirty-five years ago."

**Brennan:** For anyone just joining us, the krimi movies are these 1960s proto-slashers from Germany. They're pretty much all based on the British crime novels by Edgar Wallace, and they're all set in London even though they're German and all the newspapers are in German and everything. And then I had a fundraiser for people to donate, and I'm doing a review for everyone who donated.

**Brennan:** This first one is for Adam, @winemovienerd. The movie that I watched is a 1963 Harold Reimelt joint, it's called *Der Fuerger from Schloss Blackmoore*, which means *The Strangler of Blackmoore Castle*. I'm sorry Adam, this one was not very good. You don't have to watch it. Not that I expect anyone to do that. It's basically, I dunno. It opens on this dinner party where this guy just got his knighthood and there's this lurking murderer who's kind of strangling everyone around to kind of get revenge. But it's not like a *And Then There Were None* kind of situation, like everyone just kind of leaves and then it's just a bunch of random days in this castle that a bunch of random people who walk by just get strangled and it's not really that interesting except that one of the victims has an "M" carved on their forehead, just like Fritz Lang's *M*. So Germany still hadn't forgotten one of their big horror movies thirty years later. It's all very over-the-top, you know, wild drama. There is a part where the sister who gets strangled, she's, you know, they find her body and she has just enough life within her to give these really detailed clues as to who the murderer is. She's like, "His right thumb was extra-long and strong," or whatever, you know, she did this whole thing and *then* she dies. And it's the kind of movie where people tell each other, "Never forget, we have a secret pact." There is a really cool part where this guy is threatening to cut out another man's eyes with a diamond drill, which was pretty intense.

**Michael:** Did he do it?

**Brennan:** No.

**Michael:** Oh well then

**Brennan:** And then characters vanish for huge chunks of the movie. It wasn't my favorite of these.

**Michael:** What was that one called again?

**Brennan:** *The Strangler of Blackmoore Castle*

**Michael:** Wow. That's a cool title

**Brennan:** Yeah, that's why I wanted to watch it

**Michael:** Was there any strangling in Blackmoore Castle?

**Brennan:** I mean, yeah, but not of people who really mattered

**Michael:** I feel like if you're gonna throw the word "strangle" in the title, you've gotta strangle everybody, right?

**Brennan:** Look, I watched this probably a month ago, so I have my notes to reference more than I have my memory

**Michael:** That would be like naming a movie "The Axe Murders at Spielman Dorm" and then like nine people die by a knife and one person dies by an axe

**Brennan:** There's definitely- look, it delivers on some strangling.

**Michael:** Okay, that's all I needed to know

**Brennan:** It was the easiest way to show deaths at that time

**Michael:** It is. Bloodless

**Brennan:** It's cheap, it's not super gory

**Brennan:** This one is a song. It's on behalf of Christopher Morrison, who also donated. It's also from 1963. It's by Alfred Vorer(?) Also regarding Christopher Morrison, he has a film called *The Bellwether* that you should all investigate, look into. This movie is called *Der Sinka*, which means *The Squeaker*

**Brennan:** In case my atonal squeaking doesn't clue you in, this is to the tune of "Don't Speak" by No Doubt

*This movie, it is so convoluted*

*Nothing in it makes any sense*

*There's a scene with Klaus Kinski*

*kissing a snake and a trained monkey butler*

*You might think I'm kidding, no*

*This is all real I just want you to know*

*Don't Squeak, it's your own time you're wasting*

*This plot is copy-pastin'*

*We've seen this all before*

*No, no, don't squeak*

*This movie has no meaning*

*A jewel heist for no reason*

*And a cop who roars* (Check my Twitter for that one)

*And in the ending, there's a talking painting, tell me why*

*Ber-der-bum-bum-bum*

*This movie's a waste of a good title, seriously*

*Don't Squeak,*

*They try hard to be British, with mistranslated English*

*Here are some actual lines:*

"I'm so happy there's no longer any trace of evil in you."

"Whenever you have anything to say, there's a worm in it."

And then there's a part where after a jewel heist, an ambulance picks up a guy who had a heart attack and this other man looks at the ambulance and exclaims, "An excellent organization!" So, that's what I got

**Michael:** Ambulances *are* an excellent organization

**Brennan:** It's true, you know?

**Michael:** They're doing really great work

**Brennan:** I mean, thank you to the first responders out there! I mean, never been truer!

**Michael:** Brennan, you should get that clip of just that line

**Brennan:** Oh, I should

**Michael:** Put that fucking on the internet. Video that shit. Put it on Instagram. I'll tweet it

**Brennan:** Yeah, he's not wrong. It was just a weird time to say it

**Michael:** Oh yeah. And it's also a weird thing to say *at* an *actual* ambulance

**Brennan:** Yeah, not like at the Paramedics

**Michael:** Right, or at like, I dunno, the head (unintelligible)

**Brennan:** And this was just a passerby, too. He didn't know the person who was being put in the ambulance. He was just like, "Oh, I sure love ambulances!"

**Michael:** You know, I'm with him I'm with him right now

**Brennan:** Yeah

**BJ:** I don't know why, but my brain just went to that scene in *Drop Dead Gorgeous* when the swan explodes and everyone's running in terror and the mayor's just clapping and is like, "Good job! Good job!" And I can just think of this person seeing an ambulance and somebody getting pulled away and being like, "An excellent organization!" That's where I want it to live now, so I'm just gonna….

**Michael:** I'm gonna say that in just the most random ways now.

**Brennan:** Oh yeah

**Michael:** "Did you watch *Scream 3*?" "Yes. What an excellent organization."

**Brennan:** That should be the new sub-tagline for our podcast

**Michael:** Yeah, that is really funny

**BJ:** I do straight-up use, "And Sam is also present," in my real life

**Brennan:** Oh really?

**BJ:** Like the other day, Harmony cooked this great meal and we were on a Zoom chat and everyone was like, "Oh, that looks so nice!" Like, "Yeah, I did this and this!" And I was like, "And Sam is also present!" No one knows what it means

**Brennan:** It's such a niche joke

**BJ:** If I'm anything, it's niche

**Brennan:** That's true. That's kind of our whole deal

**Michael:** Yeah. On-brand

**Brennan:** We've been meaning to do more roundtable discussion topics, and figured there's no better time! Basically, we wanna kind of go around the horn and talk about some quarantine self-isolation self-care recommendations. They could be movies or types of movies, but they could also just be like, you know, "Here's what we're doing as we try to hunker down and get through this thing."

