The Raven | Straight Bible

Summary

Nephilim Death Squad

Episode: The Raven | Straight Bible

Release Date: June 11, 2026

Hosts: David L Corbo and Top Lobsta (TopLobsta Productions)

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Episode Overview

This highly requested episode of Nephilim Death Squad features host David J (David L Corbo) recounting his life story, from an occult-tainted family lineage in New Jersey to confronting spiritual darkness and ultimately embracing a biblically grounded worldview. The tale traverses generational trauma, brushes with the paranormal, alien abductions, New Age deception, and a chaotic path to normalcy before launching the Nephilim Death Squad podcast. Throughout, trademark irreverence and candor are blended with profound explorations of spiritual warfare, family legacies, and the search for truth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Origins and Generational Occultism

(03:55–13:55)

• David is questioned about his life trajectory: “How do you go from being a baby, probably somewhat normal, to who you are today?” (Top Lobsta, 04:17)
• Raised in an old, historic, slightly haunted house in Elizabeth, NJ—an environment “steeped in weirdness and old New Jersey energy.”
• Multigenerational family dynamics: David’s great-great-grandmother was a successful real estate owner. Success was squandered in later generations through addiction and dysfunction.
• Maternal grandmother (Grandma Betty) was a clairvoyant (“medium”) and practiced New Age occultism (tarot, crystal balls, remote viewing, divination).
• “She was a medium. She had crystal balls... remote viewing, writing paperwork.” (David J, 12:57)
• Occult practices (Ouija, remote viewing) led to madness in some family members—his aunt descended into schizophrenia after experimenting with Ouija, which David describes as a “generational iniquity.”

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2. Alien Abduction & The Paranormal as Emerging Themes

(13:55–24:59)

• Maternal lineage tainted by “alien abduction”—Grandma Betty claimed repeated visitations: “She was a lifelong alien abductee victim... white lights, shadow people, a white owl in the window.” (David J, 16:51)
• Family processed supernatural events “without a grid,” with no grounding in faith—most were “Catholic in name, not in practice.”
• David connects the dots only in adolescence, learning of abduction stories from Aunt Margaret (15:16: “I was 15 to 16 years old when I started putting weird pieces together...”).
• Schizophrenic Aunt Lisa described visitations from the devil (“He smells like sulfur and rotting flesh... I know it’s him.” (Aunt Lisa via David J, 26:33))

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3. Childhood Mysteries, Loss, and The Occult’s Toll

(24:59–36:00)

• After losing his grandmother and enduring parental absence, David is thrust into a new family, leaving all childhood possessions behind (“I had the dopest action figures... and we just left. Never went back home.” [David J, 19:51])
• Encounter with the occult as a teenager: built a DIY Ouija board, leading to a revelation about his family’s spiritual afflictions.
• Aunt Lisa, once “obsessed” with the Ouija board, “never came back”—a warning about dabbling in the occult.

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4. Research, Sleep Paralysis, and The ‘Hat Man’ Phenomenon

(40:00–57:00)

• Teenage David’s obsession with answers leads him to early Internet conspiracies—probing “sleep paralysis,” the “Hat Man,” and the demonic.
• “Now I have the internet... a small jump from sleep paralysis to demonology and the occult.” (David J, 45:05)
• Experiences Hat Man testimonies (“Wes Craven’s ‘Freddy Krueger’ was inspired by Hat Man.” [47:32])
• Finds family overlap: “Barbara”—not his blood relative but step-grandmother—shared the same abduction/occult stories as his biological grandmother. (“Now I’m reading just Barbara’s stories... these are all the same things that Barbara told me.” [37:04])
• Notable insight: “Aliens are just the mask it’s wearing lately...in the last hundred years it’s been presenting as ET, but it’s the same phenomenon.” (David J, 35:45)

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5. Personal Paranormal and Spiritual Experiences

(60:56–80:00)

• Recounts vivid supernatural events:
  • As a child, a disembodied female voice predicted he’d drop a silverware drawer (“She said, ‘He’s gonna drop it’... then my vision distorts, everything corkscrews, and I drop it.” [62:13])
  • Cousin Julian and brother Manny both succumb to spiritual/mental breakdown, institutionalization, or occult involvement.
• Describes the infamous “black baby” or “gray” encounter at age 11, interpreted in retrospect as a brush with a non-human entity: “This thing bursts out in front of us—toddler-sized, black, no hair... black like the cover of your Bible.” (76:08)
• Candid about never sensationalizing his story: “I wouldn’t say I was abducted. Sometimes you’re not removed—you’re just interfered with.” (95:52)

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6. Chaos, Trauma, and Emergence of Identity

(85:00–101:00)

• Family instability, parental abandonment, poverty, and neighborhood violence: “Got jumped by 10 dudes, hit with a bat, changed everything about me, became reckless.” (85:16)
• Rejection, homelessness, “dumpster donuts,” grifting off chaotic relationships until adulthood.
• Breakthrough: meeting and quickly marrying his wife, who believed in him during his lowest and “held it down” through lean years. Formed a stable foundation that shaped his identity.

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7. Recovery, Vocation, and the Launch of NDS

(101:00–145:00)

• Journey through dead-end jobs, eventual success as a welder (“Thanks to my great-uncle...learned discipline, fundamentals, and became excellent at it.” [118:09])
• Deep sense of “calling”—unfulfilled by “normalcy,” driven to podcasting despite criticism.
• Early podcasting in his bedroom, gaining traction with supernatural/Christian testimonies on YouTube and Twitter.
• The pivotal meeting with Top Lobsta on a podcast forum (“I just knew in my spirit—this is it. We had to do this.” [138:56])
• Move to Florida, spiritual breakthrough—family faced severe spiritual oppression, resolved only by invoking the name of Jesus and claiming spiritual authority (“Only way I made this stop was by taking authority in the name of Christ.” [129:21])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She was a medium. She had crystal balls... remote viewing, writing paperwork.” — David J (12:57)
• “You kick open a doorway, you give access. That’s what the Ouija does.” — David J (24:50)
• “Aliens are just the mask it’s wearing lately...it’s the same phenomenon.” — David J (35:45)
• “Hat Man is real. Wes Craven’s ‘Freddy Krueger’ is based on Hat Man.” — David J (47:32)
• “My whole family’s just crazy people.” — David J (66:49)
• “Got jumped by like ten dudes, cracked my head with a bat, became wild... used to be reserved.” — David J (85:16)
• “My wife locked me in. I was ready to screw up my life, but I couldn’t screw up theirs.” — David J (120:48)
• “The only way I made this stop was by taking authority over it. In the name of Jesus Christ...and it stopped.” — David J (129:21)
• “I think if you’re called to carve something out on your own, then go and do that. Don’t be afraid.” — David J (143:37)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Family Occult Roots and Clairvoyance: 03:55–13:55
• Alien Abduction Stories/Generational Trauma: 13:55–24:59
• Schizophrenia, Ouija, and Madness: 22:28–24:59
• Hat Man and Early Conspiracy Research: 40:00–47:30
• Supernatural Events and “Black Baby” Encounter: 70:18–78:03
• Sleep Paralysis/Alien Interference Experience: 91:45–96:49
• Homelessness, Marriage, Work: 97:10–120:56
• Spiritual Breakthrough and Florida Move: 127:02–130:49
• Genesis of the Podcast and Meeting Top: 131:25–139:45
• Meaning, Mission, and Closing Thoughts: 143:11–145:23

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Tone and Style

The conversation is raw, comedic, brutally honest, and deeply self-aware. Both hosts frequently use dark humor and irreverence as self-defense, interspersed with long-form narrative, real vulnerability, and occasionally explicit language. They frequently mock themselves, skeptics, and spiritual foes while placing an increasing emphasis on biblical truth, resilience, and the pursuit of authentic Christian faith amid supernatural adversity.

