"Neuro-Magical" w/ Drew Edwards

Summary

Bigfoot Collectors Club – “Neuro-Magical” w/ Drew Edwards

Date: September 10, 2025
Hosts: Michael McMillan & Riley Bray
Guest: Drew Edwards (Comic writer, “Halloween Man”)

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and unusually heartfelt episode, comic book writer Drew Edwards joins Michael and Riley to discuss his lifelong passion for paranormal phenomena, Texas folklore, and his experience living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The conversation flows from cryptid tales and Texas myths to an intimate exploration of neurodiversity, trauma, and empathy, all filtered through Drew's unique perspective as both a writer and experiencer. The episode delivers classic BCC banter—fun, weird, and personal—culminating in a powerful message about embracing strangeness and stories in all forms.

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Main Themes

• Drew’s Paranormal & Comic Origins
• High Strangeness: Cryptids & Haunted Texas
• Empathy, Neurodiversity, and Dissociative Identity
• Personal Stories: Love, Life, and Prophetic Dreams
• The “Neuro-Magical” Experience
• The Power of Rituals, Monsters, and Storytelling

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Welcome to the Clubhouse & Guest Intro

[03:12 – 08:15]

• Michael introduces Drew, lauding his Ringo Award nominations and his series “Halloween Man.”
• Drew shares how his journey into “high strangeness” began with a love for anything involving Bigfoot and how listening to the show came full circle when he recognized Michael from “True Blood.”

Notable Quote:

• “I loves me some high strangeness. It’s one of my all-time favorite topics. Anything with Bigfoot in the title, I’m 100% going to check out.” – Drew ([04:29])

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2. Drew Edwards’ Comic Book Roots

[05:37 – 07:34]

• Drew describes “Halloween Man” as “the weird adventures of a zombie superhero and his sexy mad scientist girlfriend” who face everything from Bigfoot and Nessie to Texas legends.
• Upcoming release: 25th anniversary omnibus illustrated by Nicholas Scott.

Notable Quote:

• “Halloween Man is best described as the weird adventures of a zombie superhero and his sexy mad scientist girlfriend as they battle everything from steampunk mummy pirates, vegetarian vampires, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster...” – Drew ([05:45])

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3. Where In the World Is Bigfoot? – Maine Sighting Report

[09:01 – 19:39]

• Recap of a recent Bigfoot sighting in Maine: A couple observes a large, brown biped crossing the road, arms swinging oddly, reminiscent of a Naruto run.
• The car ahead (closer to the creature) has not come forward, prompting calls for more witnesses to share.
• Drew jokes about Bigfoot enjoying Maine’s culinary delicacies and points out the subtle classism in witness credibility language.

Notable Quote:

• “Bigfoot is all across this great nation of ours. And most importantly, Bigfoot is in our hearts.” – Drew ([17:36])

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4. Drew’s Paranormal Origin Story & Texas Folklore

[22:23 – 31:15]

• Childhood immersion in cryptid books and local Texas folklore sparked Drew’s interest.
• His hometown was the site of a “relatively famous UFO abduction,” complete with Men in Black sightings.
• Fascination with unique Texas culture (“a unique stew of strange”), the Headless Horseman of Texas, and “Carpie,” Austin’s controversial giant carp.

Notable Quotes:

• “Texas is, if it isn’t the weirdest state in the union, it’s in the running… a very unique stew of strange.” – Drew ([27:36])
• “Monsters are never just monsters. Monsters always mean something.” – Drew ([90:12])

Fun Moment:
Drew enthusiastically supports Texas breakfast tacos and concedes: “California takes burritos, and then we can call it.” ([31:11])

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5. Local Legends: Headless Horseman & Carpie

[32:18 – 37:57]

• Drew details El Muerto, Texas’s own Headless Horseman, and why regional folklore matters.
• The team reacts to photos and tales of “Carpie,” the monster-size carp pulled from Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, joking about its Lovecraftian aura.

Memorable Moment:
“The guy in the photo… looks rocked. Like he is shaken to his core… as if he gazed into the abyss and the abyss opened and showed him what reality really was!” – Michael ([36:18])

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6. Believe It or Bullshit? Rapid Paranormal Quiz

[39:00 – 41:50]

• Drew enthusiastically affirms belief in most cryptids and paranormal phenomena—except the Loveland Frogman.
• Family dynamics influence his stance on Ouija boards and tarot (“My wife will be angry at me. But…”).

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7. Prophetic Love & Synchronicity: Drew’s Personal Life

[47:05 – 54:48]

• Drew recounts meeting his wife Jamie—who, uncannily, had dreamed about him for years prior, nickname and all.
• The story involves another Jamie (his ex), Vegas impersonators, and surreal twists—“Only in Vegas!”
• Drew explains Jamie’s identity as a kitchen witch and their world of rituals and subtle magic.

Notable Quote:

• “I used to have dreams about you… The reason why I came up and talked to you at my show is that I’ve been dreaming about you for years now.” – Jamie (via Drew, [51:32])

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8. Neuro-Magical: Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder

[59:18 – 88:59]

• Drew opens up about his diagnosis with DID, the inner experience of having an “alter”—a protector born from childhood trauma—and how it overlaps with high strangeness narratives (missing time, feeling “not alone,” unexplained phenomena).
• The term “neuro-magical” emerges to describe the mystical, surreal way his brain processes reality.
• Drew describes therapeutic strategies: co-consciousness, “the ritual of the monster hand,” and the importance of giving his “alter” dream-time.

Notable Quotes & Insights:

• “It sounds remarkably similar to… encountering a cryptid or a ghost… I kind of live in that sort of crossroads between the mundane and the magical.” – Drew ([60:32])
• “My alter is my protector. He’s my guardian. He keeps my void safe.” – Drew ([64:09])
• “What we have now is we call it the ritual of the monster hand… almost always, one of my hands will have longer fingernails. That’s just a little acknowledgement that he’s there, he’s with me.” – Drew ([74:33])
• “I’m never alone… even when I’m completely by myself, I always have the sense that there’s somebody else with me.” – Drew ([82:19])

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9. Empathy, Monsters, and High Strangeness

[84:41 – 91:18]

• Drew advocates for empathy when evaluating stories of the unexplained, speaking to the stigma, skepticism, and isolation that often surrounds those experiences.
• The hosts reflect on how sharing strange stories connects people and builds understanding, regardless of objective “truth.”

Notable Quotes:

• “The important thing about unexplained phenomenon—a lot of people get hung up on the wrong word. I think ‘unexplained’ is really important.” – Drew ([85:49])
• “I wish more people would approach stories of high strangeness with empathy.” – Drew ([84:41])
• “Monsters… mean something. That’s probably the core of my life’s work.” – Drew ([90:12])

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10. Coda – Halloween Man, Ritual, and Moving Forward

[91:46 – 94:39]

• Drew’s “Halloween Man” omnibus is now widely available (“Barnes & Noble, comic shops, Amazon, even Target or Walmart!”).
• Drew invites listeners to connect with his work and social media for more weirdness and Texas legend-tripping.
• The hosts express gratitude for Drew’s openness and the unique depth he brought to the show.

Notable Quote:
“I feel like I’ve gone from the weird punk rock kid who draws skulls on his binder to the sexy prom queen almost overnight. It’s kind of strange.” – Drew ([92:44])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Guest Introduction: [03:12]
• Comic Book & Paranormal Origins: [05:37]
• Bigfoot Maine Sighting Report: [09:01 – 19:39]
• Texas Folklore and Monsters: [22:38 – 37:57]
• Paranormal Quiz Game: [39:00]
• Personal Story: Prophetic Dreams & Love: [47:05]
• DID & “Neuro-Magical”: [59:18]
• Empathy & High Strangeness: [84:41 – 91:18]
• Where to Find Drew/Halloween Man: [91:46]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I guess he didn’t listen to those Men in Black because otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, now would we?” – Drew ([25:59])
• “If you want to get into it about barbecue, I’m from Kansas City, and I will go to the mat defending Kansas City.” – Michael ([31:02])
• “Monsters are never just monsters. Monsters always mean something.” – Drew ([90:12])
• “I’m a veritable army of me.” – Drew ([82:11])

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, playful, and deeply empathetic
• Hosts maintain trademark banter (“permanent seg,” “Naruto-running Bigfoot”) while moving fluidly into serious personal revelations
• Drew’s openness, humor, and philosophical approach anchor the episode in both rich storytelling and vulnerability

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For Further Exploration

• Halloween Man (Red 5 Comics) – Wide retail/comic store distribution
• Drew’s Instagram: @drewhalloween (Art, cryptid tales, punk rock, Texas weirdness)
• BCC clubhouse and bonus content: https://bcc.supercast.com

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Final Note:
This episode stands out for its powerful blend of humor, folklore, neurodiversity, and compassion—a testament to the rare magic that happens when personal stories of high strangeness intersect with radical empathy. Whether you’re here for cryptids, comics, or real-life mysteries of the mind, “Neuro-Magical” offers an unpredictable trip into the unknown—with monsters, memories, and meaning at every turn.

Transcript

[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

It is the future. It's.

[Drew Edwards]

It's the present and just the convenience of Carvana. Sorry to blow your mind. It's all good. Happens all the time. Sell your car the convenient way to Carvana. Pickup times may vary and fees may apply.

[Riley Bray]

It's Bigfoot Collectors Club with Michael and Ring.

[Michael McMillan]

I know a story of highest rangness or two. Let's do this. Here we do it, everybody. I literally. We launched and I said here we do it. What the hell? It was just like when I was at. Steve and I were. I was checking Steve Berg out of the Eldridge Hotel. Check out Ghost Quest, the eldridge over on YouTube and as well as Legend Quest, other videos that we did about our trip to Kansas. But Steve Berg was walking out the. The one of the women working there went, how's your day? And I went, thanks.

[Riley Bray]

Great.