**Brennan:** Stuff that I have found comforting is just kind of a frank discussion of the reality of it, without being alarmist. Where it's like, we're not talking about the news and all the horrible things we're hearing

**Michael:** Nope

**Brennan:** It's that we're recognizing it's a tough situation, and we're all *not* taking it well. And it's nice to be able to acknowledge that and hear other people acknowledge it, and, you know, share and kind of exorcise it together in a more positive space

**Michael:** I'm finding so much comfort in trash horror right now.

**BJ:** Yeah, that's definitely part of my list

**Michael:** Yeah. I'm not calling this movie trash to shit on it, but it's a movie I hadn't seen in awhile, and I'm actually calling this movie out specifically because after watching it last night, I was like, "Oh my God, I feel so good after watching it." And it's a movie I don't think I've ever really talked about on the show… it's not really a movie I go back to a lot. In fact, this is the first time, I think this is the first rewatch for me. And it's *Return of the Living Dead*

**BJ:** Oooh, *Return of the Living Dead*

**Michael:** Yeah. It was just such a perfect, everything about it was perfect last night. From its bungling idiot opening to its just riff on the living dead genre, to the movie itself just having a good old fucking time. It was just so therapeutic

**Brennan:** Plus cute punk Thom Matthews

**Michael:** I mean come on, right?

**BJ:** Thom Matthews is so perfect in that movie

**Michael:** He's so good. And I'm sure anybody listening to this has already seen the movie. And my point in bringing it up is, I didn't know that was a movie I needed last night until I sat down and watched it. And the only reason I watched it is because it was one of the first things that popped up on Amazon Prime and I was like, "Oh, this might be worth a rewatch." And Brian started watching with me, and at one point he turned to me and was like, "This movie's really good!" And he had never seen it before. So for ninety minutes we were just kind of gone, you know what I mean? Like laughing uproariously, having a good time. And for me, my number one (self-care tip) is Find those movies in your life that you go back to, and go back to them right now. The thing that we wanted to do is, there is some comfort in crying and that kind of stuff, but I really found comfort in just laughing my ass off last night

**BJ:** I've been calling it my "Sick Day Movies"

**Michael:** Yes! Great way to put it

**BJ:** Where I've been thinking about the movies that I used to watch when I was home sick from school, or if, you know, I was really depressed, I would watch something that would make me happy. And so some of them are my old standards: *Phantom of the Paradise*, *Fright Night*. Movies that I've watched a million times, but then also there are films like *Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead* and (unintelligible) and *Serial Mom*. Movies I watched non-stop as a kid when I was home sick. And it's just made me feel so much better, because it also gives me this weird sense of hope, of usually when you're a kid and you're sick you're out of school for what, like two days? So in this weird sense I watch that movie and my brain kind of gets tricked into thinking, "It's gonna be okay. Just give it a couple of days." And I think I've just been stacking them, because it's like days and days and days

**Brennan:** It's true that there are comfort horror movies. *Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead* is on the other end of the horror spectrum perhaps, but like the *Fright Night*, those things where it's comforting either because of its familiarity to you, or because, you know, you watched it as a kid. Or just it's important to recognize that there is a spectrum of what horror is. Horror is generally classified as being macabre, or monsters and the supernatural. It's not always the brutalizing horror experience. And while that can be cathartic and cleansing even in this time, like look at *Contagion* topping all of the streaming charts right now. I think that is absolute proof of those historical horror theories of people kind of flocking to see movies that reflect the time that they're in and exorcise that

**Michael:** In times of great strife, horror is usually most popular

**Brennan:** Yeah. And look, *Contagion* is not where my head is at right now

**BJ:** Nope. Y'all should be watching *It's A Disaster* anyway, that's the better movie for this kind of situation… it's sort of a disaster spoof, it's a bunch of people trapped in a house together, which I feel is more relatable than *Contagion*, is this idea of being trapped in the house

**Brennan:** I'm not specifically recommending *Contagion* unless you know you can handle it, you know that's your personality type. But it seems that a lot of people at least know or *think* they are that way. I would definitely, look, I had a panic attack in the middle of *Return of the King*, the *Lord of the Rings* movie, so *Contagion*'s not working for me

**Michael:** So you don't wanna watch both *Crazies*? 'Cause I just did both of those back-to-back

**Brennan:** See, here's the thing. There *is* that spectrum. I didn't have that *because* of *Return of the King*, it just kind of happened concurrently with it.

**Brennan:** I think where I'm living is the campy side of horror. Which, there's such a huge, you know, zone for on the horror spectrum. So even if you're not feeling getting your adrenaline pumped like crazy right now because that's not what you need for your anxiety or your mental health or whatever, you could throw on *Bloody Moon* from Jess Franco, who did *Vampyros Lesbos*, which is this ridiculous West German-slash-Spanish slasher that makes no sense. The dub, it's the only time I'll recommend you watch the English dub, because the dub is so hilarious. Have either of you seen *Bloody Moon*?

**Michael:** I haven't

**BJ:** I have not. That's one of my Jess Franco blindspots

**Brennan:** Oh hell yeah

**Michael:** Same here. I did just watch *Bloody Birthday*, though

**Brennan:** That's also on my list! *Bloody Birthday* is so fun!

**Michael:** So fun, and *so* bad

**Brennan:** Yeah! That's exactly where I wanna be living right now. You are engaging with the silliness of this movie, and it engages multiple parts of your brain, where it's like, "This is the plot part,"  and then, "This is the overarching I'm analyzing how this movie was created."

**BJ:** I'm gasping because I'm looking at the cover art for *Bloody Moon*, with the circular saw

**Brennan:** Yes, yes!

**BJ:** And wow, is that beautiful and striking

**Michael:** Yeah, it's awesome

**Brennan:** The original title for the movie is in German, it's *Die Sieger des toldes,* which means *The Saw of Death*. And it's, Jess Franco is Spanish, but it was made in Germany. It's like one of those European co-production kind of things that they had going on at the time. It's about, it's students at a language learning school I think, in Spain or in Germany. It's one of them. It's the opposite of whatever is making it. The dub is so ridiculous. There's this character who is the character on the poster, who's tied to a block as that circular saw is coming towards her. And as she's being tied up, she's thinking that the killer is this kind of S&M guy that she's flirting with, and she's like, "I hear suffering is good for pleasure!"

**BJ:** That's wonderful

**Brennan:** It's truly a blast. It *is* a Jess Franco movie, so you know, trigger warning for Jess Franco movies

**BJ:** For everything

**Brennan:** It is very exploitative. Michael, you will like it because there is a child death

**Michael:** Perfect

**Brennan:** And there's a part where a knife comes through a woman's nipple from the back

**BJ:** Augh! That's everything that *I* want

**Michael:** That actually took a second for me to understand

**BJ:** Good ol' knife nips

**Brennan:** Other ridiculous movies I would recommend: *People Under the Stairs*, *Were the World Mine*, *The Boy Next Door* (for pure camp), *Idle Hands*

**BJ:** I love *Idle Hands*. I am on a *huge* Devon Sawa kick lately

**Michael:** I just watched *Final Destination* again. I would recommend any of those movies right now

**Brennan:** Oh yeah. Being on a Devon Sawa kick right now is called "Being a fan of cinema"

**Michael:** It's called "Doing a Sawa". I would also recommend any franchise you love, I recommend going back to that franchise and just starting over, seeing it through. Brian and I started it before the quarantine, but finished it during, was the first eight *Friday the Thirteenth*s. And that was *so* fun

**Brennan:** In that *Friday* marathon, is there one that rose to the top this time that you weren't expecting?

**Michael:** No, I watched all eight. Even in the ones I don't like, like of those eight, *Five*, *Seven* and *Eight* are my least favorite. But every time I watch it, I always enjoy it. I always enjoy the whole thing. Don't get me wrong. There are certain aspects of all of them that I really love, you know? *Five* for is people at the time got pissed at it not really being Jason

**Brennan:** That is the *least* of that movie's problems

**Michael:** And the movie's so, so weird. But I still appreciate a lot of that movie. There's a lot of comfort in those movies for me. I just love Ginny so much in *Part 2* with the (unintelligible)