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Conclusion

David’s harrowing and bizarre odyssey—from generational occult trauma and abjection to spiritual warfare, familial healing, and the establishment of Nephilim Death Squad—serves as both encouragement and warning: “If you’re called to carve something out on your own, don’t be afraid.” The episode stands as a living testimony of what it means to confront spiritual deception head-on, trust in a greater calling, and forge meaning from chaos.

Transcript

[Top Lobster]

This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online

[David J]

therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere.

[Top Lobster]

Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone.

[David J]

Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance.

[Top Lobster]

No problem. Now get $80 off your first month

[David J]

with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com sign up save $80 with code [e-mail] I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shopify.com this

[Top Lobster]

podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online

[David J]

therapy bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere.

[Top Lobster]

Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone.

[David J]

Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay,

[Top Lobster]

no insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month

[David J]

with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com sign up save $80 with code [e-mail]

[Top Lobster]

top lobster product.

[David J]

Oh, we're live.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, all right. You're doing 0% chance. We're live.

[David J]

Live. Live for 37 seconds.

[Top Lobster]

There's no noise on the intro. All right. The most highly anticipated interview from the straight Bible interview sessions.

[David J]

Is he just supposed to start like that? You're the boss. You run this thing, right? How's he supposed to do this? Oh, however he wants. Okay. You don't have music.

[Top Lobster]

Everybody requested this interview. No, I thought we did. I see. I'm still not sure if we're live or not, because I know he likes to mess with me. And I'll do, like, five minutes, and I'll be like, gotcha.

[David J]

No, it's definitely live. I could see the.

[Top Lobster]

Does anybody in the chat. Can they hear us? Is the. Is the audio good?

[David J]

Lock in.

[Top Lobster]

Okay. Business. You got it. 420.

[David J]

I could have sworn you had music for this thing.

[Top Lobster]

Okay. We're supposed to. Back to the subject at hand. The most highly anticipated interview. Like, everybody's like, when you having the Raven on? When you have in the Raven, they're like, oh, yeah. Paranoid American school, man. Primal resistance. Oh, they're cool. Otis is cool. What are you having? The Raven.

[David J]

I don't think anybody's actually.

[Top Lobster]

Everybody's saying that. So the main thing that we got to get at today is we want to know your life story. Everybody knows where you stand on the rakes and the grays and the Palladians.

[David J]

Okay.

[Top Lobster]

And the insectoids and the. The dinosaur ones.

[David J]

Reptilians.

[Top Lobster]

People know. Okay, right. They want to know, how did you get here? Like, how. Like, how do you go from, like, being a baby and at some point, probably somewhat normal, to, like, who you are today? Like, where. Like, where did the story begin?

[David J]

I mean, that's a hard thing. Should I start it at babyhood?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. Or even, like, your parents, grandparents. You got some rad story about your grandparents from the 1800s. I know you have a black grandma.

[David J]

I do have a black grandma.

[Top Lobster]

Imposed her face over my face.

[David J]

Yeah, there's a. There's a misconception that black grandma is the. The sort of practicing, new aged occultist grandma. Not the case. Black grandma. I don't know what black grandma was involved in other than being a slave. Crime. Crime?

[Top Lobster]

Well, actually, yeah, probably farming.

[David J]

No, no, no, it's true. I do have collard greens.

[Top Lobster]

Like, no, no.

[David J]

I have paperwork from her crimes. She was. She was a criminal.

[Top Lobster]

What kind of crimes?

[David J]

Oh, I don't know. I don't. I'd have to go back and try to find that. That actually would have been fun to bring up. I didn't know we were gonna talk about black grandma, but

[Top Lobster]

okay.

[David J]

So, yeah, I guess I was. I was born in New Jersey in Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth. And Elizabeth is a cool place because it's one of the. I mean, New Jersey's, you know, original 13 colonies, right? So everything up there is old. Why are you laughing? You're laughing.

[Top Lobster]

No, I love this. No, because I never see you serious. You're always, like, playing games and trying to mock me.

[David J]

I'm trying to be serious.

[Top Lobster]

I'm not laughing. I'm smiling.

[David J]

Don't laugh at my face.

[Top Lobster]

You look great with the blue glasses, too.

[David J]

I always have the blue glasses.

[Top Lobster]

I.

[David J]

This is a regular thing for me. So Elizabeth, New Jersey, is, you know, a particularly old city in New Jersey. So old state, old city. And Rahway Avenue, where my house was, was one of the earliest roads that were built through the heart of Elizabeth. So old state, old city, old road, and really old house is where I grew up, more or less.

[Top Lobster]

I mean, old house, too. Like. Like old haunted house.

[David J]

It was. It was weird. The architecture. Some of the buildings in Elizabeth. Elizabeth is known for being a. But there's a lot of really beautiful architecture that kind of goes hand in hand. You have the hood, and then you have beautiful architecture and historical buildings and such. So Elizabeth is just like that. My house was one of those. You know, we had you. You'd walk up the stairs to the house, and you'd have lion statues on either side of the walkway that led in. We'd had an engraved mantle over the fireplace.

[Top Lobster]

You guys were rich. Did you live there with your mom and your dad? Like, who? Like, no.

[David J]

No. So we. We weren't rich. It all went really south. My grandmother, my great, great grandmother worked really hard, bought a bunch of properties and made a name for herself. Made some money.

[Top Lobster]

The great, great grandma.

[David J]

And then, like, everybody just pissed it away and fucked it all up. So I didn't live there with my mom and my dad. I lived in an apartment before that. So the first three years of my life, I'm in an apartment, and I have some memories from that apartment, but my dad and mom separated probably when I was, like, three. And shortly after that, by the time I was, like, four, we moved out of that place and into the big spooky house.

[Top Lobster]

And with your mom?

[David J]

With just my mom, yeah. My dad, he lived in Elizabeth. It's actually very interesting because I saw my dad maybe enough times to count on two hands throughout My life. He lived in the same town.

[Top Lobster]

That's so weird, bro, to be divorced and then, like, your wife still lives.

[David J]

Well, they weren't divorced. They were just separated. They never, like, you know, I was a. I'm a bat, I guess, a bastard. Does that make me a bastard?