[Michael McMillan]

I didn't even. Didn't even realize it. I don't know. My.

[Riley Bray]

My big, big city coastal elite coming in here.

[Michael McMillan]

Thanks. So stupid. Hi everybody. Welcome to Bigfoot Collectors Club, the show where we talk to amazing guests about their personal normal history and share stories of high strangeness. I'm your host, Michael McMillan. With me always is the Polyphonic Pioneer.

[Riley Bray]

Oh, cool. I like that. It's like I have a pickaxe and a modular synthesizer.

[Michael McMillan]

Yes, Riley. Yeah, very good one. Submitted by firemester on. There's some missing vowels on there. Cool. Over on the BCC Discord, which you can also get on in name Riley if you join the BCC [e-mail] I already mentioned the YouTube videos. Guys. Go check if you're not following us on YouTube. Just you, you know, come over. Just do it.

[Riley Bray]

Please have video episodes. You got these little bonus bits that.

[Michael McMillan]

I work so crafts.

[Riley Bray]

Yes. He works so hard.

[Michael McMillan]

I work so hard editing these videos.

[Riley Bray]

Make me smile when. When I love. I love when you send me a draft.

[Michael McMillan]

These ones are very fun. I'm also like, okay, next time, we need to make sure we do this. I already chastised Riley for chewing gum behind the camera. I was like, o, next Ghost quest. No chop.

[Riley Bray]

It gives it an air of like, sort of disconnected teen.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

I believe ghosts are attracted to gum because it's made out of ectoplasm.

[Michael McMillan]

There you go. Take it from the man who's got a Ghostbusters poster hanging over his shoulder. Let's bring him in. Our guest this week is a comic book writer twice nominated for Ringo Awards and the Best of Austin winner for comic creator. He's also a podcaster that you can hear on the Castle of. On Castle of Horror podcast. Don't put a the there if there's not a the there. I know this from Bigfoot Collectors Club. The next installment of his comic, Halloween man arrives this month just in time for the spooky, I believe, right. September. We're in September.

[Drew Edwards]

September 30th.

[Michael McMillan]

So you got two weeks, everybody. Yeah, this will be on the 13th. That arrives on the 30th, just in time for the spooky season. So club scouts of all timelines, please welcome to the Clubhouse, Drew Edwards.

[Drew Edwards]

Drew, howdy.

[Michael McMillan]

Howdy. Welcome.

[Drew Edwards]

Happy big, big Texas. Howdy.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, howdy. How are you? Welcome to the clubhouse. And you said right before we start rolling, you've been a listener of the show as well.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, I found y' all through. Is it called Tooth and Claw? The animal attack?

[Michael McMillan]

Tooth and Claw, Yes.

[Drew Edwards]

I found y' all through Tooth and Claw. And I have been a devoted listener ever since because I loves me some high strangeness. It's one of my all time favorite topics. Anything with Bigfoot in the title, I'm 100% going to check out. As I was saying over email, I actually, because I listened to it out of order, I listened to 10 episodes before I realized that you had been one of my favorite characters on True.

[Michael McMillan]

Blood, another Texas star, Steve Newlin. Yeah, it's funny when people will go like, wait a minute, you're that guy.

[Riley Bray]

You know, I hadn't seen the show for like three or four years of us making this podcast. And then finally I was like, I gotta see Michael do this thing. And I was blown away.

[Drew Edwards]

I was texting him that whole it's a truly great, outrageous, over the top Texas accent that only vaguely sounds like his real voice, in my opinion.

[Michael McMillan]

So I love it. Thank you.

[Drew Edwards]

You're very welcome.

[Michael McMillan]

So Halloween man, does that involve high strangeness? I mean, with the name like Halloween man, it's getting a little paranormal, it sounds like.

[Drew Edwards]

So, Halloween man, here's my elevator pitch that I give it. Conventions when people have not heard of it. Halloween man is best described as the weird adventures of a zombie superhero and his sexy mad scientist girlfriend as they battle everything from steampunk mummy pirates, vegetarian vampires, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Headless Horseman, and also appropriate to my location, various Texas myth myths and legends.

[Michael McMillan]

Right.

[Drew Edwards]

So, yes, we do indeed deal with high strangeness.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, man, I love this. And the most recent issue that's coming out is illustrated by Nicholas Scott. Right.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, the COVID what is coming out, which is coming out through Red 5 Comics and distributed by Simon and Schuster, which is crazy and mainstream and blowing my mind, is actually a collection. So when Halloween man started out, it was a webcomic and Nicola was one of the original artists on the webcomics. So this is a 25th anniversary omnibus. It features all of Nicola's work in this big, beautiful, remastered graphic novel format. And it's also a great jumping on point. If you've never read Halloween man, this sets up the entire world. You don't have to worry about homework. You can just dive in. And it has a brand new Nicola cover that is gorgeous. And I'm stunned that 25 years on that she will still do artwork for me because certainly she has. She has. She has bigger things on her plate these days.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. So Nicola is a very talented artist. I know her through friends in the comic book industry. She's fantastic. She does a bunch of big stuff for D.C. and maybe even Marvel too. But definitely check out her work. Super cool and a very nice person as well.

[Drew Edwards]

Very Australian.

[Michael McMillan]

Very Australian, yes. I've never met an Aussie that I didn't like. I'm going to be honest, they're.

[Drew Edwards]

They're the. They're the Texans of the South Pole.

[Michael McMillan]

That's kind of true. They're kind of the Texans of the planet, you know, so maybe we're the.

[Drew Edwards]

Australians of America is what I should be saying.

[Michael McMillan]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You guys are the Australians of. Yes, exactly. All right, well, we're gonna get into your personal paranormal history and all that fun stuff, but before we do, I thought it'd be time to once again check in on our favorite Cryptid of all. We've mentioned him already, Mr. Bigfoot in a now constant recurring. It's not just part of Big Strange Vacation anymore. I'm bringing it into the fold.

[Riley Bray]

This is a permanent segment.

[Michael McMillan]

Permanent seg. Permanent recurring segment now with no copyright issues. No copyright issues at all. We're just seeing what the.

[Drew Edwards]

What.

[Michael McMillan]

How many who has seen Bigfoot in the year 2025.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah.

[Michael McMillan]

It's time once again for the best segment of all time. Where in the world is Bigfoot? San Diego.

[Riley Bray]

It's getting better.

[Michael McMillan]

It's getting better. Yeah.

[Riley Bray]

I like it.

[Michael McMillan]

I like the long lead up to it too, Drew. And Drew's a nice person who didn't make fun of it and say, that needs work. You're the first person who says, I. I, I.

[Drew Edwards]

Actually, my reaction to that was I was just in San Diego, saw a lot of Chewbaccas. Didn't see.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, you were at Comic Con. Of course. How was Comic Con this year?

[Drew Edwards]

It was amazing. It was my first time. I had taken a break from San Diego Comic Con, so this was my first time back, because I have two things that I was there to promote, and there was lots of magical things that happened. I talked to Matt Groening for two minutes about the movie Forbidden Planet, and he bought a copy of Halloween man. Did not realize who he was until someone told me. And then I was like, I really hope you don't get mad that this. This robot in the comic looks just like Bender. It's. It's an homage. It's not a ripoff, I promise.

[Riley Bray]

It's a nod to the master.

[Michael McMillan]

Well, I mean, you and Forbidden Planet. I mean, bender's basically a 50s robot, so it's an homage of an homage. So you're. You're fine. What a cool.

[Riley Bray]

It's great that you didn't realize who you were talking to. It's probably for the better, really.

[Drew Edwards]

I. I don't think. I don't think I'm. I'm anxious. Don't let the cowboy swagger fool you. I am an anxious person by nature. So if I had known that I was talking to Bart Simpson's, you know, dad, basically, I definitely would not have been as cool and just able to wax philosophical about 50s science fiction movies.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, you just ended up having, like, an ultimate hipster conversation. That, and he probably doesn't get a lot of those anymore in the wild. So you made his. That's how you sold the book. That's how you sold your comic. That's how you make a sale, Drew.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah.

[Michael McMillan]

All right. Well, still no sign of Bigfoot in San Diego. As our cub reporter, just let us know. However, just this month or last month. Excuse me. August 2, 2025, Bigfoot was spotted in Maine. So I've gone back to the BFRO website for details on this encounter. Now, this took place in Oxford county, in Newry, Maine, which was the nearest town on Bear River Road. So here we go. Observed. Here's the observer. My husband and I again, I go right to a Southern accent and it's Maine.

[Riley Bray]

It's a perfect Maine accent.

[Drew Edwards]

My husband think Stephen King.

[Michael McMillan]

I know I did this last time. I'll just read it. My husband and I were driving through and out of Grafton State park when a large brown biped came out of the woods and ran across the street. The car, yeah, the car in front of us was closer to it and it had to break. So it was clear they saw it too. It was pretty large, all brown and moving very quickly. One thing of note is the way it carried its arms almost behind it as it ran across, which seemed odd and unhuman. Like I had my husband drive up to the place where we saw the figure to make sure there weren't any people on the side of the road or any parking areas. At the spot where the figure crossed is fully outside of the park. No parking lot, sidewalks, or any place someone could have gone other than directly into the woods. Even though not much time passed where it crossed ahead and where when our car got to the spot, there was nothing in the woods or near the side of the road. And then of course, we have these other witnesses in the car ahead of them who have not come forward to contact us and didn't stop to talk to these people. And no other stories from this witness. They said it's the first in this area and they'd never seen anything like this before. This was in the middle of the day, around 1:20pm Forest area right out of the state park. Trees on both sides crossed across the street. The investigation report from our fellow at BFRO, Mr. Jeff Shepard, said I had the opportunity to speak with this witness within days of reciting. She and her husband are busy professionals who like to get away on weekends to explore outdoor opportunities in Maine. The spirit of adventure brought them to Grafton State park to unwind, hike and explore the beauty of nature. Sounds like some like tech bros that like to get out in the woods. You know, that's kind of the vibe I'm getting. Yeah. They stopped at the location of the crossing to see if there was parking area or people around. The only thing they saw was the woods. When asked how tall she thought the creature was, she said it was likely between 8 and 9ft tall. Even at the distance, they were behind the car. She Said that the creature leaning forward towered over the Subaru type vehicle ahead of them. What stood out to the couple was the height, the odd nature of how the creature ran with its long arms behind it. That's kind of a weird. I'm trying to picture like what that.

