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0:00:03: it is the middle ground between light and shadow between science and superstition and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.
0:00:14: This is time enough podcast.
0:00:41: Welcome to Time enough podcast. It's the podcast where we look into episodes of the twilight zone and beyond. This is matt here joining me today. Coming back is lindsey Sharman from the Rogue Ways podcast. Hello? Hello. Thanks for having me back again. Good evening to you. Yes. Oh man, I'm just noticing you have like a very nice mike.
0:01:04: Yeah, it's like extra fancy and even then sometimes things don't go well. So yeah, still stuck holding my mic and hoping I don't crackle it so well, see, I'm lucky I moved in with a musician, so he has like tons of mike and he's like, oh yeah, that's my old one, you can have it. And I'm like, this is a really nice, nice mic. But for him it's like almost nothing. So it's just the benefits of dating a musician. I'm a musician and for some reason this is my only mike, I guess things are different for some people. Well, I mostly plug everything directly and the only thing I use the mic for is like, actually, you know, I've been using an ipad for most of my music recording. So yeah, you know, you're good for everything. They are. Yeah, that's just talk about twilight zones of the mind. Yeah, I mean that's just modified everyone's mental realities, you know, for real Well, my boyfriend's also an an artist and he uses his ipad. He used to hate digital art, you know?
0:02:06: And he was like, and he had like a whack. Um I want to say what maybe some people listening to what I'm talking about, like the pre ipad, like tablet sort of for drawing and it was horrible, it was awful. But the ipad is like so smooth, everything's perfect, it's like very user friendly, it has all these different capabilities and he loves it now. So he makes all this digital art and You know, he still does painting, he still does the other the 3D stuff, but um iPads apparently could do anything. Yeah, yeah, I just recently got into the I did the one week trial for the Ai Art. I was like, I don't need this one, it's it's too addictive. I was like, the one week trial was like, man, I'll just be playing with this forever and I don't think I actually want to do that, but it was definitely fun for a week and and the podcast art for this now comes from those little experiments, but it was fun and that, I mean, it's a I of course, but there is a fair amount of your own creativity like to interface and you quickly start to see the limits as well, like the Ai is always going to give you this kind of thing.
0:03:07: So it was that was kind of an interesting way of interfacing with the uh machine, I guess and seeing its limits and but at the same time kind of working with it more than usual.
0:03:17: Yeah, it'll be interesting as that grows to see how it adapts to us and we adapt to it. Yeah, and well today we're looking at a much older kind of phone, a toy phone even although it does seem to have capabilities that my iphone does not have. So we'll get into that, it's a long distance call and if you don't mind, I'll just do a bit of the trivia for this episode.
0:03:41: Yes, let's see. The original air date here was March 31st, 1961.
0:03:48: The script was credited to Charles beaumont and Bill Idelson.
0:03:52: This was a bit of a point of contention though, as Maxwell, Sanford had contributed an awfully similar spec script called party line.
0:04:00: Legal actions were taken and some syndicated versions of this episode actually do change the credit to Sanford James Sheldon directed and he had experience on half of the iconic shows of the 60s and 70s, including the Love Boat Mash and the man from uncle.
0:04:17: He's listed fourth in the credits, but pop culture gives this episode to Bill Mummy in the role of Billy bails. He was a child actor extraordinaire at the time appearing in season three, It's a Good Life, multiple episodes of Alfred Hitchcock presents and three seasons of Lost in space as danger Will Robinson Danger is in um parentheses, just for the punctuation freaks, fortunately it seems he grew up fine and later had genre roles on Babylon five Deep space nine and returning to that Good Life in the twilight zone for the early two thousand's iteration.
0:04:55: Daddy chris bales was played by Philip Abbott. He's best known as Arthur Ward on the sixties series. The FBI though he will be back in the zone for the parallel in season four.
0:05:07: Patricia smith is our mommy Sylvia bales. She had a host of guest star roles before snagging a recurring one in the first season of the bob Newhart show and um as I'm an ardent Trekkie, I have to note that she would later appear in the star trek next generation episode unnatural selection.
0:05:25: Finally, our granny is played by lily Darvis while she had a long stage and screen career, her biggest accolades would actually happen a full decade after this show, she was nominated for a Tony in 1971 Les blank and won a special award at the Cannes Film festival for the movie love that same year she's only 58 in this episode. She's not like that.
0:05:49: Yeah, I was like looking at her and I'm like why did she die? She doesn't even have wrinkles like. Yeah, so that is the thing where I guess people, you know they say people used to look older. Um a big part of that, just being like if you like if you took her in this episode simply changed her hairstyle and gave her a less frumpy dress. She would probably look more like someone in their late 50s now. Yeah, probably a little bit of other stuff as well. But that's a biggie in there.
0:06:19: So I am going to throw on the prologue for you if you wouldn't mind giving us that.
0:06:28: There it is.
0:06:32: Ah as must be obvious, this is a house hovered over by mr death, an omnipresent player to the third and final act of every life and it's been said and probably rightfully so that what follows this life is one of the unfathomable mysteries. An area of dark which we the living reserve for the dead or so it is said for in a moment a child will try to cross that bridge which separates light and shadow and of course he must take the only known route that indistinct highway through the region we call the twilight zone.
0:07:06: Oh right.
