HBM084: Are You Sure You're Awake?

/
Graphic by Jeff Emtman

Graphic by Jeff Emtman

 

Chrissy was having trouble remembering who she was when she woke up.  First she thought it was early-onset dementia, then she thought it was schizophrenia.  She had recurring hallucinations about being stalked by a beast that would talk to her while she slept.  

Content note: language

A doctor eventually told her she was waking up frequently throughout the night, some 30+ times per hour.  It was this inability to maintain a regular sleep cycle that helped her get a diagnosis of narcolepsy, explaining Chrissy’s excessive sleepiness, hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and sometimes episodes of cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle control after having a strong emotional response).

Chrissy’s diagnoses frightened her. She tried to pretend it wasn’t true. This attitude drastically changed one day when she woke up in traffic, driving 100kph with her kids in the back seat.  She finally accepted her illness, recognized it as a beast, and looked for ways to feed it that wouldn’t affect her children.  She says that’s the only way it’s won—if it gets her kids.  

This episode was produced by Bec Fary. Bec is a freelance audio producer and creator of the podcast Sleep Talker. Bec’s show is about sleep, dreams, and nightmares, and she’s covered narcolepsy before. That’s how Chrissy got in touch with Bec to share her story. If you have a story you want to share with us, get in touch.

This episode was edited by Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman. Our editor at KCRW is Nick White.

Music: Phantom Fauna, The Black Spot

 

HBM083: Sweet Like Snap Peas

/
Cemetery asparagus. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

Cemetery asparagus. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

 

Ryan Graves thinks that store-bought asparagus is as flavorless as potatoes.  But that's just because he's spoiled on the really good stuff. 

His preferred crop grows wild among the tombstones at Clinton Cemetery, hidden on an old gravel road between the towns of Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho.  Most who are buried there died over 100 years ago. 

That intervening century left the cemetery mostly forgotten and overgrown.  And Ryan thinks the deep-rooted asparagus taste so good because of the natural quality of their fertilizer.  

Ryan Graves thinks that store-bought asparagus is as flavorless as potatoes.  But that’s just because he’s spoiled on the really good stuff.

His preferred crop grows wild among the tombstones at Clinton Cemetery, hidden on an old gravel road between the towns of Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho.  Most who are buried there died over 100 years ago.

Ryan Graves also appears on HBM042: Deers.  Jeff Emtman produced this episode.  

Music: The Black Spot 

 

5 Likes, 2 Comments - Here Be Monsters Podcast (@hbmpodcast) on Instagram: "Re: our most recent episode. . . #foodstagram #humanfertilizer"

 

We have a question for you:

What will be unknowable to the archaeologists 3 million years from now?  What is understandable only to people of today?  

Send a voice memo to HBMpodcast@gmail.com.  Or leave a message on our voicemail: (765) 374-5263.  We may include your audio in an upcoming episode.

 

HBM082: MI5 MI6 KGB CIA

/
HBM082.jpg
 

John Barner spent his entire childhood fiddling with his dad’s shortwave radio, picking up transmissions from all over the world. He like the way the sounds crackled, and the voices speaking foreign languages, and the eerie whine of transmissions coming in and out of static.

Content Note: Language

One night John got a phone call from one of his friends who also had a shortwave radio. “I think I just found spy stuff,” John’s friend said, “come over.”

John and his friends had found a number station, coded transmissions broadcast on unlicensed frequencies. Number stations are believed to be a form of espionage where intelligence agencies broadcast encrypted messages to field operatives. But no government has claimed responsibility for their existence.

Number stations come in many forms. Some are beeps or sustained tones. Some are repeated bars of familiar folk songs. The rest are strings of numbers and words from the phonetic alphabet.

 
 

Spectrograms of suspected number stations. ⤴

John, like countless other shortwave enthusiasts, has been captivated by the mystery ever since discovering them as a teenager. He used to try to crack the coded messages, thinking he’d stumbled on the X-Files.

Henry Cooke, a technologist and number stations enthusiast, believes that its the indecipherable code that makes number stations so alluring. He’s found internet forums dedicated to tracking number stations broadcasts and even videos of radio sleuths claiming to have found broadcast locations. Henry believes this to be a type of modern folklore; that shortwave enthusiasts trading theories about the origins and meaning behind the number stations are almost like telling ghost stories around the campfire.

Garrett Tiedemann produced this episode. Garrett also produces the podcast The White Whale. Bethany Denton edited this episode with help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White.

Number Station recordings courtesy of The Conet Project. Full archive can be found here.

Music from John Barner’s new album, Shadow Time.  

 
HBM TEE002 -11.jpg

New HBM Shirts

$18 + Shipping

Get Yours!

HBM081: Kinnikinnick Nick VS The Bear

/
Jeff Emtman at Boy Scout leadership camp.

Jeff Emtman at Boy Scout leadership camp.

 

Boy Scout Leadership Camp was a bad fit for Jeff Emtman.  He was a meek 13 year old who didn’t eat meat and talked to animals with his mind. Regardless, Jeff wound up in the dry forests of Eastern Washington, with a group of other boys and a young scout leader, Nick, whose leadership style was...let’s just call it “eclectic”.

Content note: language and drug use.

Nick was rarely around, and when he did show up, he’d impart scouting wisdom on building giant towers, making drug paraphernalia, and pooping in the woods.  It was Nick’s lesson on plant identification that earned him the nickname “Kinnikinnick Nick”.  He browbeat the virtues of smoking the dried leaves Bearberry, a plant that grew wild across camp.  He claimed the plant an intoxicant similar to LSD.  Nick also sold weed.

As the camp’s middle management wised to Nick’s dealings, they slowly sowed the seeds of conspiracy into the minds of the Jeff and the other campers.  And the middle management prepared for a late-night sting.

Jeff Emtman produced this episode, along with help from Bethany Denton and Nick White.

Music:  The Black Spot

 
HBM TEE002 -8.jpg

NEW SHIRTS!

PSST... Our new HBM t-shirts are here!  Designed by HBM Listener Adam Fein, and screen printed by Restless Prints of Seattle…$18 + Shipping

Get Yours

Psychic Blob and The Radio Race

/
 

On a hot summer day in 2014, HBM host Jeff Emtman received a bit of amateur, backyard surgery from a fish biologist.  

It was for the KCRW 24 Hour Radio Race. which is a one day radio contest now in its fifth year.  The race gives contestants 24 hours to record, edit and publish  the most interesting radio story they can find.

The 2017 24 Hour Radio Race is happening on August 19th (Saturday), and you can sign up at kcrw.com/radiorace.

And, this should go without saying, but never give or receive amateur surgery.

We just got Instagram!  Follow us.