**Brennan:** Oh, of course

**BJ:** Ginny rules

**Michael:** Watching all eight of 'em, it's like so clear that she is the best final girl in that series

**BJ:** Oh, there's no question. But what's frustrating is that Jason in *2* is my least favorite Jason, so…

**Michael:** He's my favorite

**BJ:** Oh, I hate him 'cause he runs around!

**Michael:** I *love* baghead Jason, he's my favorite Jason

**BJ:** The baghead doesn't bother me, but watching him walk, my brain is just thinking of that tuba sound, like, (imitates tuba). He runs so stupid

**Michael:** He runs in *3* and *4* while rewatching them, which I forgot.

**BJ:** (sighing) Yeah

**Michael:** He runs in the first three movies he's in

**BJ:** He doesn't look quite as… I don't know

**Michael:** He does have a different gait in each of the three movies. Granted, different actor each time.

**Brennan:** Literally a different face every time

**Michael:** Yeah, a different portrayal. Jason in *Four* is definitely more hulking and menacing than kind of the cowering Jason in *Two*. But I do, I fuckin' love baghead Jason more than hockey mask Jason. People are gonna kill me, but it's true

**BJ:** I'm a sucker for- I think the best Jason performance is when Kane Hodder took over in *Seven*, which is one of the weaker films, but oh, he's so scary and great

**Michael:** He's so big

**BJ:** He's *so* big! He's humongous!

**Brennan:** Yeah. And obviously Kane Hodder is a standout. He did it for so long because he was good at it. I'd like to throw in my token for Richard Brooker in *Part Three*…

**Michael:** I'm with ya. He's good

**Brennan:** He gives a solid, frightening performance for me. It's very Universal Monsters-y.

**Michael:** I agree with you. My favorite Jason is *Two*, but my favorite performances are *Two*, *Three* and *Four* Jason. I kind of like the little bit faster, less undead version of the character. And I, even though all three performances are so different, there's something about all three of them that I appreciate. I feel like then to me, Jason was more of a character than Kane, even though Kane was hulking and terrifying. I thought there was a little bit more nuance in *Two*, *Three* and *Four* as opposed to just a big hulking scary man

**BJ:** Bringing up (*Friday the 13th)* *Two*, and in particular Ginny also made me think of another of my comfort horror films, which is actually *The Final Girls*, Mark's movie. 'Cause I've talked to Mark about this, I used to be on another podcast where I got to interview him and the interview turned into me, I don't know, it would've been when the movie came out, so you know, this is years ago

**Michael:** I think it came out in 2015, right?

**Brennan:** Yeah

**BJ:** Yeah, 2015? So it's like five years ago. And so this is right after I've been pretty much told that I'm gonna die of cancer, so I'm *extra* heightened emotions, and like, I just cried at him through this podcast about how important I felt this movie was for teen girls, who, you know, we never get to have a movie that feels catered to us and this felt catered to us, this is the movie I wish I would've had when I was in high school. And also, "Bette Davis Eyes" is my favorite song of all time, so like, big connection there. But in rewatching the *Friday* movies, when Ginny shows up in the car, I was like, "That motherfucker. He stole that exact entrance for his would-be tough final girl," 'Cause she comes in late, in a cool car. And I'm like, "Argh, how did I miss that the first time around?" I didn't think about it until I saw it and was like, "Duh." Right in front of my face. But yeah, that movie brings me a lot of comfort, because I also think that that movie has one of my favorite striptease scenes of all time, when she's…

**Brennan:** The most sentimental striptease scene I've ever seen

**BJ:** Yes! It's just… mmmf

**Michael:** That's the beauty of that movie, it's got so much *heart* and you actually genuinely *care* for the characters. The best slasher movies to me are the ones that are also the most emotional

**BJ:** I agree. That's also why I like the *Happy Death Day* movies

**Brennan:** Oh yeah

**Michael:** I mean, right? The relationship between the mom and the daughter in *The Final Girls* and Tree and her mom in both *Happy Death Day* movies, I'm not afraid to admit I cried in all three of those movies at one point

**BJ:** And that's why these movies are great to recommend to people as a form of self-care, because I mean, when I'm not doing my horror stuff, I'm a social emotional educator. This is my *job*, is I literally tell people how to handle their shit. And one of the things I was recommending to people is movies like that, because you get to have the exploration of the fear and the anxiety that you have through horror, but then you're also being comforted and given a safe outlet to navigate personal negative emotions like sadness. And that makes those movies so much more enjoyable and you tend to leave them feeling a lot better.

**Michael:** You know, I have an idea, for those three movies. Ready? BJ, I think you especially will appreciate this. We can call them "The Emotional Release Trilogy". So, *Final Girls*, *Happy Death Day* and *Happy Death Day 2 U*, they are the "Emotional Release Trilogy". They make you laugh, and they make you cry, and you feel better when you leave them. That's pretty great

**Brennan:** Absolutely true. And the secret ingredient (whispers) they're all made by queer people!

**Michael:** (gasps)

**BJ:** (gasps) I know, right?

**Michael:** Okay, "Emotional Release Trilogy", I think we're going to coin that term now

**BJ:** Perfect

**Michael:** And the three of them really do play well together.

**BJ:** They do

**Michael:** Just as stories, y'know?

**Brennan:** And they're a *tonal* match, too.

**Michael:** All three of them have a lead performance that's to die for (fake laughter)

**BJ:** Something else that I have been doing in sort of finding these movies is there is an Etsy account, and it's filmartmusicetc, so like the easiest Etsy account name. But this person sells old movie posters and a lot of the movies are ones that no one wants a poster for

**Brennan:** Love it

**BJ:** So Harmony and I have been going through, he has like forty pages of them, and just looking at movie posters of movies we've never heard of and going, "That looks weird. Let's put it on this list. Let's try and track it down." And a lot of these movies are ones that have been lost to time, so y'know, most of them are on YouTube. Or they're movies that have been picked up by restoration companies like Severin or Vinegar Syndrome. It's been like a weird trip, like a virtual video store, because we just get the poster. I'm not getting a trailer, I'm not getting a synopsis, I'm not getting a Tomato rating, it's just look at this art and, "Do you want to watch this?" And we've been finding a lot of weird fun stuff. So we've found *The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini*, which I was tweeting about the other day, which has Boris Karloff and Dusty Springfield and is a Beach Party movie from the sixties, but there's not actually a beach, there's a pool and a haunted house. And there's greasers and people in monster costumes and it is *so* fun and stupid. And we're like, "I wanna watch every movie that's like this. This is perfect." I would never have found it or given it the time of day had I done the rating sort of system that I think we've all become accustomed to. But judging based solely based on the artwork, I watched it and it was great.

**Michael:** That's awesome

**Brennan:** That's like a, especially in the idea of this self-care recommendations for this time, it is kind of fun to go on an adventure like that and engage in something across multiple avenues, where it's like, you know, you're hunting through the website, you're looking at the art, you're trying to find the movie. It's a quest of some kind

**BJ:** Yeah, 'cause we've been digging. There's this huge sense of excitement when we find one. Because a lot of 'em, it's like, "Oh, you can buy this on Amazon for seven hundred dollars on a VHS tape." It's like, well shit, that's not gonna happen. But then we found one that was like, "This is streaming on Tubi TV, with ads," and I was like, "Perfect! Let's do it!"

