117 - eGemony, Part 1: "Canadian Club"

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The suffocation of the ego, the eternal silence of the void, faceless yet screaming, and now serving orange wine on tap.

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We have a visitor who I'm just now learning about.

I've been handed a note by my new intern, Gustav.

Gustav says station management has ordered him to bring this guest immediately to the studio.

Gustav, are you missing an eye?

Uh, Gustav is nodding.

Okay, uh, let's see.

The note says it says to please welcome.

Oh,

what?

Wow.

I mean,

wow.

Gustav, is this real?

Okay, it is my honor and my privilege to welcome to the show Hugh Jackman.

Hi.

Wait, you're not the Hugh Jackman, right?

I like to think I am.

Yeah, you're not.

But my children think I'm the real Hugh Jackman, so.

Your children are wrong.

But go on, Mr.

Hugh Jackman.

My name is Hugh Jackman, and...

But not the Hugh Jackman.

Here's my card.

Oh.

Hugh's business card is a hologram he's projected straight onto my fingers.

Says he's the senior vice president in of dream fluencing at egemony?

It's pronounced egemony.

Oh, so it sounds just like head.

I'm here to solve a funny little mystery.

I just need to open my briefcase here.

Take a look at this.

Oh, well, that's a Playboy magazine.

Yes, December 1969.

It had the pictorial on Bond Girls, in case you don't remember.

Oh, I can see that.

Oh, and there's also a feature on architect Mies Vanderbilt.

I'll take your word for it, Mr.

Palmer.

I only read Playboy for the advertisements like this one, the one for Canadian Club.

Okay, listeners, Mr.

Jackman is showing me a full-page ad that features six people hiking in dense-looking woods, and two of them are carrying a sling of some sort, and in the sling is...

A case of Canadian Club whiskey.

Uh-huh.

The headline reads.

On October 13, 1969, we hid a case of Canadian Club deep in the Amazon jungle.

Here's how how you can find it.

Oh, let's see.

Well, this is actually quite entertaining.

There are clues and maps and is that an acrostic?

It is an acrostic.

Very good, Mr.

Palmer.

It's a clue to where the case was buried.

Now, from 1967 to 1973, Hiram Walker Distilled Spirits DBA Canadian Club ran a contest where they hid 21 cases of Canadian Club whiskey throughout the world.

From the densest alleys of Jakarta to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the cable car tracks of San Francisco, on cobblestone streets in London, under 30 feet of water in the Great Barrier Reef.

They ran ads with clues about how to find them.

And find them, the people of the world did.

Every single case was recovered.

That's remarkable.

Mr.

Palmer, we hid a case under the ice caps of the North Pole and people found it.

We dropped one on Mount Everest.

Mountains?

So why do you think people wanted to find them so badly?

As far as we can tell, it has to do with people's desire to have alcohol.

Ironically, it sank the contest.

People weren't buying Canadian club.

They figured that it was way cheaper and more fun to get a yacht and sail to the Cayman Islands and snorkel under the security fences of the International Monetary Fund, and then, you know, like remove a case from the International Monetary Fund's mom's poolside refrigerator.

And that's exactly what happened to case number 17.

So sales plummeted, but later, Hiram Walker merged with Gooderham and Wartz, which was acquired by Bacardi Constellation Brands, which is now an acquisition of our little tech startup, Ijimoni.

Now, excuse me, but what does Ijimoni do?

We dream fluence.

Got it.

It turns out there's one further case of Canadian club.

It's been hidden for over 40 years

right here in Nightvale.

Here's the ad.

This is the November 1973 issue of Playboy.

Go on, read it.

On August 30, we hit a case of Canadian Club in Nightvale.

Here's how to find it.

But, Mr.

Jackman, the rest of the ad is blank.

We at Ejimoni, after some internal discussion, believe that might be why the case was never found.

There seems to have been some kind of event at the printers that month.

Fran Leibowitz's interview with progressive rock band Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is perfectly fine for its first 37 pages, but then devolves into a series of oomlauts.

Little Annie Fanny, generally a light-hearted and adorably misogynistic comic strip, was just panel after panel of oomlauts.

And Mr.

Palmer, look at the pictorial on men's golf pants.

Ah!

