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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Become a Coast Insider to hear the rest of this

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Speaker 1: fascinating conversation and check out recent shows where we talked

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Speaker 1: about the creepy shadow entity known as the Hatman, the

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Speaker 1: troubling demids of the Great Barrier Reef, and the remarkable

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Speaker 1: power of prayer. Head on over to Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: Insider to start listening. Now here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM on iHeart Radio. Okay, welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast lar La Ventura with his Varla's website

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Speaker 1: is her name, bar La Ventura dot net, linked up

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Speaker 1: at Coast to Coast daum dot com. She's also written

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Speaker 1: a book called The Book of the Bazaar and Beyond Bizarre,

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Speaker 1: and also she wrote a very sophisticated book called Among

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Speaker 1: the Mermaids. And you know what, Varla, I've gotten more

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Speaker 1: emails in the last couple of weeks about Mermaids. Again.

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Speaker 1: I don't know of discoveries running that old Mermaids TV

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Speaker 1: show they produced or what, but people are talking about mermaids.

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Speaker 1: Do you get that too. Well, I'm noticed. Actually there

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Speaker 1: was a story you guys ran uh about some little

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Speaker 1: girl and I think it was in Zimbabwe of two

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Speaker 1: kids being attacked by a mermaid. And then that sort

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Speaker 1: of led me down this rabbit hole that I had

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Speaker 1: actually never heard of, this sort of like huge superstition

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Speaker 1: and fear of mermaids in that part of the world.

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Speaker 1: And um, even though it's land lost and um, but

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Speaker 1: just I guess water creatures in general, so um, mermaids

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Speaker 1: are kind of perpetually fascinating I think for people, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they are. And you know, sailors have sworn that they've seen,

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Speaker 1: you know, mermaids. A lot of people think that they're

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Speaker 1: you know, sea creatures, uh, you know, sitting on rocks

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Speaker 1: or or what have you. But what's your take on them? Um, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Oh, I mean I think there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of unknown sort of things floating around out there

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Speaker 1: that you know, people might consider their their ghosts or

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Speaker 1: is there there, um, you know, something in the in

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Speaker 1: house or you know, there's a lot of different sort

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Speaker 1: of thing labels that we can put on creatures. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know what, it's not too far fetched on this

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Speaker 1: vast planet of many species to think of something that

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Speaker 1: looks somewhat human that has ended to be somewhat human

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Speaker 1: and then somewhat fish like, uh, you know what, I

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Speaker 1: can't rule that out? Well, I mean, I think that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what it comes down to, is that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm a collector of of folk tales and of folklore

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Speaker 1: and sort of you know, old stories, and I think

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Speaker 1: that I I have found in in reading some of

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Speaker 1: these old accounts and then in time to people who

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Speaker 1: come forward and want to share their stories. As you know,

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Speaker 1: you experience all the time that we can't really entirely

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Speaker 1: rule one thing out. I mean, sure, it's it's easy

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Speaker 1: to say, oh, well I don't believe in mermaids, but

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Speaker 1: you're still going to probably be interested in, um, maybe

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Speaker 1: a story about them. So it's difficult to really you know,

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Speaker 1: every day we're kind of finding these amazing things that

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Speaker 1: you know, these strange creatures that dwell in the sea,

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Speaker 1: and um, you know, there are a lot of unidentifiable

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Speaker 1: things out there, so it's difficult to just completely rule

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Speaker 1: something out. And I think you know, there's there's You've

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Speaker 1: got to give some credibility to the generations and generations

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Speaker 1: that have come before that are saying, you know, this

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Speaker 1: is our this is our story, this is our origin story,

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Speaker 1: and that happens with mermaids quite often. Well, that's so true.

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Speaker 1: Now you wrote another book called banshees werewolves, vampires and

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Speaker 1: other creatures of the night? What are and sheese? So

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Speaker 1: banshees are technically excuse me, the the word banshee means

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Speaker 1: of the fairy mound, and banshees are sort of sort

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Speaker 1: of terrifying in their own way, although they are relatively harmless.

