> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.earwaxmag.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # EAR•WAX Magazine: Volume 1, Issue 4 - URL: https://www.earwaxmag.com/ear-wax-magazine-volume-1-issue-4/ - Published: 2026-10-28T16:52:05.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-28T16:52:05.000Z - Author: EAR•WAX Magazine Transcript: # **EAR•WAX Magazine** **Volume 1, Issue 4 — Episode Transcript** Runtime 56:31 ## **Speakers** | Speaker | Who / where they appear | | ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Jordan Stillman | Host: reads the issue rundown, introduces each segment, and reads the credits. Also reviews The SCP Archives. | | Collection Rep / Automated Voice / Caller | “Dishwasher,” performed by the Drama Club (Jade Madison Scott, Tal Minear, Oliver Morris, Jeff Van Dreason). | | Stephen Indrisano | Writer of “The Audio Meat Manifesto.” Also voices the nature-show narrator and reads Pacific S. Obadiah’s words. | | Maple O’Ditty | Host of the Cabinet of Curiosities segment. Her voice closely matches Jordan Stillman’s. | | Gavin Gaddis | The Nightlight pick. | | Hannah Wright | The Janus Descending pick. | | Jeff Van Dreason | The “Moon Graffiti” pick, the Girl Talk deep dive, Mac the Monster Mechanic, and the wrap-up. | | Oliver Morris | “Oliver Price” (the “Thriller” poem). | | Neil Serling | Host of the Tympanic Zone segment. | ## **Transcript notes** - Timestamps mark the start of each new section only. - Sound effects and music cues are in \[italic brackets\]. They describe what the recording sounds like and aren’t official cue names. ## **Contents** 00:00:00 Opening Fiction: "Dishwasher" 00:01:59 Opening Ident and In This Issue 00:03:25 The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 1: The Grotesque 00:11:03 Maple O'Diddy's Cabinet of Curiosities: "Lay All Your Love on Me" 00:14:00 Four Audio Fiction Frights from EAR•WAX Writers 00:19:35 Monster Mashup of the Month: Girl Talk's "Smash Your Head" 00:31:58 The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 2: The Visceral Emotion 00:38:50 Oliver Price on "Thriller" 00:39:57 Neil Serling's Tympanic Zone: "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" 00:42:34 The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 3: The Work and the Body 00:47:24 Mac the Monster Mechanic: "Dragula" 00:51:26 Wrap-Up 00:51:52 Credits 00:53:24 Run for Cover: "I Put a Spell on You" ## **\[00:00:00\] Opening Fiction: "Dishwasher"** **AUTOMATED VOICE:** Go For Broke. What's your broken item today? **CALLER:** Dishwasher. **AUTOMATED VOICE:** Please state your problem with "dishwasher." And please be as specific as possible. **CALLER:** I put the dishes in, and they come out dirtier. They're covered with — flies. And there's these chunks, a cloud of smoke every time I open it. I just — **AUTOMATED VOICE:** It appears as if you have not paid the obligatory Go For Broke collection fee for Easy Clean Dishwasher Model 894 with Liquid AI Cleansing Solution. **CALLER:** Oh my God, it's — it's moving at me! **AUTOMATED VOICE:** I highly recommend you press five to speak to a collection representative. **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Collection representatives. State your emergency. **CALLER:** My dishwasher is trying to eat me! **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Throw money at it. **CALLER:** What? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Feed it money. Anything you got in your pocket. \[Unclear.\] **CALLER:** It stopped. **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** How much did you give it? **CALLER:** Seventy-some-odd cents. **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** You don't have a lot of time, though. Two options: pay $1,000 a day for the Go For Broke collection fee to have us replace the model, or keep throwing money into its \[unclear\] little clean hole and hope it doesn't get hungry while you sleep. **CALLER:** There's no other option? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** You can wait four years. **CALLER:** Four years? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Yeah, that's when your warranty's up. **CALLER:** Doesn't that mean you have to fix it? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Can't fix it for four years, minimum. It would help if you sent me a thousand dollars a day. That's going to fight the broken system and the company. **CALLER:** Don't you work for the company? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Yeah, but I don't like it any more than you do. **CALLER:** So you have one of these dishwashers? **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** God, no. I have my people hand-wash for me. *\[The dishwasher growls.\]* **CALLER:** Like that. **COLLECTION REP (OLIVER MORRIS):** Sounds angry. Probably didn't give it enough money. Anyway, how about that \[unclear\]? Easy Clean Model 894\. We'll have more for you tomorrow. **AUTOMATED VOICE:** Thank you for \[choosing\] Go For Broke. ## **\[00:01:59\] Opening Ident and In This Issue** *\[Thunder and rain, then the EAR•WAX sonic branding: a voice says "EAR•WAX Magazine" over music.