Yeah,

I know.

We're not really sure what happened there.

Further, you'll see that every cartoon has the same punchline.

Oh, yeah.

Here's a bride on her wedding day, and her mother is telling her it's under Cecil's desk.

Same punchline is on page 23 with The Desert Island, and page 74 here, the two cowboys at the saloon.

It's under Cecil's desk.

That is so odd.

So, Mr.

Jackman, why does Ijimoni want to find this case of liquor?

We thought it would be...

fun.

Can I look under your desk?

Why?

The case is under your desk.

Yeah, but this desk wasn't even here in 1973.

So you're telling us, me, no?

Well, I'm telling you to ask station management.

Oh, I will.

I mean, they'll make you fill out a form, and they can also create fire with their minds.

Also, they've eaten people before for way less.

Hey, Gustav?

Gustav, come in here and show Hugh what station management did to your eye.

Oh my

god, that is disgusting.

Getting worse.

Okay, that's enough, Gustav.

Oh, I am prepared.

I'm familiar with your station management and not afraid of them.

Eunice, Lily, Agatha, Demarcus, and Jad, they're old friends of mine.

Who?

Have you never learned the names of your supervisors, Mr.

Palmer?

You need a team-building retreat.

I'll be back.

You haven't seen the last of me.

Yeah, well, you aren't even the real Hugh Jackman.

I don't trust that man.

I need to figure out what to do next.

We'll be back after this.

Life is meaningless.

There are no guiding principles, nor rewards, nor punishments for how to live.

Just flashes of pain or joy, which are only neurotic messages, not actual experiences.

Even pondering why we exist is a rudderless journey.

So consciousness is a means to no end.

The Sheriff's Secret Police would like to acknowledge that hearing this will ruin your day.

However, they are further authorized to announce that nothing we have learned about nature describes a process that occurs without purpose.

We can point to a fish's fin

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a monkey's fur, a starfish's many arms, the acorns acorns in your Uncle Simon's branchy beard that explode outward as stabbing bristles whenever Uncle Simon experiences fear.

They all serve a purpose.

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You are without power in this life,

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This has been brought to you by

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We are back and I'm in a jam.

I mean, I don't trust this hue Jackman, nor his company.

I mean, after what Strexcorp did to our town, I'm a bit wary of any business conglomerate.

Although, Igemony does seem different, friendlier.

But what is this thing with looking under my desk?

I'm not sure I should even look under my desk.

I mean, what if I find it?

What if I don't find it?

Every time I've hidden under my desk, I've closed my eyes, and for good reason.

I'm so distracted, I lost my notes, notes, and now I don't even know what the news was supposed to be.

And Gustav went to go buy some cotton balls and antibacterial spray for his missing eye.

Well, I mean, honestly, I've never really looked at any of these magazines before.

I mean, Playboy was for other boys and girls.

Oh,

interesting.

Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives.

I did not know this.

Yeah, there's a whole pictorial in this issue of all the women who have ever played James Bond in full costumes.

Oh my god, look at these smart tuxes and pistols, and one of them's on a motorcycle.

In the middle of the magazine, there's even a fold-out photo of a woman in coveralls and a hard hat leading a volunteer construction crew who's building houses in a hurricane-ravaged Nova Scotia.

Oh, and on the other side of the fold-out, there's a Playmate questionnaire.

Let's see, her turn-offs include impatient people and tick bites.

You know, I agree with that.

And her turn-ons include groovy people,

good food, overwhelming feelings of dread, chanting, and all hail the glow cloud.

All hail the glow cloud.

Yes!

The playmate's name is is Missy Wilkes.

Missy Wilkes?

Could that be the Missy Wilkes who lives over on Kessler Street here in Nightvale?

I mean, they do have similar eyes and tendrils.

I wonder if it's possible that she knows where the Case of Canadian Club is.

Well, let's see.

M-I-S-S-Y-W-I-L-K-S.

Hello.

Uh, hello.

Is this Missy Wilkes?

This is Cecil Palmer from the radio station.

It's a little hard to explain why I'm calling, but.

Have you looked under your desk?

Oh, not yet.

Should I?

I mean, I kind of don't want to.

Cecil, I've been waiting for this phone call for over 40 years.

