Narrator/Advertiser (1:42)

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David (1:47)

No. No. You messed up, man. You gotta fix it. You gotta.

Co-host/Interviewer (1:52)

You don't want to do you want to do it?

David (1:53)

Like, you got to do the intro.

Co-host/Interviewer (1:55)

All right.

David (1:55)

You got to press the intro.

Co-host/Interviewer (1:56)

We'll do the intro. Top Lobster Productions. In the shadows of the ancient ones they never went away they're still here today.

David (2:22)

When the last trumpet sounds and the heavens. Crack Block. Block. Nebulum. Despot. Level. Despot. Despot. Despot. Despot. Welcome back, guys. We're gonna do something a little bit different here today. As you can see, the name of the episode is David's Story. I guess I'll jump straight into what we're doing and why we're doing it. What we're doing is we're trying to create a sort of a linear story that is comprised of all the strange happenings in my life, in my childhood, and, and also in my family. So it'll be their stories, it'll be my stories. And ultimately, I'm hoping that I can turn this into a book. So, admittedly, what we're going to do is we're going to use AI to, to kind of say, how would this be structured, these stories? How would, how. How should this be structured in chapters? And then I'm. If you're paying attention, please focus, lock in AI and then I'm going to type it up ultimately, because it would be a shame to, to make an AI generated book out of. Out of these stories. But these last couple of days, some of you may have heard me on the show previously talk about this. This woman named Barbara. Barbara was sort of my grandmother, not biological, but from the ages of 6 to 14, she. She raised me. And she was an interesting character, Polish woman from Elizabeth, New Jersey. And she. I was telling top before the show started that, you know, even back in like 96 or 97, I remember sitting on the porch with her and she'd go, david, David, look up. Look, you see the clouds that are left behind from the planes? They don't disappear, David. They don't disappear. It didn't used to be like this. And, you know, she had all these stories that she would share with me, but I guess the way it went was my. My mother was dating her son for a long time. So my mom and dad got separated when I was real little. And around the age of six, she got together with this guy. We moved in. His family kind of became my family. And years later, eight years later, they separated. When they separated, I. I just kind of didn't have a. I didn't have a connection to these. I was only 14 years old when that happened, 2004. I didn't have a cell phone or any of those things, so. And then only, you know, a few years later would be homeless. By the ages of 17, I was homeless. So needless to say, my life took me in a direction where, like, I just lost contact with these people, which is weird in hindsight. It's a strange upbringing. And. Something came over me maybe three days ago, four days ago, and I wanted to reach out to her. I just had this thing weighing on me to reach out to her. And, you know, I had this lexicon of phone numbers that I still remember in my head from childhood. So I thought I had it, man. Like, I was pretty sure I remembered her number and I called it up and you know, I got the, this, this line is disconnected thing and I, I went through the con again. I got a different number and that one was disconnected too. And, and I started taking to Google and the white pages and trying to find this woman's number over and over again. I'm just getting nothing. And I started to get, you know, if Matt was here, he'd, he'd make fun of me because I started to get kind of this heavy spirit. I, I was afraid that I was afraid she had passed. You know, I'm going through the Internet, I'm going through Google and I'm finding know, mentions of her age. 84 years old was the last time that they, you know, that she was. Any age of hers was mentioned in, in Google. And so I start taking to social media and, and I, I can't find any traces of her. And that guy, you know, her son, he, he, he was my stepdad from when, from 6 to 14. And it's just strange. You have a family, a group of people in your life, and then all at once that door just closes. I haven't talked to him since I was, you know, 14 years old. I'm 36 now or 35 now. And so it's, you know, it's been a long time. And I could kind of see that his social media was there. And at one point I did manage to find like a number that was supposedly supposed to be his on Google. And I shot at a text message and I said, you know, I'm trying to get in contact with your mother. I explained who I was and I explained that I was just having difficulty and there was no response. So for a couple of days I was in a weird headspace and I don't know, I don't know why. It was like weighing on me heavy. It was just like I felt like this thing was put on me to reach out to her. And everywhere I was just hitting these stops. So, long story short, I did get in contact with somebody a few days later. Oddly enough, it was the wife of my old stepdad. Never, never exchanged a word with this woman. He got into a relationship right after him and my mom separated. We went our separate ways. He went his. And I just reached out to this lady and I said, hey, I know this is weird, but Barbara was really meaningful to me and, and I'm, I'm having a hard time tracking her down. And she was really kind, reached back out right away, said she would pass the message along. And then before that night was over, I guess she decided to break the news to me that in fact, Barbara had been dead since 2021. So. And it really me up. I actually cried, which is weird because I don't know when the last time I. I cried was, and. And I was confused. Didn't know why I was crying. I haven't seen this woman since I was 14 years old. But it was a rough night that night. My wife actually woke me up the next morning, said I was. I was talking a lot in my sleep. And since then, I've had some more correspondence with. With that. That woman. I don't even, you know, her name is Kim. Nice lady. And. And she said that Barbara used to talk about me and, you know, said that I should be. I should know that she never forgot about me. All very weird, very strange thing to happen as an adult man who has not looked back at that part of my life. And I've moved on, you know, so tremendously married, have a kid now and all this other stuff. And just out of nowhere, this is put on me. And then I didn't think that it was something that would hurt to look at, and it did. But Top and I have been talking about this idea of putting my stories into a book because there is. There is a point, I think, to everything that I experience and everything that my family experience and where I am now and the show that I do now and the faith that I have in God. And I think the point is something that we talk about really often. Generational iniquity. And Barbara wasn't my blood at all, but she did plant this seed of fascination with these stories. And we'll get into some of her stories on this episode. And I think that part of the reason I was supposed to go through this is so that I would be spurred on to. To write this book. It feels almost like a. A closing of the circle. My family's experiences have come full circle where my grandmother, my biological grandmother failed. And I'm not saying that in a negative way. I'm not saying that my grandmother was a bad person. I'm saying that she had experiences she didn't understand.

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David (12:02)

Really?

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David (12:35)

And she went about dealing with them the wrong way. And now, you know, two generations after her, I get to close that. I don't know, close that door.

Co-host/Interviewer (12:52)

The loop, right?

David (12:54)

The loop, yeah. Because what my grandmother experience bled into her children and then those experiences bled into their children. And I'm of that generation. And for a time it was, it was bleeding into my son. You know, my son had stories really young and I worked really hard to keep any of this away from him because, you know, kids can't sleep. You plant a seed of a spooky story in your kid's ear, it's going to grow, man. So I was really careful to never do that. And much to my dismay, he would still come to me with these stories that I knew the nature of. And I couldn't even, I. I couldn't even say anything to him about them. I would tell him, you know, pray to Jesus and that was the beginning of the solution that like now has come to fruition. Like he doesn't have these experiences anymore, but like I couldn't get into the nature of them or tell them. Like I've seen those things too or any of that because, you know, I'm just being so careful. So this episode, you're gonna hear a lot of the same stories that you've heard before. But this is, like I said, an effort to kind of get them all down in one place so that I can start working them into a book. I think that it would be best probably to start from like my earliest memories. And I think there's going to be some, some jumping back and forth, you know, because obviously my families take place before I was born and after I was born and this whole thing is, is all over the place.

Co-host/Interviewer (14:46)

But yeah, it seems like this is like a, this lady's like almost a side quest in your family lineage. Yeah, yeah, maybe when you weren't supposed to go on.

David (14:56)

Well, actually I think, I think I want to start with her. Stories. Yeah, because they're kind of fun. Not, not funny, but just saying what I said about my own son and how careful I am. This woman, she was not careful at all, dude. Very funny, actually. So, so Barbara, little white house in the suburbs, you know, drove an old Buick, I think, back when the Buicks were still boxy. And, you know, she. Polish lady, she would cook kielbasa and, and pierogies and, you know, just nothing, nothing about her broke the mold in any staggering way. Can't recall her ever having a drink. House was always clean, yard was always mowed. Her husband would be out in the garage tinkering. He had a boat, he liked to fish. They like to go crabbing. Big Y. You know, really. Their son, football team did a band thing, 80s hair metal when it was big. Kind of like Americana in a really big way. And I'm just trying to paint a picture that says, like, this is not a woman who is abnormal in any kind of way. This is not a woman who you would say was a bad mother by any stretch. Great mother, I. I would say and played a great grandmother figure to me. And. But still, I, I don't know. I. I questioned her discernment a little bit on, on, you know, some of the decisions he made. So 6, 7, 8 years old, I would say, is the window where these stories start coming to me. Barbara would. Would tell me. I couldn't for the life of me remember why she told me these things. That she would wake up sporadically throughout her life, find that she was unable to move, and would be in the presence of a man who. She couldn't see his face, but he had a wide brimmed hat and like a duster coat. And so this is what we're all familiar with now as sort of a sleep paralysis hat man encounter. But I'm getting this in 96, 97, 98. You know, Internet's not a thing yet. And I'm mortified. I'm mortified, dude. She's telling me these things. She says it happens in childhood and it happens into adulthood. She had some theories on it. She's. She thought that it. It was a. It heralded a death, the death of some. I, in fact, I think to some degree she thought it was death. And I think she had made some correlations that, you know, this thing appearing would precede the death of a loved one.

Co-host/Interviewer (18:15)

Right.

David (18:17)

And I guess it's because, you know, it happened a time or two. She described it in her childhood home in Elizabeth, and she described it in the home That I was living in with her in Carteret, which is not very far, but, like, you know, this thing wasn't restricted to a haunted house, in other words. And one story in particular that she told me, which I think actually helped quite a bit when I was learning about sleep paralysis and the hat man, because it gave me context that flew in in the face of the conventional explanation of it. The conventional explanation is that it's a psychological phenomenon. Your brain puts your body into basically sleep mode so that you're not acting out your dreams. And sometimes you wake up partially, and your body's still in that state of paralysis. And that evokes fear. And since you're still partially sleeping, you're in a hallucinogenic state where now you're. You're having visual hallucinations. And since you're afraid, the nature of those hallucinations are scary. It's actually a really good explanation for it. I buy that. Except for Barbara's story doesn't fit that. So the one that I'm talking about is when she's younger, she is. I guess, you know, it's elementary school. She had a sister, her sister Dot. And they would have run ins with this guy, and they shared a bedroom. And Dot would confirm to Barbara that she also saw him one night in particular after this thing visited. They're sitting at the breakfast table and they're talking it over about how they both saw him, but they're talking in hush tones. For whatever reason, she said she didn't want her mother to hear her. I don't know if it's because she thought she would get mad or anything like that, but her mother does overhear, and she does get a little snappy, and she goes, what are you girls talking about? And they reluctantly explain. And their mother, who was in another room, says, I saw him last night, too. So for Barbara, this was not a psychological phenomenon. This was a entity, something external, not a hallucination, something that had the ability to visit her entire household in one night. And that never. That never left me. And I don't think I've ever actually had myself a hat man experience. But I never forgot those stories. And eventually, eventually Barbara's stories would overlap in an unbelievable way with my own family stories. So I'm gonna leave those there for now, and we're gonna end up revisiting them. And I think I'm gonna go to when I was. When I was a kid in the house that I grew up in, still

Co-host/Interviewer (21:49)

under the watch of Barbara.

David (21:51)

Now, this is a different House. This, this very confusing, I know. Yeah, well, that was.

Co-host/Interviewer (21:55)

We need like a Holly's HGTV map.

David (21:58)

I need, yeah. A timeline.

Co-host/Interviewer (21:59)

Where is David?

David (22:00)

Well, this house that I lived in with Barbara, 6 to 14. Okay, so I'm talking pre 6 years old. I think that. There's, there's generational iniquity involved, but there's also trauma. I wasn't a victim of anything grotesque, I don't think. You know, who knows, they, everybody says, oh, you, you repress the memories. I don't think that happened to me. But I was.

Co-host/Interviewer (22:31)

You're talking household trauma, abuse.

David (22:33)

Yeah, I wasn't. Well, the, the yelling and the fighting. Yeah, I, I witnessed a lot of violence. If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering with on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift. And you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Wasn't really the recipient of a lot of violence, but I did witness a lot of violence. A lot of yelling and abandonment specifically. So when I was real little, we're talking like 2, 3 years old, my mom and my dad separate. And I can remember just, I don't know, countless nights crying into my pillow for my dad to come. Never does. And I don't think that that's insignificant. A lot of people have that right. Like a lot of people, their households get separated, mom and dad get divorced, whatever. But I think that it is traumatic for a child. And throughout the research on this show, it's like trauma is the doorway that these things slip in. So already it's, it's off to a bad start. Dad leaves and shortly after that, we leave the house that I grew up in. We move to this house in Elizabeth. Must have been three, maybe four years old when we live there now in this house. It's one of the first houses that are built on Railway Avenue in Elizabeth. Railway Avenue is an old road. Elizabeth is an old town. You know, if you just think about the early settlements of the, the 13 colonies, right? That whole area, that upper east, northeast coast, that's old. The house that I lived in was old and we were in there. It was me, my mother, her sister, some of you guys might remember her sister, that's schizophrenic. Aunt Lisa. Aunt Lisa's two kids, so we're already up to five. My grandmother and my great grandmother. So six, seven people in this one house. Few dogs. All women. I always say, like, I was just. I was raised by women. That's why I dressed the way that I do. And some of my earliest memories there are bizarre. I. I do remember conversations that would come from all different directions. Whether it was, you know, grandma or. Or the aunts or my mom. That would dismiss all of the thuds and creeks and footsteps and everything else is just. Just ghosts. These women did not. Like, nobody ever pulled a punch when I was a kid. It was just, these are just ghosts. And because the house was really old, like I said, so plausible. And I remember one of the strangest occurrences I ever had in that house came from my aunt. So my aunt is. Is bipolar, schizophrenic, and. And to this day, she is. Think about the worst version of schizophrenia, what it does to a person. That's. That's her. I mean, I'm not even trying to be funny. I. Maybe I'm too crass and I lack the ability to describe it in. In more graceful words. She looks like a before and after photo of somebody on crack in just the worst way. She doesn't look like herself. I saw a picture of her recently. I went to go visit some family, and they showed me a picture of her, and it was ghastly. Ghastly. It's remarkable to me that she's still alive.