0:07:08: Three acts to life. That seems rather arbitrary. Young, young and yeah, really were dying. I guess that would be the final curtain. In that case. I've heard the concept of basically seven year cycles to people's lives, which looking back seems about right, You know, roughly. Um I think that's I don't know where that concept comes from. It comes from somewhere. But yeah, to me I'm like that makes more sense, Shakespeare. He has five act plays right? So yeah, I just thought calling life in three acts maybe, maybe that's the Sphinx riddle, you know where Yeah, that, that, that walking, what is it you come in comes in on four legs something.
0:07:54: Yeah, it's the three oh no Norton. I don't want to reboot my computer right now.
0:08:01: Are you sure? Because right now is a really great time.
0:08:05: Yeah. It's like remind me as far later as possible when I'm doing a narrow podcast or something. Yeah.
0:08:12: It's never, it's never actually when you would like it to be. Yeah. I don't know the um, I always just think of my life in my life in decades, you know, like 0 to 10 is like kind of all one little chunk and then 10 to 20 and 20 is like each, each decade seems like its own flavor to me. So how many acts? Maybe it's, how many decades do you end up living? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, just for me, I, the seven year thing I thought was, I think that even might tie in with like, yeah, sorry, I wish I do the source. I just liked the idea of looking back in my life, I'm like, hey, seven years actually makes a lot more sense than 10 years. It is. It's the, well there's one of the planets and I want to say it's venus, but that might actually be five, but one of them has a seven year. Um, you know, cycle around the sun and so I think that's part of it. But really physically it's all of our cells regenerate within a seven year period. So that might be part of it too, right? Yeah, astrology and science and and there's some neuroscience too, but it's just the first seven years.
0:09:15: But I mean maybe there's something to it that that recycles every seven years, I don't know, but I know your first seven years of life, you're in a more of the um and I forget which if it's like alpha, beta or theater, you know what it is? But one of your brain state is closer to, I want to say like almost like being in a trance.
0:09:35: And then after seven deep sleep, Delta is maybe dream time and Alpha is waking time I think.
0:09:42: So, I think you don't really have like stable alpha signatures until after seven. That's around seven is when it switches which is also when you tend to have lost your baby teeth. So we do have sort of a basis of seven at the earliest part of our life perhaps. Yeah. Plus another seven, you're hitting adolescence? Uh Plus another seven. That's when your brain is kind of stopping. So uh of course Billy in this episode is is five. So he is he's in the first act, no matter what way you want to look at it, right? Yeah, he's not creepy at all until later. He just he seems pretty cool and normal at the beginning and and that, that gets weaponized in his episode next season, which is probably the better known of the two he's in with its good life, but uh yeah, where he's full on creepy, but but then you get lost in space where he's, you know, supposed to be charming for three seasons, so he gets, he gets his redemption.
0:10:42: I was I was thinking, are there any other, like, You know, child actors from the 60s that really had that much of a footprint? I can't think of one off the top of my head. So was was Ron Howard in the 60s or was that a different uh he's he was on, yeah, he was he was on the anti Griffith show in the sixties, but I feel like he's better known for Happy Days in the seventies and of course then he's got his directing career, so yeah, you're not wrong. I'm just kind of like, I guess I'm looking at the Haley Joel osment sort of space, you know, because he's the real star. Yeah, like like Haley Joel Osmond. He, he kind of tapered off after being a kid, but occasionally shows up in things I guess to let you know, he's not, you know, dead or rotting in a apartment somewhere. It's so weird sometimes because sometimes kids are so cute, I'm gonna be really judgmental and rude here, sometimes they're great and you love them and then they grow up and you see them and you're like oh god what happened to you? And this really with every single kid in a Stranger Things, I was just like oh my God every single one of you turned out like horrifying looking like like I think they chose them because they kind of looked like not they're not your like standard, you know Q.
0:11:58: Or or handsome child or whatever but then you know those quirks and oddities sort of in their features just like got exacerbated as they grew up and man I just can't watch Stranger Things after the first season or so because they started to look too weird. I'm like I don't know I don't like this. I I think I stopped in the first season, it just didn't grab me completely. But I do want to see some of the season three because they filmed a bunch of it like in the mall, I used to hang out in at that age so I'm like kind of Yeah. Yeah that that is my mall. I think they recreated an arcade or something for it. I'm like I played in the real arcade. That's actually so cool. You get to relive some of that. I'm from Atlanta, they filmed everything in Atlanta now I was I was looking at covert chi and they're running out of the theater. I'm like man that looks a whole lot like the theater I used to go to in high school but they filmed this in L.A. And was like no with season two they started filming in Atlanta and like oh so that was funny.
0:12:59: Um The tv show Atlanta was, yeah that's exactly why the tv show Atlanta was was fun because um they were showing like you know like kind of the seedier parts of town but I've been to a lot of them so that's also where I used to hang out.
0:13:16: Yeah. Yeah exactly. Uh Because usually they just show the you know the big name places right? Not like the weird back lots of town so to say yeah grandma is full on creepy in this episode I guess. Well at the beginning I also didn't really feel like she was creepy at the beginning. I was actually kind of really disturbed by how much the mom seemed to hate the grandma. Like I was like what's her problem? Like she's like really all she's doing is showing up to her grandson's birthday and like wanting to give him a gift and like how him and holding him and the mom just seems so annoyed that she even exists or that like they have a good relationship and I don't you know there's a moment where she like calls Billy away from opening his other presents to open her present. I'm like yeah that's kind of a dick move I guess like you can let it kind of be more in the flow like maybe she's being a little bit too attention whoring. But oh my God, I just did not. I was really uncomfortable that I was like, why are they treating her so badly?