\]* **JORDAN STILLMAN:** EAR•WAX Magazine, Volume One, Issue Four: Spooky \[unclear\]. "The Audio Meat Manifesto," by Stephen Indrisano \[spelling?\], in three parts. Maple O'Diddy, in her Cabinet of Curiosities, discusses Brian David Gilbert's "Lay All Your Love on Me." Four audio drama episodes to terrify your eardrums, from EAR•WAX contributors. Monster Mashup of the Month: "Smash Your Head," from Girl Talk's Night Ripper, by Jeff Van Dreason. Oliver Price on the timeless classic "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Neil Serling brings us to the Tympanic Zone, discussing "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" by the dearly departed Tim Curry. And Mac the Monster Mechanic gets his wrench on "Dragula" by Rob Zombie. A Run for Cover cover battle: "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, fighting it out with a cover by Diamanda Galás. ## **\[00:03:25\] The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 1: The Grotesque** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Here's Stephen Indrisano, writer-creator of Shelterwood: A Suburban Gothic, with part one of their Audio Meat Manifesto. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** The Audio Meat Manifesto: an essay in three parts, by me, Stephen Indrisano. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Disclaimer: I was a beta reader for, and play a part in, season two of The Gospel of Haven, which is discussed at length in this piece. I also discuss my own writing on Shelterwood: A Suburban Gothic, and across the Audio Meat scene. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** One: The Grotesque. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** When I was in middle school, I had two loves: ghost-hunting shows and nature documentaries. You would think that our survey of Audio Meat, a horror podcasting movement, would begin in the green-gray haze of ghost hunting's night-vision goggles and gain-cranked microphones. Actually, I want to start this journey by placing you in one of my most cherished memories: a discovery of the grotesque miracle that is life, through a nature program. Let me introduce you to the life cycle of the Suriname toad, as I did. *\[Music plays under the narration.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Okay. It's autumn. You're me. You trudge up a steep driveway. You retrieve the spare key from the spider-infested garage, unlock the basement door, and try not to be afraid of the empty \[house\]. You kick off your shoes in the mudroom, avoid looking in the mirror as you pass through the laundry room, and finally arrive at the most important place in the world: the basement. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** The basement is dark, no matter the season. There's this constant hum. Probably the AC. And every time your house settles, the basement cracks and groans like an old joint. You turn on the old CRT. You've made it home in time to catch the back half of your favorite show on Animal Planet, a kitschy, overproduced top-10 program called The Most Extreme. You don't know it yet: today's episode will change your life. Listen. *\[Stephen voices a TV nature-show narrator over upbeat music.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** "Number four on our list of the most extreme births is one tough mama. The Suriname toad, native to the rainforests of South America, has one hell of a skincare routine. Unlike other amphibians, the Suriname toad doesn't lay her eggs. She keeps her eggs implanted in the skin of her back. Babies grow and develop until it's time to give birth. When she does, her skin swells and breaks open for up to 100 \[toadlets\] to squeeze out of her epidermis and into the world. She'll shed her skin over a few weeks and be ready to do it all again next mating season. Talk about having skin in the game." *\[Eerie music.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** The basement is the same, but you're \[not\]. Your dad was always worried that ghost hunters would freak you out, here at home alone, but it's this — this miracle of life — this is what will keep you up tonight. The way the Suriname \[toadlets\] wriggle through the distended pores of their mother. The pain you imagine their mother felt. The pain. Maybe also the relief. Maybe even joy. It disgusts and enthralls you. You are experiencing, in its original meaning, fear and fascination: the grotesque. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** This, for you, is where Audio Meat starts: in the basement, in front of that mythic CRT TV. Wonderful. Horrible. So is Audio Meat. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Plainly, Audio Meat is a diffuse artistic movement pioneered by several independent, unconnected podcasters, all creating weird fiction, from around 2018 up through the time of writing, now in 2026\. Audio Meat is concerned with bodies, emotions, and normality, and the lack thereof. The term itself was coined years into the movement by horror podcast producer Pacific S. Obadiah \[spelling?\], whom I interviewed for this piece. Pacific: *\[Stephen reads Pacific S. Obadiah's words over music.