Co-host/Interviewer (26:37)

Drug use or just like spiritual torture?

David (26:39)

Well, it's. It's the schizophrenia and of course, the system that just fails her constantly. But then, of course, you know that area, right? We're talking Elizabeth. She's all over that area. Elizabeth. She's been as far as. As New York. She got arrested for trying to climb the George Washington Bridge. She's been arrested for standing on the New Jersey Transit tracks. And like, before the train ever came, people called the police and. But they had to stop the train from running to get her off the tracks. And she was even like, in the local news, you know, for that spat. Spooky lady, man. Spooky lady. I got a. More than a few stories about her, but before she's ever diagnosed, before she really goes off the deep end, she's. I think she's babysitting us, me and her two kids. And she asked me to go and get the silverware drawer. I remember that day, she was sick and she was laying on the sofa. We had this tan leather Sofa in the living room and. Bizarre request, but I go and I get this silverware drawer, and I'm so young, like 4 or 5, and I'm like, wrestling this thing out of the cabinets, and I'm carrying it down the hallway. And there's this one hallway that leads from the kitchen to the living room. And it's carpeted black, and there's no lights in it. It's very dark. And we had a black lab at the time. She would lay down in that fucking hallway, dude. And you would step on her and she would stand up and people would go for a ride on her back. Like, it was a disaster. And I'm in that hallway and everything starts to feel strange. And I hear a woman's voice. And it's. Even at that age, I discerned that it's not. I didn't hear it with my ears, like, I heard it in my head. It's the only time in my life I've ever heard what people would call, like, mindspeak or telepathy. One time, and it was this woman, and she just said. As if she was talking to somebody else, she goes, he's gonna drop it. And as soon as that happened, it was like. I got. Vertigo isn't the word. It was like my whole visual cortex twisted. And I could. I didn't have a choice. I let that thing go because I couldn't detect up and down anymore. And it smashes on the ground and the sound, like, snaps me out of it. And my aunt. Something strange happens next. And I don't remember if it happened to me or if it happened to one of her kids, because my memory is looking at it happening, but. And I remember. I don't. Like I said, I don't know who it was happening to. These days, I can't even claim I used to say that it happened to me, but now it's a memory of a memory. Somebody got pinned down and choked on the kitchen floor. And I know that whoever it happened to, the other kids watched it happen. And either the one who got choked, I don't know if that was me. I don't know. Or the ones who were watching said, I'm going to call the police. And she stopped. And then I. I don't know what happened after that. And that's kind of like where that one leaves off. In fact, that one was so strange to me that I thought I was going to be schizophrenic because I never lost that memory. That never went away. And I knew that my Aunt. You know, when I, As I got older, was schizophrenic, and I was. I was worried about it. And I remember looking up the research. It was like, schizophrenia doesn't onset into a. Into men typically past a certain age. It was like 28 or 30. So when that happened, like, when I finally crossed that, you know, that threshold, I. I did sigh a breath of release or relief, rather. You know, I remember checking in one day like, oh, man, I'm past that age. I didn't get schizophrenia.

Co-host/Interviewer (31:37)

When. When you last spoke with your cousin. He's the one that's in and out of juvie. He would have been the guy that saw this happen to you or to him or to somebody, Right?

David (31:47)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (31:48)

Did you ask him about that?

David (31:50)

I don't know. I. I almost want to say that I did because it's such a core memory for me. Let me go back real quick to the time, think about the stories. I. I feel like I did ask him. Hold on. I mean, I. I do. I do want to look at this today. I mean, yeah, I reached out to her son recently, and we'll get into to what happened to him for the first time basically since I was 12 or 13. He also ended up becoming schizophrenic, and. He got put in juvie. And then in juvie, some things went wrong. And then he got put into adult prison as he. As he got older. And now. Now I didn't ask him.

Co-host/Interviewer (32:44)

I think you should follow up. That's an interesting wrinkle in the story. Right. Because somebody's getting choked and.

David (32:54)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (32:54)

If you're watching from outside of your body, which I've had that similar experience. Well, what happened in that instance? And then also that would lead you to question, why would she send you to do such a bizarre task that almost knowing that you'd fail in order to then do that if it was you?

David (33:16)

I've told my mom about it, and she just goes like, no, that never happened. But when I tell you, like, that story had me checking in every few years with what the age for schizophrenia was like. It wasn't something I made up. It was definitely real. I remember that. I remember that woman's voice.

Co-host/Interviewer (33:39)

Is it because you didn't want. You didn't want to become the way she was? Well, there.

David (33:45)

Well, you know, my. Yeah, I mean, schizophrenia is terrifying. And I knew what happened to her kids. I also knew there was something in the research that suggested schizophrenia has a tendency to skip a generation. I actually want to look that up real quick. Schizophrenia skips a generation. And I remember doing, like, the math. Schizophrenia doesn't technically skip a generation in direct, predictable way, but it can appear that way because it's polygenetic or polygenic, rather, and not solely inherited. While it often clusters in families, the risk depends on combination of. Okay, so. So there was a time when I guess what appears that way was what I interpreted as, you know, the research. The research says it skips a generation, apparently just appears to skip a generation. But I was thinking like, oh, maybe it came from my grandmother, and one kid got it, but the other kid got skipped, the other kid being my mom. And that maybe that meant, like, I was afraid of this. Not like, you know, but it was just something that would cross my mind and I would get worried. So there's no way. Like, when she said it didn't happen. Like, number one, you. You weren't there. We were being babysat. And number two, I remember that woman's voice. And I know what that instance did to me as far as, like, my. My fascination with. With schizophrenia. So. Yeah. And then as far as the. Seeing it from a different pov, I. I just wonder if I was. I don't think that means that I was dying necessarily. It could just mean, like, I was disassociating from trauma.

Co-host/Interviewer (35:45)

Yeah.

David (35:47)

And children, I think, have an ability sometimes to slip, like, if there truly is a thing, astral projecting or any of that shit, which I think is. Is a real. You know, it's a reality. I think kids can often slip into that accidentally, given the right circumstances. And I think that that's probably what I ended up doing. So another weird story that happened in that house which kind of connects to what we were just talking about, this disassociation. My grandma, her name was Betty Lou. And this is a weird thing. This is something that I realized recently. And this isn't like, shade to my mother at all. My mom was very distant, and she'll tell you she didn't know how to be a mom. My grandmother, before my mom and my aunt were born, had a son. And his. His name was David. And they put. They made my grandmother put him up for adoption. That's how the story goes. I heard some weird thing recently where one of my aunts said, well, I think they almost wanted to see her push back and try to keep the baby. It was like a threat. She was really young, and I think she just kind of said, okay, fine. I don't know. I don't know how it went. Who the hell knows, right? It's a long time ago, way before me, obviously, she puts that baby up for adoption. I know that that really screwed her up because I got my hands on a briefcase of her after she passed. And there were a lot of fascinating things in that briefcase. And we'll probably get into that later. But one of these things is rough drafts of songs. One of them was called Logs in a Fire. And it was this heart wrenching song that she had written about how her love for her son still burns like logs on a fire. And there were also rough drafts of letters to Oprah, maybe a couple of other talk show hosts who were doing. At that time, it was kind of popular, reuniting families who were put up for adoption and things like that. And she was trying to appeal to them. And, you know, that never happened. And so I think history kind of repeated itself. My mother had me pretty young, like 18 or 19. And I always say it's like a funny story with my name because my father wanted to name me Bruce Lee. He's a big Bruce Lee guy. And my mom didn't like the name Bruce. My mom wanted to name me David. And my dad like David Lee Roth, which we actually were talking about that with Vicki Joy Anderson the other day.

Co-host/Interviewer (38:47)

He just wanted Lee in there. We've got to throw Lee.

David (38:49)

Got it. Gotta throw Lee. Apparently. I don't know, he used to sing Van Halen songs. And I've heard my dad, he'll sing like. He sings like the dude from AC dc. He does that voice. So he's like big into that kind of thing. So I guess it's a, it's a compromise. But the thing that makes me think that this was a little bit more meaningful than it seems on the surface is it was actually two things. One, the distance of my mother throughout my entire life. Didn't really hug my mom until I was like a man. And the other thing is that she, I'm pretty sure she started this, made me call her mother Mom. I, I think they were gonna do a thing where she raised me. She, she, she was, she would have been my mother. And that's certainly the way that it felt. When I was a kid, my mom was working all day and then she was in night school. So for a few years there, right? Because I move into this house at like 3 and I'm there till 6. So really only a few years, but at that age, it feels like forever. She's raising me and I'm calling her mom. So where things get strange is now she's. She's she does a lot of things. I remember she had me looking into crystal balls when I was a kid. Highly spiritual woman. She has liver failure. That comes from drinking, right? Liver failure?

Co-host/Interviewer (40:36)

Yeah, it could come from a couple of things.

David (40:37)

Well, it's. I mean, it's a drinking related thing because she was drinking. She drank a lot.

Co-host/Interviewer (40:41)

Okay.

David (40:42)

In fact, the story gets super retarded. She dies of liver failure. My father, against everybody's advice, gives her her last bottle of alcohol. She's talking to my dad. Hey, I know everybody's saying not to, but, like, can you please just go? I'll give you the money. Go to the store. He told me this recently. It's weird. Dude told me this recently. He goes, yeah, I said. I said it. What? You know, yeah, sure, I'll do it. It was weird watching him tell me because it was like a man admitting I. This is gonna sound like, bombastic that he. Like that he killed my mother. You know what I mean? Like, that's how it. If you told me that at that age, it would have been my dad killed my mother in this weird family dynamic. But that's the last bottle of it sends her over the edge. And where things get strange is whatever happens to her, it's obvious enough that it's time to call paramedics. My mother says she bought me downstairs to the opposite end of the house. I remember everything. I was standing in that room. I watched her resist the paramedic. She was two floors up in an attic bedroom. It was like a finished attic bedroom. And I was supposedly. And look, I'm open to the idea that I slipped up while nobody was looking but my mom. When I told her what I saw, she. She says it's impossible, that I couldn't have seen. And I remember where I was. I was standing next to her, next to my mother, watching the paramedics fight. My grandmother, she's resisting. She doesn't want to come out of the bed. And I mean, she's throwing a fight, man. But eventually they get her out. And I remember visiting her a couple times in the hospital, and she, you know, she. She ended up dying and she died really young. Now I think this is a good time to. To bridge this gap between my biological grandmother and Barbara.

Co-host/Interviewer (43:12)

So she dies.

David (43:14)

96.

Co-host/Interviewer (43:15)

The house is thrown into limbo. The living situation is probably crazy.

David (43:20)

It is. Well, this is this abandonment thing, right? She dies. Yeah, I remember the house is like a shell of itself for a little bit, and then the footsteps and the creeks and everything start getting attributed to her spirit. Wasn't very long, probably a year. My mom says, hey, we're gonna go to one of my friends houses and. And I get in the car, I go, we watch like a movie. I remember this night, we watch a movie and then it gets late and it's time for me to like go to sleep. But they don't have like, you know, how old is my mom by this time? 23 or some shit like this. 24. And this guy whose house we're over, he doesn't have like a whole setup or anything yet. So there's a sheet on the, on the floor and like, I go on the sheet and they give me like a blanket and a pillow and I'm playing with his old Star wars action figures. And I wake up in the morning and I'm ready to go home. We never go home again. That's the house. That's Barbara's house. Huh. I don't know him. I don't know them. But this is where I live now. And so, you know, I guess I'll just kind of fast forward to it because we got to jump to when I'm like 16. So I live in this place now and you know, I have a whole childhood there. And honestly I was. I was a strange kid. I put my foot down right away and I was like, this guy's not my dad. Only a few years ago, I was crying into a pillow nightly for my dad who wasn't coming. And I dug my feet in, dude. And I gave him a really hard eight years, really fucking hard. Never bent or broke. They brought me to Disney World. Dog 2001. I'm 11 years old. We took a flight right after 9 11. Disney World was a fucking graveyard. It was. It was empty. Miserable. Every picture you see of me from then, miserable. I. It was so hard to get me to smile for. I kind of remember, dude, like deciding that I was content in my misery and that I would. I would just be that. And I think like sometimes, man, you really can't put enough emphasis on like how much will a kid has, even if that will is aimed towards like being miserable, you know, I did it and, and he tried and stuff. But you know what? Even. Even in all of our distance, I really had this window of time in my life. It was kind of beautiful. I moved from like a area and I moved to like another town, but I was at least like in the nicer side of town and my days for a while I. I used to say I had like a Goonies kind of childhood, like on my bike, every single day with my group of friends, exploring this little town and all of its little hidden nooks and crannies. I mean, I had a few more experiences in that town that were strange. One of them is my, my, you know, my kind of infamous black baby story, which I'm going to rehash here, you know, so we can kind of get this all in there. But I had a group of friends and, and we used to go to a place that we called the Ramps. And the Ramps was on the edges of town, you had to go through a trailer park. And on the edges of that trailer park, next to an abandoned trailer park section, they had like a fenced in area where they would drag all the dilapidated trailers out and they would. That was their, their graveyard. There was a tree line right next to it. And in that tree line is where the ramps were. Me and my friends would go. Interestingly enough, I would find out later on in my life that Joe, Barbara's son, my mom's boyfriend, dug those ramps when he was a kid with his friends. So years later, he would be surprised to find out that I was not only hanging out there, but that they were still there. And it was just a bunch of areas that were dug out, you know, a pit for the bike. And then they used the displaced dirt to make ramps for the bikes. And one day we're in there, me and my group of friends, and it was paralleled by a creek. And that creek had this tall grass growing all around it. So there was an area in that tree line that was filled with tall grass. We used to stomp paths through it. You know, we would use our feet to lay down the tall grass and made like a maze of paths. And one day me and my buddy Shane are going through there now, I'm like 12, Shane's maybe like 10. And we're going through this tall grass and all of a sudden something starts rushing us, but it's not on the path, it's in the tall grass still, so we can't see it. And I, I grew up in a house where at any given time we had like three dogs. We had all kinds of weird shit, man. Even back in Elizabeth, we had weird shit. Tortoises and turtles, owls, ferrets, dogs, cats, parrots, you know, frogs, salamanders. Like, you name it, we had it. Some kids were raised in the church. I was raised on animal like, no lie. Like when, when, when Steve Irwin died, my mother wept, actually wept. And I was sad. So I, I Know what's native to this town. Towards the end of me being there, we started getting whitetail coming through the neighborhood. That was weird. If, if there was anything that this could have been a dog, a raccoon, real run of the mill shit. I jumped to dog and it was moving so fast that I grabbed my friend. And we just, were just kids. There's no instinct. We just freeze. And I look in horror as this thing comes towards me. This whole interaction lasts three seconds, you know, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. It's over. It's in the tall grass. It's heading towards us. We grab each other. It bursts out on the narrow path in front of us that we had stomped, you know. And it is not a dog and it's not a raccoon. It's definitely not a white tail. In fact, the only thing that I could say that it was, was a. I, you know, it sounds really funny, but I said it was a naked black baby. And what I mean by that was it was like toddler sized, smaller than us. We're 12 and 10. Toddler sized, black, not like brown black and stark naked. No genitalia inside. I mean, it's only a three second encounter, you know, it's not like I'm not. And it's fast. And it crosses in front of us. I see it definitively. I see it maybe far enough to reach out my hand and touch it. Oh yes, it's not far. And then it disappears into the other side of the tall grass. Because we're, we've created a divider right in this path. It bursts out onto the path and then continues back into the tall grass. Never minds us. Doesn't. Doesn't orient towards us, doesn't interact with us, does nothing. And we scream and we run out of there and we keep running. We run out of the woods, through the trailer park, out of the trailer park, into the park. It was Wor Joseph Medwick park in Carteret. And we ran all the way to that, right to where the baseball field was. And we collapse in the grass. And then slowly our friends caught up because they were there, but they were in the ramp section. We blew right past them. And for the longest time I said, that was a naked black baby. It was only when I was older that I was recounting the story. And I said, I think I was 16 by the time I put two and two together. And when I was, you know, it's not something you think about all the time. Oh man. Is that Joe Medwick Park? Yeah, that's the sign. Dude, I, I grew up at that park. That's where my Goonies childhood happened. I mean, yeah, yeah, they put that trail in there. That's the tall grass. That's the tall grass, dude. That, that area there, that's a garbage heap in the background.