**Michael:** I have fallen in love with Tubi during this. Isn't that weird?

**BJ:** They have some really good stuff

**Brennan:** They do

**Michael:** Tubi TV has the most amazing shit

**Michael:** Speaking of self-care, I watched *The House on Sorority Row* recently…

**Brennan:** Hell yeah

**Michael:** Ad-free on Tubi. Not one commercial the whole time

**BJ:** Oh, beautiful

**Michael:** It was beautiful. I love it. I'm like, "Okay, Tubi coming into my eyes."

**BJ:** Very Queerwolf related, Harmony and I, any time we watch a movie and someone does an atrocious line read… Any time there's an atrocious line read, it doesn't matter what they're saying, one of us will look at the other and go (as [x] from *Sorority Row)* "But how do we know she *is alive*?"

**Michael:** (as [x] from *Sorority Row*) "How do we, how do we know, how do we know…."

**BJ:** (as [x] from *Sorority Row*) *"*How do we know…"

**Brennan:** It's *so good*!

**Michael:** That is self-care right there

**BJ:** We were talking a little earlier about people who were watching things like *Contagion*, which, you know, might be a little bit triggering. If you wanna watch a contagion movie that's still fun, watch Joe Lynch's *Mayhem*. 'Cause at least the disease makes you do fun things like have crazy sex and punch people in the face

**Brennan:** And there's like a veneer of fiction to it.

**BJ:** Yeah. It doesn't feel quite as like, "Aaaahhh!" And too close, but it's in that same category or family of, y'know, virus movies. They just released the updated remake of the *Resident Evil 3* game, which, the *Resident Evil 3* game is very heavily the basis for *Resident Evil 2*, the movie, which I think is the best one in the series. But the *Resident Evil 3* video game is terrifying, and the thing that I fully admit is that I have watched countless hours of horror films. I have spent my life reviewing, watching, analyzing, theorizing, all of it. If I try to play a horror video game, I will have a panic attack and throw up. Because my adrenaline gets *so* pumped up, but it's real

**Michael:** (laughs) I don't mean to laugh, but the way you hit hard on the word "throwup"

**BJ:** Because it's happened. There was like a trailer, that later became the *Silent Hill* games called *P.T.*, like playthrough trailer, and it's first-person and you literally, you just go up and down a hallway, but every time you go down, things change and you don't know what's going to change. I was *so* affected by it that I had to take a Xanax or I was going to lose my mind. But because when *Resident Evil 3* came out, obviously I was probably like nine or ten, now they've remade it, it's got these great graphics, it looks beautiful. But because the internet is now what it is, I can *watch* other people play this game. So I've been watching some Let's players play *Resident Evil 3*, so I get to experience the story, but I'm not the one in control so I don't feel like I'm gonna throw up all over the place…

**Brennan:** So you get that emotional distance

**BJ:** Yes. Which I desperately need. The jumpscares, they still get me. Like a jumpscare happens and I'm shakin' on the couch, but what usually happens is the player does the same and then they pause the game for a second so they can compose themself and I'm like, "Whew, I needed that, too."

**Michael:** Ahh, so you get that time too?

**BJ:** Yes, and then I get that time, but it also feels- one of the reasons I love horror movies is because they're such communal experiences. So if I'm freakin' the fuck out, the person next to me probably also is

**Michael:** The good (unintelligible) neighbor

**BJ:** *Yeah*. Video games are so personal and so isolating, so being able to scream with someone else, oh, it feels so much better. It's been *really* fun to revisit that world. And y'know, it's a shitty virus and a shitty corporation and a shitty government that didn't help and I'm like, "Oh, it feels good to watch you get fuckin' blown away by somebody who's killing monsters. Oh it feels nice."

**Michael:** Well, speaking of horror video games, that's one of the things I was gonna recommend people do, because I actually probably haven't played a video game in four or five years. And I actually am revisiting *Until Dawn* right now

**BJ:** Oh I love *Until Dawn*!

**Michael:** I am having *so* much fun, but BJ, I'm with you. There's been at least five times while replaying this game, and I never finished it the last time, so I'm almost at the point where I left off, so I restarted. There's been like a half-dozen times where I've like, literally jumped out of my fucking skin playing the game 'cause of a jumpscare

**BJ:** Somebody tweeted at me about, 'cause I was like, "I'm scared of video games." And somebody retweeted me and added, (gamer dudebro voice) "You haven't lived until you've played *Resident Evil 7* with VR." (normal voice) And I was like, "I would actually die."

**Michael:** Yeah, I couldn't do it

**BJ:** My heart would actually explode in my chest and someone would get sued. No. I'm not doing that.

**Michael:** (BJ), you also brought up something about how horror movies are a communal experience and another thing I wanted to talk about today is I don't think the theater going experience is going away after this. 'Cause people have been talking about because theaters are closed and unfortunately the thing that's being most affected are independent theaters, and I hope there's a way we can bring a lot of those theaters back when this is all over with. But in regards to *going* to the theater? That's one of the things I'm looking forward to the most when this is all over, and I actually think theaters are going to be fucking packed when this is done.

**Brennan:** Yeah, 'cause everybody wants to *leave* their house

**Michael:** People wanna leave their house, but they also wanna be reminded of what BJ just said, of being involved together at the same time, and you can't get that watching Netflix. You can't get that watching Hulu or Amazon

**BJ:** Yeah

**Michael:** Especially in horror. Going to a movie theater and watching a horror movie, I was talking with Axel Caroline last night about this, about how the first movie I want to go back and see is a horror movie, I'll probably start sobbing when the credits start rolling at the beginning of the movie 'cause I'll be *so* excited to be back in a movie theater but also know that I'm *with my people*, y'know, and I *cannot* wait for that

**BJ:** Well, we feed off of each other in that moment. Because the last two things that I saw, so I saw the *Invisible Man* when it opened, it was a packed theater…

**Michael:** So good

**BJ:** And you could hear people tense in their seat, and you can feel that energy shift when people are all scared together, and it's palatable, and it's so wonderful. And then the very last thing is, we saw an afternoon matinee of *The Hunt* the day that they were like, "Okay, moving forward, you're stuck inside." So we went, and we were the only ones in the theater and it was awesome, because I was glad that the last thing I was doing was seeing a movie, but at the same time, it felt so sad. Because I was like, "Oh, we're really isolated." And normally I look forward to seeing movies alone. I love going to the theater and having it to myself. I didn't like it, because I knew what it was signifying

**Michael:** What it signified? Yeah

**Brennan:** One thing I do wanna say, obviously is that yeah, we're a horror podcast so a lot of our specific recommendations are around horror, but if you are someone for whom horror and horror fandom isn't an integral part of your identity, and you find yourself not wanting to watch it right now? That is also okay

**BJ:** That's completely fair

**Michael:** Absolutely

**Brennan:** Yeah, you need to listen to that. These recommendations are more palatable if you don't, or whatever. But look, same thing, I am, I've been a horror fan for probably about a decade at this point, of that being the primary genre that I consume. And right now, I've been watching a lot of *Nailed It!*, I've been playing a lot of *Let's Go, Pikachu*! on the Switch. That's kind of the safe, comfy bubble I've created for myself. And it is *okay* to only wanna be there

**Michael:** Yes! It's a-okay. You know what else I was playing also? Uno. I was playing Uno on Playstation

**Brennan:** Really?

**Michael:** Yes! It just reminds me of something so simple and fun

**BJ:** I'm definitely one of those people who's, I have put a lot of hours into *Animal Crossing*.

**Michael:** This I know

**BJ:** And it is *so* calming and *so* nice. And I've also been able to quote-unquote hang out with my friends on *Animal Crossing* because I've been able to visit their islands and our islands are so reflective of our personalities. So people come and visit my house and they're like, "Oh, you have a film projector and a spiderweb umbrella and everything looks goth-y and fun and spooky!" But then you go a little bit in my island and it's like, "Okay, you have a wrestling ring! This is definitely BJ and Harmony's island."