[Riley Bray]

Like a little bit of a Naruto run.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be very fun if Bigfoot started picking up. It's like, it's like a few years too late for the Naruto Running Area 51. It's like just getting.

[Drew Edwards]

Just in time for the. The weapons arms.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, you're right. Wow, that's kind of spooky when you think about it that way. The color of the creature was chocolate brown, not black like the local bear population. The speed that it ran at on two feet was too fast to be a black bear on two legs. It was also too large to be a bear, both in height and body size. I found the witness to be well spoken. Incredible. She filed her report on the day of the incident and was hoping the car in front of them that almost hit the creature would also follow a report validating what they saw. That's, that's the thing, right? We talk about it on the show all the time. Like they're, they don't even. This is coming from the people who were the car behind the car that got the best view. And you know those people aren't coming forward in reporting this. We gotta get ahold of these people. Um, he said total. There are 19 other reports from Oxford county that are not posted publicly but are documented in the BFR database. Um, but yeah, you know, we gotta get this couple. If you are listening to this show on a road trip and you almost hit a Bigfoot in Maine with its arms running behind it, dragging behind it, Send us an email, contact us. We want to know what you saw. What do you think Drew Bigfoot in Maine?

[Drew Edwards]

I mean I've been to Maine. I've been to Maine on tour with my wife's band. It is a delight. It is super spooky as you would expect. You know, Stephen King state to be. I did not see either Bigfoot or sewer clowns while I, while I was in Maine. However, I think if I were to see Bigfoot in a non woodsy mountainous area Maine would be in. You know I can, I can see that like that being said is a card carrying hillbilly. I really dislike the fact that they said well spoken, you know, like that immediately. That immediate is like so you just think Everybody from. From rural America is some.

[Michael McMillan]

Or just women. Just women. You know, this could also be. Yeah, well, see here.

[Drew Edwards]

Could be classism and misogyny. We don't have to.

[Michael McMillan]

We don't have to.

[Riley Bray]

They so often walk hand in hand.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. So that kind of made me grind my teeth that I still have a little bit. But yeah, sure. Bigfoot's in Maine. Bigfoot's everywhere. Bigfoot is all across this great nation of ours. And most importantly, Bigfoot is in our hearts. So I'm saying that this is legit. And I do think that the other. Yeah, that other Come forward. How are we ever going to prove that bigfoot is a thing if we can't get more people talking, you know, like, you know, like, it can't just be weirdos talking about bigfoot. We need normal, you know, non.

[Michael McMillan]

Well spoken.

[Drew Edwards]

Well spoken.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

[Drew Edwards]

Churchgoing folk. Churchgoing folk.

[Riley Bray]

There you go.

[Drew Edwards]

With good jobs and all their teeth and fine manners.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. There's a photo of the area of like the road where it crossed and it. I mean, it's just. It's just lined with trees, you know, so this is very Bigfoot, very big footy looking territory here. I like it. I like this. I like the specificity. I like the weirdness of it. And I enjoy the mystery of the other car that we won't. That we don't know who got. Must have gotten a really good look at this thing.

[Drew Edwards]

Maybe Bigfoot occasionally just wants a lobster roll and a potato donut. So he's like, man, you know, like.

[Michael McMillan]

I think he wants the like butter cups that you dip. The lobster leg, the hot butter. Yeah, you know, probably loves that.

[Riley Bray]

Well, I'm like bigfoot now trying to angle for that good flight on the southwest. The good seat on the southwest flight to Maine. He's like, oh, I gotta get on there and get that exit roll.

[Michael McMillan]

He's gotta pay the extra 80 bucks to get in like a 1 position. 18.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm not gonna get it.

[Michael McMillan]

All right.

[Riley Bray]

So stressed out.

[Michael McMillan]

When we come back, we are gonna get into Drew's personal paranormal history. Hey, club scouts, it's Michael interrupting this episode you're enjoying with another ad. Oh, boy, hate ads. Guess what? So do we. And now you can listen to bigfoot collectors club ad free when you join us in the BCC [e-mail]. what's that you're wondering? Well, BCC clubhouse is a subscriber premium feed over at supercast.com where you will get ad free episodes. Three bonus exclusive episodes every month with access to video for those episodes. And you're going to get exclusive music composed by the wondrous wizard of sound waves himself, Riley Bray every month. That's right. Not to mention access to the entire exclusive archive over at BCC clubhouse. So head over to bcc.supercast.com for a small monthly fee you will get access to ad free episodes, bonus episodes and music by Riley. What are you doing? Get over there. We're having the most fun guys. It's kind of the best way to experience the show. And you'll also gain access to the Discord where you're going to be able to chat with fellow club scouts and Riley and me. What are you waiting for? Become an official club scout when you join BCC [e-mail] streaming now.

[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

Uh huh. It sucks. But we are going to make it better. Meet the underdog journalist. I hope it's not too disruptive to have me shake everything up.

[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

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[Drew Edwards]

I wouldn't be here. Hear more stories like Jack's at unitedhealthcare.com benefits, features and or devices vary by plan, area limitation and exclusions apply.

[Michael McMillan]

All right, Drew, so you said that you are super into the paranormal and the unexplained. You love this stuff. What got you into this field?

[Drew Edwards]

So knowing I was going to have to answer this question, I have now been thinking about this for several days and there has been so many odd things that have happened to me in my life that I don't know that I could specifically get it down to one thing. But I'm going to go all the way back to my childhood so we can have a origin of sorts and keep things orderly. So same way I got into comic books was the same way I got into the paranormal because I was already into monsters. And, you know, the next thing, after reading all the comic books that the library had. Cause my library had these huge hardbound books of, like, golden and Silver age comics that I would just check out.

[Michael McMillan]

No way.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. Like, my original comic books were all, like, the things that I really gravitated to was actually, like, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Silver Age stuff. And to me, they were new, even though this was the 1980s. However, like, the next leap over is I would go over into their folklore section, and they had stuff on werewolves. They had stuff on UFOs. But the thing that I loved the most, because I was like most monster kids, I was also a dinosaur kid. They had a book on mokole mimbe and that I must have checked out so many times. And finally my mom, you know, relinquished. She's like, well, you know, he can't just be constantly borrowing this book from the library. So she got me a bunch of, like, Time Life books that were about the paranormal. So there was one that was about cryptids, one that was about ghosts, one that was about UFOs, and one that was just specifically lake monsters, even though there was, like, one that was more general cryptids. And then there was, like, this one's Champ and Nessie, and. And, you know, so that's kind of the same thing.

[Michael McMillan]

Just different lake, different lake this time. Same thing. Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

And I grew. I grew. Lake monsters were really my jam, because I grew up in an area of Texas called Possum Kingdom, which is on a lake. And around the lake tonight, exactly by my side. That is the only thing that people know.

[Michael McMillan]

Sorry.

[Riley Bray]

No, no, no, I'm not.

[Michael McMillan]

I'm not blasting the toadies in my brain.

[Drew Edwards]

It's okay. Everybody in Texas is exuberantly proud of the toadies. But I. Because, you know, of thinking, well, wouldn't it be cool if there was a lake monster here? Of course there was not. But what I was able to do is start looking into local folklore. For example, it turns out that a few years after I was born, you know, my hometown was the site of a relatively famous UFO abduction. There was men in black sightings and everything.

[Michael McMillan]

What was this case?

[Drew Edwards]

What was the case, man? So now I. My notes were on my other computer.

[Michael McMillan]

You can paraphrase it. You don't. You don't got to get it right.

[Drew Edwards]

Just what had happened. Like. Like all bad things in my hometown. There was a couple that was making out next to the local power plant. Then there was a strange light over their car. The boyfriend Got out to investigate and Fire in the sky style. And a couple days later, he showed back up. He was disoriented. And then a couple days after that, there were some shady government types in black suits that were showing up at the boyfriend's house and telling his mom, you better not be telling anyone about how you were poked and prodded by some space aliens. No, sir. And, of course, I guess he didn't listen to that because otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, now, would we? But, you know, I was able to take my general interest into cryptids and monsters and the paranormal and look back into Texas folklore. Like, I started out with my own hometown and what the folklore was around my own hometown. And then I got into broader stuff. You know, I started looking into, you know, Texas monsters, like the Benbrook Goatman or El Morto or, you know, La Llorona. You know, stuff like that. Stuff like that. I'm probably butchering La Llorona. I have a co writer on one of my projects who is Mexican, and he hates the way I pronounce it.

[Riley Bray]

So I apologize.

[Michael McMillan]

He will.

[Drew Edwards]

He will inevitably listen to this. So, David, I'm sorry.

[Michael McMillan]

Again, David.

[Drew Edwards]

Hillbilly, even I'm honest, David. It's good, but, yeah, you know, like, it sparked a lifelong interest in not just folklore, but specifically the folklore of Texas, because Texas, frankly, is, if it isn't the weirdest state in the Union, it's in the running. Like, Texas is a very unique stew of strange. And I'm not just talking about paranormal. Like, there's, like, specific stuff about the Texas character. Like, we are so oddly proud that we are the state that killed jfk. You know, like, we are so weirdly proud of Leatherface, who is a fictional serial killer, but people in Texas basically give him real person status. Like, there is an oddness about the character of Texans that is both genteel but also very morbid that I find fascinating endlessly.

[Michael McMillan]

I found that. Riley, you originally from Texas?