0:14:17: She's his grandma. Like let him have a good relationship with her, but later not to spoil anything, but later she, the mom specifically says like their relationship was unnaturally close and I was like, is it was that, I mean, did it seem unnaturally close to you before she said that?
0:14:35: Is that is that how things were back then? Because I was really close to my grandparents and that would have been weird for me to be excited to see them and sit on their lap and you know, hang out with him. I had the impression she lives there as her health is failing. So maybe if it's a, you know, this much every day and start to get a little grading and then the second time I watched it because the actor lily darvish, she she was Hungarian, right? So, you know, she's got kind of, that, that stereotypical, you know, quote unquote, like vampire accent. One of one of my first notes was, oh, I wonder if her husband was bela Lugosi, you know? Yeah, that was weird because I'm like, well they clearly don't have an accent, but she does. So yeah, sonny, sonny should have one, right? So yeah, um I mean, go ahead.
0:15:26: Well, she's she's then like clearly sick, you know, you can tell that from the beginning as well. And so I was also like, well let him have you no connection with her, she's gonna die soon seemingly, so you know, let it go. But but there was that annoyance and then when she was saying, well I won't be here forever, Billy and and and the dad was like, oh no, no, you'll be here forever. And I couldn't tell if it was like, he's just saying that for him because it's his mom and he's like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to accept that or if he's like, let's hide death from billy, which later becomes obviously we're trying to hide death from Billy, which again, was that just more something people did at that time, because before that time we didn't hide death at all now we still pretty much kind of push death under. They were like, no, no one dies, don't look at the body, don't have awake, just, you know, cremate and jump it somewhere or whatever. We we also have a very strange relationship with death now. So maybe it was already sort getting to that stage at this point and you know, our culture collectively that, that you don't talk to Children about death and you hide death and when, when grandparents die, you just say they went on a really long vacation and you'll never see them again, which I think is weirder and you just feel abandoned instead of, you know, understanding death.
0:16:34: But they definitely um I couldn't tell for sure like which it was, why don't you want billy to know that she's gonna die.
0:16:42: That's kind of like the, you know, the more intense version of you're the dog now lives in the country house or whatever the farm. Which honestly I never heard that when I was a kid, I don't think I heard that explanation until I was like in my twenties told us a joke. But we did, my family, we did have like a rabbit when I was like five or six and um the dog next door scared and gave it a heart attack and my, my parents were just like, oh I just hopped away, it's just gone now. So then we got a um another one right? And and there there was a storm and they said they told me that one did just hop away and I never heard anything different. But I think in that case maybe, I don't know or the dog scared it again. So yeah, it just keeps happening. Well I grew up on a farm, uh somewhat it was a pretty chaotic farm, but we had a lot of animals and so I saw a lot of death. It was never hidden from me. It was just like, yeah, things die. Like I found my dog did, I accidentally killed my guinea pig.
0:17:44: Um but when I and I thought I understood what death was, but you know that I didn't actually, once I actually saw our dog's body being put in the ground. We had dug the hole for him and everything and he was going in the ground and the dirt started going on top of him. Then I like, lost it. I was like what are you doing to him? How is he going to get out of there? And they're like, no, like that's what we've been trying to tell you, like this is what death is. And so it's really from a pretty young age, it was definitely a part of my my life, but I see it all the time, like a lot of people don't want their kids to know, they'll tell them they hopped away or they went to the farm or you know grandma is always gonna be here, don't worry about that. And it's interesting the sorry, the punchline to that whole story though is 10 years later when I was 15 or 16 have been family friends that gave us the first rabbit and then they actually moved to europe for several years and came back and we're having dinner and I'm 15 or 16 now and the mother of that family is asking my mama, whatever happened to the rabbit we gave you and she was like, oh the the dog next door gave me a heart attack and died and I was like, what?
0:18:49: What you never told me. Yeah, that's how I learned about it just came up in casual conversation. So that was kind of fun. You were betrayed. Yeah. Well, it was pretty hysterical. I do live in a generational house now. So, um, you know, that aspect of this did bring a little true. Although my, um, my wife's parents, they're, they're still pretty hardy and they go farming stuff most days. So, but you know that, uh, the previous generation, uh, I do remember one of the older ones, kind of, you know, in this situation for a few years. So like living in the house and being, you know, like not in the best of health.
0:19:36: Yeah. Well that was the other thing about my child, my grandma lived with us for a long time while she was, you know, slowly sort of declining. So I also got to understand like aging and you know, what can go with that. But um, I take it your, your parents or your parents in law aren't giving any trans dimensional telephones to your child. No, no, no. They just helped my daughter get kendo gear. Right?
0:20:01: Little different.
0:20:04: Yeah. I feel like now when there's like anger or resentment between the parents and the grandparents of a child, it's more like, why do you spoil them so much and why do you give them so much sugar and can't you just have some boundaries here. Unlike this household in the show where they're like, there's genuine like animosity between the grandma and the mall, the moms like unnatural. It's not right. That grandma's like, because later she even says my son was taken from me by a woman. I'm like dang.
0:20:32: I wonder, I wonder if he's kind of been in the caregiver role for an extended period of time that might be part of it. Uh, they're actually, there's this really, in the past few years in Japan, there's been all these just like disturbing stories. It's like 56 year old man, like, you know, kills his parents or you know, like this guy has just had his like dead father in his apartment for like a year because we have a lot of this while healthcare is nice in some ways and that, you know, like everyone's covered basically. Like there's so many older people in Japan, there are people like falling through the cracks now and upper middle aged people having to take care of like really elderly uh, relatives and there's like, you know, there's a certain amount of neglect and totally just disturbing things happen. You know, people pushing wheelchairs into um, canals and stuff.
