271 - The Festival

Hi, all it is Jeffrey Crainer and I'm here to let you know that welcome to Night Vale is coming to Europe just for a little bit. May 27th through the 30th, 20th, 26th, we will be in Edinburgh, Manchester, London and Amsterdam in that order. So if you live over there, get your tickets. They are on sale. Now we're so excited to bring this newest live show Murder Night in Blood Forest to Europe to the UK. It's so much fun to get back there and to keep doing this show because it is such a fun show to do and to see. So Europe, we will see you at the end of May. Tickets are available at welcometonightvail.com slash live. Oh, and if you like other welcome to nightvail things beyond just the podcast and live show, we also have the nightvail tabletop role-playing game. It's available in stores wherever you get your games. This RPG was created by Renegade Games with collaboration with me and Joseph and Bri, the writers of Nightvail. It's quirky, it's spooky, it's fun, you know, just like this show. So if you ever wanted to be a character in Night Vale and do freaky adventures there, then get on this. You can get the nightvail tabletop RPG wherever you get your games. Okay, let's get on to the episode and hey, thanks. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. You never know what's going to come out of those eggs. Welcome to Night Vale. You're soaring above the desert as the sunset unfolds dramatically across an expanse of rock formations and sand. A lens flare turns everything golden, then white, like a nuclear blast. In slow motion, a supermodel sitting on the hood of a vintage convertible takes off their sunglasses and laughs for no reason nodding and beckoning to you with their almost reptilian eyes. Hypnotic synthesizer beats pulse as glow sticks and white smiles flash in the dark. On screen text reads, push the boundaries of experience. Doombuggies careen over the sun-baked earth. They are packed with supermodels each holding a different breed of puppy. No one seems to be driving. Everyone is laughing historically having the most fun of their entire lives. They're laughing so hard their eyes are nearly swollen shut, their faces streaked with tears and dirt. On screen text reads, join us in a remote desert oasis. A time lapse video shows a makeshift city being built, a place of precarious stone towers and mud sculptures and rusted metal contraptions. Hundreds more supermodels stand peed toward you, slamming teaky drinks down their gullets and screaming their frothing mandibles open wide, their sun-kissed forraches gyrating and their eyes changing color in the shifting light. On screen text reads, the festival is here. Then GPS coordinates corresponding to the dead center of the nightvail sand wastes. Lister's I know many of you have seen this video and have the same questions I do. I'm here today to hopefully find the answers to those questions, but so far we only know two things for sure. One, some kind of festival has chosen nightvail as its host city without informing any of the town officials or residents, and two, it seems to be happening soon, judging by the hordes of strangers wearing elaborate outfits and camping backpacks that are currently being dropped off by the busload at the Estes truck stop on Route 800. More on the story as it develops. In other news, Dark Owl Records is hosting a vinyl listening party on Saturday. Vinyl is the only format worth listening to. Store owner Michelle Wynn proclaimed in her public invitation. It has a richness and texture that you don't get from your little MP3s or whatever. Do you even stop to think what your songs on Spotify are made of? Nothing. Less than air. No substance whatsoever. You're practically imagining them. Michelle continued. Come down to Dark Owl this weekend for a dose of sonic reality. We will provide an array of scratching implements including nails, screwdrivers, knives, vials, chisels, and ice picks, so you can experience all the pops, shrieks, and skips that real music is supposed to have. These sounds prove that the music you're listening to has a physical form and isn't some disembodied trickster. Digital songs are ghosts. If you want to listen to a hollow shell of a corpse, go ahead. But if you want to listen to the obscure Icelandic black metal band, hollow shell of a corpse, then come down to Dark Owl this weekend and we will give you that record on vinyl and provide you with a potato peeler. So you can really get in there and find the music. Because music is not about the melody or the instruments or the vocals. It's about the imperfect changing nature of a physical medium, so put down your airy little perfect nothing songs that you can just play over and over with no consequences whatsoever and wake up. Vinyl is reality. And reality is effing physical you babies. Reality is about the damage caused by loving something too much. Reality is about our inevitable degradation over time. Do you think you're going to live forever or something? Then why should your music? Oh, and that's the end of the invite. No time listed. Not sure if there's going to be snacks or drinks or anything. Well, either way, sounds like fun. See everyone there. In Fast Food News, Arby's is unveiling a plant-based menu to be more inclusive to our vegetarian and vegan community members. Offerings will include soy beef hearts, mushroom tribe and tempeh calves liver, wheat gluten duck embryo, tofu lambs brain, check fruit, horse meat, lentil fish guts, fried rats feet. Oh, no, sorry, that one was from the meat side of the menu. Lots of exciting new additions for everyone. Speaking of new additions, the influx of festival tourists has reached a fever pitch down at Estes Truck Stop. The buses just keep coming. Byron Villa Lobos, Truck Stop owner, remarked an excitement. And those kids, they're buying all kinds of things. I'm thinking of raising by bottled water prices through the roof. Not to mention the chips in soda and coffee and batteries and hats and shampoo and fuel. Maybe a cover charge just to walk in the door. Byron used who has been waiting his whole life for a situation like this to capitalize on. They seem to be going hard for the road flares and Halloween masks at the moment. I think those are what I'll jack up first. He concluded his eyes sparkling with dollar signs, which are etched into his contact lenses. Byron