[Top Lobster]

No. Bella was born out of wedlock. You're just saying, like, born out of wedlock.

[David J]

Yeah. I thought that made you. Well, so anyway, I. Yeah, I don't

[Top Lobster]

know the definition of bastard, other than, like, you don't have a dad.

[David J]

I only know it in the Game of Thrones context. And I guess, actually now that I've

[Top Lobster]

got it, like, if God doesn't chastise you, then you're like, bastards. It's like. It's like you don't have a dad. It's in the Hebrew letter.

[David J]

Yeah, well, so, I mean, I guess that was my disposition then. And, you know, they. I actually have memories from them together. But they're weird memories. It's just them yelling, and I can't see them. I can only hear them. And I can hear my dad's voice, but I can't understand what he's saying. It's actually kind of fascinating because I thought it was a dream for a long time, and maybe it was, but I think it was just them arguing while I was napping and.

[Top Lobster]

Because you always napped a lot.

[David J]

Yeah, I've always been a napper. Heavy napper. And I couldn't discern English. So it's just, like, Dad's voice, Mom's voice.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, like Charlie Brown cartoon, yo.

[David J]

Just like that.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

You know, that kind of a deal.

[Top Lobster]

You didn't, like, see him making out or, like, loving each other?

[David J]

I saw them kiss one time, and. And I thought it was really special.

[Top Lobster]

So from. From three years old, you have memories? From like, three?

[David J]

I have memories from, like, super young. I think I could see that happen.

[Top Lobster]

And if you have a mom and a dad that are together only till you're three, I could see that being a scenario where you have memories from three and before.

[David J]

I actually have memories of being in that apartment on Halloween and opening the door into the hallway and seeing, like, a dad and a son, and the dad was dressed up like a werewolf, and the son had some other costume on, and I fucking almost died, dude. I was so terrified. I remember having a entertainment center. You put the TV in the middle of it, and it's got, like, shelving units all around it. And at the top shelf was Super Mario for the Nintendo. Super Nintendo. And I remember Climbing it. Waking up before my mom did, getting out, wanting to play the video game, climbing it and taking the whole shelf off the wall. I have a couple memories from that place. But anyway, so we move into the big spooky house and. And I would say that was. It's such a short lived period of my life, but it feels like super important as far as development.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean short lived? So zero to three in the apartment

[David J]

and then four to six maybe.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. In the spooky house. Yeah.

[David J]

And I'm living there with great grandma, grandma, mom, aunt and her two kids. So my cousins.

[Top Lobster]

So both girls or boys?

[David J]

Three boys.

[Top Lobster]

Me, my two only boy kids and only boy. Just a ton of grown ups and

[David J]

just a ton of women.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, wow.

[David J]

I was raised by almost exclusively women, which explains probably a lot. No more than one of them.

[Top Lobster]

Right.

[David J]

So women, the plural in the plural,

[Top Lobster]

if you're in Puerto Rico would be. You were raised by many women?

[David J]

Many.

[Top Lobster]

No, I don't think you're in New Jersey. It's many women.

[David J]

It is many women. Okay. I was raised by many women and they were kind of cool. You know, my.

[Top Lobster]

My grandmother fighting and bickering and drama a lot.

[David J]

Sure. They, I mean they bitched and moaned at each other for any number of things. They liked video games, which is really interesting.

[Top Lobster]

Super Mario.

[David J]

Super Mario. My great grandma would get down playing like Super Nintendo and she would scream at the TV like she would accuse it. She's like, this fucking computer's cheating. I mean this is like a.

[Top Lobster]

She did not.

[David J]

Yeah, dude.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, so that's always been a thing when like the. Because I hear the kids playing Fortnite and they're like streamer or. He just came through the wall.

[David J]

My grandma was a OG fucking way accuser.

[Top Lobster]

Was Super Mario Brothers on Super Nintendo was the one where you had the raccoon tail and you could fly if you kept hitting.

[David J]

That was Nintendo. We had that. Too bad. Had every system. And up until my great grandma, grandma Jean, she passed away, she was still playing. She had like the Nintendo Wii. She loved bowling. So my grandma was like super competitive that. That one.

[Top Lobster]

These ladies for jobs like selling dope or like what was their job?

[David J]

Honestly, That's a great question because it

[Top Lobster]

sounds like maybe a little bit of a dope house.

[David J]

So. No, I don't think a dope house. I mean great great grandma had money. She was a real estate mogul of sorts. You know, before there was any sort of like.

[Top Lobster]

That's the grandma that.

[David J]

No, that's her mom.

[Top Lobster]

Okay. So her mom was like a businesswoman. Yeah. Accumulated some wealth.

[David J]

Yep.

[Top Lobster]

The daughter still had it. Still had it a little bit.

[David J]

She worked. I don't know what she did. She was, like, competitive. Competitive ice skater, competitive bowler. Like, she was a gangster in a lot of ways. I only, of course, knew her.

[Top Lobster]

But then the next one down, the grandma's, where she was, like, to get pissed away.

[David J]

A lot of cocaine, a lot of alcohol, worked at a bar most of her life. She was, my understanding, sort of like the center of attention.

[Top Lobster]

The grandma.

[David J]

Grandma. This is Grandma Betty.

[Top Lobster]

She's still alive?

[David J]

No, no, no, no, no, no. She died in this time. So Grandma Betty was, you know, she was the one that was, like, clairvoyant, you know? Yeah, yeah. She was the one that was practicing, you know, new age.

[Top Lobster]

Did the great grandma outlive the grandma?

[David J]

Did the great grandma out? Yes. Yes, she did.

[Top Lobster]

Okay. My grandma was like, what? My grandma was a clairvoyant. Like, she was a medium.

[David J]

She was a medium. She was.

[Top Lobster]

Had crystal balls.

[David J]

Crystal ball.

[Top Lobster]

She had tarot cards in the house.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was a. She was remote viewing. She was writing paperwork.

[Top Lobster]

Like, which one's remote viewing? Where you can see stuff in, like, other places.

[David J]

Yeah. Yes.

[Top Lobster]

Through the crystal ball. They do that.

[David J]

Or think so.

[Top Lobster]

Did she have a cup? You know, like Joseph says when he put his cup in Benjamin Sack, when the brothers all leave.

[David J]

He was divining. Yeah, he says.

[Top Lobster]

He said, you guys didn't think. I know you took my cup that I divine with.

[David J]

No, I don't. I don't know.

[Top Lobster]

You, like, look in a cup.

[David J]

It was weird. So I know there's like a tea leaf thing. You can look at a cup and read tea leaves, or you can look at a cup and read coffee grinds, all kinds of different shit. But I never saw that from her. My. My time with her was weird because she was. I think in hindsight, my mother had me very young and not very young, but, like, young enough. Like, 18, 19. Yes. Pretty young. And she was not about it.

[Top Lobster]

Who?

[David J]

My mom.

[Top Lobster]

So what do you mean, not about it?

[David J]

Like, she.

[Top Lobster]

Not into the clairvoyant thing?