0:21:29: Yeah, we don't have the setup anymore. We don't have the society anymore where that could be easier perhaps to deal with, you know, like back in the day. You only needed one person bringing in sort of some wages or where you lived on a farm and mostly 11 or a couple of people, like some Children were helping with the, the farm. And so there was always someone who had more time and who could maybe take care of people little bit more and that's not how we're set up anymore. Everybody has to work, everybody has a job or school or something and so who can take care of anybody? Nobody can. So it's like way too much pressure um, to do that. God, I can't imagine how horrible. I mean that's where I don't, I don't really mind living in a house with a lot of people. Um, again, there is kind of, the farm is like an escape valve just if it does start to feel a little crowded, I don't, I don't think we step on each other's toes much, maybe, maybe I'm the guy making everyone else angry. I don't know. But from my perspective, Well, I also made me wonder, you know, because I feel like there's always some, supposedly, there's always this animosity between like the mother in law and the wife, you know, and it's always like, and maybe that's what it is, like my son was taken from me by a woman, um, you know, there's always this feeling or something like you're not good enough for him or like he used to rely on me more and then you showed up and now he doesn't even care about me or something, you know, like a jealousy, which I don't really feel, but I do, I did have a relationship once where I did experience that and I was like, this is so weird.
0:22:59: Like I'm not taking him from you, he's going to be your son forever. I'm just, you know, a person in his life also we can both be in his life, but maybe this is a really common, really traditional, like I think that just occurs the way the relationship tends to go. It's jealousy. Yeah, but it's interestingly baked into this episode because it doesn't have to be there. I mean, it would have worked episode would have worked fine without that. But I don't know. I I think that's reasonable writing I guess. Um it's more relatable. So eventually papa does have to be very direct with Billy about death and gives him a talk, how how did that one come across to you?
0:23:42: Um I guess I guess that's interesting things like, well do you, even though death is basically, and Billy was like, yeah, and I kind of feel like that's how kids are if we're just like honest with them? You know, they're like, yeah, I get it. Like why would you, why would we need to hide this from him anyways? But that was also the moment where I think, didn't isn't that when he sort of realized something was weird because it wasn't he sort of hinting at that point that like maybe his grandma like told him or like he understood, you know through the phone or something. Like, I don't think he fully got what was going on yet, but I feel like he started to understand like something might be kind of weird here with Billy.
0:24:19: How did, how did Billy just take that so easily, You know, like they were not quite sure. We're not quite sure what grandma whispered to him, which also a fun little plot device. Yeah, I forgot about that actually. What did she whisper? What did he wish for? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They both whisper, don't they? So um let's look at trans dimensional granny then and I was just wondering what observations you had on our, our phone situation.
0:24:49: Well it's interesting to use the phone, you know, I don't know if you know this, but there's a lot of folk folklore might be the right word, I don't know, but urban myths, maybe our legends too, or just stories of people who say they receive phone calls from people who have died. Um and it's interesting because they also sort of share the same sort of qualities, like they sound really distant and far away and like tinny and just kind of like, it sounds like them, but not like uh and it's often times people don't even really understand what they're saying, but they're like, no, it's them. Um and who knows like maybe people are just getting wrong numbers or like weird connections and they're just like projecting onto it because they want to talk to that person. So bad. Um But billy seem to understand very clearly everything that grandma was saying through the trans dimensional telephone. Um And I kept thinking there's no kid in the world who would play with one toy so consistently and so frequently like that felt sort of like nefarious, right? This is where this is where I started getting like okay, what is she actually doing to him with this phone?
0:25:52: Because that's not that's not natural. And we get sort of also a little another creepy moment when he's just standing there silently like staring at the pond.
0:26:02: I think this is right after she died or something. Maybe even before we knew how much he was using the telephone that she had given him. He's just standing there silently and just staring like head down like just very mom's like what are you doing is like watching the fish and you're like, I don't think that's what he was doing. Pretty weird. Well not to sound like an old fart, but kids these days do spend an awful lot of time with the phone.
0:26:27: True. Yeah. If you want to call it a toy then they're spending about as much time with it really is God. And hopefully it's not trans dimensional and letting some weird stuff through from the other side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah programmed this phone, who knows what's behind the digital wall. Real. Yeah. Again that's where like kind of the ai ai art I was talking about the beginning was weirdly addictive and I had fun doing it was like I'm definitely not gonna pay to keep this because but it was kind of like you know like having some kind of consciousness from the other side. This is a digital one. I mean there's you know there's making music, making art where you're also kind of communicating with something else. But I guess it's you know more like organic, right? So but when you're doing the ai r there's a weird feel of interfacing like mentally with something digital. So yeah, the music and the art is kind of like here's this blank canvas, what are you gonna do with it?
0:27:29: But that stuff you're talking about is more like this interaction. Yeah, like going back and forth something is being um reciprocated right?
0:27:39: A little bit creepy. I don't know if you've used any of these but you'll you know, maybe type of sentence to kind of what you want to see, choose the style to give you like four options, which one's closest you choose that and keep refining it and you know then you can go and use all the photo tools and stuff. So um Yeah, no I I used mid journey which is a little different. You don't get to choose styles or anything. I mean unless you unless a style is one of the words you use maybe then, but otherwise you just kind of put in whatever words and it pops out something based on those words. The thing that creeped me out about that about mid journey which um like I said, it's a little bit different but it's basically the same, you're popping in some sort of input and it's giving you back this art uh is that all of the people that it rendered have red eyes? And I don't understand why I've never said red eyes. No one else is saying red eyes because of its journey to you can go in and see what everyone else is doing. They have all these different, it's on discord basically.