**Michael:** Well that's the thing. We're getting little pieces of you even through a video game

**BJ:** Exactly. And you can talk with each other, and everything about *Animal Crossing* is just so pure and wholesome. There's no violence, it's just, the music is calming, the things you're supposed to achieve for the day are like, "Catch butterflies!" It's *so* nice

**Michael:** That's cute

**BJ:** And that's what I do in-between my classes. I'm teaching online and it's all social emotional work, where I'm working with kids that have high exposure to trauma and live in poverty and it's one thing when they talk to me about it in school, but now I'm seeing into their homes and inviting and welcoming their traumas into my living room, and I need that escape. Because I otherwise just break down and cry and think about how mad I am at the world that everything is unfair because I'm looking at it and I can't do anything about it and then I lose it. So then I go and play *Animal Crossing* and it's like, "Oh look, I caught a guppy! Yay!"

**Michael:** So, I dunno, I think I've brought it up on the show before that I love to cook? Cooking is a big relaxation outlet for me, surprisingly enough. I know for a lot of people it can be a source of anxiety and stress and mayhem…

**BJ:** Me

**Michael:** That's how my boyfriend is, too. He's like, "The kitchen freaks me out!" I find a meditative place in the kitchen for myself. It's actually one of the few times when I can go completely mindless but somehow manage to complete an entire task in the process. So I have found comfort in that hobby, and so I wanted to share a simple recipe…

**BJ:** Oooooh

**Brennan:** Oooooh, Martha Stewart

**Michael:** (chuckles) Yeah. I feel like food sometimes is looked at… I feel like finding solace or comfort in food is sometimes looked at as nothing but a bad thing. But I also think there can be such a positive aspect to that, whether it's an emotional connection to something from childhood, whether it's the act of, I think the act of sitting down with other people and having food is one of the most communal things you can do, and one of the most joyous things you can do. And so I have been turning to that hobby of mine on a daily basis, and I just wanted to give a simple recipe because I think that a lot of people find comfort in the old school grilled cheese and tomato soup…

**BJ:** *Yes*

**Michael:** But I wanted to give *my* "homemade", I just did air quotes, BJ and Brennan can see me on Zoom, but the audience can't. It's really simple, so I just wanna give it out really easily, 'cause it's cost-effective, too, and I thought it would be kind of cool for people to hear this side of me and get a recipe of mine. So I'm gonna run it down really briefly:

For the tomato soup:

Take a large can of whole tomatoes (23 or 30 ounce can), blend that shit up. Just throw the entire can of whole tomatoes in a blender. Blend that until it's nothing but a puree, essentially. It's just tomato juice at that point. Throw it in a pot with four cups of chicken broth. You don't need to make your own broth. I've made my own broth in the past, boiling an entire chicken with a bunch of aromatic vegetables and stuff, but you can find a great thirty-two ounce container of it at Trader Joe's or your local grocery store. Hell, use the fucking bullion cubes because I don't care what anyone says, that shit is fucking delicious. And all that would be is four bullion cubes with four cups of water. Essentially just combine those two motherfuckers together and there's your fucking soup. It's really simple. You can shuzz it up, I like to shuzz it up with a little bit of garlic puree that I will also make by just blending some garlic with a little bit of water. You could also do the classic salt and pepper to taste, little red pepper flake is delicious. You could blend a little bit of onion and throw it in the soup. Literally it's as simple as blending a can of tomatoes with four cups of chicken broth and you have a very delicious homemade soup. If you're looking for that classic creamy tomato soup, just buy that Campbell's bullshit. It's the closest you're gonna get. True Campbell's soup *is* the Campbell's soup

For the grilled cheese:

Take any sort of crusty bread you can get your hands on. Brian and I have been thriving on these really thin French baguettes that are like three feet long, but are like two inches thick and they're literally a dollar

**BJ:** Yes!

**Michael:** They're so fuckin' cheap, but they're so fuckin' good. A lot of people overlook the cheap shit 'cause they think it's cheap, but what I am about to tell you…

**BJ:** That's where the good is

**Michael:** That's where the good shit is. And you can elevate it by doing this: Cut it in half, cut it in however many pieces you want. Toast that shit off, do it in a toaster oven. What I prefer to do is to cover the halves side, the white side I guess you could say, not the crusty side but the white side, I like to brush a little bit of olive oil on it, a little bit of salt and pepper and actually put it oil side down in my cast-iron skillet and toast it that way

**BJ:** Yeah, that's the jam

**Michael:** That's the way I like to do it as opposed to a toaster or toaster oven, 'cause it gives you a lot more flavor. And then this the trick: Before you put the cheese on it and then fold that bitch back into a sandwich, that's when I put it in the oven to just melt the cheese. My trick is take a whole garlic clove, and after it's toasted and while it's still hot, just rub that garlic clove on the bread, and you suddenly have the greatest garlic bread you've ever had in your entire life. It's *so* simple. It takes one clove of garlic for about a quarter of the bread. And that's if you cut the entire baguette in half and then halve that half, you know? You'll need about four garlic cloves to do your entire thing of the baguette. And then put any kind of cheese you want on it. What Brian and I have been loving lately is a little bit of cheddar cheese, a little bit of pepperjack cheese and then just toss that shit in the oven until the cheese is melted and you have a perfectly delicious grilled cheese sandwich. If you're feeling frisky, you can cook ott some bacon and put that between the cheese before you put that in the oven and then you have a bacon cheese sandwich. And I'm telling you, those two things together during self-quarantine, you'll feel *so* good eating it and watching your favorite movie. Do I sound like a Food Network host or what?

**Brennan:** You do!

**BJ:** A little bit

**Brennan:** If you have any questions, you can tweet at Michael…

**Michael:** Yeah. Tweet at me. I am actually- I was telling Brian, I'm going to give this recipe tomorrow on the show, and then this morning he goes, "Are you still giving that recipe?" And I go, "Yeah. And also, we're having that for dinner tonight."

**Brennan:** Awwww!

**BJ:** I'm glad that you like cooking so much, because I'm definitely that anxiety cooking person, because I grew up super poor, so we could not afford to fuck up. If you tried to cook and you were not good at it, then nobody ate. So, I'm like terrified of cooking, which is why I included on my self-care list classic comfort snacks. Obviously, when we went grocery shopping, because Harmony *does* cook, we got all the essentials, all the staples that we *needed* to have. But you can bet your ass I bought frozen character-shaped Kraft...

**Michael:** Chicken nuggets?

**BJ:** No, they were mac and cheese. See, I'm also a firm believer that character-shaped or any sort of weird-shaped noodle is…

**Michael:** Is better?

**BJ:** Is better because all the cheese gets stuck in the crevices and it's a better bite. I bought that, I bought Spaghettios, I bought Lunchables, I bought Flamin' Hot Cheetos

**Brennan:** Oooh

**BJ:** And there is something just *so* comforting, like yes, I have an *amazing* future wife who is making incredible food. But sometimes I'm just so mad that I wanna eat a fuckin' Beefaroni and just be nine years old again and not have to worry about all of this bullshit, and I'm immediately transported back and I'm like, "Hmmm. I'm calm. I'm back to where I needed to be. Thank you Lunchable pizza, extra cheesy pizza."