Co-host/Interviewer (52:58)

Has a, that's just New Jersey David.

David (53:01)

That's what that, that's what that smell is. Oh, there's the whitetail. And batting a thousand today, huh? There's all the tall grass, dude. It was only when I was 16 that I put two and two together and I was like, I had seen enough toddlers by then. And I was like, no, dude, they don't move that fast. And I think over time I came to the conclusion that what I had seen, I don't know, I say a gray. I don't know there's any, there's a whole variety of cryptids, right? I don't know what I saw. It was not human and it was not animal, but it was bipedal, full grown, you'd say, based off of how fast it was moving, right? There's no way a kid's ever going to book like that. And, and I did also stop and think, like, at 16 years old, I was like, if you stripped me naked right now and made me run through the tall grass, I would be getting shoots in the bottom of my feet. You know what I mean? Like, you snap tall grass off at the base and we wear sneakers, dog. Like, we got soft feet. That's gonna, that's gonna go right into my feet. There's no way. But this thing was boogie full sprint as like, like the wind moving through this tall grass. So I don't know what I sell. I, I, I don't know what I saw. There's no way I'll ever know what I saw. But it stuck with me. And interestingly enough, I'll reach out to Shane occasionally and, and I'll say, hey, do you remember that? I haven't done it in years, but there was a time where I would reach out to him and he would say, yeah, dude, I remember that. I don't remember what I saw though. And I'm trying to get verification, right? I'm like, okay, do you remember anything? Like, do you remember if it was like on two feet and he's like, I don't know. I don't know what I like. It wasn't that he, he would say, I don't know what I saw. And it was weird. It was, he had like a reactive response to this, that. I just couldn't. I was filled with, like, curiosity. This dude was like a little frantic, a little dismissive, a little repetitive. I don't know what I saw. I don't know. I just. I remember I was scared. I don't know what I saw. Eventually that turned into years later. I don't want to talk about it. I couldn't tell you why. Why would that be the case?

Co-host/Interviewer (55:28)

It'll probably turn into never happened, probably

David (55:31)

if I tried now. Yeah, I mean, he's. He's a, you know, grown man with a kid himself and. But I just couldn't. I couldn't figure out why that evolved into I don't want to talk about wasn't like anything that left me with a lingering feeling of dread. It was a fascinating thing that happened to us. But you don't want to. I don't know, man.

Co-host/Interviewer (55:55)

It could be like that faceless story with the skinwalker where it's kind of like, I don't know, how's your friend's life? Besides married? Like, do you know anything else about it?

David (56:06)

I don't. I don't know anything else about him. I know he's still in that small town. I think a lot of people just never left that place. There's another weird story too. So that picture that you showed of the tall grass and the garbage heap, in that tall grass, but before the garbage heap, there is a concrete sewer pipe. It's not buried in the ground. If you walk on it from the perspective of that photo, it looks like you're walking in the distance on the top, the tips of the tall grass. So you get what I'm saying. It's like the tall grass is tall enough to obfuscate the giant concrete pipe, but the pipe is tall enough that it would look like. In this photo here, you were traveling along the brown tips of the tall grass in the distance. So you would see everything down to your feet pretty much if you were walking on it. And it went straight across the horizon just like you're seeing right there in the distance. What you can't see is it stretches far and all of the streets all funneled down. They all point to that garbage heap. All their sewers funnel to that garbage heap. Well, not quite. The garbage heap to the pipe runs along the horizon there. And that place was like. That was the real edges of town. You know what I mean? Like, that was the. The. The bizarre. Only people you're ever going to find back there are the kids. Just us doing goony. Sounds like it Actually, one day we're on my street. I lived on a street. It was William street. And it was one of those streets that went all the way down to that tall grass. And me and my friend John are standing there. We're on our bikes. Actually, I think we're on our bikes. Yeah, man. Was. I was 11 or 12. Same. Same age. We're sitting on our bikes and we're above a manhole. Like, a manhole was on this. On the street right next to us. And we stop mid conversation. Something is screaming and running towards us, but we can't see it. But we can hear it getting closer. We put two and two together. It's in the fucking sewers. And it passes. You can hear the splash of its feet in the water in the sewers. And it passes underneath us. And we instinctively start pedaling down the street because it's got one direction it's going down the street, but it's under the ground. And we get to the next manhole, and sure enough, we can still hear it. It's still moving. I don't remember what happened. I think we probably lost it or we probably got scared or any number of things. But, like. Yeah, it's a weird part of town. And it does. It goes right to that big concrete tunnel. And that tunnel, like, I don't know, dumb shit. Not bad shit, spooky shit. Just bad shit happened there. Me and my friends. I didn't do it. I was with some friends and I had to check in every hour at this time. So I left to go check in, say, hey, Mom, I'm down the street playing. I went back.

Co-host/Interviewer (59:22)

And that's my alibi.

David (59:23)

Well, yeah, that's my. And I'm sticking to that whole fucking tall grass area. Up in flames. Oh. Sees two chicks I was hanging out with playing with a lighter. We were just dumb kids. They set the whole shit on fire, dude. So that's it for that chunk of. Of my life. I hit 14 and. I don't know, I was outside a lot at that time, so I don't remember my mom and this guy falling out. But one day he's just helping us drive all our shit to some new place. And that's it. This woman, Barbara, that's it. I. I leave her in the past.

Co-host/Interviewer (60:12)

Is this the same guy that you reached out to that didn't answer you?

David (60:16)

Yeah, and I actually did get in contact with him, and I. I'll. I'll share that in a little bit, man.

Co-host/Interviewer (60:26)

So I want to say some names just for the Transcript Sake.

David (60:32)

Joe. You're saying his name? Yeah, his name was Joe. Josevich is a hell of a Polish name to try to. Turns out, man, like, I had a lot of animosity for this guy for a long time, but, like, he's a good dude. He did what he could. It's not his fault a relationship doesn't work out. Being a stepdad is fucking difficult. And I was a difficult kid, man. I was. I was fucked up. But like, there it goes again, right? It's like everybody who is my family, they just go away. And my mom, you know, my mom is great. I don't really. But I do know that she was not a. She was not a maternal figure at all. She was very distant. And she struggles with that. I know she struggles with it. She's mentioned it. I haven't talked to her in months. It's still like very distant. But like, everybody who was my family, they just went away. And so by this time when it happens,

Co-host/Interviewer (61:38)

it's like a formality.

David (61:39)

It's like another day. I'm just like, all right, I guess we're fucking living in this place now. They moved to the shitty side of town. Quick story with that. Doesn't really. I don't know what it was. I had a long running best friend, John. Same guy I was on the bike with. I'm talking to him. I go, yeah, man. I'm in my new shithole apartment. We're in the. In the ghetto now. Like, we've moved to the really bad side of town. And as I'm on my front porch talking to him on my landline, a scream. But like, not like a. Not like a. Like a beast fills this little dirty corner of town. Where I'm at now is a place called Chrome. And what's on the other side of like one line of houses from me is industrial. And then a river. Might have been the Arthur Kill. I'm not sure what. What, what ran across the back of Chrome, but like, Chrome was right next to a place called Port Reading. Port Reading had a place in weird New Jersey. The magazine, it was a. It was a crane. A giant abandoned crane. Not like your typical crane. It was like a four pillared structure with levels going all the way up it. And it was on a. On the water side. So, like, what's to the back of this place is water. Tall grass again. This thing is so loud. John hears it on the landline and he goes, what the was that? Yeah, that's a. That's a section of Chrome. I know that rose from New Jersey.

Co-host/Interviewer (63:27)

This is just like. It's just industrial Tennessee in Jersey.

David (63:31)

Yeah, that's it. That's it. And he hears it. That's how loud it is. And it made my. My. My hair stand up and my blood run cold. It was so fucking loud. Never got an answer for what that was. It's just remarkable that he heard it too. I'm standing on my front porch and he hears it. So the same thing would happen again. My mom meets a new guy, and after the second time of meeting him, we just move in with him. My life in this town, in Carteret, where I grew up, I finally had some stability. There's this new fucking dude, and then we're off to a whole new town. And I'm in this new house with this guy. And that didn't last long. It might have been a year, a year and a half, tops. My life had really spiraled. I was totally chaotic. I. I had become this dude that was so, you know, 15, 16 years old. I was like chaos incarnate, dude. I was standing on teachers desks kicking their shit off onto the floor. I was. I beat up a cop during this time. I mean, like, I went off the deep end. And about a year and a half after meeting this guy and moving in with him, I get kicked out and I'm homeless now. So this is where things get interesting. This is like 16, 17 years old. I'm dating a girl. Trying to think what happened first? Okay, what happened first is I go and visit an aunt, and I stay with her for a couple of days. And while I'm there, she tells me a story about my grandmother, my biological grandmother. She says my grandmother used to have all kinds of unexplainable encounters. And this was news to me. I didn't know this at all. And one of them was that when she was a little girl, like a toddler, she would be trying to go to sleep. And what she said would happen was either a bright white light would appear, it would rise up from outside of her window, or a white owl would be there and she would scream. And the second anybody came to see what was going on, it would disappear. And she said maybe that she had seen some shadow people, too. She would complain about, like, the shadows of people in the house. She also told me that my aunt, who by this time was, well, schizophrenic. You know what? There's another story in there, so I gotta remember to add this in. She had played with a Ouija board. She was always off, but after the Ouija board was never the same again. And the other thing she told me was that my grandmother, the one who had these visitations in the night by the white light and the owl, she read a book once that was so terrifying to her, like, messed her up. And it messed her up so much that she made my mother promise that she would never read this book. But my aunt at the time doesn't remember what the name of the book is. I go home.

Co-host/Interviewer (67:27)

What if it's this one that you're writing right now?

David (67:29)

Well, that's fucking time loop, time travel. I go home, I ask my mom. My mom remembers. She tells me right away, just no reservations. It's Communion by Whitley Striver.

Co-host/Interviewer (67:42)

Right.

David (67:43)

First and last time I ever read a book. I mean, I may. I think I read I Am Legend or some shit after that, but. And I want to couch that for a second. I want to talk about my aunt, because I believe it was the same weekend schizophrenic Aunt Lisa had been rescued by my Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret's the lady, an angel. She's a legitimate angel. God put certain people in my life, and Margaret is one of them. In all my stability, she has been this unbelievable, saving grace, completely selfless woman. I got like this weird bag of, like, crazy abandonment issues. But then like, these unbelievable mountains in my life. And Margaret's one of them. Barbara was. Was one of them. And Margaret has no kids of her own. She's my great aunt, my grandmother's sister, Grandma Betty, who I used to call Mom. It's her sister. And, you know, she's. I guess she's tracked down Aunt Lisa, the schizophrenic one. The system fails. Aunt Lisa, she's in and out of some sort of a program. And then next thing you know, she's on the streets. And then she's in jail for a while. And then she's in a halfway house program thing. Bunch of horrifying things happen. She's in the hood in this halfway house. So a bunch of black dudes kick her door in and they beat the. Out of her. They break her ribs. They take what little crap she has laying around her apartment or. Or room or whatever. And Margaret's always there. She's always trying to help. And so she takes in Aunt Lisa now. Now this is the first time I've seen Aunt Lisa for a really long time. She's on her meds, she's doing around the house and Margaret's house. And Margaret lives in a. In a house up in the woods in New Jersey. And when it's dark there, it's dark, you know, like no street lights kind of. And, you know, and Lisa's. She's doing a thing. She's. She's like, washing dishes, doing laundry, helping around the house. She's talking to me, you know, everything's cool. And. And she starts sharing stories with these women, just have no chill. She starts sharing stories with me, I guess just about what it's like to be schizophrenic. This might have been when I was like 15 or 16. So it's the same time frame. It's kind of hard to parse these things, what happened first and when this all happened. But this, this period of my life, 15, 16. And she tells me a couple of interesting things that I won't ever forget. Now, one of them is that when

Co-host/Interviewer (70:37)

she's telling you these things, is she. Is it almost like a brag? Or is it like you genuinely asking, what did you get from her?