[David J]

No, no. She was not like a mother.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

You know what I mean?

[Top Lobster]

Is she still alive?

[David J]

She's still alive. Yeah. And she. So I was almost kind of groomed to call like that. My grandmother was going to be my mother. She. I was named after her son that was put up for adoption.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, I see what you're saying. It's like the grandma. Grandma had a hole in her enough to like.

[David J]

No, no, she didn't have it together, but she had a hole in her heart.

[Top Lobster]

But the mom was 18 and was like, yeah, I'm not doing this.

[David J]

So she started going to night school and working. So my mom was gone? No, my mother night school and working, she's gone all day. And I'm raised by, for that period of my life by my grandma, who's a clairvoyant, who's a clairvoyant who put her own son named David up for adoption before my mom or my aunt was ever born. So nobody ever knew him.

[Top Lobster]

This story's creepy, bro.

[David J]

It's weird.

[Top Lobster]

Where is the dad? Where is the uncle?

[David J]

Uncle, dad, David? I don't know. That's.

[Top Lobster]

Nobody ever saw him again.

[David J]

No. And that's actually one of the reasons I did 20 ancestry. I had this dream once where my mom grabs me and she tells me to never forget where my name came from. And it was like one of these dreams that I never forgot. So I am. I. I attributed so much meaning to that dream that I assumed, like, I gotta find this dude. I don't know. That's the only thing that made sense

[Top Lobster]

to me because that's sent your blood in to figure out.

[David J]

Now they just have a clone of me in a basement somewhere that they're beating and molesting and. Yeah, scratch that from the. Edit that out. So, anywho. Yeah, I'm named after this guy. Grandma has a big hole in her heart. She's very eager to be. You ever see that? Like, that's kind of a common thing. And I think this is also common in Spanish household, where a girl will have a kid really young and then the mom will raise it.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, yeah, we have that in our family. Jess's. Jess's family, same thing.

[David J]

Her.

[Top Lobster]

Her. Jess's brother had twins, actually, when they were young. I think he would have been 18.

[David J]

Okay.

[Top Lobster]

And so, yeah, the.

[David J]

And then the other adults, the actual adults will raise the kids.

[Top Lobster]

And then everybody kind of does too. The other kids. Like, Jess always says that too. She's like 10. And then there was babies in the house. And, you know, her older sister's like 11 or 12 or whatever. Now everybody's involved in raising these kids, but the grandma is really the mom.

[David J]

Yeah, that's basically, you know, what was going on, except it was just all women. There was no men in the house. I have a very faint memory of my grandpa. One time on his knee, he's singing the ABCs, you know. But he passed away shortly after that. So it's not even my grandpa. That's my great grandpa. My mom's dad bounced when she was a kid, so that grandpa. I have no idea. The clairvoyant. So that lady's all fucked up, right? Yeah, she. Her husband bounces on her very early. She's left to raise these kids. She's already had to put one of her kids up for adoption.

[Top Lobster]

Do you know how she fell into the clairvoyant thing? Like how.

[David J]

She was a lifelong alien abductee victim. So from childhood, she was expressing stories, you know, and telling the adults around her that horrifying things were happening. They didn't know. It's not that they didn't believe it from my understanding. They just didn't. There's. What the fuck do we do? You know? And so later on in life, once I got a hold of some of those stories, the testimony from her, I recognized what it was because I had read some books on it, and I was familiar with the phenomenon enough.

[Top Lobster]

She was trying to explain alien abduction to people who didn't have a grid for. She was saying alien abduction. They just were like, what? What are you talking about?

[David J]

I don't even know that they. They were confused. It's just like, when a kid comes to you, you go like, okay, maybe you pray with them. I don't even know if they did that. I mean, it seems that my family was, like, Catholic to some extent, but, like, by the time I come around, there's no serious practitioners or, like, you know, real people of faith. But she's saying, you know, that she would be laying in bed at night, and she would either be visited by a bright white light that would appear in her window, or she would be visited by, you know, little shadow people or a white owl in her window. And. And then she would scream when she could finally muster up because it seemed like she was in some type of paralysis or whatever. And, you know, her mother would come running in the room, and as soon as she would touch the door, that light or those shadows or that owl would vanish, you know, so over and over again, nothing's there.

[Top Lobster]

How old were you when you knew that about your grandma?

[David J]

That was a weird era of my life. That was like. You could call it like a Saga. I was 15 to 16 years old when I started to put a bunch of weird pieces together and discover that my family was almost, I guess, for lack of a better term, plagued by something that hit others harder. And some of them wouldn't even, like, really look at it. They just Go like, oh, strange happenings. You know, keep it moving. Only this is a generational thing.

[Top Lobster]

And how did it happen, though, for you? Did your grandma sit down and say, listen, man, I used to have this owl come visit. Or did your mom tell you about your grandma?

[David J]

So Grandma Betty, that's who we're talking about with the owl, she dies by the time I'm sick. So 1996, she passes away. So she's not telling me anything at all because she's dead. And that was a weird time for me because, you know, I had lost my dad and then my mom became very absent. Then this lady that was supposed to be with my mom just died. And then all that, like, shortly after that, I'm whisked off to like a new family. Like people I've never met before. That's six. Six. Yeah. So then, then I've got. It's basically, my mom is dating a guy who she will date for the next eight years, and his house and family become my house and family overnight. I just move there. That go. She goes, hey, we're gonna. You're going to sleep over somebody's house. And then I never go back home. That's it. I just never go back home.

[Top Lobster]

That's kind of cool, though.

[David J]

And no, it sucked ass because I had the dopest action figures. I had street sharks, I had Spider man action figures. I had all the cool at the old house. Yeah, we just left. I was told we're going to go spend the night at my friend's house. That's what my mom said. And then I would wake up day after day after day wanting to go back home to see, you know, a great grandma. My aunt and the mom was like,

[Top Lobster]

well, I don't know if this is going to work out with this dude or not. So I'll just tell him that it's

[David J]

like a. I have no idea.

[Top Lobster]

So who's. Who tells you that, hey, Grandma Betty was getting visited by 15 years old,

[David J]

I go and visit my aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret is like a actual angel. Like this woman is your actual mom's sister or no, grandma's sister, so my great aunt.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, got it.

[David J]

She is to this day the most, like, caring and charitable person that I know. She's fantastic.

[Top Lobster]

Grandma Betty's sister.

[David J]

Grandma Betty, not a clairvoyant. Aunt Margaret not a clairvoyant.

[Top Lobster]

Not getting visited by aliens.

[David J]

Super based. I don't think she's getting visited by aliens. If she is, she's smart enough to not really share it with kids because That's a crazy thing to do. And I guess what ends up happening is Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24.

[Top Lobster]

7 support. Call 1-800-granger click granger.com or just stop

[David J]

by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[Top Lobster]

Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm a licensed psychotherapist.

[David J]

Which means my work doesn't magically end when the session does.

[Top Lobster]

There are notes to write, appointments to manage, billing, insurance, follow ups, and somehow all that admin used to creep into my nights and weekends. That's why I switched to SimplePractice.