[Riley Bray]

I am a technical Texan.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

That's a good band name.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. You're a robot in a cowboy hat. You know, I've been to Austin a few times. I love Austin. I've driven through the Panhandle a number of times on my way from LA to Kansas City. And it does feel like, out of many of the states, that Texas is, like, one of those. It's like, if you're not from here, you don't get it. You know what I mean? That there's sort of a very shared sense of. Of identity that in Texas that you just. You're. You're either in the club or you're.

[Drew Edwards]

Not in the club 100%. And it's. Which is kind of strange because Texas. If you look at the way Texas actually look looks, it's basically five or six different countries. Because, like, where I grew up, you come out of all this flatness and you go down into a valley, and you would think you had left Texas and entered Louisiana. Like, it does not look like what you think of Texas looking like. And a lot of Texas is like that because we have this. This weird level of biodiversity. We're basically, you know, a bunch of different countries that has a shared culture. Like, there is a shared Texas culture, but then there's Texas subcultures, and it's. It's unique.

[Michael McMillan]

California is pretty similar, you know, that you say that.

[Drew Edwards]

You know, and that. So, like, that makes sense, you know, and also. But your weather is.

[Riley Bray]

Is.

[Drew Edwards]

Is better than. It's.

[Michael McMillan]

It's better. You know, it's all kind of becoming the same everywhere, though. So we'll see. Get back.

[Drew Edwards]

Our tacos are better, though.

[Riley Bray]

That is true.

[Michael McMillan]

True. And you invented the breakfast taco, which I very much appreciate.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah, I was just. I just. I just based out thinking about Torchy's breakfast Tacos in Austin. I was like.

[Drew Edwards]

I had. I had. Not Torchies, but I did. I did have breakfast tacos just yesterday. And they. They are. I mean.

[Riley Bray]

I mean, across the state, they're good.

[Michael McMillan]

In the airport at Austin, like, even there, you can get a good breakfast taco. It's crazy.

[Drew Edwards]

Our gas station tacos are really good. I'm actually surprised. I was expecting some pushback on. On that they're supposed to beat the Texas California taco feud.

[Michael McMillan]

If you want to get into it about barbecue, I'm from Kansas City, and I will go to the mat defending Kansas City.

[Riley Bray]

But, yeah, I. I'll give.

[Michael McMillan]

I'll get.

[Riley Bray]

I'll give Texas tacos. And I think California takes burritos, and then we can call it.

[Michael McMillan]

I would agree more burrito.

[Drew Edwards]

I am weird about barbecue among my people in that I do think that we have amazing barbecue in the state, but I am perfectly willing to admit that other states, because I like tasting the differences that other people bring to it. Yeah, I like the different regional flavors. So Tennessee has good barbecue. Kansas City has good barbecue. It's okay, you know? It's okay.

[Michael McMillan]

I'm not saying it's bad barbecue down there. I'm just saying if you're. If I'm gonna Go to the mat for a food. It's gonna be, you know, I'm from Kansas City, so that's what I fight about. You know, that's what I'm gonna go to the bat for. I ultimately.

[Drew Edwards]

Fair enough.

[Michael McMillan]

Care. So what are some of your favorite figures of folklore or the unexplained in Texas? Like, if you're like, oh, I really love this little story or this little nugget.

[Drew Edwards]

My personal all time favorite because I'm also a Halloween enthusiast. Obvious is El Muerto, our own headless horseman from Bimbolt, Texas.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, cool. Who.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, he was a cattle thief that if you believe this story, he was a cattle thief that had his head chopped off by Confederate soldiers who then strapped his corpse to his horse and slapped it on the butt and sent it roaming around the Texas hill Country. And to this day, people still say they see him. And if you see him, you should be concerned because that is a sign that you soon might die in Bimbolt, Texas. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to have a headless Horseman festival. And I just, I love everything about it because it's, it's, you know, people, everyone on the planet thinks they know the Headless Horseman because they know Sleepy Hollow, right? But it's this regional variation that I find extraordinarily just juicy. And, you know, I like the fact that it's tied to cowboys and that it's a horse thief. The Confederacy, like all these, you know, the Texas Hill country, just all these regional things and it just, and not for nothing, reoccurring villain and Halloween, man. So, you know, I love that. I love, I love the Headless Horseman of Texas. Not a proper cryptid, though. So I guess I would have to say in terms of cryptids, and this is an incredibly deep cut. I'm going to go with our local hometown hero here in Austin. And I'm gonna get a lot of people booing me because a lot of people consider this fake lore, but I don't care. It's Carpie, the giant fish that allegedly lives in Lady Bird Lake. There's a lot of debate in Texas cryptid among Texas cryptid fans that, oh, well, this was started by a radio station they fished out during the pandemic, an 80 pound carp. You can look this up online. 80 pound carp. So I can, I can believe in Carpie. And as, as your good friend Steve Berg often says, sometimes hoaxes create real things. I think that's what, that's what Happens. And I just like the idea that Austin has its own lake monster and it's not a generic plesiosaur.

[Michael McMillan]

Holy. This thing is big. Yeah, I'll put it up in the chat so you can check it out. Riley, I'll put this up.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. Get. Get ready for nightmare fuel, because it's. It's a. It's a biggin. And I. I love the man who's.

[Michael McMillan]

Holding it in this photo that I'm looking at. Looks rocked. Like he is shaken to his core. He's. He is, like, scared of what he's holding. He does.

[Riley Bray]

Like, he has a look. If he's questioning it.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. Yes.

[Riley Bray]

Everything that's brought up to this point.

[Michael McMillan]

It'S almost as if he gazed into the abyss and the abyss opened and showed him what reality really was, and he cannot handle it now.

[Drew Edwards]

I want that movie. I want the carpy movie where the inside of Carpi's mouth tells you the secrets of the universe. Let's. Let's just. Let's. You know, I'm manifesting some B movie filmmaker who's listening to this podcast. Make that movie happen. I could ride it. I'm good and I'm cheap.

[Michael McMillan]

Let's make it happen. I love it.

[Riley Bray]

This is amazing.

[Drew Edwards]

The guy in the photos kind of.

[Riley Bray]

Got, like, a Tim Heidecker kind of vibe.

[Michael McMillan]

It does. And he really looks like he's been crying, but not because he's so proud of his catch, because he's just learned the music of the spheres, and he can't contain all of that cosmic knowledge. You know what I mean? So it's leaking out of his eyes.

[Riley Bray]

From the belly of the carp.

[Drew Edwards]

You know, the thing that I find funniest about the whole carpie situation is that there are people that are afraid of carpie, and yet they occasionally find alligators in Lady Beard Lake, which are actually dangerous, which I don't think a carp, no matter how big. I mean, I don't know. That carp's pretty scary, but is it as scary as an alligator?

[Michael McMillan]

It said it took him 40 minutes. No, an alligator's scarier. But this carp put up a fight. It took him 40 minutes to get the fish into the net. And he says, and once I landed it, I needed the assistance of two other anglers that were fishing the lake to help weigh and photograph it before returning it to the water. You know, because once you learn the secrets of the universe, you realize it must. You must preserve them and let others discover them for themselves. So.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah. Do you think it just locks eyes with you. And then that's when it.

[Michael McMillan]

Yes, but the mouth goes into yourself. Yeah, the mouth opens, and then you see into it. Do you want to know what the name of the carp is?

[Riley Bray]

Of course I want to know that.

[Michael McMillan]

Mary.

[Riley Bray]

Mary.

[Michael McMillan]

Mary.

[Riley Bray]

Mary the carp.

[Drew Edwards]

Oh, it looks like a Mary.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah.

[Michael McMillan]

£87. £87. Wow.

[Drew Edwards]

Oh, I under. I undersold that. Well, okay, almost.

[Michael McMillan]

We could say £90. You would.

[Drew Edwards]

You know, this is what happens when you don't have access to your notes. As. As I. I had accurate information down. Now, I'm.

[Riley Bray]

We don't expect you to come on with memorized.

[Michael McMillan]

You're the guest. You're not supposed to do research.

[Drew Edwards]

That's freestyling here. It's. It's Cryptid. It's Cryptid. Freestyle rap.

[Michael McMillan]

We're making magic. We're uncovering the. The fabric of reality here.

[Riley Bray]

It's one giant carp at a time.

[Michael McMillan]

Yes. One giant carpet at a time. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, more with Drew. Okay, Drew, I'm gonna go down a list of phenomena. If you're open to it, you're gonna say believe it. If you're not open to it, you're gonna say. You gotta decide here and now. This is a game that we call or.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm so excited.

[Michael McMillan]

On your mark, get set. Ghosts.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Bigfoot.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

UFOs. Believe it, Mothman. We'll come back to that one Mothman bullshit. ESP.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Chupacabra.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm from Texas. Of course I believe in Chupacabra.

[Michael McMillan]

The Abominable Snowman.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Ouija boards.

[Drew Edwards]

My wife will be angry at me. But.

[Michael McMillan]

The Loveland Frogman.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm terrified of him.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm. I'm also don't believe in him. So. You terrifying creature.

[Michael McMillan]

Hopkinsville goblins.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Skunk ape.

[Drew Edwards]

I'm from the South. I believe in skunk apes. It's just redneck Hollow Earth.

[Michael McMillan]

The Loch Ness Monster.

[Drew Edwards]

I want to believe, but I'm gonna say crystal balls. Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

The Beast of Busco. Another giant reptile. And I know frogs are amphibians. Yeah. I was like, well, we were talking about the alligator in the water, you know, I'm just saying, like, sure, sure, I know amphibians.

[Drew Edwards]

I. I got what you're saying. It's okay.

[Michael McMillan]

Listen. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hang out with Napoleon Bonafrog, all right? They're. They're friends. They all hang out in the pond together. All right? Everybody. Or the sewer. Out of body Experiences.

[Drew Edwards]

Definitely believe in that.

