 Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness and it's a Chamber of Comments episode. And in the Chamber of Comments, I don't tell stories but I do answer the emails that I've been sent recently. You can email me anytime, darron at WeirdDarkness.com. Before I get into the emails that I've received recently, though, a huge thanks to everybody who went in and voted for Weird Darkness and the podcast awards. I got a notification today that I did make the finalists in both the true crime and the storyteller drama categories. Thank you so much to everybody that voted. I will not know if I have won those categories until Thursday, September 30th. That's national podcast day, I think is actually what that's called, and that's the day that they release the names of all the winners. So until then, we're just going to have to bite our fingernails and hope for the best. We'll see how it goes. There was over 5 million people that did vote and there's about 20,000 or 20,000 people right now that have been asked to vote on the final nominees. So if you're one of those people, congratulations, you're one in five million. Well, let's take a look at some of the emails that have come in. I'm actually responding to emails that came in in response to the previous Chamber of Comments episode. We talked a lot about the SUV that we have, the Weird Darkness SUV, the truck, the machine, whatever we want to call it. In fact, that's the problem. I don't know what to call it. And so I was asking all of you to come up with a few names for me. These are not the only names that we're going to go with, but this is what we've had so far. So we'll just start here. Amanda sent in an email saying, hey Darren, maybe this is too simple, but what about the weird wagon or the weirdo wagon? Whatever you choose, I'm sure it would be awesome. Hope all as well. Just another weirdo in Christ, Amanda. Well, thank you, Amanda. You're actually the second person to recommend that because my wife's best friend also said the weirdo wagon. So there's actually a couple of votes for that right up right up in the beginning. Let's see here. Moving on to... Oh, okay. This is DJ. He's one of my Patreon members, actually. He says, congrats on making to the next round of voting, podcast awards, final slate, voting's underway. Happy they picked a weirdo to vote in the final round. Oh, so you are one of the weirdos to vote in the final... You're one of those 20,000. Well, thank you very much, DJ. And hopefully in your final voting, you'll choose Weird Darkness in the true crime and storyteller drama category. Jose sent in an email saying, hey Darren, I hope you're doing well. I wanted to tell you that you doing an episode just to read comments and emails is a great idea. Also, since you mentioned you needed input for a name of your vehicle, I was thinking of two. One, the weird wagon. Two, the dark rider. No taking much of your time. Thanks again for all you do. God bless you and your bride, your brother in Christ, Jose. Well, thank you, Jose. You know what? I really need to start writing these down here as I'm doing these. So we have the dark rider and then we also have the weird wagon and the weirdo wagon. So let me put that down here. The weird wagon. I should have been a bit more prepared for this, if you think. Sorry, folks. Weirdo wagon. Okay, moving on. So that was Jose and let's go to Brandy. She said, why not weird darkness excursion as you'll be taking excursions in it? Not a bad idea. Brandy, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I was originally calling it the weird darkness explorer because it was going to be an explorer. I ended up with an expedition, so weird darkness expedition, but weird darkness excursion kind of fits both of those. So thank you. Moving on to Max. He says, you got to be getting tired of hearing from me from time to time. No, I don't, Max. You know what? You can email me anytime you want to. But I had some inspiration regarding naming. Expedition darkness machine or the weird darkness explorer? Okay, so Max is just going with what I just said. He talked about the explorer. I'm not going to use that. I'm not going to add explorer to the list because it's not a weird darkness explorer. It's not a Ford Explorer. It is an expedition. So the expedition or the darkness machine, actually, a weird darkness machine. That's kind of what I've been calling it without really knowing what else to call it. So thank you, Max. Appreciate it. Andy emailed me saying, hey, bud, how about rolling darkness? I like the ring of that. God bless. Andy G. in St. Joseph, Michigan. Rolling the weird darkness, rolling darkness. Hmm, rolling darkness. Alright, I'll add it to the list. We'll see what people think about that. Thanks, Andy. This one comes from Chris saying, hey, Darren, how about calling the SUV the weirdo wagon? So again, another vote for weirdo wagon. Let's see here. Moving on to... Okay, actually, we'll come back to those because those actually that's a different topic that we'll come to. Scott said, I was listening today when I heard that you were looking for a name for the car. I was thinking that if there was a play on