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Speaker 1: They're a kind of they sort of straddle the world

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Speaker 1: of fairy and ghost, and they're sort of half you know,

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Speaker 1: half fairy, half ghost, or all fairy, depending on who

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Speaker 1: you ask, and they appear as sort of as in

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Speaker 1: the same way a warning ghost might appear. So you

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Speaker 1: might hear the cry of the banshee, and we hear

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Speaker 1: about like a banshee scream, and it's sort of this long, mournful,

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Speaker 1: moaning scream. Um, or you hear you know, about people

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Speaker 1: seeing this sort of like lovely looking woman or perhaps

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Speaker 1: it appears as a harmless old woman sort of walking

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Speaker 1: down the road and then she turns and um is

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Speaker 1: actually quite quite horrific like the old Hag, the old Hag,

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Speaker 1: you know, and then it will sort of turn and transform,

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Speaker 1: and often they sort of exist to give you a warning. Now,

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Speaker 1: it used to be that they were always sort of

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Speaker 1: a harbinger of death and that they would say, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you saw a banshee, it was said that someone

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Speaker 1: in your family would die. Now this was of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, back in the old and olden days in

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Speaker 1: Ireland where they would have you know, there were a

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Speaker 1: limited number of people and clans that would sort of

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Speaker 1: inherit these sort of creatures that would kind of appear

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Speaker 1: to generations upon generation. But it is said that if

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Speaker 1: you hear a banshee, um, that you know, you should

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Speaker 1: sort of get your affairs in order that things that

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Speaker 1: that that death is is looming um. And in that

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Speaker 1: way they become kind of more terrifying than a vampire

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Speaker 1: or a werewolf or anything like that. I've been interviewing

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Speaker 1: around Halloween people who are vampires or they claim to be,

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Speaker 1: and they literally now Varla go to the dentist and

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Speaker 1: have their teeth, uh, you know, capped with the vampire

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Speaker 1: fangs and everything else. You know, what as a as

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Speaker 1: someone who is in pre dental school for a couple

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Speaker 1: of years. I don't think I would do that, not

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Speaker 1: even for the money. If somebody came in and said,

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Speaker 1: you know, I want the you know, vampire teeth, I'd say,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't do that. But but they go

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Speaker 1: ahead and do that. There's a guy who actually I

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Speaker 1: think he was trained as a dentist and he sort

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Speaker 1: of makes these they're not implants there, they're like caps

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Speaker 1: that go go over your called Billy Bob teeth. They

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Speaker 1: are he's a former former dentist and he started a

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Speaker 1: company making the teeth plastic teeth that fit over your teeth. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, because you make the mold out of out

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Speaker 1: of plastic that you boil and that it's softened and

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Speaker 1: you just kind of like you know, stick your mouth

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Speaker 1: in it and you make you make your own mold.

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Speaker 1: But do you have these teeth But they're called the

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Speaker 1: companies companies called Billy Bob and uh, I mean he

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Speaker 1: does well. People wear these things. And there's also like

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Speaker 1: the you know, the contacts. People get those contacts and

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Speaker 1: then they sort of like turn and stare at you

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Speaker 1: and the reptilian eyes and stuff like that. I think

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Speaker 1: that's only happened to me once, like completely, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: I've been places where people have been dressed up or

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Speaker 1: like on Halloween, there's you know, there's always parties and

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Speaker 1: things like that. And I lived in San Francisco for

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Speaker 1: twenty years, so you know, you can imagine what you'd

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Speaker 1: see just on the on any given day. But I

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Speaker 1: think only one time did I see someone wearing something

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Speaker 1: like that out of context, you know, like checking into

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Speaker 1: a hotel or something like very normal in like a lobby,

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Speaker 1: and this person had like those reptilian things on. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm not easily scared, but it definitely

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Speaker 1: kind of maybe loo Okay, Well, what what is your

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Speaker 1: take on vampires per se? Do you think that the

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Speaker 1: real vampire creature is out there? Well, I like the

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Speaker 1: vampires that I've met and and I'm and these are

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Speaker 1: people that are self identified as vampires that have sort

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Speaker 1: of always felt a calling, much like someone might identify

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Speaker 1: as a witch or um, you know, as a person

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Speaker 1: who practices ferry magic. There's you know, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of different um, different facets of modern day vampires. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's everything from you know, just sort of cosplay and

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Speaker 1: costuming to people who take it as a ritual and

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Speaker 1: take it very seriously in a more sort of magical

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Speaker 1: and spiritual way. UM. And I you know, i'd say

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Speaker 1: I could count on my hand the number of acts

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Speaker 1: tool vampires or people who really um identify as vampires. UM.

