Cold Open: We like dark tales here on Timesuck! Stories of murderous serial killers and accounts of cult leaders’ madness are some of our most popular episodes. I get it! Fear is fun when the danger isn’t right there in front of you. Edgar Allan Poe clearly loved a little fear. He put that primal emotion in so much of his literary works. Poe didn’t kill anyone or, at least according to most historians, go mad, but he loved to spin a dark tale. He’s considered the founder of the modern, psychological horror tale. Many literary giants of today consider him to be the world’s first true suspense author. He’s the inventor of the detective novel. The Godfather of the modern spooky mystery. “He wasn’t just a mystery/suspense writer,” adds the author many consider to be today’s master of suspense and horror, Stephen King. “He was the first.” And yet he toiled in poverty for the whole of his life. He was miserable for most of it. “Poe is so ingrained in us—so deeply encoded into our cultural DNA—that we no longer recognize him,” says Louis Bayard, whose novel The Pale Blue Eye puts Poe at the center of a mystery during his days as a West Point cadet. “And yet whenever we write a mystery, whenever we write horror, whenever we write science fiction—whenever we write about obsession—we’re following in his tracks.” I like that thought about no longer even recognizing the influence Poe has over us. We are all the sums of our influences but we often don’t realize who those influences are. I’ll use myself as an example. I knew very little about Poe before this past week but now it’s clear to me that he’s influenced me a lot as.. I’m fascinated by the world around us, but, more with the dark side of human nature than the uplifting. I’m guessing you might be too. The first author I fell in love with as a kid, the man who sent me riding my bike to the library time and time again, reading every book they had that he’d written, as fast as I could - the man who sent me running to my mom’s room in the middle of the night because I was scared half to death, tortured by my own imagination, was Stephen King. And there’s a good chance there would be no Stephen King had there not been an Edgar Allan Poe. At least not the Stephen King we know and the one I still love. And, had there not been a Stephen King, there might not be the me you know. Maybe I wouldn’t have become so attracted to horror during those important, critical, developmental years. Maybe my comedy wouldn’t be so dark and inappropriate. Maybe all of my jokes would be about the lighter side of life? Ugh. That sounds so fucking boring and terrible! No dead squirrel puppet jokes? No longing for the violent deaths of inconsiderate strangers? Sounds boring. So let’s head back to the source, or at least to one of the primary sources, for much of our current relationship with horror and darkness. Let’s head to the troubled early and mid-nineteenth century life - the impoverished life of struggle and death, led by “the Raven”, Edgar Allan Poe. PAUSE TIMESUCK INTRO I. Welcome! A. Happy Friday Timesuckers! Happy June! It’s bonus time! Hope you had a refreshing Memorial Day weekend and are enjoying wrapping up a shorter work week! And if you’re at work, I hope this gives you a nice break. Work can wait! It’s time for Timesuck. I’m Lord Suckitude, the Suckmaster General, the Master Sucker - Dan Cummins and YOU are listening to Timesuck. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious. Hail Nimrod! Hail Lucifina! Or, begone Lucifina if she’s giving you trouble! Praise Bojangles. Praise Michael Motherfuckin’ McDonald! And I hope Pootie and Juju are well, I hope that Chikatilo is suffering, and I hope those Pineys are licking up all the puke they can eat. B. Characters: Who are all these characters? I know many of you, newer to the show, have been asking that recently. So, at the end of today’s show I’ll provide a little summary of what the inside jokes are and where they originated to bring everyone up to speed. Not a bad idea to do that from time to time. C. Pre-roll (Search n Shred): Today’s Timesuck is brought to you by the Search n’ Shred app, which has either just hit or will appearing very soon in the iTunes app and Google Play store. The brain behind this app is Timesucker and Space Lizard Josh Wagg! What is Search