**Brennan:** Oh yeah

**Michael:** You know what I did the other day? I not only made Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for the first time, probably since college the other day, you know what I did with that shit? I fucking cut up hot dogs and put that in there, too

**BJ:** *Yes*!

**Brennan:** *Wow*

**BJ:** I mean, if you wanna be an adult, you could use kielbasa or something

**Michael:** Yeah, but I was all about, Brian and I have been being very conscientious of shopping on a budget right now because, you know, we don't know what is going to happen down the line. So we've been finding really great ways to just do stuff while also being very frugal at the same time. And like, hot dogs and Kraft Mac and Cheese, there's just something about that bite where you're just like, "Fuck, this is heaven right now." It's like a warm hug

**Brennan:** For me, my version of that is I've been experimenting with the weird Oreos in the Oreo aisle

**BJ:** (gasps) *Yes!*

**Brennan:** There are new *Trolls World Tour* themed Oreos that have glitter in the creme

**Michael:** Oh my God. What does the glitter taste like? Nothing?

**Brennan:** It tastes like nothing. But the cookie's pretty good. I was not brave enough to get that. But the other green *Trolls* Oreo has Pop Rocks in the creme…

**Michael:** Oh!

**BJ:** That's amazing!

**Brennan:** Yeah, that sounded too wild for my stomach. But I got me some Carrot Cake Oreos, those are *really* good

**BJ:** Oh, the Carrot Cake Oreos are actually legitimately awesome

**Brennan:** Yeah. The quote-unquote creme in them actually does taste like cream cheese. It's like a more savory creme than they've ever had. It's great

**Brennan:** One thing I wanted to say is that a lot of the recommendations we've had are things to watch or play, or things that involve a bunch of screens. So I think that a lot of people who are stuck at home during this time, and hopefully most, if not all of you have the luxury of doing so. If you're staring at a screen all day, there's a thing called repetitive eye strain, there's a lot of horrible things that can happen to your eyes. I'm very familiar with that because anyone who's listened to this enough has probably heard that I have a photosensitivity. I basically have like a video game health meter on how much I can stare at a screen throughout a day, and when I've reached that, it's like headache. So, y'know, if you are experiencing any sort of eye strain or general tension and stress and y'know, have a headache or need to rest your eyes, first of all I do recommend eyedrops. Those do help a lot. If you're sitting down for a long gaming session or about to start a movie, just pop in some eyedrops. You can do it afterwards too, just keep your eyes lubed up. That will help a lot. If you just need to do something that doesn't require you to stare at a screen that's blasting light into your eyes, I have a lot of recommendations

**Brennan:**One thing that I love to do is just lie in bed and binge a podcast. This is *if* I have a headache and am not capable of doing anything else. But some podcasts have gotten me through tough times like that. *My Dad Wrote a Porno* is a great one.

**BJ:** I do love that podcast

**Brennan:** There's a Canadian podcast called *Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids*, which is, y'know, it's self-explanatory. And a new podcast, it's called *Staying In with Kumail and Emily*. It's Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, who are the real-life couple who wrote and are the characters based on in *The Big Sick*. That sentence fell apart, but you get it. They *are* *The Big Sick*. Did that make sense?

**BJ:** Yes

**Michael:** Yeah

**Brennan:** Okay, cool. They started a podcast because Emily is immunocompromised, so they're quarantining and they are familiar with it, because they've had to do it periodically throughout their lives because of her immune condition. So they share a lot of tips, but just with a lot of good humor and kind of calming energy. Kind of how I hope this podcast, or at least this episode is going. And I am really really digging on that one

**Brennan:** Other things you can do: Play a game of Solitaire. Go on a walk. Obviously, you know, stay six feet away from people, don't go to crowded or touristy areas, but it is okay to go outside for an hour and walk around in the sun. Just stay the fuck away from people. One fun thing that people don't really do any more because you know, we have Spotify, we have all these infinite things, listen to an album front to back.

**Michael:** The new Dua Lipa album is *so* listenable from beginning to end. So good

**Brennan:** Yeah. Just sit in the dark and sit with an artist that you really love and experience a full album, and kind of, I don't know, listen to the story that it's telling you. Listen to the instruments. Just hear it all and kind of experience it.

**Brennan:** Also, doing dishes…

**Michael:** Can I throw out a...? Doing dishes? Is that what you were going to say? I love you

**Brennan:** Yeah, no, it can be very therapeutic. Just the warm water and the kind of zen of it, it's *Animal Crossing*-esque

**Michael:** I was gonna bring up a podcast because you brought up podcasts. BJ, I listened to a recommendation of yours

**BJ:** Oooh, which one?

**Michael:** *The Dollop*, about Ronald Reagan

**BJ:** *Ohhh, The Dollop*

**Michael:** Okay, so, the podcast is great. I, weirdly listening to three and a half hours of essentially just the evil tales of Ronald Reagan weirdly comforted me because it was so nice to just scream into the wind but feel like I was being heard, because I was screaming along with Patton Oswalt and his buddies talking about Ronald Reagan. So I recommend, if you need to get some aggression out, listening to something like that, because I was alone listening to it the entire time. It felt so good afterwards, I felt like I got a lot of negative energy out of my body by fucking shouting every three minutes at something horrible Ronald Reagan did in his past. Also, he was a monster

**Brennan:** That does sound interesting-- yeah, yes

**Michael:** No, it was therapeutic because I actually found a little bit of solace for some reason in the fact that our current President is no different than one we had forty years ago. The only thing is he has a Twitter account. I find that oddly comforting to know that we've been through this path in a way before. Granted, a pandemic adds a new wrinkle, but I dunno

**BJ:** You have to do something with the negative energy because right now, because we're all experiencing this, we're all existing in trauma. That's just straight up what's happening. There are different parts of our brain that are shutting down because they're trying to protect us, and we're going to be experiencing things differently than we did before, and we all have negative energy that a lot of people aren't getting to get out the way that they typically would. I mean something as simple as calling somebody an asshole from the comfort of your car when you're driving in rush hour can be the little release that you need to get you through the day, and now we've lost a lot of those little moments so finding things you can do to safely get that negative energy and that frustration out, you gotta do it, because it's the same as when people bottle up their feelings: Eventually it's gonna come out, or it's gonna manifest in different ways that could be just as toxic as the explosion

**Michael:** Yeah. I got a lot of fear with what's going on right now out with listening to that podcast. Like a lot of my fear was released because I was fucking just having, allowing myself those moments of rage. In the safety of my own bedroom

**Brennan:** Yeah. And you know, you do have to stay on top of that, too, because you don't want that to manifest against the people that you're stuck with

**Michael:** Exactly

**BJ:** Exactly

**Brennan:** Because you do not want to start a beef with someone who cannot leave the six feet around you, or like twenty feet or whatever

**Michael:** You do not

**BJ:** Also, screenwriters don't write a script about, "I broke up with my boyfriend and then we got quarantined together!" Because everyone else is doing it. You're more creative than that