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Speaker 1: Probably probably I know about five of them. And then

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Speaker 1: there's you know, probably a lot of people I never

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Speaker 1: really realized. And I think we've all experienced sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, emotional vampires or psychic vampires at some point

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Speaker 1: in our lives. But the vampires that I know, and

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Speaker 1: I myself am not a vampire or a member of

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Speaker 1: the vampire community, um, but the vampires that I know

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Speaker 1: are actually very very empathic people extremely sensitive, like beyond

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Speaker 1: just sensitive, very empathic, very considerate, um and very um

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Speaker 1: you know, willing to kind of um, to bear their

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Speaker 1: soul to you and to share you know, what they feel.

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Speaker 1: And and often you know, vampires have some healing qualities

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Speaker 1: and they just sort of need to seek out other

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Speaker 1: kind of people. And it's in many ways, there's aspects

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Speaker 1: of you know, different you know, B D, S M

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Speaker 1: communities that have these kind of same attributes. Now, how

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Speaker 1: about werewolves a different creature all by itself, but some

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Speaker 1: people do suffer from that. It's an illness, isn't it

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Speaker 1: where they become werewolf? Like, Yes, there's there's a couple

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Speaker 1: of different things. Is it called lycanthropy or something like that, Yes,

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Speaker 1: and it's it is it's called lecanthropy and um or

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Speaker 1: like anentropy, depending on you know who says it. And

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Speaker 1: it is a clinical diagnosis um in which a person

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Speaker 1: you know, believes that they have transformed into a werewolf.

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Speaker 1: And it will kind of come in cycles, it will increase,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm united a full moon and um. There's

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Speaker 1: also other conditions that you know, have led to people

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Speaker 1: being misdiagnosed or ostracized as a werewolf, and those are

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Speaker 1: things like, you know, excessive hair growth, which we now

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Speaker 1: know is often a hormonal imbalance. And there's actually a

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Speaker 1: whole kind of fascinating facet of the history of werewolves

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Speaker 1: and the idea of like sort of hormones coming into

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Speaker 1: play and werewolves being uh, you know, the whole idea

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Speaker 1: of them becoming more aggressive at the or or coming

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Speaker 1: into into their werewolf bodies at the full moon actually

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Speaker 1: can tie in with the idea of you know, raging

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Speaker 1: hormones and um, some of these kind of ideas of

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Speaker 1: you know, people going crazy, and I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've this denies the full moon actually, so the calls

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Speaker 1: should be pretty interesting. Oh my gosh, it's going to

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Speaker 1: be a huge it's called the pink moon. That's something else.

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Speaker 1: What What has Hollywood done of our lat to our

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Speaker 1: images of vampires and werewolves and creatures like that, even fairies, yeah,

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Speaker 1: even fairies and mermaids. Um, you know, I think of

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Speaker 1: Daryl Hannah when I think of mermaids. Still to this day,

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Speaker 1: I think we all do. Um. Well, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: very difficult to actually completely erase the idea of the

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Speaker 1: Hollywood vampire or werewolf because like any myth in any

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Speaker 1: story that is in our culture, that is now part

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Speaker 1: of our popular culture. And so Belle Lagosie is part

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Speaker 1: of our vision of the vampire, um, you know, and

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Speaker 1: Lawn Cheney is our part of our vision of the werewolf.

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Speaker 1: And sort of how we look at like a modern

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Speaker 1: day werewolf or a modern werewolf costume is sort of

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Speaker 1: modeled on that, you know, that original Lawn Cheney movie.

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Speaker 1: So I think, um, now, these things were based somewhat

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Speaker 1: in the you know what was in the stories. So

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Speaker 1: the active vampire, the sort of magnetic vampire, the disheveled

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Speaker 1: and slightly sad dog like werewolf. Um, these are things

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Speaker 1: that occur in stories throughout time. UM. But if you

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Speaker 1: continue to go back, you'll see other aspects of it.

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Speaker 1: And that's when you get into sort of like shape

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Speaker 1: shifting and pagan rituals that involve furs and you know, um,

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Speaker 1: all different kinds of um ideas that have sort of

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Speaker 1: morphed into you know, someone was peeking through the hay

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Speaker 1: mounds and watched this ritual and then you know, determined

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Speaker 1: that it was you know, a bunch of like wild werewolves,

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Speaker 1: when in fact it was like maybe a fertility ritual

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Speaker 1: to ensure the crops. So we have, you know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of different layers to where we ended up today.

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Speaker 1: But I will say I don't mind it all a

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Speaker 1: lot of them, you know, modern day depictions, because I

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Speaker 1: still find them interesting and and um part of the

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Speaker 1: part of the story. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: a M every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and

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Speaker 1: go to Coast to Coast a M dot com for

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Speaker 1: more