[David J]

SimplePractice is an all in one electronic

[Top Lobster]

health record built specifically for therapists with

[David J]

HIPAA compliant tools and high trust certification.

[Top Lobster]

So I don't have to worry about juggling systems or cutting corners just to keep things running. Scheduling, documentation, billing, insurance, client communications, even automated appointment reminders. It all lives in one place.

[David J]

And if you're starting or growing a practice, Simple Practice also offers a credentialing service that helps simplify insurance enrollment, which can be a huge lift when you're starting to scale.

[Top Lobster]

Start with a seven day free trial, then get 50% off your first three months. Just go to simplepractice.com Again, that's simplepractice.com

[David J]

so I'm with my cousin from Florida. We are at Aunt Margaret's house in New Jersey. And like kids do we make a Ouija board? It's a shit ass one. It's not like an actual.

[Top Lobster]

What's your cousin's name?

[David J]

Catherine. So me and Catherine are. We make a Ouija board and we don't really ever even get to the point of.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean make a Ouija board? They don't. You don't just buy them.

[David J]

So there was a shelf or like a tall dresser with drawers, but it was a shitty one and it was press board mostly. So we managed to get like the backs of one of the drawers out. You've got a press board rectangle now and we just took some Sharpie and we're drawing out a Ouija board.

[Top Lobster]

So you're just naturally prone to the occult. Like you're just naturally like draw. You're Just like, hey, we got nothing else to do. Let's just make a Ouija board.

[David J]

I. I guess so. I don't know. I mean, that sounds. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. That seems like I'm saying with your

[Top Lobster]

cousin, you're like, want to go play baseball? No, let's go find the ice cream truck now. Let's go to the arcade now. Let's make a Ouija board, man. Start doing a cold stuff.

[David J]

Well, yeah, I guess so.

[Top Lobster]

You just kind of like. That was just kind of the route. Like you're saying you kind of inherited this generational thing through your family.

[David J]

Maybe I don't want to put too much weight on that. I imagine a lot of kids have screwed around with the Ouija board.

[Top Lobster]

True.

[David J]

You know, I don't think that's such an uncommon thing.

[Top Lobster]

True. I think my homies did when I was a little kid and I just wasn't there that day. I think I remember about that.

[David J]

I mean, almost everybody has a story about like an almost time with you. And this was like that. So we were drawing it out. My Aunt Margaret, she looks over and she sees us and she's talking about this thing with us. And this is a little bit foggy. I don't know this. The series of events that led to the story. I know that we got a little piece of information where my mom's sister had always been a little bit weird, but after an obsessive stretch with a Ouija board, she went full blown schizophrenic and has never recovered.

[Top Lobster]

Your mom's sister?

[David J]

My mom's sister. So this is like the generational iniquity thing that I'm talking about.

[Top Lobster]

She was on the scene though, too, the mom. Because the mom's sister lived in that house from three to six also. Yeah. And she happened to be a chick that screwed around the Ouija board and just never came back.

[David J]

Yeah, she almost killed me when I was a little kid there. Well, I mean, who knows? You say that, right? I mean, we don't know how.

[Top Lobster]

Well, it's a weird thing not to go off topic, but, like, you, I got buddies. Like, I think maybe a lot of people do that. Like took acid and didn't come back and then. Or took mushrooms that didn't come back. Dude, it's like some people do the thing and then they don't come back.

[David J]

I mean, from. From my point of view, it looks now like you just kick open a doorway, you know, and you've given access.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, my dad told me that too when I first was in Rehab in. I mean, it was way later that he told me, when I was already a grown up. He's like, yeah, dude. Like, we freaked out when we, you know, knew you were into acid and stuff. Because I had buddies in the 70s that were doing. They never came back.

[David J]

Yeah. So she, you know, Aunt Margaret ends up telling us enough information, and. And what came out was this story about my grandmother. Grandma Betty, the clairvoyant, who passed away when I was 6, had a lot of experiences that she didn't know what to do with because it's basically like, oh, I see the kids are doing something spooky. She's sharing spooky family stories with us. And she says there was a book that she read once upon a time that rattled her so much that she actually asked your mother, my mother, her daughter, not to read it. Don't ever read this book. Whatever she read in this book had disturbed her so much that she. She didn't want to deal with it. She wanted, like, no mention of it. She didn't want her daughter to read it. She want anybody to know what the hell is going on. And so I, after that, left. And there's some weird occurrences that week because I. My schizophrenic aunt is there that week at Aunt Margaret's house, and she's on her meds, and I do get to talk to her. And she says some of the weirdest ever about smelling the devil before he appears. And he smells like sulfur and rotting flesh. And when she smells that smell, she knows it's him. She turns around, she'll see him. Sometimes. He'll be, you know what?

[Top Lobster]

Okay, which aunt is this?

[David J]

This is the schizophrenic aunt, Aunt Lisa.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

Okay.

[Top Lobster]

Because we're talking about a lot of people.

[David J]

So many crazy women.

[Top Lobster]

Okay. I'm trying to keep track, but. So it's Aunt Lisa.

[David J]

Aunt Lisa is. Mom's. My mom's sister.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

The daughter of the clairvoyant.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

Technically, Aunt Margaret is her aunt too, Right? Because Aunt Margaret is great aunt. Okay, so Aunt Lisa being one generation lower, and Aunt Lisa, yeah, she's. She's full blown schizophrenic. I think it's. You know, these things had access to her because of generational iniquity. And when she used the Ouija board, she really kicked that wide open.

[Top Lobster]

That week was a big week. During that week, you're spending time with Aunt Lisa, who did the Ouija board, never came back. She's known the devil before he shows up.

[David J]

But. So I know, Lisa's crazy. By this point, everybody's well aware. And Aunt Margaret's taking care of her. Aunt Lisa's on her meds, so she's doing pretty well. She's helping clean and cook. Things are going pretty. Pretty cool for her. And I'm on the porch with her. It's an enclosed porch, and it's nighttime in the mountains. Kind of the border of, like, you know, upstate New York and New Jersey. So when it's dark, it's dark. You see all the stars. It's pitch black. There's no street lamps. And she's on this porch with me. The fucking lights are off, and she's smoking a cigarette. So I can smell him before he shows up. And her fucking cigarette cherry, I can remember it. Her cigarette cherry is bright red in the darkness of the porch. And I'm just sitting there, 15 years old, listening to this woman who, like, you know, she's a weird character, man. She used to use leave messages on my house phone. And I'd go downstairs in the morning, and I'd press play on the house phone answer machine. And she'd be like, david, where are you? And then she'd go quiet. And she would go, this. She would do this shit. It was so crazy. Crazy. My mom would get so upset, dude, because it's her sister. She loves her sister, but, like, you know, you can't. She go, he's dead, isn't he? You killed him, you know? Yeah, dude. And I'm just sitting there.

[Top Lobster]

So she's crazy. No wonder you guys get touchy. When I pick up the phone and don't say anything. No, you don't like those silences.