David (70:46)

It's hard to say, man. I don't remember if I asked. I don't remember how it came up. I don't know. She's always had a weird thing with me. She might have just told me without me asking. She used to leave messages on my house phone when we had moved in with. With this new guy when I was, you know, before I got kicked out. And it would just say, david. Where's David? He's dead, isn't he? He's fucking dead, isn't he? Where is he? Where's his fucking body? Like. And I would come downstairs and I go, there's a message on the fucking press play. And be like, what the fuck? So, I mean, you know, whatever her. Her fascination with me was, I'm sure if she was willing to say that on my answer machine, I'm sure there's no stones toss for her to say, like, by the way, you want to hear some up shit? And so one of them was about how she. She knew when the devil was going to visit her because she would smell him. And she. She used an example one time of Aunt Margaret's house, like, being in that house where she was, and she was kind of killing it, and she's cooking and she's cleaning and stuff. But like, the story comes from in that house. And she says, I'm washing the dishes. So you're washing the dishes. You're facing out a window that looks to the backyard and to your back is like, you know, kitchen island. And a. A short step down a flight of Stairs. And then the front door is there. And she says she's washing the dishes. And she smells them. She's. And it smells like rotting flesh. But she said there's, like, a sweetness to it, like cinnamon or something like that, I think is what she said.

Co-host/Interviewer (72:42)

It's like, don't they use cinnamon to preserve flesh in the old days?

David (72:47)

I don't know. But. But that. That story about the way he smelled is something I'll never forget. And it turns up to be a pattern over and over again, right throughout all this. This research that we do. Cryptids smell like sulfur, rotting flesh. Grays smell like sulfur, rotting flesh. Apparently, so does the devil. The devil, by the way, at that term. Like, I don't know who she thinks the devil is. I. And I certainly wasn't inquisitive enough to ask, like, you talking about, like, Satan or like Lucifer or, like, what do you mean by the devil? You know what I mean? Like, I didn't ask any of that. In fact, I didn't ask a whole lot of questions. I don't think I was real quick.

Co-host/Interviewer (73:28)

Yeah. So cinnamon has a long historical use in the preservation of dead bodies, particularly in ancient Egypt and Rome. Its value for, you know, it's aromatic sense and antimicrobial properties.

David (73:41)

That's interesting. It is interesting, by the way, that. That smell, too. Like she would say, in some ways, it was similar to a match, like a lit match. Because I remember there's another part to this story, but she says when she's watching this issue, she smells that. She turns around and he's standing there, standing at the top of the stairs, on the other side of the kitchen island, as if he had walked through the front door, walked up the stairs, stood there and stared at her. I don't fucking remember what she said next dog. Like, I remember where I was when she's telling me this. We're sitting on the back deck of this house in the mountains, in the woods at night. This bitch didn't even bother to put the porch light on. Like, black. And just the cherry from her cigarette as she's telling me this story. And the other thing she said is she saw him in the backyard once, so where she's washing dishes. And you would look out that window I talked about. You're on the second floor. So you would look down into the backyard, and it's just green grass, forest, trees. There's a fence around it, but beyond that fence, it's the forest. And when he shows up, the next thing that happens is he always Wants her to set the place on fire, the house or wherever she's at. He's. This is a recurring character and that's the thing that. That he wants. And her kids have a. Have a voice too. I was talking to one of them recently. Now she's got two kids. One's a year younger than me. The other one's maybe like three years younger than me, dude. Her one son, before he was even 10 years old, he's got a woman in his head saying to kill himself. Telling him to kill himself. And. And also to. To run away wherever he's at. It's just interesting because they have a thing that they're saying, you know, hers is set the place on fire. His is kill yourself and run away. And it was so. It was so shaking to him, it was so real to him that he would grab his little brother and they would run away. They would arm themselves with kitchen knives and they would run away. They had been brought home to that house I talked about in Elizabeth a couple of times. Cops found him on the streets. Two toddlers with knives. They went to the same. He went to the same school as me, Abraham Lincoln School, School 14 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And I occasionally. There was two. Two things that I knew if I saw them, I would. Knew. Know it was my cousin. One was if I went into the bathroom and someone had taken a dump in the urinal, I knew it was my cousin. I don't know if he had a lady's voice in his head telling him take a dump in the urinal, or if that's just something he did. He's just. That dude, he just did that. I think he was also like a pants around the ankles pisser. Just not. Not a good look. The other one was sometimes the kids would say, oh, my God, there's. There's somebody running away. And we'd all run to the window and it would be my cousin. He would be running away as the school staff was chasing him. And right on the other side of the chain link fence was Warren Eko Park. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. It's a big park in. In. In Elizabeth that was parallel to our school. So once you cross that threshold of the fence, so once you, you know, you climb that chain link fence. It was a rap. Now you got to chase this kid through this. This big park. And so, yeah, you could see him from the window, just zigging and zagging. Staff is trying to dive and grab him. Slippery little kid. So so these kids, man, they got. They got the same thing. And I talked to my cousin recently, the one who would. The serial shitter and the one who would run away. And he's got some, some stories, man. I guess it. It's worth saying now he, he's an adult, obviously, you know, he's a grown man with, with a kid of his own, God bless him. He just had a baby and he's got his together. He went away when we were like 12. You know, obviously his mother was in no state to raise him, so he went to his uncle because his dad wasn't around, just like mine wasn't around. And, you know, he ends up in. In some sort of a healthcare facility, mental health care facility, I don't know. And then he. He does some crime while he's in there that he hurts somebody. So they put him in a juvenile detention facility. So now his, his brother is just out fending for himself or he's alone with this new family of, like, distant relatives who chose to raise him. My mom talked about how she was going to adopt him because they were up for adoption. Basically when, you know, when his mom got really went off the deep end. And while his, his brother is out just trying to get through life, he is in that facility, does not see the light day again till 25, right? The health care thing turns into juvenile detention. Juvenile detention turns into adult carceration or adult carceration incarceration. And he doesn't get to start his life until, you know, until he's a man and he gets a job driving truck. At one point, when he gets out and he tells me, man, I. I connected with him recently, and he starts telling me this story. He's like, dude, this is a weird story. But I'm driving truck somewhere, some rural area, and I stop because I forget why the hell he stops. I might be conflating stories, might be worth looking at real quick just to get. I don't want to conflate his story with another person's story. I hear so many of these all the time. Boom, boom, boom. Give me one second here, okay? Driving truck in a rural area of New Jersey. It's dark, there's no lights on the road, and my tail light lit up the back and my eyes caught something and my nerves shot up and all my hair went up. And something told me to drive as fast as you can or you're going to die. It was so big and so fast. To this day, I don't know what it was. But my primal warning Systems were going off, and I said, upright Walking Dog. And he said, bro, Literally, that's what it looked like. Oh, my fucking God. This is a guy who was not sleuthing through episodes of the Confessionals like me. This is a guy who is detached from culture till 25 years old, and he's just trying to live a normal life. I almost feel bad bringing these things to him. But it was like I had to start asking him, like, do you remember? That's why I feel like I did ask him about the thing. But when I told him, upright Walking Dog, he's like, what? What do you. How do you know that?

Co-host/Interviewer (81:58)

Was he, like, embarrassed to say that initially? Because it's like. It's a crazy thing to just drop on someone.

David (82:04)

It took a while to get there. I see throughout the conversation, like, I was just skimming through it, and I. I'm talking about Grandma's crystal ball. He says, yeah, I remember that. You know? So we had warmed the conversation up with some backdrop of some supernatural. I even saw mentions of the smell, the same smell that I was just talking about with his mother. I guess I was telling him that story.

Co-host/Interviewer (82:24)

Was he smelling it as well?

David (82:26)

I don't know, actually. Yeah, I think it was. Give me a second, I'll tell you. What does the smell smell like? Because I've definitely smelled things that are off rotting eggs, sulfur. He says, I used to work with dead bodies, and the sweet, sticky smell when I was in certain areas, I would always say smelled. I could smell death in the air. And. And I said, yeah, Your mother said there was a sweetness to it, like rotting flesh. And he goes, I knew I wasn't tripping when I smelled that. So, yeah, he's smelling this, too. But, you know, it's just like, I think there's layers to it. I think the deeper you are in this generational iniquity thing, like, I think a dogman is something that you got to have layers of access maybe to see that. And, you know, I think that my grandmother, I guess, to revisit some of her. Actually, you know what? No, we're not going to go there. That's just how it goes with my cousin. So that was just to show you, like, Aunt Lisa's got this thing, and then the kids got it, too.

Co-host/Interviewer (83:41)

Now, what's his name?

David (83:42)

His name is Julian.

Co-host/Interviewer (83:44)

Okay, Julian.

David (83:45)

And he's crushing right now. He's working hard, you know, he's got a baby. He just had a baby girl. Like, thank God. Like, he gets to have a life, you know? What? I mean, like 12 to 25, I'm sitting over here bitching because 6 to 14, I live with people that I didn't know. This dude was in the system from like 11 or 12 to like 25 years old. And his mother is just rotting away on the street somewhere. His brother, you know, he, he's, he's troubled. Life's not easy for him. And he, I think, and I'll get into this later, is doing the same thing grandma did. He's leaning into the new age. He's leaning into a debased form of spirituality that's not Christ centered. So he's doing crystals. He's, you know, he's got a sigil on himself. Not a sigil. It's like an anti possession symbol. It comes from the show Supernatural.

Co-host/Interviewer (84:51)

I was gonna say that.

David (84:52)

It's a fucking WB show, dude. It literally has no roots anywhere previous to that show. I mean, it's a pentagram in a circle. Like, you know, obviously, yeah, sure, it's got some roots, but like in its specific form it, it only appears in that show first. That's still like, I guess, you know, a powerful symbol of sorts. But like, damn dog, it comes from that. But that's this dude going through, trying to grab onto something to deal with what he sees as very real. So after I get kicked out, going back to, you know, my mom meets the new guy. Shortly after that I get kicked out. I'm dating a girl and she has great Internet. Hell yeah. Now I almost forgot. It's, it's, it's the same time because I'm dating this girl actually when I'm reading this book, my mom tells me it's Whitley Striber communion. I go to Barnes and Nobles, I steal it. It's still, it's still on the shelf at Barnes and Nobles. Like, so I read this book. I remember I'm with this girl at the time and I am homeless, but I have a job. I'm a security officer for a company called Sora S O R A and I am guarding a Aldi's in the hood. I'm five seven. These are black people. They don't take me seriously at all, dude, at all.

Co-host/Interviewer (86:29)

And Aldi's.

David (86:30)

And Aldi's. Yeah, all these, I used to think all these was going to be like, like all these used to be trash.

Co-host/Interviewer (86:36)

It's kind of dope now.

David (86:37)

Yeah, now it's nice. But like when I was guarding Aldi's like it was trash. And specifically the issue that they had was Homeless people would wait for the cart. So they would pull a scheme. They'd go, hey, hey, can I help you? Load your groceries into the car. Into your car. And then in exchange, they get the quarter, right? See, if you do that, because you need a quarter to take a cart from all these. If you do that enough, you can go across the street to the liquor store and get a 40. Because a 40 is, like, at the time is like $2 and change. So, like, really kind of a. It was really straightforward. No, definitely not five, seven and a half. Just five, seven. Five, seven, if I'm lucky. So. So I remember on my lunch breaks from that place, I mean, this girl, you know, we're teenagers, she would. She would drive me there, and then we would sit in her car, and then I would just get out of the car and go, be like, hey, stop bothering these old people. There you go.

Co-host/Interviewer (87:38)

This is a banger shirt.

David (87:40)

It is a banger shirt.

Co-host/Interviewer (87:41)

No longer available.

David (87:42)

But I would. I would. You know, we would sit in her black Honda Accord in the parking lot of Aldi's. I'd be on the clock. I was allowed to sit in my car. And you just get out, basically, as a deterrent, at any given time, say, hey, don't bother these people. Don't do that. Don't do that. So it's kind of a chill gig. And while I was in there, I would read this book. And this is where the connections came in. As I'm reading this book over and over again, Whitley Strivers Communion is an amalgamation of abductee testimony. That's what it is. I don't know how many people are in it, but it's a lot. So you start to notice patterns. Sleep paralysis, shadow people. I think there's even a mention of Hat man in that book. There it is. It's got the COVID with the. That's the one that I had. The one with the. The face on it. Oh, yeah, not that one. The one with the black eyes beneath it. But, yeah, so, yep, that's it. But, dude, imagine this. This is real life. This isn't a movie, right? And I'm reading I'm Not Very Tall at all. And I'm reading stories that shook my grandmother to her core. But the stories that they're describing are Barbara's stories. They're describing sleep paralysis. I had only heard sleep paralysis from Barbara. They're describing these shadow people standing over you while you can't move in the night. I had only heard those stories from Barbara, and at some point, I'M pretty sure it mentions a man with a hat when I do. It was like the mystery of my life caught on fire. Like there was something there. There was something real. Like I was in a movie. I was in a horror movie. There was something. And like all of a sudden, man. And I think it was like it came at a time where my life was so, like, up, you know what I mean? Like, I. I had nobody. The only person I had was this girl, you know, mom, no dad, no. No relatives, like, nothing. Everything is gone. All my childhood friends, like, everything is gone. I've been removed over and over and over again. I'm just lost in space. It was the perfect time for me to focus only on that. I didn't want to look at, like my life. And I become hyper obsessive.

Co-host/Interviewer (90:16)

Yeah. Like, hey, look at this gnostic knowledge, right?

David (90:19)

It wasn't even just like this gnostic knowledge too. It was like, this is happening around me. By that time, I also had had one sleep paralysis experience. I was before I was kicked out. So it was pretty relative to that time frame because I was only in that house for about a year and a half where I was kicked out. I woke up one morning to somebody holding me face down in my pillow. And I could feel the weight of somebody on my back. And I remember going through like a few different really explosive thoughts. I thought it was my mom around with me. I'm just trying to make sense of it, right? It's not like my mom ever had a history of doing that to me or anything like that. But like something is happening. I have to make sense of it. And then it, it lasts so long that I'm. I'm dramatically suffocating. So my brain goes to like, there's an intruder and they're trying to kill me. And. And then finally it's so chaotic, I can't even determine that I'm. I'm paralyzed. I can't tell that I can't do this with my arms. Right. I just can feel a person on my back. There's a priority list. You're thinking about when you wake up and somebody's suffocating you. And the, the fact that like, you don't have full autonomy over your limbs is actually a secondary observation. The number one observation is somebody's on my back and they're trying to kill me. I finally, finally gain control and I explode my face out of the pillow. I turn around, nobody's in the room. So I had, I had, had like sleep paralysis. This, this one time no, that's not. Hey, no, it's not the same thing.