[Michael McMillan]

The Michigan dog man.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Tarot cards.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it because I've. I've seen my. My wife use them correctly.

[Michael McMillan]

So, yeah, Wendigo's.

[Drew Edwards]

Believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Life on other planets.

[Drew Edwards]

Big believe it. I don't even like that should be in question anymore.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, life after death.

[Drew Edwards]

Not in the traditional sense, but yeah, believe it.

[Michael McMillan]

Great. Well done. Very good. I would say more wife talk in this game than we've ever had before. I don't think we've had a player bring up his wife so many times. So we must ask, what. What's up? What does your wife do? She's into tarot cards and Ouija boards.

[Drew Edwards]

My. My wife is the biggest personal paranormal experience of all. My. My wife is a. She does tarot. She does, you know, all the sort of witchy things. She. She considers herself a. A kitchen witch, specifically. So her. Her work is mostly done through food, although, again, she is avid with tarot cards. And she believes that she has prophetic dreams. And the biggest prophetic dreams in her life were revolving this guy.

[Michael McMillan]

Really?

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. So we're about to go down a rabbit hole, so stick with me. Okay, great.

[Michael McMillan]

Should we pause now and come back, or should we just start the rep. Okay, we'll take a. Let's. Why don't we just pause here and we're going to come back, and then we'll go down the rabbit hole. Okay, great. We'll go down the rabbit hole. Be right back.

[Riley Bray]

Excellent.

[Michael McMillan]

Hey, club scouts, it's Michael. And this October, I have another birthday coming up. And the older I get, the more I find myself wanting to be more intentional about the way I live, eat, and take care of my body. This is all true because I'm not getting any younger. I don't know if you've heard that expression before. Well, I'm very excited about today's sponsor, mosh, which you may have heard about on Shark Tank. It was founded by Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger, with a simple mission. To create a conversation about brain health through food, education and research. Maria's father suffered from Alzheimer's, and since then, she and Patrick have dedicated themselves to finding ways to help other families dealing with this debilitating disease. So MOSH joined forces with the world's top scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond your average protein bar. Each Mosh bar is made with ingredients that support brain health, like ashwagandha, lion's mane, collagen, and omega 3s. I'm getting better at saying ashwagandha plus a game changing brain boosting ingredient you won't find in any other bar. It's because I'm taking care of my brain and my body. Everybody okay? Mosh is the first and only food brand boosted with Cognizant, a premium nootropic that supplies the brain with a patented form of citicoline. Mach bars also actually taste great and come in nine mouth watering flavors including three new plant based flavors for you vegans. Chocolate Chip cookie, Hazelnut chocolate chip and Peanut chocolate chip. But here's the best part. To make you feel good, Mosh donates a portion of all proceeds from your order to get to fund gender based brain health research through the Women's Alzheimer's movement. And you may be asking yourself why gender based? Well, guess what? Two thirds of all Alzheimer's patients are women. Masha is working closely to close the gap between women and men's health research because most of the studies they do were on men, not women. I very much can relate to the mission and the importance of a brain healthy diet because as I said, I am facing old father time and his long sickle coming at me. And I love Mosh bars. I really do. These are out of all the nutritional bars I've eaten in my life. I can say hands down, Moshe are the best tasting and I really like their mission. My favorite flavor is the Blueberry Almond crunch. I also love the fudge brownie crunch and the Fudge brownie crunch is, is, is taking place. I'm a chocolate guy. I have a little, you know, 8 o' clock rolls around, I get a little choco craving that fudge brownie crunch. I just keep that stocked in my, in my old mother's Hubbard cupboard.

[Riley Bray]

And.

[Michael McMillan]

I give my doggy a bone, if you know what I mean. So it's just there for something to reach when I want a snack. But I want to do a healthy version of a snack but still get a little bit of that like I'm having a treat. You know what I mean? Well, you will. If you want to find ways to give back to others and fuel your body and your brain, Mosh bars are the perfect choice for you. Head to moshlife.com bcc and to save 20% off plus free shipping on the Bestsellers trial pack or the new plant based trial pack that's 20% off plus free shipping on the either the best sellers trial pack or the plant based trial pack at M-O-S-H-L-I-F E.com BCC thank you Mosh for sponsoring this episode. Okay, rabbit hole time, everybody. Drew's wife is a kitchen witch. She has prophetic dreams, and she's dreamt about Drew. Let's go.

[Drew Edwards]

So let's flashback to Las Vegas, 2008. I am leading a very different life. I am married to a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, a highly paid Marilyn Monroe lookalike named Jamie. This is going to get important later. Everyone pay attention. Named Jamie. We're gonna do. I. I don't want to give everybody the messy, traumatic version. So, you know, respectfully, she left me for a Dean Martin impersonator named Drew.

[Riley Bray]

Oh, my God.

[Michael McMillan]

Only in Vegas.

[Drew Edwards]

Only in Vegas. This is the best Coen brothers movie never made. So I. Christmas. The day after Christmas, I get on a plane. I go back to Texas. I think about. Because I previously had lived in Dallas, I was like, you know what? Austin. I've always wanted to live in Austin. My older brother at the time lived in Austin. So I was like, you know, it's a creative city. I've always felt drawn there. I'm gonna move to Austin. So that's what I do. I try dating through dating apps for a few months, and I hate it. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna just gonna focus on me. I'm just gonna focus on me. I'm gonna work out a lot. I'm gonna hang out at home. You know, I'm gonna ride a lot. It's gonna be, you know, a good time for me. And my older brother is like, no, no, no, no, no. It's St. Patrick's Day. It's your first St. Patrick's Day in Austin. It's in the middle of south by Southwest. There is a band playing at this nightclub called Headhunters. It's right up your greasy rockabilly alley. It is a band called Punk Blues Revue. They do punk covers of blues songs. They're from New York, and they have a girl lead singer who looks like Jessica Rabbit. And I was like, oh, okay, that does sound. That sounds cool. Sounds pretty cool. Yeah. I go out. My older brother ghosts me. He goes and sees a Minor Threat cover band instead. So I am wearing a shirt that says, al's grave digging Service. We dig in deeper. And as I'm walking in, I see this girl. Beehive hairdo, green satin blouse, black pencil skirt, fishnets. Very much my type. I have a type. But I'm like, no, no, no, no. I've sworn off of dating. I am. I am going to avoid this. So I go in within a few minutes, I feel tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And I turn around, and it's the girl. And she says, your shirt's hilarious. And I'm like, oh, thank you. It's not that great. I got it at Hot Topic. It was on clearance. And she laughs. And we talk for 10 minutes, and she's like, well, I should go. I'm needed up on stage, but here's my card. We should hang out while I'm in town. So she gets up on stage, and it immediately launches into the First Time I Heard the Blues. And it's like the entire room is just shaking. She has this voice. It just explodes reality around me. And I look down at the business card that she gave me, and it says her phone number. And then it says Jamie. And I'm like, oh, my God. You know, and then I'm looking at her, and I was like, well, this is love at first sight. You know, I don't care what her first name is. I'm gonna call her. So, you know, we had one of those whirlwind romances where we talked on the phone for, like, six hours a day. And as we are talking, she's like, I have a confession to make. And I'm like, okay. And she says, I used to have dreams about you. And when I. Yeah, the reason why I came up and talked to you at my show is that I've been dreaming about you for years now. And in my dream. In my dreams, we used to call you Skip. And I'm like, oh, man, I hate that. And she's like, why? And I was like, cause there was a guy that I used to hate in the Dallas golf scene that used to call me Skip because he thought I was too wholesome, and he thought I was too dorky. So he called me Skip. Is like, oh, hey, Skippy. And she was like, well, not a.

[Riley Bray]

Typical keeping the Dallas goth scene.

[Michael McMillan]

Come on. Yeah, yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

And she said, no, we called you Skippy because in my dreams, you didn't smoke pot when we would be smoking pot together. And I was like, well, I actually. I'm straight edge. I don't do drugs. And she's like, oh, my God. So she proceeds to tell me this whole long mythology about how she would have these dreams. And initially, in the dreams, I was wearing a Count Chocula mask, of all things. And because of this, her friend that was her stylist while she was on tour, believed I was probably a vampire. I'm not, but, you know.

[Michael McMillan]

Right.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, I'm not maybe just really like.

[Michael McMillan]

Chocolate or breakfast cereals.

[Drew Edwards]

Exactly. But eventually when I took off the mask, it was me circa 2009, 2008, which looks, frankly a lot more like Kiefer Sutherland from the Lost Boys. So I kind of get the vampire energy there. But, yeah, she not only had these dreams about me, but there were all these weird synchronicities with the various. With Skip, with Dru, with Jamie. And I've come around to think, well, I just spent all those years with the wrong Jamie. This is the right Jamie. And it took this confluence of events to get us geographically lined up, where we could meet. And my wife has since, obviously she moved down to Austin. We have a great life together. She started a new band here in Austin, and we now also have an amazing daughter with each other. So.

[Michael McMillan]

Wow.

[Drew Edwards]

That all worked out. But some. Some high strangeness with romance.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, very. I mean, I. For. I mean, most people might run screaming if they're like, I've been dreaming about you. But the fact that she backed it up with those goods, you know, is pretty. Pretty fun and, you know, interesting, for sure. I mean, like, I guess I'm gonna stick around.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, I mean, it didn't. It didn't hurt that her.

[Riley Bray]

Her.

[Drew Edwards]

Her band was pretty good. And also, she's really hot.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. Smoking hot.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah.

[Riley Bray]

You were smitten.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, I was. I never believed. I am a cynic by nature, and I never believed in love at first sight until that moment. And even when people would ask me, they're like, oh, so this is like a love at first sight type situation. I'd be like, don't call it that, you know, like, because I was. I was trying to be. I was trying to be punk rock about it, but now I've. I've aged some and I'm like, yeah, it was. It was love at first sight. Like the moment she opened her mouth and I heard that voice.