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** "Let us assume that suddenly and spontaneously, your favorite feline companion started growing berries. These berries are completely safe to eat and quite tasty, but they are made entirely of \[cat\]. They grow on your cat's back, and when they fully ripen, they painlessly pop right off. Your cat would like you to eat these berries, and often would bring them to you to eat. Every vet you've brought your cat to agrees that, although weird, this behavior is healthy and good for your cat. Every nutritionist agrees that these berries are safe to consume, and there's no ethical or medicinal qualms around consuming them. Would you eat your cat berries?" **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** This is an icebreaker Pacific Obadiah uses with new creative partners, and he's less interested in your answer than he is in your thought process. What do you think about cat berries? How does this concept make you feel? And why? How do you define this impossibility? To quote Pacific one more time: "You and I are meat. If we make art, is that art not an extension of us? Cat berries are meat; so too must our artwork be meat." **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** All work within the Audio Meat movement adheres to this central philosophical tenet: the grotesque and the strange are not separate from the beautiful and divine. That works of Audio Meat can be gross is beside the point. Life is gross. Can you look past that? Can you appreciate the miraculous existence of the Suriname toad? Would you — could you — enjoy a bowl of fresh-picked cat berries? After all, it's just meat. *\[Music plays out.\]* ## **\[00:11:03\] Maple O'Diddy's Cabinet of Curiosities: "Lay All Your Love on Me"** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Now, here's Maple O'Diddy in her Cabinet of Curiosities, discussing Brian David Gilbert's "Lay All Your Love on Me." **MAPLE O'DIDDY:** Mm-hmm. Come closer, into the light. Don't be shy. I see you've found an exquisite relic. Way, way back in the year 2021, online sensation Brian David Gilbert recorded an EP consisting exclusively of covers of popular ABBA songs, but from the point of view of different ghoulish Halloween monsters. The project was called \[unclear\]. A most rare and unique artifact. **MAPLE O'DIDDY:** My personal favorite track was "Lay All Your Love on Me," sung from the point of view of a vampire who falls maddeningly in love with a human. The refrain is changed to "Lay all your blood on me." A fitting and sensual request from any grown-up vampire who should not fall so easily. *\[A clip of Brian David Gilbert's "Lay All Your Love on Me" plays, with organ and layered vocals (lyrics not transcribed).\]* **MAPLE O'DIDDY:** Brian David Gilbert is an excellent singer and a singular performer. The arrangement is gothic and over the top, with a comically haunting use of organ and multi-part harmonies. Most crucially, the cover is quite good. And the accompanying video is delightful, and it's way better than it has any reason to be for something so silly. And that is why it's been a permanent addition to my annual spooky season playlist, and would be a worthy jewel in the collection of any discerning connoisseur. My compliments on your good taste. *\[The song plays out.\]* ## **\[00:14:00\] Four Audio Fiction Frights from EAR•WAX Writers** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Now: four audio fiction frights from EAR•WAX writers. **GAVIN GADDIS:** Nightlight. Back in the heyday of audio drama Twitter, there were two genres that reigned supreme: horror and sci-fi. Which makes me feel all the more of a poser for the fact that I really had to rack my brain thinking of the scariest one. Perhaps it's a side effect of my listening to most of them while driving long distances for work, but few horror audio dramas drum up a genuine sense of foreboding. Tonia Ransom's Nightlight is the exception, and remains a high-water mark for anthology audio drama. From the first episode I encountered, I was hooked. Each episode adapts a horror story written by a Black author, using Black actors. Ransom brought a passion to the craft and created something special and terrifying, all while promoting a wide swath of authors in the process — something a lot of anthology horror isn't necessarily successful at, either by dint of every episode being written by the same team, or authors not being clearly named in the episode presentation. Nightlight puts the author front and center, cementing them in the title, show art, description, and episode itself. **HANNAH WRIGHT:** Janus Descending. Janus Descending is the scariest audio drama I've ever heard. It's not just the absolutely harrowing acting done in season one by lead A.R. Olivieri \[spelling?\] and writer/lead Jordan Cobb. It's not only the immersive and unsettling sound design by Julia Schifini \[spelling?\]. It's not even the non-sequential plot, the mirrored storylines letting us know that it's already too late. It's something that Jordan Cobb does incredibly well: even in the face of unimaginable alien horrors, sometimes the person next to you is much worse. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** "Moon Graffiti," from The Truth. Written and produced by Jonathan Mitchell, edited by Hillary Frank. It's 17 minutes of alternate history, minimal sound design, \[unclear\] performances, and it remains one of the creepiest, scariest bits of audio fiction I've ever heard. In 2011, The Truth released "Moon Graffiti," a what-if episode centered on what it may sound like if the Apollo 11 mission crashed on the moon. As they escape their crashed ship, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong face their mortality and the purpose of their mission and lives in a desolate stretch of barren nothingness, lonely and alien. They recognize there is nobody coming to save them, and their dread spreads. They try to stay professional as they assess that there is no hope, and that it's possible that nobody will ever come retrieve their remains. It's only a matter of time before they meet their end. And as time drags on, they go back and forth from trying to be professional to being terrified human beings. Fifteen years later, "Moon Graffiti" remains just as powerful as ever. **JORDAN STILLMAN:** The SCP Archives, from Bloody Disgusting. Episode SCP-087, "The Stairwell." I haven't listened to every episode of The SCP Archives. There's like a million. \[That's\] hyperbole. And the ones I have heard, I've really enjoyed. Their first episode, the first I ever listened to, lives rent-free in my head. There's something deeply disturbing about the episode SCP-087, "The Stairwell." Maybe it's because I went in completely cold. I'd never even heard of the internet phenomenon that is SCP — Secure, Contain, Protect — and its wiki upon wiki of collectively generated lore when I first listened. **JORDAN STILLMAN:** The episode is a prime example of everything that makes The SCP Archives great: the clinical and cold reporting and redactions, juxtaposed with unflinching human terror in the face of the inexplicable. SCP-087 is an unlit platform staircase. It minimizes light, making subjects unable to see more than a flight or so ahead, and those who descend the stairwell are plagued by the cries of an unknown child pleading for help. He never seems to get any closer. It's standard creepypasta fare, but for some reason, it really gets to \[me\]. The sound design is eerie, cutting between the recordings of various doomed subjects exploring the stairwell and their communications with the researcher, safe and sound above, watching the live feed. The discomfort and increasing horrified mania of the subjects plunging ever downward is visceral. It's clear in the sound design that this place is wrong. There's something in the blackness, and those who see it don't recover. The episode is an effective encapsulation of pure and unadulterated fear, as the explorers reckon with what they find in the dark. *\[A transition sound, like a singing bowl.\]* ## **\[00:19:35\] Monster Mashup of the Month: Girl Talk's "Smash Your Head"** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Here's Jeff Van Dreason with a deep dive on all the samples in our Monster Mashup of the Month: Girl Talk's "Smash Your Head," from his album Night Ripper. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** The indie sleaze mashup masterpiece by Baltimore DJ Girl Talk, real name Greg Gillis, turned 20 in May. And if that doesn't make you feel old, congratulations: you're probably not old. If it does make you feel old, put Night Ripper on right now, dance your wrinkles away, and try not to break a hip. Or better yet, dive into a detailed analysis of the building blocks and sampled songs from Night Ripper's arguably strongest track, "Smash Your Head." *\[Throughout this segment, the samples Jeff names play as he lists them (lyrics not transcribed).\]* **JEFF VAN DREASON:** From zero seconds to sixteen seconds: Clipse, "Grindin'." Zero seconds to twenty-six seconds: X-Ray Spex, "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" Zero seconds to twenty-one seconds: Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Goin Down." **JEFF VAN DREASON:** The song begins with sample bleeds of the previous track, "Too Deep," which merges two of the sample tracks above, but also Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're Goin Down," which replaces the beautifully lifted piano line from Coppola one-hit wonder "California" by Phantom Planet. The beat from drug-rap classic "Grindin'" is mixed with Poly Styrene's triumphant countdown to her classic punk band X-Ray Spex's most infamous song, "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" Finally, Gillis adds some distorted guitar legato work, courtesy of Fall Out Boy, to punctuate the beat and hint at more rock and roll chaos to come. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Two seconds to fifteen seconds: Trina featuring Lil Wayne, "Don't Trip." Seven seconds to twenty-one seconds: SWV, "I'm So Into You." Twenty-three seconds to twenty-six seconds — it's only three seconds: Public Enemy, "Rebel Without a Pause." **JEFF VAN DREASON:** The vocals start coming into the song with these three samples. Notably, a sample from the Trina and Lil Wayne collaboration "Don't Trip," where Gillis complements the X-Ray Spex countdown with Trina instructing us to "make a bitch rich," because "the baddest bitch taught you that." This is next coupled with a single line from '90s R&B girl group SWV — a very '90s acronym, and I kid you not, Singers With Voices — singing in beautiful harmony, "What am I supposed to do?" It's notable that one of Gillis's gifts is taking short bursts of songs that just work and smacking you upside the ear with satisfaction. In both of these cases, these aren't lines from choruses or repeated lines from verses, but single lines of rap or vocalization. Gillis recognizes the strength in both of these moments, and what it adds to the original songs that they've respectively come from — so much so that he also understands that they can add to his song. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Meanwhile, the \[unclear\] beat of "Don't Trip" is reused for a later track. If Girl Talk takes a song, chances are he'll chop it up and repurpose it several times. Case in point: Public Enemy banger "Rebel Without a Pause." It must be one of his favorite songs, and with good reason. It appears on "Smash Your Head" for all of three seconds — time only for the intro's infamous three horn honks. That's it here, but Gillis has sampled the Chuck D verses in several other tunes. At this point in our "Smash Your Head" journey, we're hyped, and we're seeing why this track has the title that it does. We're only twenty-some-odd seconds into this thing, and it's already buzzing with activity. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Twenty-six seconds to forty-eight seconds: Young Jeezy featuring Bun B, "Over Here." Twenty-six seconds to forty-two seconds: Lil Wayne, "Fireman." Thirty-one seconds to two minutes and thirty-nine seconds: Nirvana, "Scentless Apprentice." Fifty-seven seconds to a minute and twenty seconds: Young Jeezy again, featuring Akon, "Soul Survivor." **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Here's where things get really interesting. Gillis lifts the glitzy beat from Lil Wayne's "Fireman" and slams it together with Young Jeezy and Bun B's "Over Here." He then packs the Weezy beat down with one of the hardest Dave Grohl drum samples in existence: a crushing beat from Nirvana fan favorite "Scentless Apprentice," the only song Kurt Cobain credited the rest of Nirvana for co-writing. And with a rhythm section like that, you can see why. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Soon after flipping back and forth with the samples a bit, Cobain's angst-ridden guitar solo from the song takes over, matching the pounding beat, and we hear lines directly from "Soul Survivor," also by Young Jeezy. And here, the music completely recontextualizes the track, which originally sounds light, fun, and sunny. With the Nirvana sample, it sounds like a literal depiction of hell, with Jeezy's sampled laugh sounding more like a world-weary devil cackling at the flames, rather than feeling accomplishment or pride. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** One minute twenty-five seconds to one minute forty-six seconds: The Pharcyde, "Passin' Me By." One minute twenty-seven seconds to two minutes thirty-nine seconds: Elton John, "Tiny Dancer." One minute thirty-six seconds to three minutes: The Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy." **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Next, Gillis weaves a classic groove from Pharcyde staple "Passin' Me By" into the piano hook from "Tiny Dancer," and somehow it works. And if that wasn't enough, he teases a Biggie collab and then drops the biggest rap verse of all time on us. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Suddenly, "Smash Your Head," surrounded by rap samples old and new, becomes as celebratory as the Ready to Die classic. Of course, Biggie knew he was going to die. His slim discography of titles basically communicated as much. And Gillis infuses his early demise with the grief it deserves. The bittersweet sample and chorus of "Tiny Dancer," contrasting large and small things simultaneously, just like Biggie Smalls, really hits home when Biggie raps, "Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade." Biggie was, of course, originally talking about the bright lights. But just a few years after 9/11, this line will forever be recontextualized into a dark omen of death, fire, and destruction, and Gillis doesn't shy away from that. Instead, this indie sleaze mashup song transforms into a meditation on hell on earth and grief. From the first line, with a nod to bondage, to the rap samples hinting that dealing drugs is hell on earth, to the celebratory success of Biggie making it all while knowing his success would only lead to his destruction, "Smash Your Head" is arguably about the dangers of blowing up. The bigger the tower, the bigger the target. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Two minutes and twenty-nine seconds to three minutes and one second: Beyoncé featuring Slim Thug, "Check On It." Two minutes and forty-two seconds to three minutes and one second: Juelz Santana, "Clockwork." Two minutes and forty-two seconds to two minutes and fifty-nine seconds: we got SWV again, right here, "Human Nature." **JEFF VAN DREASON:** We finish off with some added beats, noises, and Juelz Santana tick-tock samples to close out until the end, as Biggie reminds us that he lets his tape rock. We all know the next line is "till my tape popped." Gillis lets that go unsaid, using the sample from Santana in its place. Time is running out: for Biggie, for the Towers, for Cobain, for all of us. No better excuse than to smash our heads and break out on the dance floor, while we still can. *\[The track plays out, followed by a ticking clock and organ music.\]* ## **\[00:31:58\] The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 2: The Visceral Emotion** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Here's part two of Stephen Indrisano's Audio Meat Manifesto. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Two: The Visceral Emotion. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** A decade or so after my brush with the grotesque miracle that is the Suriname toad, I would experience my own fruitful rupture. I was twenty or so, working too many jobs, surviving emotional abuse, and trying desperately to push every feeling I ever had down — an attempt at control, not over my circumstances, but over my interior sense of reality. *\[Unsettling music builds under the narration.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** My body had other plans. One autumn night, as I was leaving one of my many, many overcommitments, my subconscious mind \[took\] center stage. I felt small. Like, physically tiny. The buildings around me and the mountains sleeping on the horizon were gargantuan. The trek back to my dorm seemed to be melting by me at half time, a record spinning at the wrong RPM. Why did everyone I passed look so concerned? What was wrong with me? **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** I stopped in at a gender-neutral bathroom and splashed water on \[my face\]. I had locked the door behind me — automatic reflex. \[Unclear.\] As I locked eyes with \[unclear\], I was certain that this — whatever was there with me in the locked bathroom — was not my reflection. Whatever it was on the other side of the \[mirror\] was not — I was sure of it — it was not me. And it was. That's when my breathing stopped, and the panic truly \[took hold\]. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Audio Meat is an outcropping of the radio gothic tradition, and as with all gothic works, emotions become externalized. When you're scared in a gothic tale, the world itself becomes dark and stormy. The major innovation that Audio Meat brings is that these emotions can't seem to fully separate themselves from the body. In Audio Meat projects, anatomy itself becomes the target of those pesky externalizing emotions. Bodies shift and contort, reset and redefine. The progenitor of this ethos may well be the werewolf: a body so overcome with animal urges as to run rampant every full moon in a new and furry skin. Only, the emotions that Audio Meat projects explore are complex and messy: fear and fascination, grotesque, miraculous. The bodies of Audio Meat are complex and messy. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Take, for example, The Gospel of Haven, written and created by Daisy Macnamera, one of only a few examples of works explicitly created as Audio Meat projects. The show is about a religious community living within the very literal body of their God, and God is becoming deathly ill. Macnamera wrote the work, at least in part, to explore allonormativity and bodily autonomy as a trans asexual writer with physical disabilities, living in post-Roe America. Haven's clergy are surgeons. They decide whether the God-home needs your body, your organs. To be sick in Haven is to be useless to your God. In Haven, we see characters struggle with faith and belonging, pragmatic leadership and individual need, while their world — their physicalized society — grows increasingly, grotesquely \[ill\]. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** How does this concept make you feel? How do you define this impossibility? Where does it fit in your world? **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Looking in that mirror, not seeing myself, seeing only a body — my body — and knowing I had pushed myself so far beyond my breaking point that my emotions had rebelled: that was the moment I knew I had to change. At this crucial juncture, they had managed the impossible. They had made my own body \[the outside of me\]: external to me, still flesh. \[Unclear\] righteously. *\[A musical interlude with double bass and cello.\]* ## **\[00:38:50\] Oliver Price on "Thriller"** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Now, Oliver Price brings us a thrilling poem on a timeless classic by Michael Jackson. **OLIVER MORRIS:** "Thriller," Michael Jackson. In '82, this track was dropped by the notorious King of Pop. With funky bass and spooky synths, the King will dance while moonlight glints. Produced, of course, by Quincy Jones, the zombies shambled to and fro. With midnight drawing ever near, Vincent Price you will then hear, as he gives his haunted telling of the nightmare you find yourself dwelling. The synths will play, the stabs begun. It's "Thriller," guys. You know this one. *\[A clip of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" plays (lyrics not transcribed).