words, what I came up with took part of the name from the podcast calling it dark nessie. Also, I can't recall if it was brought up, but the Marlar Mobile has a good ring to it as well. So dark nessie. Now the Marlar Mobile, I think that would be Marlar Mobile. The thing is, I don't know if people would... I'll add it to the list, just in case. So we've got the weird darkness, dark nessie, and the weird darkness Marlar Mobile. Okay, I'll write that one down there as well. Okay, thanks, Scott. Appreciate that. Matt emailed me saying, you should name your truck Optimus Grim. Oh, if only it were also a transformer, how cool would that be? We could transform it into nessie. We could transform it into the Loch Ness Monster. Okay, so the weird darkness Optimus Grim, that's cool. I like that. Okay, moving on. Let's see, Rachel. Let's see. Okay, no, actually, that's something else. I'm sorry, I won't touch on that one. Layla sent me something, the weirdo expedition. She says it's pretty good. So we've got the weirdo wagon, and then we also have the weirdo expedition. I'll put that in there as well. Weirdo expedition. Okay. Now, if Ford was actually sponsoring the road trip, I'd definitely put expedition in the title somewhere, because that would make sense for them. Let's see here. We've got Jill who emailed me saying, hey, Darren, love the podcast. Have a suggestion for naming the new car, the four-wheel weirdo, or the wheeled weirdo. It's the same as us with added rubber. Now I can't stop laughing. You're the best, Jill. Well, thank you, Jill. All right, I'll add those to the list as well. So not only do we have the weirdo wagon and the weirdo expedition, we've got the four-wheel weirdo, and the wheeled weirdo, that's what it was, wheeled weirdo, the weird darkness wheeled weirdo. Okay. We're coming up with some pretty fun names, more than anything else. And like I said, I had a lot of people that got back to me on this one. Mb sent me one. He says weird darkness wagon. So did we already have that one? We have the weird wagon, we don't have the weird darkness wagon. Okay, so we'll put that one as part of on our list. He says the weird darkness pod car, which is also pretty good. I like that. I actually thought that once I get the new license plate for the car, which I still got to do, thanks you, thank you for the reminder. I thought maybe the license plate would be great as podcast. If it's available here in Illinois, that would actually be a nice license plate, because then they would see weird darkness all over the vehicle. They'd see the license plate, this is podcast, and it'd be all self-explanatory. They'd know exactly what it is. Mb also suggested weird darkness terror plane, which is actually, it's a play on terror plane, a type of car from the 1930s. And I'll add it to the list, but I don't know if I would use that one, because it sounds like terror plane, like an airplane, and it's not an airplane. I know that's not what it's actually referring to, but that's what it sounds like. And then he came up with a really clever one, the weird darkness forward exorcism. Not an expedition, not an explorer, an exorcism, the weird darkness forward exorcism. I don't know if Ford would appreciate me using that one, but I love it. Anyway, it continues, I think the Christian thing is to be kind and merciful and graceful. And I think John was that way. You know what, I'll come back to that. No, it's okay, I'll go ahead and continue it now, because I think that's all the car names that came in. But he's referring to the complaint emails that I received because of the Wendigo episode, which ended up using the N word within the context. He says, I think the Christian thing is to be kind and merciful and graceful. And I think John was that way to you about the N word, and I'm not sure you're especially kind or merciful and definitely not graceful in your response to it. You didn't really listen to it. I think it really is as simple as not saying a word, especially if you don't like it yourself to begin with. I was disappointed and saddened by your response. Always enjoy your show and play it as I fall asleep. Lots of love and best of luck, MB. Well, thank you, MB. I appreciate it. And I was a bit tired when I recorded that Chamber of Comments episode. So I might have been a bit terse in my replies. And if I was, John, if you're listening, I'm very, very sorry if I came across that way, because I definitely respect the way you came to me. You were very, very diplomatic in the way you came. You weren't antagonistic. You weren't trying to start an argument. You weren't pointing fingers at me and calling me names. You were just respectful and came and said, hey, I think this is something you probably shouldn't have done. So for those of you who did not listen to that episode, the N word is in the story, The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood. And it's not actually said by the author. It's said by one of the characters the author is writing for. And it just happens to fit into the story that way. And I did debate whether or not I should use it. And I did put, if I remember correctly, I did put a disclaimer at the