[Riley Bray]

Love with all your heart. That's the.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, that's what Superman says, right?

[Riley Bray]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually just saw that.

[Michael McMillan]

So does she still have prophetic dreams, like, with you? Does she see your guys's future at all? Like, how does that.

[Drew Edwards]

Like, not long term. Like, you know, there was a lot of. There was a lot of pre build up to my deal with what I'm currently doing with Red 5 Comics and Simon and Schuster. You know, like, she would say stuff like, I feel like, you know, 2025 is going to be a troubled year for the rest of the world, but it's going to be a great year. For you. And I'm having these dreams where you are successful and, you know, and she would do things, you know, sort of ritualistic things to kind of help ensure that, like a big thing, you know, within, you know, kitchen witchery is like allspice means financial and creative abundance. So, like, a few days before going to San Diego Comic Con, I was eating a lot of stuff, a lot of oatmeal with allspice in it, which, you know, I really like.

[Michael McMillan]

Okay.

[Drew Edwards]

Pumpkin spice stuff. So it's. It's fine. But, you know, there's. She's still very much kind of mystical in practice, but I. You know, the funny thing is about her family is they're very. You know, they're also very, you know, most of them are Catholic, so they have. All of them have this, like, witchy side to them where they all have these prophetic dreams. They all have this, like, sort of deep, you know, like, their family is mostly Irish, so there's this, like, sort of Celtic mysticism about them. But then there's this other side that's very much more traditionally religious. And it's very. It's very fascinating to me as an outsider outside. As an outside observer.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And there's. I. I definitely think with especially a lot of those, like, old world religions, there seems to be a real intersection of what came before, infused with the, you know, the latter religion, that Catholicism.

[Riley Bray]

Has a real kind of, like, witchy, kind of spooky streak.

[Drew Edwards]

It's very ritualistic. I mean, everything I. I used to know about C. Before meeting my wife, every. Everything I knew about Catholicism came from the Exorcist or old Hammer horror vampire movies. So, you know, which makes it seem super spooky. Right?

[Michael McMillan]

That's right. Those crosses, gold crosses, turning upside down.

[Riley Bray]

They got great robes, they got great incense burners.

[Drew Edwards]

You know, it's like, awesome hats.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah.

[Riley Bray]

The visual. Yeah. Great hats.

[Michael McMillan]

Great hats.

[Riley Bray]

Tall stained glass. Yes.

[Michael McMillan]

Cool robes.

[Drew Edwards]

Archways.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

It's like.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh, yeah, it looks spooky. I like it. All right, well, let's take it down.

[Drew Edwards]

With a chastity thing, though. But, you know, the other.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah, there's other parts, but I like the incense.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah. Some of the set dressings are pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we're going to take a break. We'll come back with more.

[Riley Bray]

Drew Tron Aries has arrived.

[Drew Edwards]

I would like you to meet Aries.

[Michael McMillan]

The ultimate AI soldier.

[Drew Edwards]

He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent.

[Michael McMillan]

You think you're in control of this.

[Riley Bray]

You're not on October 10th.

[Michael McMillan]

What are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you.

[Riley Bray]

The war for our World begins in IMAX.

[Drew Edwards]

TRON.

[Riley Bray]

ARES. Rated PG13.

[Drew Edwards]

May be inappropriate for children under 13.

[Riley Bray]

Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now.

[Drew Edwards]

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[Michael McMillan]

Thank you, everybody. I had to go let Violet out to pee. She's getting old, and she's not holding it as long as she used to.

[Riley Bray]

Oh, buddy. Nova's right there with her, let me tell you. And when he's ready, it is. It's. It's time.

[Michael McMillan]

I know. We're going. We're getting her annual checkup on Friday. And I'm like, good thoughts, good thoughts. So, Drew, when you emailed me, one of the things that you mentioned is that you were diagnosed with DID and that it sometimes can. I'm going in very blind here. But replicate this sense of high strangeness.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. So, first of all, for those who are uninitiated with psychiatric terms, DID is dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder. Everything that I'm going to be talking about, and I have to stress this, anything with. With, you know, neurodivergent, you know, brains, neurodivergent life, life patterns, things like that, they're very personal because you're talking about someone's brain. So I'm talking about my own experience, how I experience reality. Somebody else, even though they have the same disorder as me, it might look very different than them. I am not a monolith, but I'm going to talk about things as I experience them. And one of the things that, going back to your question that I've come to really think about in the context of high strangeness is how I kind of. Because of the way my brain works and because I am. I like to say that I'm shared real estate. The way I experience reality is it sounds remarkably similar to, like, when you hear people who have experienced, like, a UFO abduction story or, you know, encountering a Cryptid or Encountering a ghost, it doesn't sound like dissimilar to stuff that I myself have experienced. You know, some of it, even as general is, you know, when I was. So I'm gonna briefly bum everybody out and then I promise we'll get back to talking about fun stuff. But for the longest time when I was younger, because DID is heavily associated with childhood trauma, most people develop it when they are very young. I am no exception. So when I was a teenager, all I really knew is that I had bad migraines and I didn't really know why and I would just have to go lay down. It wasn't until I got into my 20s and I was unfortunately in a car accident that killed my. I had a twin. I'm a twin. And because I was under much more close psychological scrutiny because I was almost immediately diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. But there were some things that didn't look like the typical symptoms of that. One of which when I was with my then girlfriend at the time and my friend Shout Out Ivan were with me at my parents house, they were telling me like, well yeah, you took off all your clothes and you ran up the street and then you just kind of collapsed. And the only thing I knew about that was I went to sleep and then the next thing I know I woke up two blocks away from my parents house with no clothes on. But that could be, you know, that does seem a lot like an alien abduction scenario parallel.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Drew Edwards]

And I'm not trying to imply that everybody who experiences this phenomena is has DID or post traumatic stress disorder or anything like that. What I'm saying is I kind of live in that sort of crossroads between the mundane and the magical. And it kind of allows me to put a perspective on that than maybe and give it a level of empathy that maybe people who are more skeptical and you know, frankly neurotypical might not. And in fact I'm not going to take credit for this term, although I wish I could. I recently, another comic book industry friend of mine used the term neuromagical and I'm like, I want to popularize that because that's really kind of in one word explains how I feel about how I experience the world. Now. I used to, when I was younger, I used to feel like I was cursed. Like from between 20 to about 30, I was just miserable with having to go through all these dissociative episodes. However, what I've come to realize is my altar is actually my savior. I would not have survived all. It's a lot I've gone through a lot of trauma in my life. You don't get this way without it. My altar is my protector. He's my guardian. He keeps my void safe. And we've come to really respect each other, and I've come to really appreciate him. I would not be having this conversation if my brain hadn't rewired itself in such a way that allowed me to survive all the trauma. And now I've gone very far to field of your original question. But no, this is all.

[Michael McMillan]

This is all great. I mean, this is all answering the question. And my wife. Well, she will be. My wife is.

[Drew Edwards]

Congratulations.

[Michael McMillan]

Thank you. Doctorate in clinical psychology. And this echoes some stuff that she has told me. I know very little about this stuff, so I apologize for going in so blindly. But it's. It's really interesting and fascinating that the brain will. Will create that protector in that way, you know?

[Drew Edwards]

Well, and. And, you know, he has. He is by all accounts, much more athletic than I am, you know, and again, some of this stuff sound like I'm very guarded about saying stuff like this. In fact, this is the first time that I've talked about this stuff in something that's being recorded. But, you know, because I don't want to project the idea that having what some would call a mental illness. I personally do not think of it that way, but I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying like, oh, I have superpowers or something, because it's not like that. And there certainly were times where it was very debilitating and. And made it hard for me to live a normal life. But I've had people tell me that when I'm dissociating and my altar is up top, he's doing stuff like climbing fences and leaping over cars and doing things that I know physically my pudgy ass can't do. And it's just so fascinating to me now that I've developed this much broader appreciation that my brain can allow that off button that maybe would not allow me to do some of those things. It'll click off and allow this other guy, and I use the term guy broadly, to do those things.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, it echoes. I mean, it's hard to hear that as a comic book nerd and go, well, there's a lot of parallels in the comic book world as well that we could point to that surely you must have related to as well.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, I mean, it's funny you would think I would be an Incredible Hulk guy, because the Hulk is basically arguably the most famous character that has anything approaching to did. But I've always been more of a Ben Grimm guy. I, I love Ben Grimm. I do. He's. He is. He's the best superhero. It's just science.

[Michael McMillan]

He's the best.

[Drew Edwards]

But the characters that I have always been drawn to have been kind of damaged characters, like, because that is one of the reasons why I do like Ben Grimm. But my favorite characters over on the DC wing of things is the Doom Patrol, and they do have Crazy Jane, who, when Grant Morrison was writing her, was one of the more accurate portrayals of dissociative identity disorder in pop culture. Like, there's been some flimsier takes on her since then. Like, not everybody approaches it with the same sensitivity or frankly, the same desire to do hours and hours and hours of research, which as a writer. Look, I get it, research can be a pain in the ass. But when you are portraying something like this, it can be incredibly hurtful as well. Like, I look at something, and I'm not trying to judge anybody who enjoys this movie because there's some great acting in it, but I look at something like Split that portrays somebody with dissociative identity disorder as a serial killer. That's very hurtful to me personally. Like, I, you know, I'd much rather have characters that are superheroes because at least that's a net positive. Right? You know, like, superheroes are pro social, they're civic minded. And even with Halloween man as a character, there's a lot of. He isn't a character like the Hulk, where he literally has two physical states of being, but there's a lot of metaphysical and metaphorical stuff going on with the character that go back and relate to living with dissociative identity disorder. Because the comic book was really how I coped when I was learning more about myself. And without that comic book, I really don't think I would be here. It gave me something to focus and explore myself in a safe way until I got to the point where I could go on a podcast and talk about it publicly.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, totally. Awesome. Yeah. And I think too, with the comic book stuff is just making me think about, you know, you have Clark Kent, you have Superman, you have Bruce Wayne, you have Batman. So even on just that level, you know, you're dealing with the duality of an identity with a met, with all of these characters, not even specifically the ones that might, you know, transform, like the whole physically transform. I want to. I want to go back to that, that word, that phrase, neuromagical. And unpack that a little bit more. What does that mean to you, and how does that pertain to some of these experiences that you've had?