n’ Shred? Let’s talk about it. “Are you having a hard time finding a worthy new addition to your band? Or simply wanting to have a jam session with musicians like yourself? Look no further! Search n’ Shred App will help you find exactly what you have been looking for! Search n’ Shred helps you locate musicians nearby, and the right kind of musicians. You can narrow the search by genre, instruments, or styles. You can also buy and sell instruments and equipment through the app. To participate in this groundbreaking app, users create a profile that includes their location, age, music style, and profile picture. And it lets you chat with other users to learn more about them before you decide to meet up - even view their videos on their linked YouTube and SoundCloud accounts. You can also post events and attract the attention of various musicians in the surrounding area. So what are you waiting for music creators? Let us help you minimize your search time so you have more time to shred! Join this amazing community and download the Search n’ Shred App today. D. Doing my first AMA coming up soon via WhatPods.com I was informed that this comprehensive podcast website has named Timesuck as one of the best comedy podcasts of 2018, so go fuck yourself a few angry reviewers on iTunes. Thanks to the overwhelming majority of you for the great reviews and ratings by the way. Almost at 4,000 which is amazing! I will be hosting an AMA, an Ask Me Anything, for 90 minutes on June 5th at Whatpods dot com. That’s Tuesday, June 5th, at 4:30 PM EST, 1:30 PM PST, for 90 minutes. The live link for your AMA is https://whatpods.com/ama/timesuck/ I will include that link in today’s episode description. You can also rate Timesuck on Whatpods so people can find the show on their platform by following another link I will provide in the episode description. CLICK HERE TO RATE THE SHOW: https://whatpods.com/podcasts/timesuck-with-dan- cummins/ You have to make a Whatpods account to leave questions, so please head to Whatpods dot com before hand to sign up. E. Open house: (Describe how it went) The guys from sweetboxdelivery.com stopped by with custom Timesuck Custom Cookies and pizza bagels. These guys are awesome. They’re Timesuckers. They deliver within a 100 miles of Spokane. And they deliver all kinds of goodies! Bagels, stuffed bagels, F. Sale: Thanks to everyone for taking advantage of the Memorial Day sale and wiping out a lot of the store’s goodies. I will have new Danger Brain merch I’m very excited about to talk about soon. In the Suck Dungeon again today, recording in advance of the Tempe, Arizona dates with the Reverend Doctor Josh Krell and Queen of the Suck Lynze Cummins. G. Tour: Lynze and I are in Phoenix right now if you’re listening to this Friday the 1st. I’ll be at the Tempe Improve tonight and tomorrow night, with new Flat Earth Tour jokes and special guest Gareth Reynolds from the Dollop Podcast. Next week, our nation’s capitol! DC in D.C.! Flat Earth jokes getting told at the DC Draft house June 8th and 9th. June 15-16th Flat Earth mockery headed to the Funny Bone in Des Moines, Iowa. July 12-14th, the Orlando Improv. Live podcast on the 15th. Comedy Store in La Jolla, July 20-22nd. Dayton, Ohio Funnybone July 27-28th. More tour dates at www.dancummins.tv. H. And now, I present to you… Edgar Allan Poe. PAUSE INTERLUDE II. Intro A. Origins of horror: Edgar Allan Poe did not invent the tale of terror. Let’s be clear about that. He did invent the slinky. And if not for the slinky, he would’ve never written The Raven. Bet you didn’t know that. I’m almost positive it’s not true since I just made it up. But seriously - Poe didn’t invent literary horror. Homer’s Odyssey, written sometime between the 12th and 8th century BCE, one of the world’s oldest known examples of literature, records Odysseus’s confrontations with several witches, including Circe. And while it was not intended to be a scary story, it undoubtedly scared numerous readers. The Bible’s First Book of Samuel, written in the 5th or 6th century BCE, (Samuel 28, 3-25) reports Saul’s consultation with the Witch of Endor. All these ancient witches doing their witchery! They were probably witches in the same sense that Joan of Arc was - innocent women who didn’t do what the men of that time told them to do.