HALLOWEEN ON THE FARM!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with Steven Snider (AKA "Recluse") of THE FARM PODCAST at Manly P. Hall's Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. It was great to finally interact with Steven face-to-face rather than just over the phone. I've been on THE FARM twice so far (on 1-4-21 and 11-16-21), and I consider it to be one of the best podcasts going right now. Here's a photograph (from right to left) of Laura Shapiro, the mysterious and ubiquitous Lyle X, Steven Snider, and Yours Truly standing outside the front entrance of the PRS Bookstore.

I recommend checking out the latest episode of THE FARM, which makes for ideal Halloween Listening. In the 10-23-23 episode, Steven Snider and his guest, Robert W. Sullivan IV, discuss "Friday the 13th and the John Carpenter Mysteries." To paraphrase Snider's description of the show, topics in this latest episode include: The Knights Templar, the origins of Friday the 13th being perceived as an unlucky day, Jason and the Argonauts, Sirius, the Tarot, the Freudian aspects of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, witchcraft in the HALLOWEEN franchise, the Threefold Goddess, 9/11, Gnosticism, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THEY LIVE, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, quantum physics, tachyons, and other Halloween High Weirdness! To listen to the entire episode, click HERE.

If you'd like to hear John Carpenter talking about his films in his own words, I recommend checking out the below interview conducted by J. Michael Straczynski (author of BECOMING SUPERMAN) and his co-host, the late Larry DiTillio (creator of She-Ra). I distinctly remember listening to this episode of MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 when it originally aired on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles 36 years ago, only a few days after the premiere of Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS.

Synchromystic Sidenote: It's fascinating to note that Mike Hodel, who hosted HOUR 25 for fourteen years, was the younger brother of bestselling true crime author Steve Hodel. Steve Hodel is most famous for having written the nonfiction book BLACK DAHLIA AVENGER (2003), in which he claims that his and Mike's father, George, was responsible for the grisly murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947. Steve Hodel has written about his late sibling on his blog on several different occasions (see, for example, his 2-2-21 post and his 12-6-19 post). 

Besides working as a producer for KPFK in Los Angeles for many years, Mike Hodel was also a fiction writer. Before his untimely death from cancer at the age of 47 in 1986, Mike Hodel co-authored a well-regarded Sherlock Holmes novel entitled ENTER THE LION, which I recommend highly.

JOHN CARPENTER ON MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25

Here's the description of the John Carpenter episode of HOUR 25 from Straczynski's YouTube channel, Synthetic Worlds: "J. Michael Straczynski and Larry DiTillio hosted MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 [from 1987 to 1992] at KPFK-FM Los Angeles. The two-hour weekly talk show featured the best and brightest in science fiction, fantasy and horror. Most of the recordings were considered long lost, but a recent discovery brought many of those lost recordings to life. This is one of the best: a 90 minute, commercial free interview with director and writer John Carpenter that covers everything from Quantum Physics to the Bible, to his many movies, behind the scenes stories, and a host of personal and professional topics. The interview was originally broadcast October 30th, 1987 and has not been available since then."