**Michael:** Right!

**Brennan:** Also, one thing that I think we don't need when we are freed from this is to hear about how terrible it just was

**Michael:** Right

**Brennan:** I don't need a bunch of media to watch about the thing that I just experienced that was incredibly horrible

**BJ:** A recommendation that I do have  is if you're trying to find information about what's going on in the world but you just don't wanna be consumed by the everything? Google whatever topic it is, so maybe it's you know, wearing the masks or whatever. Just type, "How to explain COVID-19 to children". "How to explain wearing masks in public to children." Adding that little bit of, "...to children," will start bringing up resources that have sucked out all of the traumatic language, it sucks out all of the, "We're trying to get your clicks shocking…"

**Michael:** Headlines, that kind of stuff

**BJ:** Headlines and exaggeration, it's all gone. And it is presented in the most palatable and comforting way possible

**Michael:** That's a really good tip

**BJ:** It's very very nice, because one of the things I've been having to do is, I'm obviously talking with kindergarten through eighth graders. If a second grader is asking me, "Why am I not allowed to go play with my friend across the street?" I have to be able to have an educated discussion, but also one that isn't going to be like, (faux chipper) "Well, you might get a disease or a virus!" (normal voice) You can't do that. So if you find information that's geared towards smaller minds, it's really helpful and comforting because you get exactly what you need, without putting that undue stress on yourself

**Brennan:** That's so smart!

**Brennan:** One thing I've been doing is just to help me sleep, I've created a buffer around bedtime. So an hour before I go to bed and an hour after I wake up, I'm not reading *any* news.

**BJ:** That's smart. That's incredibly smart

**Brennan:** Just give yourself some space to think about other things before you have to go to bed, because otherwise you're not gonna be able to go to sleep, and that's gonna make your next day even worse

**Michael:** Yeah, I was actually making that mistake in the beginning, Brennan, and I found myself waking up with headaches or waking up not rested

**Brennan:** Yeah. Which, you know, might happen anyway 'cause it's crushing, but it helps

**Michael:** There are those days when you just can't help but let that emotion seep in and that's okay too, but I think…

**Brennan:** Yeah, it's good to acknowledge there will be low days

**Michael:** Yes. But also, being able to set your own rules in a way is a way to have control over this uncontrollable thing that's happening. And there's no right or wrong way to do that

**Brennan:** Yeah, whatever works for you

**Michael:** Just finding what works for you, and that's what this episode is about, finding fun and clarity

**BJ:** I had something I wanted to bring to you both, so I'm giving you two techniques for some social emotional care. The first one is one that I have put on my Instagram a few times, but I'll ask you the question: I need you to think right now about how you're feeling in this moment. How *you're* really actually feeling. But rather than telling me, "I'm calm," or "I'm happy," I want you to try to describe your mood if your mood was a state of water. So, if your mood was a state of water, how would you describe it?

**Michael:** Right now?

**Brennan:** Okay, I have one.

**BJ:** Okay, you've got one. Share it, share it!

**Brennan:** That scene in *Jurassic Park* when the glass of water is shaking with the T. Rex footsteps

**BJ:** That's perfect

**Brennan:** Like where it's mostly calm but there's surface movement

**BJ:** Very nice

**Michael:** I think for me, in my common water stasis, is that the word I'm looking for? Is Brody throwing chum into the water right before Jaws pops out. I feel like that probably happens twenty-four times a day

**Brennan:** We're in this very Steven Spielberg space right now

**Michael:** Yes. But in this current moment, I actually feel, just doing this episode right now I feel like a serene, crisp lake

**BJ and Brennan:** Ooooh

**Michael:** I actually feel good doing this episode. Like right now I feel really nice. I feel cool and calm

**BJ:** Good

**Michael:** So I feel like Crystal Lake before Pamela pops out of it

**BJ:** No, that's perfect though. And the reason that I have you do that is a lot of times we have difficulty expressing or analyzing how we're feeling, so we might say something like, "I'm sad." Well there's a hundred different ways to be sad, so giving yourself…

**Michael:** And sometimes there's not even a word you can use

**BJ:** Exactly. Sometimes there isn't a word, but finding some sort of creative way or something you can compare it to that other people can also understand can help get your point across. It can really help you express how you're feeling. Like earlier today, I've been thinking, "Oh, I'm evaporated. I'm just gone." But now through this, instead of feeling evaporated, I feel like I am the water that *is* evaporating when you're making pasta, so it's a good thing that it's evaporated and it's not this like, I'm not like a *drought*, like an evaporated river

**Michael:** You weren't soaked up, you were released

**BJ:** Exactly. Exactly that. So if you can find different ways to analyze and keeping a record of how you're feeling; common ones are food, or if you were a color, or an animal

**Michael:** You've posted the food one before

**BJ:** Yeah, I've posted the food one before, because there's a big difference between saying, "Oh I feel like ice cream," and "I feel like burnt toast." Those are two very different things

**Michael:** I think just doing it, I don't wanna say it distracts you from the fear and stuff, but it is a productive way to think about what you're processing

**BJ:** And it also helps you not feel quite as vulnerable, because it's difficult to say, "I feel lik I'm gonna cry," or "I'm so depressed I don't wanna move." Those are hard things to say, but if you have a way to say what you mean, it helps you really express how you're feeling. Those have been really really comforting is whenever I'm feeling something is trying to analyze, "So what am I feeling? And if I had to describe it to someone else to explain how I'm feeling, what would I describe it as?"

**Michael:** I love that

**BJ:** So it's really really helpful, yeah. Those are really helpful. I'm glad you like them

**Michael:** I do

**BJ:** They're really fun. And the other one I wanted to do is, obviously people have been posting a lot of different breathing exercises, but the one that I like to do, and I'm gonna pull away from my microphone so that Ernie doesn't kill us. What you do is, I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about yourself as if you are a tire slowly losing air. So you breathe in through your nose and when you breathe out, you make an "S" sound. And don't worry about trying to make the "S" sound as long as possible, just slowly listen to how your air starts off strong and slowly disappears. (BJ demonstrates the "S" sound.) And by doing that, it should slowly help you calm all of your central nervous system, your heart rate. Everything should help slow down, and mentally it'll calm you down because you have the audio cue of what that sounds like of you calming down.

**Brennan:** That's really helpful

**Michael:** I don't know if you heard, but I only did it three times and my eyes literally got tired. I think I was like, you know that really amazing feeling you get right before you fall asleep for a nap? Do you know what I'm talking about?

**BJ:** Oh, yeah

**Brennan:** Yeah

**Michael:** You lay down for a nap, you have that moment of, I don't know, at least for me it's not awareness, but more like, "I'm about to fall asleep," and you can feel it in your eyelids. It's such a good feeling to me, and I just felt that

**BJ:** The full-body calm? Yeah, it's really helpful. And also, it can help when you're trying to process any of your negative emotions, so if you're sad or angry, if you do that, it'll sort of press "Reset" on your body a little bit.