0:28:38: And so you can see other people's creations and they all have red eyes. And the only ones that don't have red eyes are ones that are like real people. Like if you put bill clinton, he might not have red eyes, but if you just do like woman, you know, holding a baby like they have red eyes and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was just that day that a I was just using red eyes. I don't know. But every single thing I saw the few days I was looking was all the red eye stuff and I was like that's creeping me out. Like I don't ever want to come back here again just because of that one detail.
0:29:07: Well I was using a different one photo stream or something. Honestly, I've already forgot the name of it, sorry. But um I was like not wanting to get people faces in the image one because I'm like, who is this? I think I've heard a few things about like um uh people actually like potential lawsuits of artists being like, hey, you're using my elements for this or something. So, you know, there are a piece of the real world being used in it, but uh like the podcast that I made for this podcast, that one I wanted to have the Rod serling vibe and you're not gonna get that with the Ai So it's like, it needs to be a businessman with his back turned. So that's that's what I got here um as a joke. So I there was a meme of um the character to vac from from Star Trek Voyager just pointing a finger and looking very um you know, like don't mess with me right? And people were making a meme out of it. So I decided to describe it to the Ai during the week. I had it and what came back was like clearly influenced, but it was like a complete abomination.
0:30:10: And and and that's the one where it did have the did have forward facing, but I don't think he had red eyes. So maybe maybe it was the particular program you were on.
0:30:24: Yeah, now both of us were we had fun I think, but we were also slightly creeped out by the, by the interaction or just it's on the unknown, you know? So um Billy is totally into this. He doesn't have a modicum. I mean he's willing to kill himself because he likes his grandma and his toys so much and maybe because he's so young, he doesn't have that balance of experience. Like mom says he's barely been out of the house, which was kind of a weird statement. But where's that dad that said that?
0:31:03: Yeah, he hasn't done this. He hasn't had a girlfriend. He's always like, where are you going to go with this guy? We get it. He's young. He hasn't lived a lot. But yeah, I was like how it does make sense if you don't really understand death fully and you don't really understand life fully and you just want to see your grandma and she's now influencing you more than anyone because you've been on this phone for 24 hours a day. I mean he's even talking to it in the middle of the night, which again, it's like even creepier. Um but yeah, go around in front of a car. Okay.
0:31:32: I mean, you know, at the very least that that's going to hurt even if you're a five year old kid. So he's willing to go through this pain just to satisfy her desire and he says that she she misses him? She's lonely there And then it just starts to make me wonder too Well where is she? I mean did she go to hell did she go to um what's the in between place supposedly?
0:31:54: Yeah I guess so. Twilight's uh and she's just I don't know because I'm like wherever you go if you if we go somewhere after death that would seem like there'd be other people there other beings there other people who had passed or angels or something right? Or demons I don't know something. But now she's very lonely and she wants him to come there. But then if there's no one else there and he guys who's to guarantee he would even come there anyway because you're all alone right? Where's all the other people? But I guess that's not probably what they meant. They just meant she's lonely for people who she actually knows and loves and she's just very selfish and wants him to die so that she can hang out with him again. Just crazy.
0:32:34: Yeah. I mean it's like she let's assume she had a certain amount of dementia I mean and was being a maybe Billy hadn't gotten out of the house much because mom was busy caregiving and that you know that would give her a bit of animosity on both sides but it seems like she's still somewhat out of her mind on the on the other side.
0:32:56: Yeah like she's not quite quite well and the dad said it really well later if you really loved him this much? If you really loved him this much then why would you want him to die? He's five years old not love. I've heard people talking to people talking about between the you know between life experiences of you know you can go for that stuff or not but with your soul family and you know people souls meeting in the beyond and be like you killed me. That's hysterical. You know because nothing in life matters once life is over.
0:33:30: That's so I guess it's weird that she continued her mindset into the great beyond so that that makes it more I guess the twilight zone again. Um three a.m. That's that's when the shenanigans happen of course. Uh So 383 am I think I hear 3 30 as being like the prime time for a lucid dreaming so close to that.
0:33:55: Yeah it's the it's the witching hour, right? Everybody. So I always wonder too is that just because everybody has gone into that everybody in your region at least wherever you are in the world has mostly gone into that that state that level of consciousness. And so it's just like super heightened that you can more easily kind of get into other states. I don't know. Um But that you know we were watching it. I was watching with my my boyfriend and he he was like that's a mother's instinct because she just wakes up and she just like all of a sudden is listening and she's like, what is that? I don't know, maybe his laughter woke her up but I imagine like he's laughed and the night before other things happened, but she just knew like something was wrong and it's true. I swear to god mothers always know, they always know and they just wake up and they are right with it. So she did have that mother's intuition seemingly and I do love that she hears the voice but the audience does not that that that is a really nice creepy touch. That is creepy. Yeah. And she never tells him, I mean maybe eventually they'll talk about this and we're not going to be there to see it, but it's she doesn't have time to tell him because as soon as she hears it and she starts like losing her mind, she starts understanding what's been happening this whole time and he comes in and it's like, oh my God, what's wrong?
0:35:06: He just like dark billy just starts out behind them like he's like on it, he's like now's my chance we were kind of laughing because he jumps down I guess into that pond again by the time they get down the stairs and find him, I mean he's only gone out of the door like four seconds before they realize he's gone and somehow he's dead already.