You must look under your desk.

The future of Night Vale depends on it.

Have you been doing anything else?

Pardon?

40 years?

Well, no, not really.

Raised a family.

I shot a guy once.

But you're stalling, Cecil.

I'm not stalling.

What but, you know, we really should get to today's weather.

I know I went too far,

but I had to break myself

to remake myself.

I know I went too far,

but you got to give it all away.

Just to know

how much more there's to lose

when you lost everything

came to the fire

so I could burn my own wings,

become another thing.

Stood myself by

and watched the shadows as the light tunneled through

how how much more there's to lose

when you've lost everything.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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And we're back.

Have you looked under the desk?

No, I've not looked under my desk.

Come on, Cecil.

Wait, why does Mr.

Jackman want this so badly?

It's why they put cases everywhere on the planet.

They knew that leaving an item in place long enough allows it to absorb the spirit of the area.

That case is now infused with the soul of Night Vale.

No one actually recovered those other cases.

Ijimoni recovered them after they bought all the other parent companies of Canadian Club.

They're going to send out one of their corporate prize contest and sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams to dreamfluence anyone who stands in their way.

If Ijimoni finds it before you do, they will drink Night Vale's soul.

The same way they've drunk the soul of all the other cities.

Wait, that makes no sense.

They've recovered a bunch of these across the world.

Are you saying that Manhattan, San Francisco, London, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Cayman Islands don't have souls anymore?

Secret.

Oh my god, you're right.

Okay, then.

Alright, I'm going to look.

I am looking under my desk.

And I am finding

nothing.

There's nothing under here.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, wait, but a push pin!

A red one!

And it's holding an envelope to the underside of the desk.

Is it Manila?

Yes!

And it's addressed to me.

There's a letter inside.

It's written on papyrus, and you can tell it's very old because it's written in cursive.

It says, Dear Cecil, how are you?

We are fine.

We're sorry we didn't write earlier, but we were unlearning our destinies.

We had to unlearn so many things.

Small steps, then larger ones, then larger, until we were almost flying, but not quite flying because we had to unlearn our expectations and then unlearn our limitations.

So we gave up on flying because that turns out not to work regardless of your expectations and no matter what you unlearn.

So we relearned what we needed to.

We've relearned so many essential things, Cecil, about work and love and complaining about work and love and...

Oh, and we took the case of booze.

If you want to find us, you'll know us by our sign, and then it's signed with a smear of foam.

Now, wait, this isn't just any foam, it's hold on.

Cappuccino!

Oh my goodness, I have to tell Miss Wilkes that I'm still here.

Oh, Miss Wilkes, I know where the case of Canadian Club is.

Where?

It's in the cave lands outside of town.

It's been taken by the baristas.

Cecil, this is the worst possible news.

The baristas are no match for buzz marketing street teams.

The baristas are gentle people, soft of spirit and jolly of countenance, whose dreams are only influenced by the purest of loves, not crowdsourced manipulations.

The baristas are rosy-cheeked and innocent.

They gamble like lambs, Cecil.

You've got to warn them.

Okay, I will.

I will.

Thank you, Ms.

Wilkes.

Listeners, this is terrible.

I don't know what to do.

I don't like warning people about things.

I mean, warnings lead to consequences, and we all know how much I avoid consequences.

In fact, there's only one way to be thoroughly insulated from consequence, and

that's to accumulate enough money.

But I don't have any money.

As station management recently switched their payroll protocol from cash to Twitter followers and Groupons for local spas.

So I'm kind of screwed.

Think, Cecil, think.

Think, think, think, think, think.

Stay tuned next for the sounds of chewing amplified to the threshold of pain.

Good night, Nightvale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents.

This episode was written by Glenn David Gold with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Jeffrey Craner and produced by Joseph Fink.

The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Hugh Jackman was Hunter Canning.

The voice of Missy was Lucia Struss.

Original music by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com.

This episode's weather was Lost Everything by Mary Epworth.

Find out more at maryepworth.com.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio or have a dream in which you get a paper cut and a rich dark soil pours out.

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Today's proverb: people always say, Before I die, as if they haven't already begun the process.

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You might know me from the League Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We love movies and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

It is.

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We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, From Greece to the Dark Knight.

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