**Brennan:** That's beautiful. I wish I had known that when I had my panic attack a week ago, but the thing is I think that's something that everyone should bookmark in their brain, 'cause I'm like lucky enough that I'm quarantined *with* someone and I have Sergio here in the apartment with me. So I've had a panic attack before, but not for a long time. But after about a minute I recognized what I was going through and I could tell him, "Oh, I'm about to fully have a panic attack." And he rubbed my shoulders and tried to have me focus on the movie like, "Oh, what's happening here? Tell me who this character is," or kind of ground you in a different space. But if you are isolating alone and you are in an apartment and you are feeling the same way, I think that breathing exercise could be *so* important to remember. So like, I dunno. Put a pin in that

**BJ:** It's really calming. And another way that you can do grounding, this one is recommended a lot by therapists and other social/emotional educators is to think when you start having that feeling of panic or just when things feel like they're out of control, try to think of five things in that moment you can see. So like, Brennan and Michael can see my room so I can say like, "I have a *Carrie* poster, I have a *GLOW* poster, I have a bat, I have a jack-o-lantern, I have shoes." So five things that you can see, four things that you could touch. You don't have to touch them, but in that moment know there are four things in this room that I can touch. Think of three things you can hear. So, even if they're not in your room, think of three things that you know the sound of. I know what a firetruck sounds like. I know what a cat meow sounds like. I know what the rewind on the VCR sounds like

**Michael:** Ooooh

**BJ:** Whatever, you know. Three things that you can hear. Think of two things that you can smell, that you know what that smell is like. "This is the smell of my grandmother's perfume," or, "This is the smell of my favorite candy." Whatever. And then one thing that you can taste. What is one thing that you know for sure the taste of

**Brennan:** Wow

**BJ:** And doing those sensory check-ins and giving numbers to them, they can really really help you just (exhales) bring you back down to earth

**Michael:** Yeah, that's great

**Brennan:** That sounds lovely

**BJ:** I got really excited when you were like, "Let's do self-care." I was like, "Hoo, gotta prep."

**Michael:** Yeah. All I literally said is, "BJ, bring some things for self-care." You were like, "I got this. I'll do my homework." You really did

**BJ:** I'm just pulling things from my lesson plan for today and put them down

**Michael:** That's great. I think these are a great thing to kind of wrap up on too, right B?

**Brennan:** Yeah. Oh, that's me. Yeah

**Brennan:** I have two tiny, tiny topics I wanna get through in the shortest amount of time possible. One last thing. If you want a quick shot of serotonin, masturbating's really fun

**BJ:** Yes it is

**Brennan:** Also, if you are, you know, off of screens for the time being for whatever eye reasons, reconnect with yourself. Close your eyes, masturbate to your own imagination. People don't do that anymore

**Michael:** That's true

**BJ:** Mmm-hmm

**Brennan:** Just connect with yourself. It's really fun!

**BJ:** No, that's like a thing. And like, I'm fortunate to be quarantined with somebody, and I know a lot of people have been joking, "Oh, this is the time to try things out," and for us it's just been like, "Let's just learn more about each other's bodies on an intimate level in ways that we normally wouldn't be able to," and it's been really nice. It's been like, "Did you know that this weird section of your leg makes you giggle every time?" And I'm like, "I do now!"

**Michael:** That's really funny. And so true.

**Brennan:** That's beautiful

**BJ:** It's lovely

**Brennan:** I love being in this space

**Brennan:** One last question, I wanted to ask you specifically Michael, because I think you and I early on had the opposite reaction to what's going on. Because I started growing a quarantine beard and you shaved your non-quarantine beard right the hell off. So I wanna know, what the decision process was behind that for you.

**Michael:** Any time I've ever done anything like this, it was literally walked into the bathroom, grabbed the razor and go, "You know what? No guard." It was literally not much of a thought process. I hadn't shaved…

**Brennan:** Just flyin' free today

**Michael:** Yeah. I hadn't shaved my face in a *really* long time completely, and I was just like, "You know what, let's just see what this looks like."

**Brennan:** Yeah

**Michael:** I also was maybe a little influenced by thinking, so I have two things. I usually always have a beard and I only wash my hair once a week, which probably sounds really gross, but…

**BJ:** I only wash mine once a week, so I feel you

**Brennan:** For the oil, it's….

**Michael:** I wash my hair once a week. I will proudly say that I think that my hair is one of my great attributes. I have really nice hair, luckily just like my father, so it's really thick and it's really dark. And I have friends in the hair care business and they say you should really only wash your hair when it's dirty. And I actually once asked my friend in the hair care business, I go, "How do I determine how dirty it is?" And she goes, "Honestly? When your scalp starts itching," which I think is hilarious. So I have found that's about once a week. But I was also reading about the virus a little bit, and how it can potentially stay in your hair and in your beard. Because I know as a beard person, I clean my beard pretty regularly because I've always heard about people who have a lot of poop particles in their beard because they don't properly wash their face. Which we're learning all the people talking about handwashing clearly weren't washing their hands before this epidemic.

**Brennan:** (Handwashing) has always been important

**Michael:** So, that might have been a little bit of an influence on shaving my beard, because I am now washing my hair every other day and that caused me to think about, "Well, maybe let's shave the beard. Start fresh." But there really wasn't much thought process. What made you grow a beard?

**Brennan:** Well, honestly because I've always just wanted one, and the biggest hurdle is that awkward stage, like that couple weeks in the middle where it just looks awful

**Michael:** Yeah, but now you don't have to see anybody

**Brennan:** Yeah, exactly. So I'm hitting pause on that moment, and when I come out I'll be like full Mountain Man Jack. So…

**BJ:** I gotta say, I'm a little left out in this conversation, because for like the first two weeks of quarantine I *did* grow out my quarantine beard, because I have an endocrine system problem. So if I don't shave I *can* grow a beard

**Michael:** Oh, no kidding

**BJ:** Oh yes. Bad endocrine system plus Italian, full beard.

**Michael:** That's hot

**BJ:** And my future wife is transgender, and while she's had laser removal, there's still parts that grow back, so we both were like, "Let's just see what happens."

**Brennan:** Yeah!

**Michael:** I love it

**BJ:** Yeah, 'cause we have never seen each other without perfectly maintained faces. And then we both got about like, a week-and-a-half in and were like, "Ugh, it itches, I hate this. Nope. It's gotta go! Sorry, endocrine system, it's gone!"

**Brennan:** No, that period was tough. The itching period, I'm mostly past that. But yeah, in the time when you're not supposed to touch your face, not a great idea

**BJ:** Nope. I was like, "It's gotta go!"

**Michael:** Yeah

**Brennan:** I will say, before I committed to this, I did do the research on beard hygiene. So anyone out there who has a beard or is thinking about growing one, you know, letting their endocrine system do its thing, it's… yes. Beards can hold germs, same way as hair, same way as your skin. Just, you know, keep everything clean. And also, if someone's like virus-laden spittle has made its way into your beard, it's probably made it's way into your mouth as well. If you're close enough for that, just don't get that close. It's not the beard's fault.

**Michael:** And honestly, soap and water. It'll do the trick

**Brennan:** Yeah. So I was just curious, 'cause I felt like you and I were on opposite corners of that meme where gays bleach their hair or something after a breakup. That's about our stopping point, probably

**Michael:** You can find me on Instagram at MichaelTJKennedy, but you actually won't find me, you'll find Scooby

**Brennan:** Of course!

**BJ:** That's *my* self-care, is pictures of *your* dog

**Michael:** Oh my God. Folks, that dog… I love her so much. She's been so great to have during this. I love her.

**Brennan:** Who doesn't want to look at pictures of Scooby?

## **Next Episode**

Episode 64: "Palm Frond Jump Scare" (w/ Mark Fortin!)