0:35:26: Like that is a quick drowning that I also thought that was like did they just stand at the edge of the pond for like five minutes or something. Yeah we're supposed to think that if your face touches water you die like he's just like he's gone because the new avatar just came out and what the big press bump is kate winslet held her breath for seven minutes.
0:35:50: What is that even possible? I did hear an explanation that it was not that they filmed her underwater for seven minutes. It's like when they were practicing the free diving um you know they're just like how long can we do that? And so she just literally has her face in water not doing anything but it's a long time. Yeah they'd go for a 2, 2.5 minute takes of them underwater. For for the movie apparently. So I've heard I've heard of like two minutes. I thought four minutes was like an olympic record type like and going beyond that would be crazy. But maybe I don't understand if you want to know the free diving record. Yes. 24 minutes. No I mean this is an expert free diver who you know. Well I mean again you got Tibetan monks with wild skills so you have someone that focus that hard on free diving that's I think it's in the Mediterranean or whatever. They have people that just can or serious about, they have to go quite deep to get their yield.
0:36:51: So they really 24 minutes being obviously they're like extreme, but you know, still experienced free diver, I guess a 10 minute dive is not out of the question, so that makes so much sense. I lived in Ukraine for a while and they would talk about these kids who would go dive down and collect water from the underwater uh springs. This is the only way they could get fresh water. Actually there's no fresh water spray bahrain, they're all underwater off the coast of the island. So these Children would go down with containers and they get fresh water from the springs and bring it back up for people. And I was just like how they swim down that low with this container and then wait till it gets filled up and then bring it back up and the whole time they're not breathing, but I guess like you're saying this is just something you can train yourself to do. That's insane.
0:37:38: Yeah. Billy Billy could have used those skills because Billy was done in like five seconds. Yes, of course he was five years old. Um And then yeah, I guess it's another just like, we're, Well, I guess 20, when this episode's airing, but we're looking at this resuscitation machine and I'm just like, man, that's the most steampunk looking thing ever. Yeah, I've never seen anything like that. I was very confused as to what was going on, but I guess that was just a respiration, there's like pumping and we were joking were like filling with balloons that will bring him back. Like what's happening here um clearly wasn't working either. That wasn't the trick that brought him back.
0:38:20: No, no, that's gonna be, that's gonna be putting forth that he doesn't know anything about wearing long pants yet. So yes. And then I was thinking like that is very interesting. There's this sort of almost universal idea that kids wear shorts and adults wear pants. Um even though it's not always true but they knew or I guess they just felt like maybe they figured it out. But even the dad figured out he didn't hear her talking on the phone and he didn't as far as we know, he wasn't told by the wife that you know, that's what was actually happening. But he still knew too. They said like she took him, she took him, we're still watching his kids get obsessed and go mildly nuts. So yeah, let's break it down into the the regular questions that we do on this show. Uh which I feel like a little more wide ranging this week. So we'll see where it takes us.
0:39:15: The first thing who Exactly and this is going through the twilight zone. I already called out grandma's like that's where she ended up, but you don't have to agree with that. But yeah, well definitely that makes sense. But the billy at least makes a little visit there and then comes back. Hopefully it's not a pet cemetery sort of thing and he can be somewhat normal after this. Um, but I feel like the mom and the dad did in a way too because the mom hurt her. So she at least had that experience. Like her, her perception would have at least opened a bit to what is happening. They both then saw him die and come back and the dad like does that whole pleading thing, he picks up the phone and he's just like, please give him back. You said he gave you life, you said you love him and give him life and show him that love. So he's going into the twilight zone at least a little bit by doing that too. So they all kind of made a little visit.
0:40:12: Yeah. I was thinking the parents are probably, maybe it's cause I'm a dad, but I feel like the parents are went deeper into the twilight zone than Billy because there is a chance that when Billy is 30, he's not going to have a firm memory of this, but his parents will very good point. Yeah. Because he also just the trauma of nearly dying or maybe dying and coming back or whatever it actually happened to him um, would possibly wipe out the surrounding memories anyway. And even if he remembers like the phone and whatever, he just be like, I don't know, I was just playing a game. I was just talking on my toy phone. Yeah the parents aren't going to forget especially your mom who heard the voice which is definitely although like you said people hearing you know might be hearing like static and just constructing that into the distant voice of their loved ones. So not that this one had a static. Yeah as I say this one doesn't even plug in. It's just just the shape of a phone.
0:41:14: It might have had like little jingle bells inside though right? Yeah.
0:41:18: But no no I'm not trying to I totally dig the idea that she heard the voice properly so it could have been loud and clear because Billy wasn't like speak up again. I can't quite hear you. He could hear her fine. So yeah like he's just talking to her completely.
0:41:37: So the second one being um do they deserve their trips into the twilight zone? Um Is the twilight zone bad?
0:41:48: So I'm like is it a guest or a punishment or is it um you know kind of neutral?
0:41:56: Like what you make of it that question because because I feel like for the grandma it was a punishment and then I'm like I don't know if she deserved it because like again I just thought she really loves her grandson, she really loves her son. I don't know she seems kind of passive aggressive towards the wife.
0:42:16: Like she's not perfect but like do you deserve punishment for any of that? I don't know she doesn't seem that bad, but it does seem like she's punished, it seems like she's alone and she feels, you know like she she needs to kill to have a friend. Um So yeah, it seems like not a good experience for her. And same with the mom and she hears her voice, she doesn't seem to take that very well. It seems like it's going to break her her psyche a bit, you know?