[David J]

My mom used to do this thing to me where when Aunt Lisa would show up because she would have her episode, she would dip for a long time, and then she'd come back and she would bang on the door. My mom would take me in the closet and cover my mouth. So I was a little kid. Somebody's banging on the door.

[Top Lobster]

She just didn't want her having.

[David J]

It wasn't just to me. It was just like she couldn't handle her sister, you know, her sister would show up to her job because, you know, years later, even though we would have moved a half an hour away, my mom still kept the same job. Since I was a child, at least I knew where that was. And it was in Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a bit of a shithole. It is like a slum. It's a hood. And Aunt Lisa would just be cracked out, walking through the Streets of Elizabeth. And every once in a while, she'd find herself in those neck of the woods and just show up in my mom's job. And then everybody, including my mom, would have to deal with. So her co workers would have to deal with Aunt Lisa, by the way.

[Top Lobster]

At least that's at, like, a bar. Your mom. Your mom worked at a.

[David J]

No, my mom worked at a business. Furniture company.

[Top Lobster]

Oh. She'd show up at, like, a normal place.

[David J]

A normal place of business. Yes. It was Grandma Betty, her mother, who worked at the bar.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, got it.

[David J]

So my mom was in that bar doing cocaine at, like, 13. That's, like, the stories that she's told me. So anywho. Yeah, I get that information about that book, but she doesn't know the name of the book, but she said my mom was told not to read it. So I get back home and I say, hey, mom, you know, is it true that I called. I called her mom, you know, Grandma Betty, I called her mom. They all told me to call her mom. So I called her mom my whole life. So I was like, hey, mom, is it true that Mom. Weird conversation. As I got older, I realized that was strange.

[Top Lobster]

Tattoos when you were 15?

[David J]

I had a couple of tattoos when I was maybe 15. 16. Yeah. And what were the.

[Top Lobster]

What was, like, the first tattoo? Was it an arm tattoo?

[David J]

Fucking douchebag. Nautical star on my shoulder and then. And then a trinity on my hand, which is that one. I pick and poke that when I was homeless.

[Top Lobster]

So, bro, at 15, you got a

[David J]

hand tattoo, or 16 came about, like. 16. Yeah. Tail end of 16, beginning of 17.

[Top Lobster]

You were already saying, like, yeah, f. The whole thing, man. I don't plan on being. Because back then, it wasn't cool to have, like, visible tattoos. Like.

[David J]

Yeah, I was cautioned against it.

[Top Lobster]

If you went to go, you know, try to get hired for a job and they saw a tattoo that was visual, like, that would matter. It's strange, though.

[David J]

I've never had to look for a job. No. If there's one thing I've had success at, it's getting jobs. Like, I had this ability to talk my way into the door of pretty much any place I can imagine that I've had 23, 24, 25 jobs, something like that. How do you think he got.

[Top Lobster]

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if that's good or bad.

[David J]

Well, wait, wait, wait.

[Top Lobster]

Who tells you that the alien abduction is happening?

[David J]

So I go back to my mom and I say, hey, Margaret told me about a Book Grandma told you not to read. Do you remember the name of the book? She's like, oh, yes, Communion by Whitley Striver. Just gave it up like that. And I go, oh, fantastic. Oh, there you go. So I actually just find this and steal it from the local Barnes and Nobles. Brilliant.

[Top Lobster]

Why pay for something you can steal for sure?

[David J]

Absolutely. Well, I mean, remember I was like 15 or 16. Like, it's not like I had. I did work at the time. I had a job as a Kirby vacuum cleaner repair guy.

[Top Lobster]

Stop.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

No, no. I was believing everything up until those things.

[David J]

Those things are actually great.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, but they're mechanical, so it's like you can actually fix them. It's not like computer.

[David J]

Not only can you fix them, you can take them because they're made of metal. I heard they suck. No, they do suck. They suck hard, dude. And you can take them to.

[Top Lobster]

Good.

[David J]

You good. The buffing wheel. You know, like the wax buffing wheel.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And you can buff those bitches until they look like the day they came off the production line.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

I became obsessed and I was like, this is a beautiful vacuum. Anywho. So I had some money, but I was gonna steal the book anyway. So I read that whole book. I crammed it. Actually, I wasn't working at a. As a Kirby vacuum repair guy at the time. I was working as a licensed security guard for a company called Sora.

[Top Lobster]

A security guard?

[David J]

Yeah. And I was a.

[Top Lobster]

Somebody was trusting you to.

[David J]

Yeah, I was a 16 year old security guard for Aldi's in fucking Roselle. And Roselle was a shithole in Aldi's before it was ever like.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean, security guard? Like at the front door or like the warehouse?

[David J]

It turns out that black people had this thing where they loved alcohol, malt liquor, and they would do this thing where they'd stand outside the Aldi's and they'd say, excuse me, can I help you? Put your groceries from your cart into your trunk. And then in exchange, they would then take the cart, bring it back, put the thing in, and take the quarter out.

[Top Lobster]

Quarter.

[David J]

So they keep doing that at the time.

[Top Lobster]

That's kind of a brilliant. What's a 40 better than. Yeah, yeah. Do they have 40s in New Jersey? Yeah, so I know some states didn't have 40s.

[David J]

It was like they got 32. So what was a 40 in 2006 or2589? Right. So you.

[Top Lobster]

For old English, do a couple of

[David J]

carts, get a 40?

[Top Lobster]

No. Maybe they were 239 late 90s for the 40.

[David J]

Old English, whatever it was, it wasn't that hard. Like, this is something they could achieve, you know? So they were doing this, and they were doing this in mass. And a lot of them were, you know, scary because they're five blocks.

[Top Lobster]

You're getting old English and some dirt weed. And you're like, good.

[David J]

You're having a good time.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

So in my downtime, because you're not supposed to stand out there the whole time. You just parked in the car and you're watching to make sure the crackheads aren't doing it. And I'm just plowing through this book. And what becomes very obvious to me

[Top Lobster]

is people are stealing stuff. You're just plowing through the book.

[David J]

I mean, they weren't stealing. I mean, maybe they were stealing stuff. I don't know. I would. It wasn't like that. There's a lot of things you're not supposed to do as a security guard. Like, you're just there to dissuade. As soon as it gets real, you go, fuck you, dude. And you, like, call the cops. Like, I got nothing to do with this.

[Top Lobster]

So you're reading the book, and I'm.

[David J]

What I'm finding is that the experiences my grandmother had that she is now seeing in this book that are freaking her out to the extent that she's telling her daughter not to read it, is abduction. She's being abducted as a child throughout her adult life. The thing that also happens. This is where I said it kind of became like a saga for me. Right. Is I then realize her stories are the same stories that my new grandma. Remember, my mom dated a guy, and I lived in that house for eight years. Well, I was blessed enough to have this woman in my life. Barbara, who wasn't my blood relative, but racist.

[Top Lobster]

Was the boyfriend's mom.

[David J]

Was the boyfriend's mom.

[Top Lobster]

She had alien abduction stories.