[Drew Edwards]

Well, through therapy and medication and a lot of work on myself, I have achieved pretty close to a normal life. I mean, you guys have been talking to me for nearly an hour or maybe over an hour at this point. Point. And I don't think most people talking to me would go, that guy's kooky. You know, that guy. They might think I'm a little eccentric, and they might think I'm a little, you know.

[Michael McMillan]

Well, you're from Austin, Drew.

[Drew Edwards]

We're keeping it weird, right?

[Riley Bray]

He's a cool guy from Austin.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a lot of how I have developed a relationship with my alter kind of mirrors paranormal or more appropriately, occult practices. Like what we've been working on with my. Yeah. What I've been working on with my therapist, Shout out Becky, is what they call a co conscious state. And how I have achieved that most of the time is first of all, because I am the one that can hold down a job, and I am the one that can pay bills and drive a car and do all the important human things. It's just understood that I need to be the personality that's up top 90% of the time. But that's not fair to my alter because he has needs, too. So what we worked out through internal conversation is that most of the time, he can get my dreams. Like, I can come up with a scenario, and when I'm going to sleep, I focus on a scenario that will allow him to kind of get his exercise and do what he needs to do and do things that are stimulating to him. And, you know, what we've achieved is a pretty good partnership. Now, I don't know how well that would work with people who have a dissociative system that is like, there's just two of us. So that's pretty neat and tidy. You hear people that have upwards of 50 altars. And I don't know that this kind of internal bookkeeping would necessarily work for that, but it works really well for us. That being said, and going back into the sort of ritualistic nature of it and taking a cue again from some of my wife's interest in ritual, I have. He likes to make his presence known in the physical world, even if he's not going to be in the physical world. So, you know, it's like, well, can I have something? So what we have now is we call it the ritual of the monster hand. And what it means is, even though I technically control both hands, people who know me and people will pay close attention, will always notice that one of my hands has longer fingernails. Which hand is the monster hand changes. So it's not always the right or always the left. Like, depending on the week, one could be the monster hand. But almost always one of my hands will have longer fingernails. And that's because that's just a little acknowledgement that he's there, he's with me. He's always with me. And if need be, he can come up top, too. And that's keeping one foot in the physical world. Even though. And he does again, he gets the rule. My dream world, which feels a bit like dreamwalking from a lot of pagan societies and pagan rituals and things like that.

[Michael McMillan]

So listening to the occult nature of what you're talking about in the. The term monster hand, where does that come from, the term monster?

[Drew Edwards]

Well, first of all, monsters are kind of how I understand things. Like, from a very early age, I have always been interested in monsters, as we noted. And when my personalities started to splinter when I was young, the thing that came up to protect me was monstrous and inhuman by nature. Because as. And again, I'm not trying to bum everybody out, but as somebody that was undergoing childhood trauma, I needed to summon up something that I did not think could be hurt.

[Riley Bray]

That makes sense.

[Michael McMillan]

Total sense.

[Drew Edwards]

But at the same time, this is also why he can't really be in charge of our collective life. Because he has the intelligence of an animal. He reacts the things like an animal. And lots of people have inhuman alters. It's not uncommon at all. Lots of people have alters. There's actually the term fictive for people who have alters that are fictional characters as well. In fact, I was in a support group with someone that had an alter that was a comic book character. And you just kind of have to take those things on face value. But tying it back into the whole concept of neuromagical. And some of the stuff I was talking about earlier, I think about when y' all did that episode a while back where you were talking about fictional incursions on real.

[Michael McMillan]

Totally. This is what I was just popped in my head, too. Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. And, you know, to a degree, having an altar that is functionally a monster kind of feels along those lines as well. But it's rooted in the idea of, I was a child, I was being hurt. And so my subconscious gave me something that was indestructible to protect me from Being hurt. And it was a symbol. Yeah. And a lot of occult practices hinge on potent symbols, so I don't. It doesn't surprise me when I talk to other people who are dealing with the same stuff that often their altars are things that are extraordinary because you kind of have to be extraordinary to get through the ordinary world, because the ordinary world is very cruel.

[Michael McMillan]

It's actually very touching to hear that. It's really kind of beautiful thing. And when. When you talk about giving your altar dreams and the dream. Dream time and sharing that space, how do you. Without you. Without even necessarily getting into specifics about what the dreams are, what's the ritual like for going into that state saying, okay, I'm going to bed now, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna have. Allow my altar to have my dreams. What. But what practice does that appear as physically?

[Drew Edwards]

When I started doing it, it was really complicated. Like, I actually would write down. Because I'm a writer, I would write down a scenario, and I would try to focus on it. It's become actually really simple because now I just kind of like counting sheep. I just think right before I'm going to sleep, I think about something that I know he'll find stimulating in a scenario that he would find stimulating. And, you know, it just sort of has gotten to the point where it kind of takes care of itself like that. And it helps me because for, you know, when I would experience those dreams, initially, a lot of people would probably consider them night terrors. And now it's. It's. You know, I think to a degree, my wife doesn't always, sometimes appreciate it because she's like, you're thrashing around while you're asleep. But, you know, it's. It's. It's still ultimately better because, again, it allows me to. Allows me to have a career. It allows me to have a family. It allows me to be on podcasts, and, you know, I'm happy, my altar is happy. Sorry, is there a.

[Riley Bray]

Is there like a memory and awareness overlap between you and your altar? Or is it like a handoff, and as you come back and forth, the two sort of remain not contextually aware of each other? Or is there a conversation that happens between the two personalities? How does that work? The actual.

[Drew Edwards]

We can communicate internally now, that took years of therapy. Initially, there was just a complete break. He would take over. It was like I was asleep, and I wouldn't remember it at all. And then after years of that, it was sort of like when I would wake up, it would Be like you were waking up from a dream. So I would have little bits of it. And now, you know, I don't always remember what he's doing while I'm asleep. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But it also. When I was younger, that used to greatly disturb me. And now I'm so used to it. And because we have a relationship that's mutually beneficial to one another, I'm kind of like, oh, you know, okay, you know, that's cool. I'm glad you got some exercise. Good for you. Because he's animalistic, he doesn't talk in the traditional sense. But because we share a brain, we don't really need. It sounds kind of. I mean, I guess the whole thing kind of sounds nutty, crunchy. But we don't really need words to. To communicate. It's. It's. You know, he can feel when I'm upset. I can feel when he's not feeling good. He can feel when I'm happy. I can feel when he's happy. So. Excuse me, please. Gas. But that's glamorous.

[Michael McMillan]

I'm doing it all the time. If you ever see me turn away from the mic, it's because I'm burping. I do it a lot.

[Riley Bray]

There's a whole button for it. Just for the better.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, I could have. I could have muted slow on it.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

But, yeah, you know, now, you know, we. Because we have a very peaceful coexistence, you know, none of that stuff is really an issue. But I have to stress, like, that took me years. And there was also a lot of debate about what we were going to do with the altar in my. In my therapy. Because, you know, if you go back several decades, the traditional way they would deal with DID is what they would do what they call integration therapy, which the end goal. And they actually did this in an issue of the Incredible Hulk. Shout out Marvel Comics.

[Michael McMillan]

Peter David's run, I assume.

[Drew Edwards]

Peter David, Yeah, Professor Hulk. He was an integrated Hulk. Of all the different Hulk personalities. And Banner, that's not done as much anymore because it's thought to be kind of hurtful to the overall consciousness of the system. Nowadays, the general goal is what they call co consciousness, which is what I have. And the way I usually describe it to people is, this sounds creepy, but I assure you that it's not. It's actually pleasant for me. I'm never alone. Like, I. You know, even when I'm completely by myself, I always have the sense that there's somebody else with me because in A kind of sense there is. And sometimes, like, I even get the sense of, you know, when someone's looking at you and you can feel it. Sometimes I just feel that way. And I get why some people would say that sounds creepy, but. But I find it comforting, especially as someone that had a twin and lost them. You know, like, I. I'm so sorry. Well, thank you. You know, like, I. I am a veritable army of me. You know, I, I, you know, I, like, I've come to the point where I quite like my. My state of being. I know it's not normal, but first of all, I think it makes me a better writer because the way I experience the world is different.

[Michael McMillan]

Absolutely. I would say it's a. That would. I mean, you see, you have a different perspective than, you know, most people, I would say. And again, you're saying things like, I feel like I'm never alone. We communicate in a way that's not traditionally through words. Again, these are moments that I go, okay, that would be another empathetic. Empathetic empathy. Moment of empathy between what you're experiencing. And perhaps someone who experiences high strangeness would have, you know, that sense of, like, I wasn't alone, or that sense of I'm. I felt like it was communicating with me telepathically, you know, there. I can see how you can relate in that sense.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, you know, the thing is, is I wish more people would approach stories of high strangeness with empathy. Like, I have lots of people that I love, but they are what they would call a staunch realist. Like, they, they just. Everything is bullshit. You know, if someone is saying they were abducted by aliens or, you know, they saw a lake monster or whatever, you know, they. They think that there's some sort of ulterior motive. And I'm like, you know, I don't. I don't believe. Like, even if it's something I don't necessarily believe, I think, well, this person experienced something. The important thing about unexplained phenomenon, a lot of people get hung up on the wrong word. I think unexplained is really important, and we don't think about that enough because, okay, let's say someone says they were abducted by aliens. I don't necessarily believe in alien abductions in the way that people typically think of them. I 100% believe in aliens in a literal sense.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah.