0:42:46: Well that's the thing is like I guess grandma is kind of a villain. You see like, you know, you see an elderly woman in poor house and you don't want to be like this person is kind of terrible, but I mean she could be obsessed with her grandson and still be somewhat terrible and what she's doing is pretty terrible. So it ends up being pretty terrible, like you're you're literally committing murder. I mean in the way only way you can as a disembodied voice.
0:43:17: Yeah, encouraging him to die. Billy definitely doesn't deserve any of it. Like he just, he doesn't know anything. He's just a kid like go around in front of a car. No, so definitely not. Billy.
0:43:29: Uh And again, I'm very unclear on what the dad even feels about any of it or accept that he really loves his son, right? Obviously. Yeah, he gets along with his mom better, but yeah, and a lot of twilight sounds, it's kind of like it's hard to make a judgment call because you just don't know what these people have done in the past, you know, and, and I like that because you do have to be like, well what do we get from this episode and how can we, what can we extrapolate behind uh, to these people? And the more I think about the more I'm like, yeah, grandma is kind of a villain here and uh Billy's mom is, Billy's mom is, is probably a little less mentally.
0:44:13: I'm not gonna say stable, but I mean she's probably been having like a rough couple of years in general. So yeah, I think whatever animosity that exists between mother's mother in laws and their daughter in law has got to be wearing her down even if she wasn't like a caretaker and um, you know, worn out by that sort of role. There's, there's still tension. There still be rough, especially when you feel like you're always being criticized just for loving your husband and being in his life, you know?
0:44:42: Yeah, because I had Cannon a little bit, um, just where you know, Billy's parents got married, had billy and probably a year or two and you know, okay, lived in the fifties life in about a year or two in maybe got saddled with grandma after a stroke or something and so you know, the past few years, but you know, dad's probably because we're just coming out of fifties. We'll just assume dad's going to the office and doing his 9 to 5 and mom is just like stuck in this situation where Billy can't get out how she's caretaking and yeah, I I think she's pretty worn down and at the start, well, she's clearly pretty worn down at the start of this episode. So yeah, she's right from the beginning I rolling and just like, oh my God, again, like with this again, uh she's not, she's at the end of her rope I guess. Yeah, I do feel bad for her. I feel bad for the grandma too because again, I don't know what made her this horribly insane because she says so remember to when she's dying and they say, uh maybe it's a different after she's dead, but at some point the dead and says, well she lost my two other brothers, so she had two sons that died and then her remaining son incorrectly and rudely and whatever, you know, inappropriately, but still she feels like was taken from her by this woman, right?
0:46:03: And then, so that's so at least we understand why she's so kind of fixated on Billy and you know, deeply connected to him and seemingly okay ish ways until she's dead and kills him.
0:46:15: I guess. Again, this could be dementia, this could be selfishness, but yeah, the fact, oh, I lost my son of this woman, well, here's another, here's my, she's calls Billy her son now, right? It's just that she's moved all of her obsessiveness over.
0:46:33: Yeah, like full projection and just a weird thing to say. You're like, well now we know you're not quite well. Like if any of the other things were acceptable, like now we start to see like it's not actually acceptable. And the mom is kind of right when she says like you saw how close they were, it was unnatural. I guess it was unnatural. It's kind of possessive and very psychologically unstable because if not for the unnatural relationship, you know, grandma might have died and even if she was able to make that connection, it would probably be a little more benign.
0:47:09: Yeah. Yeah. That's like, I think you two like it's, it's, you know, there's people who have contact from beyond. You can be just a nice presence every once in a while that's comforting or you know, you don't have to, um, you don't have to make him dead to come be with, you can just be with him in life. It would seem they got, they got a, they got a party line to go back to the story that the dude said, he wrote this first.
0:47:35: Yeah, It took me a while to figure out what the party line was. But I finally worked it out.
0:47:41: Yeah. I never actually did a party line, but I remember hearing about like, oh yeah, we can all talk together and I think we did that, but I don't think we called it a party line. I don't remember what we called it back when phones plugged into the wall. Yeah, maybe it was just called a three way call. Just like typed in some code and then dialed them and they could join in.
0:48:03: Yeah man, there was such in the vernacular one as you know, in junior high and I've, I've lost it to forgetting things like billy might forget some of this. But no, I just, the kinks have a song in the sixties called the party line. So it gets stuck in my head line and I never thought about what it meant. So yeah, I remember hearing about it.
0:48:24: Um on the triple meter zero's not trippy five is very trippy. Where do you want to put this?
0:48:32: I'm going to go 3.7 now. 4.34 point three. Okay.
0:48:42: Yeah, it was some gray area here.
0:48:45: It got creepier and creepier as the show as the episode went. And it got more and more like, again I got like almost pet cemetery vibes eventually. I was like, oh yeah, I didn't realize she was so dark. I didn't realize she wanted to murder her grandson and now, um and now he's come back. So again, we don't know what happened after that, but I always get kind of like, I don't know is it going to be bad now. Is he going to always be different? Is he never going to be quite the same? Who knows what's going to go on with little billy Yeah, your phone locked away.
0:49:16: Yeah, I was also sitting here like where where exactly do I want to put it? I settled on 4.5 with the justification that the scene where mom hears the voice alone is one of the trip. I think that's one of the trickiest moments I've come across so far in the twilight zone. So if anyone's wondering like what does matt think is trippy for the triple meter, that moment is a, is a case in point. So yeah, and I think part of it too is like just how happy and, and like carefree billy is while talking to her so clearly and so frequently on this phone that starts to really like get to me too. I'm like, okay dude, this is actually is unnatural. They are unnaturally close now for sure if they weren't before.