then hurried off to rebrand his dusty stock of recalled energy drinks as festival juice. It is still uncertain exactly what kind of festival it is and who's organizing it. Will there be music? Will there be art? Is it rave like the ones from my youth where we all gathered in a vacant warehouse and dared each other to eat large quantities of horse radish till the sun came up? Luckily, I have found one actual nightvill citizen who is attending the festival and can help us answer these questions and more. Resident shapeshifter and on again off again community college student Josh Creighton is on route to the festival right now and has agreed to keep us informed with some on the scene reporting. He is also unsure about what exactly is going to be happening out in the sand wastes this weekend and only bought tickets because he saw the video on social media and it seemed like quote I don't know something to do, I guess. He is currently taking the form of an out of towner wearing a unicorn costume in order to blend in. More on this developing story soon. First a word from our sponsor. So you think you have it all under control. You work hard, you make time for your loved ones, you keep up on your chores and errands and bills. You go to the gym at least once a week. You even have a little side hustle making cosplay corsets for small dogs and ferrets, combining your love of 18th century costuming with your talent for sewing and your desire to see little animals looking fancy. You really have it figured out don't you. But you're juggling my friend. It looks effortless and graceful until you make one little misstep and all those balls come crashing down around you because when one goes they all go and you suddenly realize you can't cheat time just by making lists and setting alarms. Time plays the long game and time always wins. That's where Lunchables come in. When your life has gone so off the rails that you can't construct a simple sandwich, Lunchables will provide you with eight crackers. When you are buried under a crushing avalanche of responsibility, Lunchables has your back with several cubes of American cheese. When you can barely get out of bed Lunchables is there for you with a stack of ham circles. Just close your eyes, take a breath and repeat the phrase, let go and let Lunchables. Lunchables because time always wins. Now breaking news from the Sand Wastes. Undercover Festival Informant Josh Creighton has just updated me that he has arrived at the provided GPS coordinates and things are not off to a smooth start. There's evidence that the organizers tried to build some infrastructure but the project seems to have been abandoned halfway through a partially constructed stage, a makeshift shower building with all the boxes of plumbing hardware still sitting in the dirt, a medicate with no staff inside, a single portapoddy, scaffolding everywhere. It's also clear that several sinkholes opened up at some point and swallowed much of the building materials and possibly the organizers as well, which is of course a common occurrence in the Sand Wastes and the reason why everyone brings double or triple the usual amount of supplies and crew when doing any sort of work out there. Shortly after Josh's arrival, a Cessna business jet plummeted to its fiery end, just south of the festival grounds, which caused a panic among the attendees, even though that's also a common occurrence in the Sand Wastes, I mean, look around people, you literally cannot count the amount of charge fuselages out there. Anyway, apparently many people started running and screaming, which has led to several attendees colliding with the venomous cacti and sustaining serious bite wounds. At least one person has hurtled straight off of skeleton gorge. Josh quickly dropped his out of towner disguise and is just being himself now, trying to act as a local representative so that he can assure the tourists that there's nothing to be alarmed about. He has tried to tell them that the venomous cacti will not bite unless they are provoked, and that you can't fall off skeleton gorge if you stay at least six feet away from the edge, and that the sentient mirages will not target you if you're hydrated enough. And to watch out for the tumblebeads because they're made of twisted metal from all the airplane wreckage and they'll slice you up real good if they brush past you. He says most people are not listening to him, and in fact seem to be afraid of him too. I'm just trying to get everyone to calm down so we can get this party started and have a fun chill time like in the video. Josh told me via voice note, sounding disappointed. Sorry to hear things are off to a bumpy start out there, Josh. Hopefully it will even out soon and you can still have a great weekend. Keep us posted. Now a letter to the editor. Dear Cecil, this is in response to the fake meat they're selling down at the Arbys. Vegetarians and the likes say killing cows for food is cruel. Well, did you ever think that if we didn't breed cows for food, then less cows would be born. Did nine of creatures entire existence sounds more cruel than letting them live and turning them into meat patties later on? I'd be proud to end up as a meat patty. Sign me up, Buccaroo. In conclusion, I like eating beef and the fact that there's an option to eat something other than beef is personally insulting. To me, personally, I propose stopping the sale of fake meat products immediately as it is discriminatory to carnivores. The existence of vegetarians in general is judgmental of my lifestyle. I would like that to stop also. Signed and anonymous, you know, farmer. Thank you for the letter. Anonymous, I have it on good authority that Arbys as a singular corporate consciousness does listen to our show and I'm sure they'll consider your viewpoint. Now back to Josh in the sandwastes. Here, let me just play his latest voice text. Hey Cecil, Josh again. So, you know, Tabitha Littlefield, our town founder who emerged from a chrysalis after 300 years and has been randomly devouring townspeople for the last eight months? Well, she just rolled up. Her 2023 Hyundai Aionic looks super good by the way, she did a great job restoring it. So I thought she was going to like try to help calm everyone down since she's the town founder and everything, but she looks pretty hungry today. And a lot of people