[David J]

It was. Dude, she used to tell me Hat man shit before Hat man was ever a thing that I was aware of.

[Top Lobster]

So you're just, like, saturated in. So is that just a hotspot that Elizabeth, New Jersey is?

[David J]

I would say yeah, that has probably a lot to do with it because there's somewhere.

[Top Lobster]

I'm reading the Shane Cashman book. I don't know which one it is. I can't remember what's on my head. But he's.

[David J]

Inverted world.

[Top Lobster]

He's. Yeah, he's writing about something that. Like, the town he's from.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

New York is like a hot spot.

[David J]

Sure. I mean, that's old America, you know what I mean? Like, original 13 colonies. Like. Like I said, that's. So there's just certain spots at.

[Top Lobster]

There's just certain spots on the earth that are just like. If you live there, there's a more highly likelihood that you've been around aliens, I would say.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

And then aliens and the occult go hand in hand. Is that just kind of a thing?

[David J]

One in one? Yeah. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

They're like people who get into aliens, get into clairvoyance and, you know.

[David J]

I guess so. I guess so. I mean, you know, we do the show, and. And I'm at this point where aliens is just the mask it's wearing lately. And by lately, I mean in the grand scheme of things. We've been here dealing with this phenomenon since jump, but in the last hundred years, it's been presenting as, you know, this E. T. Phenomenon. But. Yeah, so. So Barbara, who, you know, for all intents and purposes is my grandmother, she's raising me for the next eight years of my life. You know, is kind of crazy because she's just telling me these fucking stories, dude. She's. I had to be seven years old, and she's telling me about the times throughout her life where she would wake up, she'd be unable to move, and there would be a man with a hat standing in the corner of her room staring at her.

[Top Lobster]

And that grandma. The boyfriend's Barbara. That's Barbara, mom.

[David J]

Barbara's the shit. Yeah, she's the boyfriend's mom. There's an apartment upstairs, apartment downstairs.

[Top Lobster]

We're still. We still got to get to where you get told that the other grandma was getting alien abducted.

[David J]

Well, so that's what I'm piecing together. And this is. Reading this book, and I'm seeing this, but all of the stories in the book. So I didn't know my grandma. She died when I was six years old, so it's not like she shared these stories with me. I'm reading these stories, and they're all Barbara's stories.

[Top Lobster]

Huh.

[David J]

So Barbara's having the same experiences that my biological grandmother was having.

[Top Lobster]

But how did you know your biological grandma was having those?

[David J]

Because I had gotten enough from aunt Margaret on the mountain when we were there and we were doing the Ouija board thing, and she's telling me some of the story.

[Top Lobster]

That was when it really got. That's when, like, the window. She started tell you some weird stuff. She didn't just spell it out like it was the Palladians and the grace. But she told you enough. Yeah, that by the time you get that book, which you are capable of reading. Yeah, Top. You know how he's like, oh, I can't read. Like when you talk about the Bible and stuff, he's like, oh, I just can't. So you totally can't read.

[David J]

It's the language. It's the way.

[Top Lobster]

Get an nlt. I gave you an nlt.

[David J]

It's not just that. It's like. What I will say is, and this is going to sound really offensive, but the people who wrote the Bible weren't great at telling stories.

[Top Lobster]

No, you're totally wrong.

[David J]

It's the greatest spiritual war.

[Top Lobster]

You don't find it intriguing that you could totally read that book about alien abductions, but you can't read the Bible?

[David J]

There's something wrong?

[Top Lobster]

No, you got to buckle down and start reading it, dude.

[David J]

I'm just saying the way. Because, you know, it'll be like, he did a thing, and he did a thing because of it. Like, there's a lot of, like, repetition.

[Top Lobster]

What? I love that.

[David J]

For me, I'm like, I got it the first go round. Now I have to read it, you know, four different ways. Immediately afterwards, it's like. It's that there's a way to tell a story.

[Top Lobster]

We'll just put that on. Make note of that. That you can read.

[David J]

Yeah, I mean, I read. What the heck's the name of that book? I am Legend and Will Smith. Well, it wasn't Will Smith actually. A white dude in the. In the original.

[Top Lobster]

Will Smith is a white dude.

[David J]

I don't want to get into it. So when I'm reading this book, like I said, it's. It's supposed to clue me in about my. My grandmother, but instead I'm reading just Barbara stories. Yeah, these are all the same things that Barbara told me. So now I'm like, holy shit. Barbara also was abducted then. That's what this means, right? That's. That's the. The jump. It's like Grandma Betty saw herself in these stories. Because. Because for. For those of you that don't know, Whitley Strivers communion is an amalgamation of abductee testimony. He's gotten a bunch of different testimony together. And this is almost like the transcripts from his communications with these people. So their stories matched up Grandma Betty's and it really freaked her out. Now when I'm reading it, this is just Barbara's stories. So now there's some weird connection between my grandmother and this lady that's not really my grandma. That's fucking weird, right? So. So now my Head's going. And I'm realizing, like, no, there's something going on. Like, Aunt Lisa's schizophrenic. And by this time, I had had a handful of strange experiences. And it all felt so connected. This period of my life was really strange. It felt. Felt super meaningful. It felt like I had scratched something, the surface of something, and found a great mystery.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And it was about my family.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And so I became very obsessive during that time in my research. And.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? Like, now you felt like your life had meaning or it was more meaningful, or you kind of just understood your part in this bigger scheme. It wasn't just your life by itself. Like, you were part of something now that.

[David J]

Yeah. I mean, more or less what it was was the. This idea that my family was enthralled in some sort of supernatural mystery.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

That. You know, my.

[Top Lobster]

Not just family. Like, now you get into this boyfriend family.

[David J]

Well, that's weird.

[Top Lobster]

It's like your whole sphere. Almost like the Truman Show. Like, it was a Truman show, but it was, like, gonna surround you by alien crazy occult stuff.

[David J]

It was. I mean, I had at that time already been a little bit interested in some things. Like the old Disney movies, right. Where you would have, like, Asia. No. Like the penis on the COVID of the Little Mermaid or Sex in the Stars. In. In the Lion King, they knock some. Some dust and some leaves into the air. And for a.

[Top Lobster]

People are boning in the stars.

[David J]

No, no, for a frame, it spells out sex. Like the. Everything falls into this way to do that. Another one, one of my favorite ones actually, was Aladdin. In Aladdin, there's a scene where Aladdin is dressed up like a prince, and he's shown up to Jasmine and he's trying to put the moves on her. And it's on her balcony at night. And at some point, her pet tiger gets in between her and Aladdin and tries to intimidate Aladdin. And he backs up and he says, good kitty. Nice kitty. And all of a sudden, in the background, there's a disembodied voice. And the disembodied voice goes, all good. Teens take off their clothes.

[Top Lobster]

What?

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Dude, how did I miss all this, man?

[David J]

This must.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean there's a disembodied voice? Like, you can hear it if you watch it.