0:50:01: Yeah, because like you said, it sounds mom sounds a little too judgmental and she says that one minute into the episode, but by the end it's kind of again, I, you know, there might have been plenty of weird twilight zone vibes in the previous couple of years with, you know, billy being a toddler or whatever, so it might be a little more president than we know, again, that's where she's got like the, you know, the Hungarian accent going and I'm like just kind of a soul vampire. I mean I'm sorry sorry to stick a Hungarian accent on that but you know that's blame bela Lugosi again so yeah they had to do that on purpose. They're like we need a really creepy seeming grandma even if she's loving at the beginning right? So the second time I watched it I definitely was like getting more like just kind of a vampire you know feeding off of Billy's life. Energy.
0:50:55: Really good point.
0:50:56: She is. Have you ever seen what we do in the Shadows?
0:51:01: It's kind of a british comedy humor about vampires and it's it's kind of funny but if you ever watched the Tv show version the movie is worth watching. If you like that kind of humor you might like the tv show to, it grows on you after a few episodes because especially if you just watch the movie it's like not quite as good first we have to get used to it but it does it does become very very good. But they have an energy vampire that's what I'm getting at. Not just a blood sucking vampire. Like someone who's just an energy vampire and it's so hilarious because we all know those people and you're right she was one of them she's just like sucking the life force from this small child.
0:51:37: Yeah I got the now we're making her from villain to monster. Okay so he does deserve this punishment. Yeah yeah and that's probably why she's not finding anyone on the other side. Like that is her punishment. They're like no you sucked everyone's life in life. So now you have to be completely alone. You don't get to have access to other people's energy.
0:52:00: We got just over of course is podcast. At first she was just grandma and she's a villain now she's a soul sucking energy vampire. It's true. I literally I started this conversation like why are they so mean to grandma and I'm like man that lady has got issues. She's you're right she deserved it.
0:52:17: Do you have any final thoughts on this particular episode?
0:52:21: I just hope Billy can recover and like you said he maybe won't remember any of it and that's probably a good thing. That would be for the best and mom and dad are going to be a little shell shocked from this point at least for a bit if not long. I was thinking they're going to be closer than they ever have been. Maybe they'll even start sleeping in the same bed. You never know when does that happen on tv late sixties brady bunch when they finally get the same bed.
0:52:46: Like maybe you're right.
0:52:51: Yeah. Yeah. So give him another 78 years I guess. uh it is 2023 now. I mean not as we're talking but as we're airing and I guess I'm just asking what's what's up for your 2023. I'm telling you what date it is. It's january 9th today for people listening on day of release. So oh wow, happy new Year to everybody. I was told that this is gonna be my year, like, like, you know, things are going to be amazing. I'm gonna make all this money, I'm gonna be famous or something, which I'm always like, do I even want that? I don't know, but money is cool. Um, so we'll see. But then someone else told me I am a, I'm a rooster in chinese astrology and next year is, I want to say it's the cat, it's a tiger year cat year and that, that's the enemy of the rooster. So according to that person, that's gonna be my worst year, Who knows? We'll find out. I'll let you guys know in 2024, I should know what, what animal it is next year because they've already, you know, they have to send new year's cards in Japan and they thought, yeah, I've already, I've already seen a bunch of displays, so you've been seeing it, but I haven't been like filing in my memory.
0:54:06: So yeah, because my wife is doing the New Year's cards a couple of days ago and I just, I didn't register with, you know, I guess I didn't look that closely. It's the year of the rabbit, I don't think the rabbits? The enemy of the rooster, is it?
0:54:23: So it is this year was the year of the Tiger. So if that was true, this would have been my bad year. I had a great year. Okay, well then that's a fair point tent for uh 2023 then I think it'll be, I think it'll be good.
0:54:37: And um oh yeah, the the other part of that was to let people know where they can find.
0:54:44: Yes, if you want, if you want more rambling for me, you can go to rogue Ways dot org And that's all the stuff, all the stuff I do is there and there's a lot of it. So my shows, the links to the shows, books, shop, all kinds of stuff. You can meet with me one on one. If you would like some spiritual support, I promise I won't send you to the other side prematurely. Like the grandma does to the little boy so you'll be safe.
0:55:09: Okay, that's a, that's a good um, I will not murder you, murder you.
0:55:17: Trust As for this is this time enough podcast for time enough pod on twitter maybe. And uh facebook um we're under the patreon umbrella of podcast, Your podcast just where you can support us and keep the lights on or just use that as a hub to find all the podcasts that we do out here matt and luke sci fi sanctuary where we talk about sci fi movies. Uh there's a bunch of video games with luke, loves Pokemon. You can guess what that's about. Monster mash is about monster hunter and there's the game game show which is for british guys hurling insults at each other and I just started putting out a series. Uh it was from an old podcast, but I finally made its new podcast which is called Disney, where we go through all of the Disney animated films, looking for the bizarre history and real magic, you know, Behind the Mouse, all those hidden mickeys.
0:56:16: Yeah, that stuff gets crazy.
0:56:19: Okay, so as always. Thanks for jumping in and we should listen closely and see if we hear any disembodied voices. Yes, some E V. P s on here. Thanks for having me matt. It's always fun there. That's a much nicer ghost. You totally have the best year ever.