Co-host/Interviewer (91:51)

Mistake.

David (91:53)

And I. I think I had, like, moments where sleep paralysis was starting to come upon me, because I remember for a period, I wouldn't sleep on my back. Turns out it happens a lot if you sleep on your back, at least if you're susceptible to it. Aldi's a dude still. Reserve likes their delis. I don't think. I think Aldi's is getting popped now for, like, all kinds of horrifying crap in their food.

Co-host/Interviewer (92:15)

Horse meat is a big one.

David (92:17)

It's fine.

Co-host/Interviewer (92:18)

I'm gonna go there after the show.

David (92:20)

It's like when you find out that they're cooking cats in the Chinese restaurants in New York and New Jersey.

Co-host/Interviewer (92:23)

And I'm delicious.

David (92:24)

These are great cats. So I had a little bit of. Of knowledge. And I guess what. What I'm getting at is that it made it personal now. Like, it's my grandma and it's this woman who raised me, and I've had, like, some kind of experience like this. And I start just feverishly after. After the book, I would stay up, dude, Like, I would sneak into this girl's room so that I didn't have to sleep on the streets, and I wouldn't go to sleep. I would sit at her computer till four, till the sun came up, researching, researching, researching all of these experiences. I was obsessed with the hat man for a while, just trying to understand, like, why, what is he? What is this? And in that time, I saw my dad, like, once or twice while I was dating this chick. I was so obsessed with it that I asked him, and he said, yeah. He said he had woken up several times throughout his life to see that guy and that he would be paralyzed. And the way that he would get out of it was, like, with anger. He would get so angry that he would burst out of it. He said that there was times where he would even step up to him and he'd watch him just. Just like. Like grains of sand just disappear. Just. And he said he. You know, he thought it. Because I have a brother, he thought it was him. He's just trying to make sense of it. Like, who is in my room? Who's standing in the corner? Who's sitting in the chair? And this thing would just vanish. And then he would.

Co-host/Interviewer (94:00)

Same phenomenon of my aunt. First episode of the show, of. Of the top lobster show. It was a hat man. Hat man guy. She was doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Scissors in the lawn, seeing witch doctors to get him to go away. And oh, yeah, it's the same story. Everybody sees the same guy and they'll

David (94:18)

say it's, you know, strictly psychological phenomenon. But I didn't buy that because a barber Story and that the Duster in the Hat is unique to, like, western culture. Just like, out of all the things

Co-host/Interviewer (94:34)

my aunt saw this entity in Puerto Rico, though, and that's not really Puerto Rican culture, this.

David (94:42)

Who's the guy that made the Kruger movies?

Co-host/Interviewer (94:45)

Right?

David (94:46)

He made them. He made, he designed Freddy Krueger based off of his friends, like, Night terror experience that he, that he learned about Wes Craven. Thank you, Nance. Yeah, Krueger was. And think about it, the fedora and the nightmares and like. Yeah. So this thing for me, by the way, like, this is the, this is the inception. This is what I want this book to, to be about in so many ways, because these events, they. They oriented my brain permanently towards this. This is actually what was really hard because Barbara, I wanted her to know. I had gotten in touch with Barbara in 2020 after the lockdowns, and she got it, man. She was like, this is don't get the vaccine. And I'm just telling her, like, all the things that I've learned by then. I hadn't talked to her for so long, and I'd learned so much. And. And that was the last conversation that I had with her. I talked to her a couple of times in the span of a few months in 2020. And I, I did stop by one day. I brought my son to her. He was just born. He was still in his. In his car seat stroller, you know, kind of click into one another. And I pulled up and I. And I brought him into that house and I sat in the living room with her and I showed her my son.

Co-host/Interviewer (96:30)

And.

David (96:35)

But that last conversation I had with her, that was it. 2020, and then 2015 when my son was born, and then before that, nothing since 2005. And so I had this conversation with her during 2020, and we're telling her all the things that I learned, and I just wanted to tell her that. I guess I, I had dedicated my life to those things. You know, I wanted to tell her that, like, these stories that you told me when I was a kid, they. They didn't just stick with me. Like, they moved me. They became part of a bigger story. And for a long time, to my own detriment, I wouldn't let them go. And now it's. Now it's paying dividends. Now I get to do this full time. And yeah, man, I, I wanted to tell her that. That's why I was trying to get in touch with her. I think. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't just that, like I told you, there was something that just came over me and I was supposed to, like, I felt like I was supposed to reach out to her. It's like. Reach out to her about what? Like, I definitely would have told her this. I definitely would have told her this. And. But yeah, man, you know, you start looking into this whole thing, this hat man shit, and it's like, well, it's demonic. And you start looking into that and it's like, did you know their symbols are everywhere? And then it's a YouTube video with all the album covers with demonic symbols on them. And then it's all the, all the album covers with one eye symbolism where the pop star is covering their eye. And. And then it's all the music videos with all the different esoteric symbols in it. And, and it just spirals and spirals and spirals. I mean, a lot of the guys who are listening and girls that are listening to this show right now, like, they're in that and I was in that. I mean, like, it was all I had. I was homeless and I had these stories that they came from important people in my life. And I don't know, man, it's. It's a bizarre thing. I look back now and, you know, I, I thank God every day for. We've, we've kind of coined it like the. I don't think we coined it, but this idea of like the refining fire. I had a very unique refining fire. It wasn't like trauma and abuse. It was a different kind of trauma, you know, the abandonment thing and everything. But like, Was a slow ass dragging trauma. You know, it just felt like those days were so long, especially being homeless. And I think it was all to it. It cooks you, you know, until you're ready to come out of the oven. And, and I said earlier that my, my, my cousin, he kind of leaned on the new age to deal with his situations. I think that's exactly what my grandmother did. Grandma Betty, that woman that I called mom. And. I mean, she was doing all the, the crystal balls. Her room was witchy. It had all these little mystical knickknacks everywhere. And she would try me too. She'd sit me down and tell me to look at the ball and tell me what she saw. And I remember explicitly making shit up, just lying to her. I see this, I see that. I actually remember A moment in my. In my childhood. I was maybe four or five, and I guess I had heard a word that I tried to use then when she said, what do you see in the bowl? And I remember knowing that I said it wrong and feeling a lot of embarrassment. But I lied to my grandmother, and I told her that I saw someone getting raked in the crystal ball. Of course I meant rape, I guess, but I remember knowing that I had said it wrong. And I remember feeling a lot of shame about it and, like, guilt.

Co-host/Interviewer (101:59)

What was her reaction to that?

David (102:02)

I think she just kind of never minded it, you know, just. Just kind of moved on. She was really sweet, but I think she was like. I think she was trying to be my mom. It wasn't just grandma. I mean, she was mom. And I think that there was nothing in that woman's eyes that I could ever do that was wrong. I had a dream when I was.

Co-host/Interviewer (102:29)

Not to interrupt you.

David (102:30)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (102:30)

I think this lady might have been the person to invite all that in.

David (102:35)

I think that's exactly what she was.

Co-host/Interviewer (102:36)

The root.

David (102:39)

We have.

Co-host/Interviewer (102:39)

We have to kill your grandma.

David (102:41)

She's already dead.

Co-host/Interviewer (102:42)

Kill her again.

David (102:43)

Been dead for a long time. Um, I have. I. I do wonder if it goes beyond her, because I was going through her things in that briefcase, most likely, and she. She had these writings on remote viewing and really beautiful handwriting. Really, like in depth handwritten notes on remote viewing. I think it was the how to. And I find that really strange because if she passed away in 96, that's the deadline, right? I don't know. I don't know if she. When she was writing those papers, but it's pre Internet, which is fascinating. And in her being an abductee victim, I put in air quotes. Well, that's really fascinating. What is? This woman who's an abductee victim without the resources of the Internet doing writing paperwork on the process of remote viewing. And. And I guess what I'm getting at is like, her father was in the military, which doesn't mean much. I think he. He might have been like a World War II veteran, But I just wonder if maybe there was something more there. Like, was he a Mason? Maybe that's not so unheard of. Her. His. His wife. It's like a bit of a real estate mogul. My family own 6, 7 properties in New Jersey, in Elizabeth, in Manisquan, bunch of places. How the fuck. I'm not saying, like, where'd they get the money from? Just saying, like, they were a cut above the average schmuck. You know, maybe he had connections. Maybe he got those connections because he's Mason. I don't know. I have no way of verifying that. I've been thinking about reaching out and asking what would be his kids. I got a couple aunts in that generation that are still alive. But, you know, My uncle, Uncle Mac, the guy who gave me both these rings.

Co-host/Interviewer (105:07)

It's the guy who taught you welding.

David (105:09)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (105:10)

Okay.

David (105:11)

Her brother. I've told this story before. Big into fabrication, big into aerospace and

Co-host/Interviewer (105:22)

Corbeau Realty.

David (105:23)

No, that's not for me. She was just flipping houses, by the way. That's apparently how she did it. It just said she would buy a house when it was low, and then she would do, like, some basic paint job and then she would, you know, sell it on the market again. And so who knows? Maybe it's. It's innocuous, but Uncle Mac says that he saw a UFO with Grandma Betty, the woman who I called Mom. And he said he saw it floating above the house in Elizabeth. It was the size of a city block, had no rivets, had no seams close enough to make that observation, and made no sound and looked like nothing that anybody had that he was aware of. And he's speaking, you know, strictly from the point of view of a guy who works in aerospace. Their other brother, suicide, you know, real, real troubled guy. Not a great. Not a great track record of that wave of kids. They all, like. They were. They're all like. Well, to do, interestingly enough, had money, their cars and all that other shit. And then, of course, my grandma passing away really young, but there are two left in that generation. I sometimes think about asking, like, was. Was great Grandpa her dad? Was he a Mason? Because I just can't. Like that That's. That's too much of a coincidence. I mean, maybe you have these experiences, right? And then maybe you read one thing and you read another thing, and it does, like, lead to remote viewing. But where we've been going lately in our research with the MK Ultra, you know, projects, and this idea that they're using maybe a biomechanical entity as a shield when it's a trafficking operation to get people into these. These systems so that you can traumatize them and cause disassociative states and all this other shit. And then, of course, remote viewing is a huge part of this. This is how these governments learned a lot of times that. That this was even possible.

Co-host/Interviewer (107:34)

It's just crazy to think, because I don't know, how old was Barbara when This stuff was happening to her.

David (107:41)

Well, Barbara, that's different. Grandma. Right. So this is. This is where it gets all confusing. There's mom, Betty Lou, Grandma Betty. She's the one with the alien abduction experience, is Barbara. Not even biologically related to me, but

Co-host/Interviewer (107:55)

she's having sleep paralysis and saying, yeah, this has to be maybe pre 50s. If she died at 80 something. Well, timeline's wrong.

David (108:05)

So that's the thing is we're trying

Co-host/Interviewer (108:07)

to track it back to at least 1947.

David (108:10)

Well, I'm tracking it back for Betty Lou, and Betty Lou is much younger than Barbara. Betty Lou passes away. She might be like 46 or something. Maybe. Maybe 50. I don't know. That's my mom's mom. And so I could probably look up an obituary. Obituary Betty Lou. Let's see. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, aunt. No, I don't think so. No, no, that wouldn't have been her because she wasn't a great grandmother. I'll just type in Elizabeth and J.

Co-host/Interviewer (109:00)

I think the struggle is to determine when the government was operating with these things, or who even knows when they were operating, because you're not going to get a definitive answer. But pre1947, we're still talking about a spiritual condition that's affecting people. Now we're talking about this mechanical, also spiritual condition. It's really hard to draw the line of when it starts, when it stops.

David (109:26)

I mean, for her, I think she would have been born probably in the late 50s, early 60s, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's. It's like the inception of the project is one thing, but it's ongoing in all of its different forms. Who knows? Maybe she's part of the generation that's much more of a free range. She's interesting, though, because she is outgoing, center of attention, charismatic. Everybody loves her. She works in a bar, and she's everybody's favorite person. And my mom is like a shell. She is. She has experiences. She's obsessed with ghost stuff, paranormal stuff. Says she doesn't believe it almost exclusively. Watches it. And, you know, she has these stories she'll tell me. She. Her husband's in one room, is brushing his teeth in the bathroom. She's in the bedroom. They're on the same floor. They both hear the running of small feet, and they both hear a door handle twist, and they both hear the door open to, like, one of the other rooms that's on that floor, and they both burst out of their respective rooms. He's got his toothbrush in his hand and they're both looking for somebody. They both heard it independently. Nobody's there. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Nobody's there. But hers aren't. Aren't to the degree that, you know, certainly Aunt Lisa, who's a schizophrenic, are. And they're not to the degree that her mother's were. I don't think they're to the degree that mine were. So I'm gonna get into my stories and it's gonna be a little bit brutal because a lot of people have heard this story again. But you guys gotta remember this is for the sake of, you know, getting

Co-host/Interviewer (111:49)

it on, on the record.