[Drew Edwards]

But I do believe people are experiencing something. And you should approach that with empathy and listen to their story and assume maybe somebody's just experiencing the world a Little bit different than you and treat their trauma as a reality. And, you know, that's really the only way that we'll ultimately end up with, you know, real answers to some of this stuff. But, you know, we live in a world now where I feel like even though we have all of the information at our fingertips so easily, all it's done is made people smug and mean and in a lot of ways ignorant. And, you know, like, I know you.

[Michael McMillan]

You know, everybody destroyed truth in a lot of ways. You know, like now there is no real anymore, you know, and maybe there.

[Drew Edwards]

Never was, but at least we used to have empathy. And, you know, that. That really bothers me. And it doesn't matter what side of the cultural divide you are on. Like, I expect if someone says, hey, I saw this really weird thing, instead of going, you're making that up to get on a podcast, I don't know, TV show, whatever, because people think that you're making aim higher, buddy. People think somehow people are making tons of money from this stuff. And the reality is usually if you say something weird publicly, it actually could be a detriment to you making money. Suddenly you're the guy that saw the frogman, you're the guy that saw the Loch Ness monster, and that follows you around for the rest of your life. So maybe.

[Michael McMillan]

Well, we, yeah, we. We run into that over and over and over again. Sorry to interrupt.

[Drew Edwards]

No, no, no. I mean, you know, you know, I. You were right to interrupt because I was at the point where I was repeating myself. But, you know, I, you know, I think that is something that is somebody that is neurodivergent. I come at it from a different perspective because when I was younger and I did not understand what was happening to me, you know, I wish that I could have had more people listen to me instead of making me feel like a freak, which I did feel like for years and years and years. And all that did is make me angry and it made me mean. I was very, very ill tempered in my 20s. Not just because of the loss of my sibling, but because, you know, all the stuff, you know, from my childhood back all the way up to that car accident, all this trauma coming to roost and suddenly being much more visible. The haunted house that was my brain suddenly rattling its chains. I wish people, instead of being like, I don't want to be around that guy, he's weird. You know, maybe they could have, you know, had a more open ear. Maybe they could have given me a shoulder to cry on. And, you know, that's you treat people how you would like to be treated. So, you know, that's all it is.

[Michael McMillan]

Yeah, that's all it is, isn't it? And I think that all of this, too, is, you know, these stories of high strangeness and the things I'm like, you know, my. My wife. My fiance was asking me today specifically about Bigfoot and was like, well, what do you. What. What do you think that is? And I go, I don't know. You know, I started pitching the wood guys, like, it could be a gh. The. You know, it could be the woods version of a ghost. And I was kind of losing her, and I was like, I. I just think that whatever this is, whatever the phenomena is, it's something that is integral and part of the human experience. And one day, hopefully, we will understand that. But in the meantime, we have these stories. We should share these stories. And I think part of the connective tissue that I'm making tonight. Talking. Do you, Drew, is that I've always said I just love the stories, you know, and some of them are entertaining, and some of it is, like, mind blowing. But I do think it does help bridge empathy in a way. The. The more stuff that we can talk about this and not be scared of a stigma, I think does help breed empathy. So.

[Drew Edwards]

Well, and even if you just think monsters are stories, monsters are never just monsters. You know, monsters always mean something. And that's. That's probably the core of my life's. If my life work, if all my writing means anything, it might be that one thing. You know, monsters can mean survival. Monsters can mean you're confronting death. Monsters can mean mental illness. Or, you know, maybe monsters are just telling us, hey, don't, you know, stay out of the woods, you know, human. So, you know, monsters, I think, are important. That's why we keep seeing them. That's why they're one of the oldest things in the human experience. And to the. Excuse me. There we go again. To the Bigfoot.

[Michael McMillan]

Nailed it.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah. Like a pro. To the Bigfoot thing. I mean, we've been seeing wild men, you know, all the way back to Babylon. So, like, to me, absolutely. You look at the history of that, and I. There's got to be some big. Bigfoot's real. Come on.

[Michael McMillan]

It's gotta be a Bigfoot. Come on. Well, Drew, I can't believe. I mean, there's. This conversation is fascinating, and I. I really want to thank you for opening up and sharing this part of your life. Certainly we haven't had a conversation like this on the podcast before. So I thank you. And where, first of all, when can I get a copy of this Halloween man book? I will go get it wherever I can find it. And where can everybody else get your work?

[Drew Edwards]

So it's very easy. Again, we have distribution by both Diamond Comics, although I'm not the biggest fan of diamond or Simon and Schuster, which is the big one as far as distributing books, comics, whatever. So therefore, you can go to your local bookstore, be it a big chain like Barnes and Noble or an indie bookstore, and you can order it there. You can go to any comic book store. You can order it there. You can order it on Amazon. Hell, you can even order this thing at Target if all you have is a Walmart.

[Michael McMillan]

That's awesome.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah, if you have a Walmart or a Target, they will order it for you. You can get Halloween Man, Volume 1. All you have to say is, I want Halloween Man Volume 1 from Red 5 Comics.

[Michael McMillan]

This guy's in wide distribution, everybody. You don't have an ex excuse. You can get it.

[Drew Edwards]

Yeah.

[Michael McMillan]

Love that. Congratulations.

[Drew Edwards]

Thank you. I feel like I've gone from the weird punk rock kid who draws skulls on his binder to the sexy prom queen almost overnight. It's kind of strange if you found me even vaguely entertaining. I'm on Facebook, but Facebook's for old people, so find me on Instagram. It's drewhalloween. It'll be really easy to determine that you found the right one, because I'll be the guy posting lots of Halloween man artwork. There'll be lots of pictures of my gloriously mutton chopped face. And I will also be posting lots of random spooky stuff from down from what. What crypted documentary I've been watching to, you know, what rockabilly or punk rock show I've been to this week.

[Michael McMillan]

Great. Well, we'll tag it. We'll tag you in all the stuff, so you're gonna be very easy to find. Thank you. Thanks, Drew. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to the show. And, man, this also makes me want to go back to Austin and then do some. Do some cool fun legend chirping out in Texas, I think would be.

[Drew Edwards]

And. And wrestle a giant fish, right?

[Michael McMillan]

Absolutely. I gotta see Mary. I gotta meet Mary. I gotta gaze in that giant cart mouth and unfold the secrets of the universe, you know?

[Drew Edwards]

Tell you what, if you come to Austin, I will make you, because I did design a paranormal tour for Austin once. I will just give you my notes for that. You can go around, you can see Cryptids you can see ghosts, you can spend the day. My gift.

[Michael McMillan]

Well, hell, yeah. You'll have to come along, Tag along with us. Absolutely. Drew Edwards, thank you so much for being here. Look forward to reading Halloween, man, and I'm sure we'll be talking to you again in the future. Thanks.

[Drew Edwards]

I hope so. This was fun.

[Michael McMillan]

Huge thanks to Drew Edwards for coming on the show. Fascinating conversation. I want to know more now. You know, it's really.

[Riley Bray]

It is truly so interesting, and it's also nice to hear someone talk about it from such a personal level and at such a comfortable place at such a personal level after, like, really engaging with it and, like, working through it. And this is. It's fascinating.

[Michael McMillan]

Also, a good reminder just in general, not to get on my, like, mental health soapbox. But, like, no matter what you're dealing with, like, this is what it's like. This is getting to that place of. Of power and comfortability comes with therapy. You know what I mean? This is. I feel like this is why it's good to talk to somebody. If you need to talk to somebody and put in the work and work it out, and eventually you'll get through it. You know what I mean? Or you'll be able to talk about whatever it is. Big deal. Or not big deal. I don't know. It makes me excited for.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah, I find myself thinking, too, a lot about that. That idea that I've been into lately about the. The brain as a receiver of consciousness. Like, not necessarily. You know, the consciousness is a pervasive force of the universe and that we sort of tune into it, and it's almost like multiband radio, like, you know, tuned into multiple frequencies that form the self.

[Michael McMillan]

It is a fascinating machine.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah. And the fact that it's a defense mechanism, you know, so that's really very interesting. Very interesting.

[Michael McMillan]

Super interesting. And I can't wait to read Halloween, man. I'm excited. All right, why don't we just say good night right here? Riley. I want to remind everybody, if you want to find us, find us on YouTube. And if you want more, there's more on bcc.supercast.com for so much more. Oh, so much more. Ad free episodes. Three bonus episodes every month. Exclusive music from the polyphonic pioneer.

[Riley Bray]

There it is.

[Michael McMillan]

That's what it was.

[Riley Bray]

Yeah.

[Michael McMillan]

Remember the first part? You can find the link to all that jazz in our show Notes, our Instagram bio. One last thanks to Drew for joining us. Come over to Instagram at Bigfoot Collectors Club. If we don't see you over at the BCC Clubhouse. We will see you next Wednesday for an all new episode. Until then, good night and go get regressed. Bye bye. Bye bye everybody.

[Riley Bray]

That's the polyamorous pioneer.

[Michael McMillan]

Oh yeah. Y' all come back now. I mean, I do mean all y'. All.

[Drew Edwards]

All y'. All.

[Michael McMillan]

Bigfoot Collectors Club is executive produced by Riley Bray and Michael McMillan and engineered and edited by Riley Bray. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotus Pool Records. For ad free listening and bonus episodes every month, join BCC clubhouse on bcc.supercast.com Want to see us watch video episodes and exclusive content on YouTube.com advitbook collectors.

[Drew Edwards]

Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change your receipt did.

[Michael McMillan]

The sausage McBuffin with egg extra value.

[Drew Edwards]

Meal includes a hash brown and a.

[Michael McMillan]

Small coffee for just $5 only at.

[Drew Edwards]

McDonald's for a limited time.

[Riley Bray]

Prices and participation may vary.