\]* ## **\[00:39:57\] Neil Serling's Tympanic Zone: "Anything Can Happen on Halloween"** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Neil Serling takes us to the Tympanic Zone, discussing "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" by Tim Curry. *\[Eerie, theremin-like music.\]* **NEIL SERLING:** Mm. The year is 1986\. The song is "Anything Can Happen on Halloween." The Worst Witch, a made-for-TV movie, appears in British households, to an unsuspecting audience of children and parents alike. Halloween night at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. And the Grand Wizard, played by the late, great Tim Curry, makes his entrance, flying in from the night sky. His performance? An odd amalgamation: one part David Bowie, one part Count Dracula. He will lead you by the hand to embark on a psychedelic dream that defies the very sense of man. *\[A clip of "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" plays (lyrics not transcribed).\]* **NEIL SERLING:** We plunge headfirst into a shocking display of classic Halloween iconography: an orange pumpkin, a white skeleton, all on a backdrop of fireworks and fog. Moody. Funny. Strange. A presentation cobbled together by nothing more than a green screen, a motley collection of primitive digital editing tricks, and pure imagination and ambition, only found in the dark recesses of the human mind. Each lyrical choice is questionable, yes. But upon further examination, you'll find it has its own clumsy and twisted internal logic. An unpredictable, colorful spectacle, with each moment as perplexing as the last. This short and spirited song must be heard. Must be seen. To be believed. *\[Ambient music plays out.\]* ## **\[00:42:34\] The Audio Meat Manifesto, Part 3: The Work and the Body** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** And now, the conclusion of the Audio Meat Manifesto, by Stephen Indrisano. All three parts produced by Oliver Morris. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Three: The Work and the Body. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** I'm not alone in this preoccupation with bodies and horror in audio. Horror podcasting abounds with Audio Meat, and has since its earliest forays. Taking away the heady, psychoanalytical aspects of Audio Meat, this is a movement which has flourished, at least in part, because it's relatively easy to make a story uncomfortably \[gross\] as an independent podcaster. Let's take a moment to honor the heroic sacrifices made by your local produce section. Poor, innocent fruits and vegetables, struck by knives, hammers, screwdrivers, and even fists. *\[Music plays under the narration.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** As intense as it all is, let's not forget that all of this is really, really fun. Audio Meat shows pulse, slither, \[and\] throb. They can be gross-out and funny and dark, spectacularly nasty and macabre. Podcasting is positively awash in Audio Meat. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** Personally, my first Audio Meat love was Spines, by \[Zoom Doom\] Productions \[spelling?\], which first launched in January 2018\. Written by Jamie Killen, Spines is a now-complete series about amnesia, occult rituals, and a small group of individuals with strange, meaty superpowers. In its very first episode, we're treated to the description of a tree sculpture — skin and hair — a still-living work of art made from a human being, swaying. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** If you prefer your horror dialectical, Fresh Meat by Jack Fulman \[spelling?\] explores fast-food labor exploitation and corporate cover-ups, featuring a shocking amount of — well, no, let's call it beef. For lovers of politics and prose, The Silt Verses imagines gods as market forces, as corporate mascots, as weapons of mass destruction — but always with physical bodies. Bodies turn into ideas, and ideas \[unclear\]. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** In my own writing for Shelterwood: A Suburban Gothic, architecture and anatomy often intertwine. Houses bleed and feed and shudder, while friendly neighbors contort into strange, obscene parodies of classic Americana tropes. Even The Magnus Archives, one of the most influential shows in modern audio fiction history, canonizes the Flesh: one of 14 core human fears, spurred by the tension between mass agriculture and our own animal nature. Episode 72 gives us a simple, sticky Audio Meat \[moment\]. *\[A short clip from The Magnus Archives plays.\]* **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** I have a body which yearns, sometimes, to be something else — something undefined and vague, even to me. I don't always know what I want or need, and it's taken me a long time to learn to sit with my feelings instead of pushing them away. Audio Meat, which I'm a part of — but more so, which is a part of me — is a reminder that I don't have to choose. Bodies are weird, in every sense of the word. Toads regularly give birth through their skin. In a crisis, emotions can take on a life of their own. To be scared, to be aware, to be conscious, is one of the great \[unclear\] of horror as an art form. Fear. Disgust. These are all visceral sensations. They are of \[the body\]. **STEPHEN INDRISANO:** I don't think it's a coincidence that trans people like me and people with physical disabilities are some of the most prolific creators of Audio Meat, because who else is equipped to wrestle with assumptions of a normal body? What is normal? Listen closely, and we'll tell you. Imagine a cat. Imagine a berry. Take a moment. *\[Music plays out.