David (111:50)

Get it on Wex. So during that time that I'm feverishly looking up, like, hat man stuff, I start to have this notion creep into my head that maybe because I'm looking into this and I'm still wrestling with like, well, what is this? A psychological phenomenon? You know, I was never one to completely shut the door on that, despite Barbara's stories about her sister and her mom seeing it the same night. But it's like when you're going through the research, overwhelmingly, you're getting this. This is back in like 2006, 2007. You're getting a lot of this psychological phenomenon. Body's in a paralysis state. You're hallucinating and you're scared because you're paralyzed and you're hallucinating. So I start to say to myself, well, look, whether or not it's real is almost an aside. Thinking about this. When I was a kid, I used to think about Super Mario before I went to sleep. And I remember one time I had a banger of a Super Mario dream. You know, so by virtue of that line of thinking is likely if you keep looking into this, you're going to have an experience. Could be a nightmare, could be whatever, but, like, something's going to happen. So I knew that that's a little looking into the abyss, and the abyss looks back, and lo and behold, something actually does happen. And after researching one night, I go to sleep next to my girlfriend. You know, I've snuck into her house, she lives on the second floor. If the parents knock on the door, I have to jump out of a second story window, like off a roof. Got real tuck and roll, dog. And so I. I get off the computer, I creep into bed, trying to be quiet. I go to sleep, I wake up and I am. I'm paralyzed. And my faculties, mentally are about me. Like, I've got them. And I'm thinking, well, there it is. It's happened. Okay, let's check this out. Now I can't move, but I can move my eyeballs, and I'm observing the room. Everything's normal. I am not at all operating as if I'm in a dream. I am awake. I am in this room. I cannot move my body. But if I could have, which sometimes it does happen in sleep paralysis. People say it's a dream. It's like, no, no. You'll be looking at the room. And then when you can finally move, nothing changes about the room except for maybe the presence of a demon. If I could have moved, everything would have stayed as is. It's very much like if I was just paralyzed. Here I am in this physical realm, and as I'm observing, I become aware of a shadow that passes across this room. And it was a casted shadow, not a shadow, man. The shadow of a man was casted on the wall and was moving, which meant that somewhere over here, there was a man, because I was putting it together. If the shadow's over there, then the light source has to be over here. And that light source was likely a window that was to my right that I couldn't see because I think she was between me and that window. And all of a sudden, as I'm trying to, like, make sense of this, I get into a, like, a painful state of paralysis that is induced by an electrical sensation. So it just. I just explained it in a fancy way. I'm getting electrocuted, getting blabbed. I'm getting blapped up. My body is locked out. Everything is super stiff. And I could feel this electricity just coursing through my whole body. It's got this noise, too. And at the same time, unbelievable layer of fear doom has fallen upon me. I am no longer rational. I am gone in fear. I black out. Almost as if it was just too much to take. Boom, everything shuts off. I. I come back to, and I'm on the other side of the bed. I'm by my girlfriend's feet, and I'm looking into door. There's a closet now on this side of the room. So it's like everything still makes sense. That's where the closet would be if you turned me around. Like, everything about this room was normal, except a huge. Huge is a. I'm trying. How do you quantify light? It's. It's bright, and it's all encompassing. White light is pouring out of. Think about, like, is it like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or something. Like the door kicks open and there's just white light pouring through that door. Like, it's like that pure, bright white light pouring out of this closet. There's no light switch in the closet. There's nothing in the closet but clothes. It's not even a deep closet. There's a closet that had a sheet hung up on a rod, you know, made no sense. And then as soon as that happens, boom. Electric time. I'm getting blacked up, back in it, paralyzed again, filled with dread. And I black out. I wake up in the morning and nothing. It's like nothing happened. So. It doesn't stop me. I mean, I keep doing my research. I don't have another episode like that that I can remember. And, you know, time just marches forward. I'm an unhinged, homeless conspiracy theorist determined to get to the bottom of this mystery that surrounds my family and myself. Now, now I've got some personal skin in the game. Dad seen it. Barbara saw it. Grandma saw it. You know, at least the schizophrenia, like all these things are just mounting. And I guess in some way I'm looking for a very, like, personal answer. Yeah, like in that way, like my. My moving towards conspiracies was like a whole mission. And it felt like that. I'm not even gonna lie. Like parts of it felt sexy. It felt like even though it was terrifying and it wasn't like the whole time was filled with weird events at all, it felt meaningful.

Co-host/Interviewer (118:47)

This is what we talk about with. With the Bible, right? It's like a lot of. Most of the Bible in these characters lives is just like, you know, the in and outs of every. What was Daniel cooking that day? You know, how many times did he shower and brush his teeth? If they did brush their teeth. But no, their life is defined by these moments.

David (119:06)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (119:07)

And these moments of a disembodied handwriting on a wall. Well, that lasted a couple of days. Or a dream, you know, or interpreting a dream. These moments are like, just passing. Yeah, but they define you. This is as I'm. As I'm listening to you tell the story. I. I messaged you. And I think we have a good title. It should be called Dear Barbara. And then the subtitle is going to be. I don't know if it's show, we'll talk about it, but I will put it out there for the people. The Conspiracy Theorists Guide to Conspiracy Theories. It's almost like a love letter, dude,

David (119:44)

that actually, like, you said that. And it kind of hurt A little. Not hurt, but like. Yeah, that's got some punch to it.

Co-host/Interviewer (119:49)

Yeah, yeah. It's a love letter to Barbara. These are the things that she's asked. She put you on and you've been discovering on your own journey. And now I think you write it out.

David (120:00)

Yeah. Yeah. It's weird, too, to be in this place now where it's almost like the answer to conspiracy in some ways is, like, letting it go, which I think is almost like maybe that's my own bias creeping in. Like, I know I look at it through, like, this lens of leaning not on your own understanding and Gnosticism, leading to a lot of false conclusions and. And misunderstandings and all these other things, but also, like, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna be this conspiracy theorists Internet sleuth forever? Or at some point am I going to go, there's only so much that God will let me know. And I'm in that season of my life now where it's like, I'll push up against something if I feel called to it, and if it's permeable and I can start to learn and it. And then all of a sudden the patterns start to emerge, then let's go, we're off to the races. But if. If I'm not called to it, if I don't, like, push up against it and it immediately gives way to something that makes sense to me, I don't care anymore. Because back in the day, it was a scattershot. It was everything. When I first met my wife, the. The first thing that I showed her was Zeitgeist, the movie she's trying to kiss on me. I'm like, no, watch this. Learn about how all religions are just a control mechanism for. It's like, man. But I was that guy, though, you know, obviously, I was going to school when I was homeless. I was that. Well, for a while, and then I stopped, and then I got kicked out of school for not going anymore. But I was that guy who was trying to tell everybody about all the craziest things, because it wasn't just like, you know, you get off the Hollywood symbolism and all that other shit, and it does lead to, like, the new world order, and it does lead to, like, depopulation agendas, manufactured viruses, you name it. The gambit. Whatever you think is hot in conspiracy now has been hot in conspiracy since well before I got into it. So somebody asked, I think a subliminal messenger said, you weren't reading these occult books or grimoires? Like, no, there was you know what it was? I. I wasn't ready to commit to anything. And I think reading this might sound like an excuse for my own stupidity, and it likely is. But I think when you commit to reading an entire book, you are invested in the opinion of an author and a narrative, more so than if you just watch it because of the time and dedication it takes. You know, like, I'm gonna see this

Co-host/Interviewer (122:55)

through, that kind of thing.

David (122:56)

Yeah. And it's like a book can keep you there for. You might be reading a book for a fucking month. You know, it's not like. And it's not passive. You got to be locked in. If I watch a series for a month, I could be texting and shit while it's on, you know, like, not really paying attention. I'm not that invested in it. But, like, there have been people in this space who, when we talk to them, all they do is refer to the works of authors and experts in the field. And I think that the problem is if you find out that, like, what you invested all that time in is a lie, you might be more likely to go, no, you're just misinterpreting. You misunderstanding it now. Like, you're wrong. Because there's no way that I just read that book for a month and now. And I'm wrong. Like, get the out of here. So I never did that. I would. I would look at everything, pulled away from a distance. There was one moment in my life where I became very close to zeroing in on the teachings of one person. And then I met my wife, and I became totally infatuated with. Infatuated with her. And put that down. And thank God, because that one person was Crowley.

Co-host/Interviewer (124:07)

Whoa.

David (124:08)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (124:09)

This could have been a very different

David (124:10)

podcast I was getting. I was in my third or fourth

Co-host/Interviewer (124:15)

in Cult of Conspiracy.

David (124:16)

Yeah, exactly. I was in my third or fourth Crowley documentary, and I was getting. I was looking up the books. Liber 777 and a couple of other ones. Book of the Law, I think. And I was going to get them. It was like I was. I was making a decision, like, all right, let's see what the hell this is really about. Because I had gotten through all of the cursory, and I was sure that there was something there. And the only thing that was going to enable me to go deeper in that something was to start reading it. Yeah. Mr. Eugenics says. I knew you were gonna say Crowley. Very cringy. Very like, Crowley is the. If you say that, you're a fucking punk rock fan, and then I go like, who do you listen to? And you're like, rancid. It's like, that's the guy. That's the thing, you know, that's the. The iconic thing associated with that shit. So I did read some of his stuffs. Like, what was that? Cecilia's farts? Read that one as a good poem about a hooker's farts. What do you want, Mason? Ever read a poem about a hooker's farts? No. I guess you're not cool. God damn it. What are you doing?

Co-host/Interviewer (125:34)

Oh, my God, she smells.

David (125:35)

Get out of here.

Co-host/Interviewer (125:36)

All right. Bye, Mason.

David (125:36)

Smell like coffee. You guys are taking after Matt. Goodbye. Are you leaving? No. Can you open that door too, please? Okay, never mind. Don't open that door then. Thank you, though. Thank you for opening that one. She's good. Mason's the best. So. All right, now, I. That, that is, by the way, I. I think I've read. I went. I read Whitley Strivers book. I think I read it twice. And I read I Am Legend. I was very upset when they turned it into a black guy because it's a white dude in the. In the book. That might be it. That might be it. As far as books that I've read, that might be it. I, I get. I. All of my research is done through number one, like documentary or audiobook or podcast and conversation. That's it. Maybe there's something to be said if I actually read it, it might stick with me and my information recall will be better, but. So I guess I'm gonna get through one more really repetitive story, which, you know, is going to be a little bit of a. Of a grind for the audience, but I have to do it because it's got to be in the book. I. I go through this whole period with my wife and, you know, we fall in love, we get married, we have a kid, and everything is wonderful. And all of a sudden, like, the supernatural shit gets put back on the table in a really big way. There are a couple of moments after my son is born. We live in Aunt Margaret's house, that creepy house up in the mountains in New Jersey. I didn't experience anything. I don't think that I can remember. My son had two moments. One, he's a toddler. Couldn't have been more than like two or three. He walks down the stairs. You go down the stairs, there's a landing. Then you go down the stairs again and you're in a finished basement. He walks down the stairs, stands on the landing, looks into the Basement, the darkness of it, and starts screaming. Thank God he's too young to be able to articulate at all what he saw. But looking down at him, looking into the basement, he was looking at something. It wasn't just like, you know, like he was locked on to something and screaming. We ran downstairs, we grab him, and, you know, we pull him back upstairs, and everything's good. But years later, I would find out there's a documentary on. I don't know what it is. Prime or Netflix, and it's about sleep paralysis. And I had made a real effort to keep any of this away from my kid when I was. When he was younger, because, like I said, I don't want to traumatize him, I don't want to lose sleep, things like that. I don't need him coming in my room freaking out. And I wasn't even watching it. It was just on the. You know, when you look at, like, Netflix or. Or Amazon, there is a whole list of, like, things you could watch. One of them is a sleep paralysis documentary. And it's got an image of, like, the Hat Man, I think, as its thumbnail. It wasn't the focus. It wasn't. We were looking at. It wasn't what we were hovering over. But he sees it, and he goes, I've seen that guy before. And I go, and. And the way that I dealt with it is, like, I've never been reactive to any of that stuff. Whenever he says something like, weird like that, so I just kind of go like, oh, oh, yeah. And he goes, yeah. When we were in the blue house, which is Aunt Margaret's house, I go, oh, wow. It's probably like a dream. He goes, I don't know. I woke up and I was stuck to the bed with belts. And that man was walking up and down the hallway outside of my room, and I was like, belts? He goes, yeah, Couldn't move, stuck in the bed. There was belts tying me to the bed.

Co-host/Interviewer (130:02)

Jeez.

David (130:03)

I said, what did he do? He said, nothing. He would just look at me. And I went, all right. And he goes, yeah. Sometimes I would look out my window and he'd be standing in the driveway looking up at my window.

Co-host/Interviewer (130:22)

Nothing to see here.

David (130:22)

Nothing to see here. Nothing to do here. Nothing to. So that's about it. Until we leave that place, we move to Vegas. And after Vegas, we move back to New Jersey. When we move back to New Jersey, we land in the in laws. They give us a room to stay in. We're only there for, like, a month. Month and a half before we get an apartment and get out of there. I just couldn't. I was like, just, you know, living with the in laws. God bless him. So in that time, I've talked about this before. I think that I was, I was depressed and I was angry and, and anxious and all these different things. And I think that I was feeding something that was there. I think it's the same thing that her brother used to deal with when he was a kid. I think it had been sitting in that apartment for a long time and it was feeding off of me. And so I have this four night escapade where on night number one, I can feel something. No, I hear something banging on the door, like really loud. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I pop up out of bed and I go and look out the window. I'm on the second floor and I'm looking down at the front door and nothing's there. I get back in bed, I fall asleep. As soon as I drift off, the same thing happens again. It happens as soon as you drift off, as soon as you enter sleep, which is very stressful because you just want to sleep. But it happens again. I jump out of bed and I look down and there's still nobody at the door. Yeah, that's it, that's it, that's it. Have you seen this man? Yeah, yeah, if I can have, or at least my son has. I never, I never saw specifically the guy with the hat, I don't think. And I realized that, like, nobody else is hearing this. My wife's not hearing it. My son is still asleep. The in laws haven't gotten up and checked the door. So I'm like, okay, maybe this is all in my head. And I, I drift off again and it happens again. And I look around, still nobody's awake. So I'm just dealing with the idea that like, this is happening to me only. So I open my phone up and I just start scrolling the Internet, you know, on social media because I'm too afraid to go to sleep. And eventually, I guess I fall asleep. I wake up, I go to work. Next day comes, this time when I'm sleeping, something pulls my arm. Now, the previous night I had filed away what was happening to me under a phenomenon called exploding head syndrome. Goodbye, Mason. Which is like, you know, the, the industry has. The medical industry, or not the medical industry, but the mental health industry, I don't know what you would call it, has the stupidest terminologies for these things. Don't worry about sleep paralysis. That's not demonic. That's just. Don't worry about the noises you're hearing. That's exploding head syndrome, which is just really funny. It's like these people give a name to a phenomenon and then we go

Co-host/Interviewer (133:27)

like, oh, thank goodness.