are doubled over on the ground after drinking the bottled water, because I guess our water can make people sick if you haven't grown up drinking it and built up an immunity to it and everything. Anyway, a lot of them look like they want to run away, but they can only ride the round in the sand. I'm going to go ahead and turn myself into a chrysalis bush so she doesn't come after me and I can keep an eye on things. Okay, there we go. Okay, she's approaching the crowd. She's making those weird kowingsounds she makes and cocking her head back and forth, which is never a good sign. Yeah, she's starting to do that thing where she opens up her jaws real big. Damn, she looks really hungry today. Thanks for the update, Josh. Hope to hear from you again soon. While we wait, let's go to the weather. Let us not just watch and wait anymore. Let it go. The blind to what we're on. I won't let them tell me the pay was meant to come. When light and breeze is darkness, the feeling is a swelter. When Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Light comes out, if Truth yeah, we can't do it, but oh, don't rip me from the dumps out like We're the house with car road time Let us not just watch and wait anymore Let it go, let it go Sometimes I start to wonder what the grinding place for Drowning out the thunder blind to where we'd run I won't let them tell me the pain was meant to kill Lying in rain to start this feeling is a swell Let me say it again, let me say it again, oh Through our blood my ears that have come to pass Pain is done as well as Through our blood my ears that have come to pass Pain is done as well as Through our blood my ears that have come to pass Pain is done as well as Through our blood my ears that have come to pass Pain is done as well as at Shopify.com slash setup. Hi, this is Rob Benavitt. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Krypti was, he's great. We love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent decovney type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural, then and now. I've just been talking with Josh Creighton, and you'll all be relieved to know that things have turned around for the better out there since we last heard from him. All the out of towners have either been eaten by our ravenous founder, Tabitha Littlefield, or succumb to their various injuries and ailments. That in itself isn't the good news, of course. It's merely the neutral news that paves the way for the good news. Once the bloodbath ended, and Tabitha drove away, barely able to squeeze into her ionic after feasting so hard, Josh was about to call the weekend quits. He reported being, quote, bummed about the whole thing. As he turned back from a creosote bush into the form of a young man in classes and khaki shorts, he spotted movement behind the smoking wreckage of the sessna. At first, he thought it was one of these sentient mirages sensing that he was low on electrolytes, but he saw that it was actually a human being, a young woman big and tall and powerful looking. She wore a safari vest and a red bandana and a muscle tee featuring purses the Greek god of destruction, and her face was covered in soot, the sole survivor of the out of towners. She grimaced as they walked toward each other. Wonder if we can get our money back, she said. Josh asked her where she was from, and she told him she couldn't remember. Once she entered the city limits, she said, she seemed to forget a lot of things about the past. Oh, that's normal, Josh said. That's good, she said. I thought it was weird, but now that you say it's normal, it seems totally okay. Josh wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or sincere, but he liked it either way. He was about to offer her a ride back to town when another vehicle appeared on the horizon. He was an old school bus with festival spray painted across the side, and it was filled with people and musical gear. A band started to set up amidst the half-eaten bodies and smoldering heaps of debris. Josh recognized them immediately. It was the extracurricular project of some of the culinary students at the community college, a French cookery-themed hardcore band called Crusty Begette. Josh was super into them and shows were rare. Hey, they're pretty good. Said the woman in the red bandana nodding along as the band began to play their first song, Creep Susette. Totally, Josh said. And as far as I know, Josh and his new out-of-towner friend are still out there enjoying the music and making the most of their festival weekend. So it seems like everything is just fine after all this and the whole thing wasn't a huge disaster that some of us predicted. Sometimes things do work out against all odds. Stay tuned for a special announcement from Byron Villalobos about the big sale down at Estes Truck Stop with prices slashed to almost normal. Good night, Night Vale. Good night. Good night. Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Kramer, and Bree Williams. Sound Design and Production by Dispiration. The voice of Josh Craton was Bree Williams. The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin, original music by Dispiration, all that can be found at disparition.net. This episode's weather was stretching thin by mad women. Find out more at the link in our show notes. Comments, questions, email us at infoatwelcometonightvale.com or follow us on Blue Sky at Night Vale Radio or on Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok at Night Vale official. Or call your representative and ask them to, you know, stop doing all that. Please. But mainly check out Welcome to Night Vale.com, where we have a twice-monthly mailing list that is the best way to keep up-to-date directly from us to you. Today's proverb. One spitten, twice shy, twice bitten, quadruple shy, three spitten, sex topple shy, and so on. I'm here to tell you about good morning Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale's official recap show and unofficial best friend, Food Podcast. Join me, Meg Bashwinner, and fellow try hosts, Hal Lublin and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Night Vale. Come for the insightful and hilarious commentary and stay for all of the weird and wild behind-the-scenes stories. Good morning, Night Vale, with new episodes every other Thursday. Get it wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, even there.