beginning of the episode saying that a certain word or maybe words were used that may not be appreciated by some listener discretion advised. But I'm not going to put in the disclaimer certain like in this episode, the N word is going to be used. I just that doesn't seem that seems a little overkill to me. The reason that I left it in though is because it is a classic piece of literature and I don't believe in censorship. Now, when it comes to something new that's sent to me like a creepypasta or a piece of horror fiction sent to me by one of you, my weird listeners, I will edit it for content. But when it comes to a classic piece of literature by a well known author, I just don't feel it's right to to remove it. Somebody did have a suggestion, which might be in one of the emails that I that I get back to here in a second. Somebody did have the suggestion of me just bleeping it out rather than changing it or or skipping over it. I thought that might be a good compromise. It's still technically censorship, but it's at least you still know what's being said there or you know, you know, something that was there that that could have been offensive. So I don't know. Let me know if y'all think that maybe just a bleep sound would work better for you or if you would prefer that I keep the words in there. And it's not just the N word. I mean, the F bomb has also been in in a few of those classic stories or either that or they're a story that's very, very popular on like creepypasta.com and I didn't want to change it too much. So anyway, just let me know your thoughts on that. But I just I want to get away from being afraid of certain words. There are certain words that I don't want to use that that would be one of them. I think I think it's ridiculous that only one one one skin tone of people can use a word and others can't. I think that's ridiculous. A word is a word. And if you don't want the word used, don't use it, period. And if you don't want if you don't want people other than African Americans using it, then don't use it yourself. It's it's it's a double standard when it comes to that. And I just don't believe in double standards. So that's the reason I went ahead and used it. You may or may not agree with me. So let me go back to to a couple of those emails that came in. This one comes from Donnie. And she says, Hey, Darren, I just wanted to say thank you for addressing your complaints and the Chamber of Comments episode. I agree with those who have the complaints that the language is not what I expect. But I also agree with you that we are adult enough to recognize it's not coming directly from you. It's coming from another author. I have a suggestion. And maybe you consider it censorship. I'm not sure. But in the future, if you read a story with such offensive language as in the n word, could you just bleep it out? Thanks for what you do. Keep up the good work. You're a weirdo sister in Christ. Donnie. So yeah, that there you go. I thought somebody had mentioned that in a previous email. So there you go. Thank you, Donnie. I appreciate that. And we'll end with Stephanie. Good morning, Darren. I'm just listening to your Chamber of Comments episode. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate you not wanting to censor historical documents slash stories. I think we've gotten too sensitive about every little thing out there. You do have warnings at the beginning of episodes for specific content or language. Keep doing what you're doing. Your podcast has been a favorite of mine for a few years now. I love the content and your voice is just perfect. Haven't found another podcast with similar content that I like even remotely close to as much as I like yours. Thank you, signed Stephanie. Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate those kind words. And I also appreciate your two cents regarding whether or not I should use certain words. So there you go, folks. Let me know about the whole language thing and also still looking for names of what you think I should call the vehicle. And so here's what we came up with in just this episode. We've got the Dark Rider, the Weirdo Wagon, Weird Darkness Wagon, Weird Darkness Podcar, Weird Darkness Terrorplane, Weird Darkness Ford Exorcism, the Weirdo Expedition, the Four-Wheel Weirdo, Weald Weirdo, Weird Darkness Excursion, the Darkness Machine, the Rolling Darkness, Dark Nessie, the Marlar Mobile, and Optimus Grimm. So that's just a few. Well, that's actually not a few. That's all of the suggestions that have come in so far. But I'm hoping it's just a few. I would love to hear what your ideas are. So send them to me at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Again, Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Thanks for listening in. And of course, if you like the show, please share Weird Darkness with those who love the paranormal, strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. Sharing the podcast like that, that's what helps it to stay alive, to keep it healthy and growing, and I can't do that without you. You're the ones that make that happen. So thank you very much. We'll see you again in the next episode. God bless.