“Monsters!" by Brian, Age 42(?)
Monsters are fictional (not real, we think) things that have existed (or not?) through basically all of human history, primarily as a mechanism to scare children or to provide cool things to torment or kill people in books, movies, TV shows, video games, comics, and campfire tales. There is not one under your bed or in your closet right now, probably, but the way the light hits at night, it might seem like it. Also the way your radiator sort of sounds like it's growling. Monsters usually sort of look like a guy but real fucked up like, as in he’s got horns or talons or a big tail or something. Sometimes they’re real huge and don’t look like a guy at all, like Godzilla or the monsters from Cloverfield or Nope. Sometimes they’re just awful little fuckers like the Gremlins, the weird walking things from Tremors 2: Aftershocks, or Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., a movie about monsters that start a company, or maybe just work there, or something.

In 1990 a toy line called Monster In My Pocket launched and they were a collection of 200 different brightly colored little beasts, ghouls, demons, dinosaurs, and other assorted horror men that were small enough to fit in your ratty little jean jacket or hoodie. Those were easily some of the smallest monsters. They weren’t very scary but they were occasionally boxed in a way where you couldn’t see exactly who you were buying which was kind of a jump scare on its own.

Some of the most famous monsters are the Universal Monsters which can be mostly broken into two groups: regular dudes with a weird thing (Dracula, Invisible Man, Mummy, Frankenstein’s Wife) and absolute freaks who look like shit like Frankenstein and Creature From the Black Lagoon. Wolf Man is the perfect bridge between these two groups because he’s a dude but he’s also an ugly fucker once a month so he is the glue to the whole gang, I imagine. The Munsters are also sort of monsters but they’re mostly just people, although they have a dragon living under their stairs and that’s an actual monster. Eddie Munster is mostly just an Italian kid. Speaking of TV monsters, there are also the Aaaah! Real Monsters from their show, but they’re actually not real even though they’re monsters. They’re drawings.
Speaking of which, lots of monster stories are about a guy becoming a monster and that’s bad or they’re about a monster who has to become a guy, which is good. Shrek explored these themes. Speaking of Hollywood, monsters is also a term people use to describe a real man who did monstrous things, like Harvey Wienstein and the Menendez Brothers who have their own documentary with the word “Monster” in the title. Beauty and the Beast is the story of a guy who becomes a monster and then doesn’t and it’s also the story of singing furniture. Charlize Theron was also a monster in the movie Monster where she killed guys. Every three years a different movie comes out called Monster and they all have nothing to do with each other.

Sometimes monsters stay monsters the whole time but it’s ok, like Chewbacca, a monster who drives with people in their space cars and sometimes rips arms off of bad guys. Half of the things on Sesame Street are also monsters, like Grover. Gonzo from Muppets isn’t really a monster but he’s sometimes in the same movie with a large monster creature muppet who has hobo shoes.

Monsters in video games are great because you can train them, capture them, become them, or kill them, usually thanks to a large glowing weak spot on their bodies. Monsters in movies don’t really have those, though.

Monsters get tired a lot but don’t worry, they actually have their own energy drink called Monster Energy drink which is made from guarana and taurine and other words that sound like monster names.

Anyways, monsters are cool and we like them, mostly because they’re not real (we think)

The End
Intro contains clips from Dracula, The Monster Mash, Frankenstein, Monster In My Pocket, and The Monster Squad

In honor of the holidays (and us being pretty fried because of the holidays, and the entire year that preceded them) this week’s episode is even more laid back and conversational than normal, and we hit record without any specific topic in mind. After some muttering and grumbling about getting older, and also how we were friends with Dash Rendar without realizing it, the conversation turned to what we’ve been listening to this year, music-wise. So, something along the lines of Max and Brian’s Spotify Wrapped: The Radio Drama, but with some of our usual detours and tangents.

For anyone who prefers a more cohesive, less shoegaze-y audio product, don’t worry, This Thing Rules will return to its regularly scheduled programming in 2025. Thanks for bearing with us during these trying and festive holiday times.
Here are the albums, artists and music-adjacent media we mentioned (or alluded to) in chronological order:

Alli Goertz - Peeled back

LL Cool - The FORCE

Rome Streetz - Hat & garden hold up

Griselda Records (Conway The Machine, Benny The Butcher, Westside Gunn, Daringer)

HEALTH - RAT WARS ULTRA EDITION

Pixel grip - ARENA / Stamina

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Challengers [MIXED] by Boys Noize

NIN - Add Violence

NIN - The Fragile

The Sparks Brothers (2021 documentary)

Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven

Sparks - Exotic Creatures of the Deep

Abba - Gold (greatest hits record, but also 33 ⅓ book about said record)

Beastie Boys Book by Ad-Rock and Mike D (book and audiobook)

Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty

Madonna: Like an Icon by Lucy O’Brien (book)

The Prodigy - Fat of the Land (and its album art by JAKe Detonator)

Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire

Rage Against The Machine - Renegades

Beck - Sea Change

Nirvana - Nevermind

Nirvana - In Utero

Nirvana - Unplugged

‘Tis the season! From wholesome feel-good classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to vaguely off-color classics like “National Lampoon’s Christmas” and “Love, Actually” to flat-out misanthropic filth like “Bad Santa” or “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” there are are a lot of movies about, or at least, involving Christmas. So, let’s talk about some favorites, some less favorite, and some movie franchises set in universes where Christmas doesn’t exist that we’ve somehow forced into our holiday rotation.

Intro includes clips from It’s a Wonderful Life, Bad Santa, Die Hard, A Christmas Story and Angels With Filthy Souls (the fake gangster movie from Home Alone, not to confused with Angels with Dirty Faces, which is an actual film)