David (133:28)

Thank goodness. It's just exploding head syndrome. So I had already filed away under that. Now I'm getting my arm pulled, and I'm thinking that I'm just spasming. So I fall asleep and it happens again. My arm gets pulled again. Now I'm a little bit creeped out. So I put my arms under the pillow. I mean, under the blanket. And the weight of the blanket, I expect, will at least keep my arms from going all the way up in the air. And then my leg gets pulled. I then scroll my phone until the wee hours of the morning because I'm freaked out. And I go to work. Third night happens, and I have this nightmare of this entity. And I've described this entity before. It's like. It's kind of jacked. It's. It's got skin that is kind of leopard print, but the colors are gray and black. And it's not hairy. It's got fangs, lower Canid fangs that are so big, they come up and out of its mouth. They overlap its upper lip. It's got bright red eyes, like, illuminated red eyes. You hear this a lot, too, when it comes to these entities, whether it's demonic or cryptids. Illuminated eyes and. And it looks like it's full of rage, and its chest is heaving and collapsing, and its fists are in a ball, and it's just mad and it's looking at me, and I'm looking at it, and I have no awareness of my body. I'm just observing this thing, and it's got, like, black mist swirling around its legs. And that's all I remember. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing. I haven't told my wife about any of this shit because I want to freak her out. My wife tells me that she had a nightmare. I haven't shared anything with her. I've kept it to myself. I go, oh, okay. She goes, yeah. I couldn't move. I woke up. I felt like I was awake. I'm in the room and I can't move my body, but I can move my eyes. And I'm struggling to look over to you and, like, turn my head just a little bit to get a better view, and there's something on your chest. There's a monster on your chest, and it's choking you. Into the bed and she says it's got big teeth and bright red eyes. And I almost shit. But I keep it to myself because now I'm really freaked out. Now it's not exploding head syndrome now, it's not just spasms now it's something else. And it's not just happening to me, it's happening to my wife. But I'm afraid to even talk about it because I don't want to feed this situation. So I spend the day like, I just go, oh, that's crazy. I spend the day trying to figure out like what I'm going to do about this. And I, I come up with nothing. I come home, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning to my wife shaking me awake and showing me a recording of my jugular where you would put your finger to check a pulse is just like throbbing. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I'm looking at this going, what the hell? She's like, yeah, I think you were having a bad dream. Suddenly at the foot of the our bed on this twin size air mattress, our son starts screaming, but he's still asleep. And then he sits up and he's screaming, but he's still asleep. And we rush over to him and we start consoling him and we're petting his face. You don't know what the hell to do. You're just hugging him and holding him and telling him it's going to be okay and, and all this. And he's just rough, man. And he finally comes around, he wakes up and he finally gets to the point where he can talk. And what he starts to say is, monster, red eyes, big teeth. So that moment was a real problem for me because it was happening not only to me and not only to my wife, but now my son. So the next night, out of desperation, I don't know how to solve this issue. For the first time in my life, I pray to Jesus Christ. Never was raised religious, grandma was a crystal ball lady, you know, never did that ever. I had talked to God before, but a very non specific God like God, why am I homeless?

Co-host/Interviewer (137:35)

The universe.

David (137:36)

The universe, sure, you know, something like that. This was the first time I ever prayed to Christ and the whole phenomenon stopped. That was around 2020, the same time, the same month. That was the last time I ever talked to Barbara. It was the lockdowns. So many crazy things were happening. I don't even know if I told her, but that was the first time that like, if you could see it in the spiritual realm, it Was like God was always there. And this is the first time I just kind of turned towards him. Didn't start stepping towards him. Didn't do anything. I just turned towards him. Not gonna lie. This show contributed to me blessing and anointing my children nearly every night before bed. I'm glad to hear it. That's a good move, dude.

Co-host/Interviewer (138:32)

We actually just got another. A message on Instagram, which I. I want to answer back, but I just didn't have the time to answer meaningfully.

David (138:40)

Is this Dorian? Yes.

Co-host/Interviewer (138:42)

But so many of these come in all the time. That's a brag. It's just like, we get them about how the show is helping them or has helped change their outlook and how they're. How they're behaving afterward. And it's like, if I just go like, like there. There are so many that I. I just feel bad doing like a thumbs up or something.

David (139:01)

Yeah, yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (139:02)

Like a heart or a fire.

David (139:03)

I don't know. Well, shout out to Dorian. He's number one, Jack to the gills. And number two says this show is. Has bought him closer to God and helped him understand.

Co-host/Interviewer (139:12)

Thanks. Me too.

David (139:13)

Yeah, well, that's what it is. That's. That's. That's what it's all about. I mean, when I say that that was the time that I oriented towards God, eventually it would lead to me taking that old system of like, let's research, let's talk about this, let's figure this out that I applied to like, sleep paralysis and the hat man and. And aim that at God instead. And that's. That's really what this show is. That's where you found me when I was doing the Ravens Watch. And it was like a slow go. Like I was just starting to make a show about these things. I was finally ready to talk about them after years of, you know, researching and experiencing, and I was ready to make a. A show about it. And then I'm glad that we started doing this because this was much more. And even still, like, you know, we say in the beginning it wasn't really aimed at God, but it was still much closer than, like, the Ravens Watch was. The Ravens Watch was still a little bit. But we have those experiences and. And we move into a house after that. We get out of the in laws and there are strange things, shadows in the house. We lived in a project building that was, you know, it's filled with sadness. And I had already come to the conclusion that we human beings have a way of feeding these entities. And I think that when you live in a project building, they're well fed. So I would see it looked like a small child all the time in the house. My wife would see it, but that was it. There was nothing really there that was too crazy. And then from there, we moved to Florida. And it was a really weird time in my life because, you know, my whole childhood was filled with instability. I had nobody in my life for a very long amount of time to. To teach me, like, anything. So for me, moving to Florida and buying our first home was like almost a miracle for, you know, by all measures, I should have been an addict or in jail like that. The idea that I could have ever gotten my together enough to live a normal life, and really it was because of my wife. It was because I wanted to not suck for her. And then of course, having our son, it was like, okay, this. You have to figure this out. And I tried for a long time and I failed miserably. And eventually I got to the point where it was like, I can do this and we get this house in Florida. And it's. It's weird, man. It's weird because all of a sudden, in Florida, my father lived who, you know, I had seen enough times to count on two hands throughout my entire life, and. And so did all of his side of the family. They lived in the town that I moved to. And I think in some ways I was trying to, like, trying to give my son a family because I didn't have one. And I just wanted him to have cousins and, and, and aunts and uncles and grandparents, and I did. I managed to give him that. I learned a lot of really hard lessons about, you know, who my dad was and all these other things, but, like, I did manage to give my son family, not to the extent that I would have liked it, but they, they received me like I was, you know, what is it? The prodigal son.

Co-host/Interviewer (142:53)

Yeah.

David (142:54)

Like, they hadn't seen me since I was a toddler, and I show up and I had an unbelievable amount of drive at the time, and I was getting all these things like, how could you have turned out so good? You had nothing. And then they watched me land a welding job, and they're like, holy, look at him go. This is all like in, in a, in, in a month and a half of arriving, and then I close on a house in that same month and a half, and they go, holy, look at him go. And I'm just like, in this season, dude, where like, all of a sudden I feel. I. I don't know, I was homeless, like, and all these things for so long. And then now I'm being celebrated for how impressive I am. And wouldn't you know it?

Co-host/Interviewer (143:58)

Do you believe it?

David (144:00)

I think that I have a. A pretty crazy drive when I lock into something. But, like, I think everybody has it. And I don't think that I'm, like, different in any way. I think that I was driven by this desire to prove myself. A lot of people don't have that because they don't need to. I think it's only when you exist in. If you could ever get about yourself the idea that maybe you could be something more, that's a real. That's a real driving force. I think human beings historically, are capable of unbelievable things. We all are. We just need to be put in the right fire. So, yeah, in that moment, I know what I was doing. Yes, my son does dress better than his dad because he has a dad. That is true. But, yeah, I mean, it's all about the fire that you're putting human beings without trials and tribulations. It's sad. It is not something that I would wish on somebody to go through the things that I went through. But also, I know that they made me in that moment where they were saying those things. I know I was displaying those things. And that's just like, if somebody's a good fighter because they spent a long time in the gym, like, yeah. Does that make them special? Like, I don't know. You put enough hours in the gym. It's just. In my case, the gym was the dumpster behind Dunkin Donuts.

Co-host/Interviewer (145:37)

You know, that's what I was asking specifically. It's like, when you're around. When you're around these type of people who haven't accomplished that thing, you can believe what they're saying about you. And I think it's right. But I also think that there's more. And I know. Well, obviously, we're here in the story. We're not two years ago in the story. Yeah, but if you would have believed that. I know a lot of people that believe that hype in that moment. And they go, I did it. I made it. And then they stay there. Yeah, well, that's a trap, because you're. You're impressing people who have. And it's like, it's messed up, but they never really done anything. So it's like, yeah, I just did, like, a flip and everybody claps. It's like, yeah, that's not really what I'm capable of. But I can do this all day, you know?

David (146:30)

Well, it's an interesting observation because I could have stayed there. Yeah. In fact, I was entering a part of my life where I was going to be the family man, the hard working welder who had the pool, who sometimes threw weekend parties where the nieces and nephews came over and they swam. It was a real weird. I mean, I'm describing normal shit to people. It wasn't to me, man. Man, these barbecues in my backyard, at my pool with my family celebrating and hugging me and we're drinking Coronas and lime and we're grilling meat and we're playing music. I never had that in my life. And it was like a thing that I could have stayed at, but I made a fundamental mistake that's unique to my. My personality, I think. And we'll get to that. Well, I. I think we'll do that first because there's a more important aspect to this story. But I. I took some people with me and when I bought a house, I bought a house with the decision to take some people with me. And it's nothing against them. I don't think you can drag people to a finish line. Everybody's walk is their own. Everybody's story is their own. I can't just make a fucking decision and house people and say it's all going to be okay. I'm nobody's, you know, I'm not their dad. And they didn't ask me to be. Nobody ever asked me to do that. I just tried to carry a bunch of people who looked like me who had similar stories as mine. And I said, I'll work harder, I'll make more money. I'll make this happen. And. And that wasn't the case. It couldn't. You know, part of the reason I also got that house, not to put it all on them, because that wouldn't be true, is for that month and a half, I landed with my father, who I hadn't lived with since I was three. And I quickly found out it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Plus his wife was a witch.

Co-host/Interviewer (148:52)

Plus.

David (148:53)

Plus his wife was a witch. And. And I mean that in the most literal sense. She's burning effigies in the backyard and she's trying to put curses on us all kinds of shit. And I had to get my family out of there immediately. And so within a month and a half, we closed on a house. And what happened was we lost like a house or two in a bidding war. And so the other one I Wasn't going to lose. So it was just like, yeah, dude, whatever. Do I need a four bedroom with a pool? Even though I'm a family of three? No, but that's what I did. So even though this is all this like really beautiful moment and it's really. It's really tempting, right? And I could have stayed there. This fucking house is haunted. Haunted in. In a way. I've never experienced this much activity ever.

Co-host/Interviewer (149:46)

This is the house that Gabe's living in and.

David (149:49)

Yep. And my niece is living in.

Co-host/Interviewer (149:51)

Okay.

David (149:51)

And so it starts off with a knock on the window. And we would all be commiserating, you know, in the, in the, in the times between backyard parties. Just sitting on the sofa watching tv. And all of a sudden all of our necks would turn. We'd look to the door, we look to the window. That. And we'd get up and we'd open the blinds and we'd go out in the front yard and look to see if anything hit the window and fell and there's just nothing there. And I'm in this mode where like I'm power washing my house. I'm edging the grass. Like this house is mint. Like if something's on that front porch because it hit the window, I'm going to see it. I got two chairs with a little table in between that I would sit on the front. I'd have a cigar and I'd have a drink and I'd watch the sunset. This thing is clean, nothing's there. Happens again at a different window. I go and investigate. What the hell's going on? My niece starts telling me that at night she sees like a really tall man standing in her window. She had a weird room with a floor to ceiling window in it. A floor to ceiling window in it. That's how tall the dude was.

Co-host/Interviewer (151:13)

Nephilim.

David (151:16)

It's happening when I'm in my room. There's a window behind my headboard. Something's tapping on it. Every window in the house. Every door in the house, something's tapping on it. The garage door sounds distinctly different than tapping on a window. Something's tapping on that. It starts to pick up to the point where, like, there's no tree.

Co-host/Interviewer (151:37)

There can't be a tree. Like in front of your garage.

David (151:38)

There's a tree off to the left side of my house. That doesn't account for all the windows around that. You know what I mean?

Co-host/Interviewer (151:44)

Right, right.

David (151:44)

It just doesn't make sense. And. And it was by my bedroom, so I like chalked up that one to just. That's the tree. But what about all the other ones? What about all the other. That the tree doesn't reach? What is this? Yeah, and it eventually evolves into, like, knocks. Like, the door doesn't just get tapped. It gets knocked. Like, something hits it twice. Do. Do the fuck? And these knights, man, these knights get so weird. I would wake up startled, and I'd look around my bedroom, and I see a black mass. And the room feels electric. The room feels like static electricity, and it feels evil. Now, I had already prayed to Jesus once before, so by this time, that seal's already cracked, and I'm ready to do this thing. So I start thinking to myself, well, maybe it's because I. I had this understanding. I was listening to Tony the confessionals, right? Which is something that I started doing after my experience. After my experience back in that old house where I saw that thing and my wife saw it and my son saw it. I started to seek out podcasts, stories, anything that was like, somebody's having the same experience. And I found the confessionals. And through the confessionals, I was already learning that there is a legal aspect to the spiritual realm and that we have authority in the name of Christ. And that's why it worked. And so I started to claim my house. Whoever lived here before doesn't live here. I'm the legal owner. I started thinking about it because I was like, the Jews in the bank own my house, but I'm the legal owner of. Of this property. Whatever deals you had that gave you access to this place, you don't have those deals anymore. In the name of Jesus Christ, you have to leave this place. And what was happening was it would stop the events that night. It would stop the feeling in the room that night. It would stop the taps on the door that night, but the next day, it would be back on. And I remember one time, it got so bad. Me, mind you. Like, I'm waking up in the morning, and my wife is going. Like, the room felt really weird last night. And I'm going, yeah, dude, you felt that. It was terrifying. Like, this is just the norm now. We're. We're in this so much. It's all happening so much. Like, this is just the norm. And we're, like, kind of talking about it like, it's. It's hard to ignore. Gabe is funny. He's like, my cousin is just, like, kind of in, like, not in denial.