\]* ## **\[00:47:24\] Mac the Monster Mechanic: "Dragula"** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Your car looks a little banged up. Park it in the ghoulish garage of Mac the Monster Mechanic, discussing "Dragula" by Rob Zombie. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** \[As Mac\] That's a beauty here. A real monster of a wreck. You came to the right place. \[Pop\] off the hood. Let me check the transmission. See, that's a joke, 'cause this is a podcast, and it's like audio, which is like radio, and that's like a transmission, you see? Like — sorry, I'm going better here. But while I work on this beast of an engine you got, I gotta tell you about the baddest wagon I ever serviced: "Dragula." No, not the car from The Munsters — though I'm sure that was the inspiration. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** \[As Mac\] Rob Zombie's a weird fella. He's like the heavy metal equivalent of professional wrestling, you know? He ain't got no kayfabe, though. It's all real to him. It's all earnest and genuine and weirdly profound. And just like with wrestling, even though it's scripted and silly and fake, it has genuine moments of wonder and awe. *\[A short music clip plays (lyrics not transcribed).\]* **JEFF VAN DREASON:** \[As Mac\] I don't care for his movies much, or much of his music, for that matter, but that ride he's got is something special. Not sure what it is about it, but every year around this time, I'm driving in my car past houses with giant skeletons, carved pumpkins and Draculas or whatever, and I put this song on, pound on the steering wheel, and hit the gas. Yeah, it's stupid, right? This song about his car that's shaped like a coffin, and Rob's tearing ass through it, burning witches and digging ditches and just being all-around evil and undead and shit. But holy hell in a handbasket, does that demon motherfucker believe in the power of that stupid car, and sell it in this song. **JEFF VAN DREASON:** \[As Mac\] I guess you could say it's winking, but it's got such power. Its simple guitar lines right off the bat — get it? Then we get these eerie synth lines, and then Zombie's graveyard voice, set to a simple bass beat, as he brags about his car, all building to that chorus. And really, it's about embracing your inner weirdo. You know, coming to terms with the little monster you got inside you. Yeah, it's enough to make you want to be run over by that thing. What a song! What a car! *\[A clip of "Dragula" plays (lyrics not transcribed).\]* **JEFF VAN DREASON:** \[As Mac\] You're all set. Let's see — with parts and labor, that'll be your soul. I'm just kidding. I'll just take a couple of those fingers you got there. *\[Organ and theremin music.\]* ## **\[00:51:26\] Wrap-Up** **JEFF VAN DREASON:** Thanks for hanging out with us for this issue of EAR•WAX. We're going to close it out with another Run for Cover cover battle, this time between the original Screamin' Jay Hawkins version of "I Put a Spell on You," with a cover by Diamanda Galás. Please stick around for the credits. Watch out for monsters, ghosts, and ghouls. ## **\[00:51:52\] Credits** **JORDAN STILLMAN:** Volume One, Issue Four of EAR•WAX Magazine was written and performed by Jeff Van Dreason, Gavin Gaddis, Neil Johnson, Oliver Morris, Jordan Stillman, and Hannah Wright. "Dishwasher," written and produced by Jeff Van Dreason, performed by the Drama Club: Tal Minear, Jade Madison Scott, Oliver Morris, and Jeff Van Dreason. Listen to the episode where we recorded it, coming next month. "Audio Meat Manifesto," written by Stephen Indrisano; edited and produced by Oliver Morris. Huge thank-you to Stephen for their piece. Sonic branding, music and transition sound effects by Neil Johnson. Other music and segments produced by Oliver Morris and Jeff Van Dreason. Marketing, communication, and organization by Jordan Stillman. **JORDAN STILLMAN:** We need your support. Find us on Patreon at patreon.com/earwaxmagazine. You'll get access to bonus playlists, audio fiction recommendations, and more. Visit us at earwaxmag.com to subscribe to our newsletter, and check out our social media pages on Instagram, Bluesky, and Tumblr. It's late October. Please vote next month. Check out our other shows on this feed, including Infinite Mixtape, Drama Club, and Any Major Dudes. New episodes are released every Wednesday. EAR•WAX Magazine is a Third Site Media production. ## **\[00:53:24\] Run for Cover: "I Put a Spell on You"** *\[Screamin' Jay Hawkins's original recording of "I Put a Spell on You" plays, then Diamanda Galás's cover (lyrics not transcribed).\]* *\[A closing sting: a bang, a burst of music, a whisper, and crickets.\]*