Co-host/Interviewer (154:31)

Irreverent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that happened.

David (154:35)

But whatever. I'm like, all right, dude. So one day, Me and Gabe are standing by the front door and we're having a chat. He's sitting on the love seat. I'm standing up, and all of a sudden, boom, boom. Something bangs on the door and we're right there. I reach out, I grab the door. It's like that scene in the movie signs where Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix run outside and they both go in opposite directions around the house, and they're screaming, you and all this stuff. We don't scream anything, but we burst through the door. He goes right, I go left. I'm looking around, there's nothing there. I see a small, skittering black cloud on my front lawn. Very close. Like. Like if I looked at the floor right there. And it's just moving away. But it's so. It does. It's. I can see the grass through it. It's dusk. I can see the grass through it. I forgot how this all started. I'll go back to that later. And it's. It's like it. There's nothing to look at. It's a black mass, but I can see through it. So, like, I kind of never mind it, and I look away. And then I turned to Gabe and Gabe goes, like, there's nothing here. And then he goes, look. And he points off in the direction kind of similar to where that thing was going. And under a street lamp a block away, there's just a shadow of a man standing there. Under a street lamp, there's a shadow of a man. How to. How does that even work? Under a street lamp? It would be a man.

Co-host/Interviewer (156:09)

Yeah, yeah, but it's a shadow.

David (156:11)

It's a shadow of a man. And. And we just go back inside and it's just another. It's irreverent. Right? It's another thing where it doesn't matter the way this started. It all kicked off with an event. I forgot about it. I got a puppy because my niece went trick or treating on Halloween. Dude gave out puppies.

Co-host/Interviewer (156:29)

I remember. I was. Yeah, I was in your life at this point.

David (156:33)

Yeah, dude.

Co-host/Interviewer (156:33)

You're like, I got a puppy. I was like, sucks.

David (156:36)

Wrong. Yeah. Dude is just. Trick or treat. He's just giving out puppies. So we got this adorable little puppy. I'm trying to do the thing where I walk the puppy. It's. It's dusk. It's like 7:30. It's getting kind of dark out. And. And I walk only a block away from my house, and all of a sudden my neighbors start fighting. I can hear them. They're screaming at Each other. I don't know these people at all. I've only lived there for a little bit. And they're screaming husband and wife at each other. It's like. It's brutal, the things they're saying and how loud it is. It's echoing through the silent streets of this little, like, suburb area. And the dog gets scared, and it basically hunkers down. I'm waiting for it to pee, but it just, like, sits down, and I'm like, let's go, let's go. And. And it's too scared to move. All of a sudden, the couple comes out. I. I kind of pieced together what had happened was it almost seemed like she forgot her phone at a store, and he was pissed, and they were both, you know. So they get in the car, and they go, I guess, to retrace their steps to go find this phone or something. And. And I look away from them to act like I didn't see them. And when I look back, I realize, like, oh, they left everything on. They left all their lights on. The TV's on. The front door is only the glass panel. The garage door is wide open. The lights are still on. And I'm like, damn, they really left in a hurry. So the puppy's continuing to do its thing, and I see a family approaching. It's a dude with a stroller. There's a wife. There's, like, a little daughter maybe. And I'm, like, having this moment where I am the homeowner now, right? I used to be a homeless piece of shit. Now I'm a dude with a pool and a puppy. So I'm looking forward to this, like, howdy, neighbor moment. As stupid as that sounds, dude, it was just like, this picturesque moment that I was really looking forward to. So as they're coming, I'm anticipating, like, the kid's gonna want to see the puppy. And this is gonna be such a nice and wholesome interaction. I'm in wholesome mode.

Co-host/Interviewer (158:28)

You know, wash your butthole. 69, 60.

David (158:30)

Oh, boy. That's a story. So.

Co-host/Interviewer (158:36)

Doesn't know that.

David (158:37)

That's a crazy story. That's. You got to go back to the tower gang.

Co-host/Interviewer (158:40)

That won't be in the book.

David (158:41)

No, that's not gonna be in the book. So.

Co-host/Interviewer (158:43)

So

David (158:45)

eventually, they approach close enough, and. And, you know, like. Like clockwork. The little girl goes, oh, my God, a puppy. And the. And the husband goes, how old is she? And I go, oh, she's only this old. And. And, you know, we're just having, like, this Nice exchange. I was so looking forward to. And suddenly, in my peripheral vision, I see somebody standing in that garage. The shadow of a man standing in that garage. And he starts beelining, like, speed walking down the driveway towards me. And this is such a real moment that, you know, you start doing, like, what's happening? And I go, oh, my God, this guy's coming to apologize for what I heard. It must have just been his wife that left or something in the car. And this guy's gonna come up to me and he's gonna go, hey, man, sorry you heard that. I know you're standing right across the street. Like, I know you just moved in. Like, that's just in my mind as I'm talking to these people. This is like the background noise that's happening. I'm mortified by this. I don't want this to happen. So I start to turn my body away from him, and he's boogieing, right? So I say my goodbyes to these people, and I anticipate, based off of the speed that he was approaching me, this motherfucker's, like, right here, and he's not saying anything. So I go. I guess I'm gonna have to be the one who, like, initiates this conversation with this really awkward guy. I turn, he's not there when I tell you. I was so certain that he was there that I was feeling embarrassment, secondhand embarrassment for him. That's how certain. It wasn't like a mystery. It wasn't like, is this guy here? It's like, this dude does not have to do this to me. He does not have to apologize. I was. I was going to love him.

Co-host/Interviewer (160:29)

So you didn't see it.

David (160:30)

That's what I was going to do. I was going to turn to him like a loser and say, what? No, I didn't hear anything, really. What I should have just said is like, hey, man, it's all right. Everybody has their moments.

Co-host/Interviewer (160:40)

Everybody beats their wife.

David (160:41)

But I was ready to lie to him. That's how certain I was that this dude was there. He wasn't there. I picked the puppy up because he's little. Little. I walk back to the house and I get in and I say, man, neighbors were arguing. They go, what? It's like, my niece and my wife, they want to know. And then they go, so, what happens next? And I go, yeah. Then this dude, I turn around, he's not there. And they go, that's creepy. And I hadn't even thought about it through that. I don't know what I thought. Happened to him. But I went, yeah, you're right. That is creepy. That was the night everything started. And. And the way that I look at it was like something was in their house, and they were fighting, screaming. And then this thing saw me, and it did something. It hitchhiked onto me. It left their house, and it hitchhiked onto me. And eventually, through enough repetition of, like, in the name of Jesus Christ, you have no authority here. You can't be here. This is my home. I'm the owner. It took a lot, but eventually it all died down. And then we went to New Orleans, and we had that. That moment, you know, probably around the same time, where like an idiot, I went and I. And I. And I did some tarot card readings. I got something attached to me. And that night, on the third floor of a hotel in New Orleans with no balcony, something's pounding on my glass window. And I look around, and there's nothing at the window. And I go back to sleep, and then it's pounding at my door. And both me and my wife sit up. And when I go to invest, the stroke of midnight, and I think that, I don't know, it was almost like, leading up to a very important decision. All these things were, like, trying to close in on me. And that decision was, like, in that hotel, that very same hotel, I got a call from you, and we had done a few episodes together, and you decided, like, yo, do you want to try to make a show? And standing in the middle of that living room, dude, it's crazy. Standing in the middle of that living room. I had this conversation with you. And I go, yeah, man. And when I hang up, I tell my wife, I think this is it. And you know what? I was right. Two and a half years ago, standing in a fucking haunted hotel in New Orleans. I hang up with you, and I look my wife in the eye, and I go, I think this is the show. I had been podcasting on and off for seven years or whatever, six years or something by that point, because I guess now it's eight or. Yeah. And I had done five, six different shows with different titles. And I said, I think this is it. And that was based entirely off of just something in my spirit just moving me and saying, this is it. You know, life gets real weird after that, But I think that since then, I can almost confidently say it stopped. I've had dreams, I've had weird moments, but nothing like that. That was like a convergence of things. It was. It was like. It was like I had a. A Light on. And all these spirits were just moving on me. I mean, my house was surrounded is what it felt like. That was the impression. Banging on all windows and all doors, all around the house. And. And then this, you know, this bizarre moment, you know, because when she heard it, too, it's like, oh, no. Like, I went to that peephole on that door and I looked out. There's nothing out there. Pounding at my door wakes us both up. There's nothing out there. Which you could say, hey, that's just some asshole in the hotel at night. What preceded it? Pounding on my third floor glass panel with no balcony at the stroke of midnight.

Co-host/Interviewer (165:09)

Was this before or. I know you did a. A tower reading.

David (165:13)

It was after that. I think it was the same night

Co-host/Interviewer (165:15)

you did the tower reading. Went to bed or. And.

David (165:19)

And then pretty much, yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (165:20)

Takes place.

David (165:21)

Tarot reading goes, you're doing something right now. You got your foot in two worlds. One of them you're doing for money. One of them you're doing for passion. That passion thing, you're going to go all in on that. It's going to be. It's going to be big. You're going to travel a lot because of it. This is what you're supposed to be doing. Told me, be careful. A lot of people are going to hate you. You're a good man. Don't let it make you a bad one. Since I've. I've obviously repented. I didn't have the context. I didn't know what I was doing. I had my feelings, though. It wasn't like it was a totally uneducated decision. Like, I was kind of fucking, you know, listening to Tony Merkel and, like, I kind of had my suspicions.

Co-host/Interviewer (166:11)

The temptation is strong, especially if you don't understand the actual ramifications.

David (166:15)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (166:16)

Of what you're. What you were dealing with, I think.

David (166:18)

Oh, yeah, that's definitely my wife. Brat wife says, don't forget when the house was covered in flies for no reason. I mean, dude, my garage and the rest of my house was filled with big, fat, black flies. They were so fucking big. They were, like, clunky. They could barely fly. And that house was clean. And it seemed to be coming from my garage. My garage was. You know, my heavy bag was out there, and our washer and dryer was out there. And I regularly. And my wife can attest to this, would take everything out of the garage. I would sweep it all out. I take the leaf blower, blow everything out of that garage. Every cobweb and Everything. This was not a dirty garage. This was like a hangout spot. And these flies were just. Every time I cleaned, they would just come back, and I would see their larva all over the floor, like these black shells that they were in from the larva stage, and they would go into, like, a little cocoon, and then they would become these things. I couldn't get rid of them. And I never even drew the correlation. I was so stupid. I was going out there like it was a game. I was snatching them out of the sky and, like, whipping them against the ground. There were times where I'm manically in there catching hundreds of flies by hand and throwing them against the ground to kill them. And it was until years later when I was like, every single horror movie ever has black flies. When there's a supernatural, haunting thing, and I never put it together.

Co-host/Interviewer (168:00)

Yeah, it's like when it's happening to you, right?

David (168:03)

I don't know. I don't know. But, man, that moment that we decide in that. In that hotel, like, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this show. I don't even think we named it yet. I had some names kicking around. Nephilim Death Squad used to be a Twitter group that I put together with some characters, like the guys from the phone booth podcast. Escanor you. I think Paul Stobbs was in it. And I didn't know what I. I just had this name and this thing. It has to be a thing. And I was trying to make it a thing, and I didn't know what to do with it. And then once that happened, I just took that right off that group, which wasn't doing. We weren't doing anything anyway. And I was like, nephilim Death Squad. That's it. And. And all this show has done is like, it's almost like, God, let me chase these mysteries for so long, dude. And. And then finally, once I decided to include him, it was like I. I got the answers on his time, but it was like those answers were all the right answers. I think that all we were dealing with in my. In my household, in my family, was generational iniquity. I think my wife suffered the same thing. Her grandmother's into witchcraft and everything, and. And she's gone down this same path that I have. I think a lot of us. A lot of people. People listening to this show all have this thing. Since Dave Raven would die in a horror movie. I don't know how.

Co-host/Interviewer (169:33)

Probably.

David (169:34)

I don't know how. I didn't see these things at the time. It's like a spiritual blindness, man. Like, like scales over the eyes kind of a thing. But, you know, Nephilim Death Squad. The aim wasn't so good in the beginning. I mean, so true. At least, you know what I mean? Like, we were aimed, but we weren't laser focused in. Now it's different.

Co-host/Interviewer (169:57)

I think the aim was exactly where it. It was supposed to be.

David (170:00)

I agree. I agree with that.

Co-host/Interviewer (170:02)

Yeah. You can't do. You can't do a lot of what we're doing without the initial story. But it's the same thing for your story, right?

David (170:09)

Yeah.

Co-host/Interviewer (170:10)

That changed anything?

David (170:11)

No, nothing. So, you know, I. I want to make this book, man. And I. And I want it to just be this. These stories, they're hyper relatable. I'm not telling anybody something that half the people in the fucking chat are going off on their own experiences. And. And the fact that I found a solution, like the door might have been opened. Who knows? Any number of ways. Maybe grandma really was doing some Wiccan. Maybe she was trying to find a solution for these things that, you know, that alderman. And she picked the wrong thing. And it's like, man, since focusing on Christ, it has become as potent as living in a house full of nails and finally having a hammer, testing it out a few times and being like, oh, yeah, this works, dude. Actually, this is exactly what this is meant for. It's not just that it works. You could do it with a wrench if you line it up right enough, you know, but like, no, dude, this is a hammer. And it's exactly meant for this. And I want people to. To hear this or to. To read this book and to know that actually the. The answer for these things is. Is much simpler than maybe you even thought. And, you know, it would have been nice. And I'm sure she does know. For Barbara to. To know.

Narrator/Advertiser (171:54)

They bred with daughters of men and they will do it again. The end is written in the book.

David (172:06)

In the pages. They.

Narrator/Advertiser (172:09)

For death spot,

David (172:14)

death spot, death spot. When the last trumpet sound.