[David J]

You got to turn it up. I mean, it's got to be the original version. You know, they got rid of a lot of this stuff. But when I was younger, that was like another little Mystery that I had stumbled upon, I think was the early days of the Internet. So it was like a mixture of Internet and rumors, and I was able to find it. I had a buddy who lived in a trailer park who, you know, had whatever.

[Top Lobster]

Mostly white people in the trailer park.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Except for the black baby in the woods. That's in the trailer park. That's a different, different tangent.

[Top Lobster]

We got to get to that story.

[David J]

This, this happens a couple years before I start to put these pieces together. So there's a lot of reasons. Oh, you can see it right in the middle. You see the tower right in the

[Top Lobster]

middle and there's just a wiener right in the middle.

[David J]

Wiener?

[Top Lobster]

No, that can't be real.

[David J]

Yeah, dude, that's the original. That's the original one.

[Top Lobster]

There's the original one of what? What was that?

[David J]

That was a Little Mermaid. Hey, can I take a pee real quick?

[Top Lobster]

I got a pee for top. Could you want to hang out and talk? Really? All right. Is this just going to be off of it or. You guys ready for the Q and A? As soon as we're done, we're going to do the Q and A.

[David J]

So, guys, I don't want to put his. His headphones and that might be.

[Top Lobster]

Don't do it. Yeah, don't do it.

[David J]

What do you guys think about the interview?

[Top Lobster]

Got a weird ass story, dude.

[David J]

Yep.

[Top Lobster]

I just feel like he'll never tell me unless it's on a podcast.

[David J]

Like, you heard this story?

[Top Lobster]

No, he would never sit down with me for this long to talk to me like, you know that.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Unless it's just about, like something for a show.

[David J]

I feel like this is good. It's like therapy.

[Top Lobster]

This is great, dude. I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface. 39 minutes. I figured we were at like 10. No, no, bro. What?

[David J]

We're making good time.

[Top Lobster]

No, dude, he's got a wild ass story. And I knew there's no way he'd tell me unless it was like on a show.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

What a crazy person, dude. Like, he just grew up in this crazy ass environment. Like the spirit realm was just like, get this guy. Like, don't let him out. Don't. Don't let him figure out who he is. You just get that feeling as you're hearing this story. You can't have that many people circling the camp trying to like destroy a child and be raised in that environment. Unless like the spirit realm is like, don't let him get loose. Whatever you do, kill him when he's A baby.

[David J]

He's being pulled, kicking and screaming out

[Top Lobster]

of it, but he can read like that was the main thing. You know what I'm saying?

[David J]

All right.

[Top Lobster]

No, me and Top were just talking about that you won't read a Bible.

[David J]

Well, I also don't like reading, like, anymore. I haven't read anything since. Since I am legend.

[Top Lobster]

What? Which was 20 years ago, maybe.

[David J]

Yeah, 20 years ago.

[Top Lobster]

You don't think your brain is going to rot from not reading?

[David J]

I don't know. Maybe.

[Top Lobster]

What's a different part of your brain that reads like Twitter? Things that are just like 40 words or whatever. It's a different part of your brain to read like, a book, to, like, keep reading.

[David J]

Yeah, I mean, maybe.

[Top Lobster]

Whatever. Back to the story.

[David J]

So this. This period of time, like I said, it's very much.

[Top Lobster]

You're very sleepy today. I don't know. Are you just upset that we're doing a show later without you?

[David J]

No.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, Sorry, go ahead.

[David J]

No, that's fine. So this. This time in my life is really weird because it does feel like I'm living a mystery, which is very exciting

[Top Lobster]

that you're just kind of like, scratching the surface. You, like, find a hidden book, you open the book, you're like, well, the book.

[David J]

The story gets even better from my perspective, because what happens next is I now have access to the Internet. We're talking about 2005, 2006. The Internet at the time is the wild, wild West. The best time, in my opinion, for conspiracy theories. Some of the research and the content that was out there was so fantastic, and there was no real censorship going on. And the way in which you discovered this information was so organic. There was no algorithm at the time pushing you towards this or that. It was just your ability to connect dots and then Google the next thing. And so, of course, if I'm going to start looking up sleep paralysis, shadow people, hat man, I have a very small jump from that to the concept of demons and demonology and the occult. It's all right there. So now this thing I. I go to seek answers on, what is this phenomenon? And it's leading me to demons in the occult, which is like its own unbelievable tree.

[Top Lobster]

You're assuming it's aliens, right? But then as you're googling it, you're saying there are these things happening.

[David J]

Well, I'm not fully assuming it's aliens because I don't know how that really deals with the dude with a hat.

[Top Lobster]

Right, right. You're assuming it's ghosts.

[David J]

I don't know what I'M assuming. I have no idea.

[Top Lobster]

I'm not really just typing in what's happening. When people see, like, hat.

[David J]

It turns out that hat man is at the time something that is a large enough phenomenon that if you type in that phrase, you're gonna find people in 05, which was crazy to find that people all over the world were having an interaction with a dude in a duster coat and a fucking brimmed hat.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, that's sketches.

[David J]

I mean, people right now, when you hear hat man, it's. It's, you know, pardon the pun, old hat. It's. It's nothing. But I don't know anything.

[Top Lobster]

I've never even heard of hat man until I talk to you guys. But it already sounds terrifying.

[David J]

It's just kind of like it's a

[Top Lobster]

Doc Holliday vibes, but it's a ghost. It's like, sure, yeah.

[David J]

I don't mess with that black silhouette sometimes. Red eyes, black. But always definitively wearing a duster and that kind of a hat.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, that's.

[David J]

I mean, you know, a lot of things I take for granted nowadays, and nothing really moves me, but to put myself back into the shoes of being. There you go, yeah, yeah, yep, yep. That's it. I mean, 100%. The one with the red eyes.

[Top Lobster]

So Freddy Krueger is based on that. That's like Freddy Krueger?

[David J]

Yeah. Wes Craven had a childhood friend who had night terr would tell him about this character. And so Wes Craven, having secondhand information, created this nightmare guy with a hat. And that's how you get Freddy Krueger. And so, yeah, man. I mean, just. Just to think about what an insane think about me being 15 years old and trying desperately to connect dots. And all of a sudden I type in the hat man and I find thousands of testimony on this guy. Like, it was like, so you're like,

[Top Lobster]

okay, so for one, by the way, because you don't know, it gets a little bit crazier.

[David J]

At that time, I had one of my yearly visits with my dad and I. I'm asking everybody and I go, have you ever seen like a dude with a hat and a duster coat? He goes, fuck, you see him all the time.

[Top Lobster]

The dad said that now.

[David J]

My dad said that.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, bro, this story is getting okay. So now you're, you're. Because you don't know what you're going to find as you go down this path that you're like, okay, like, my family is not the only ones. Like, they might be crazy, but they're not just straight. So crazy that they're making something up. This is something that other people have been through.

[David J]

I've never thought they were crazy. And you.

[Top Lobster]

That didn't cross your mind? No, because my family was saying that I'd be like, yeah, these people are crazy.

[David J]

By that time, I had seen a. Like an alien in the woods.

[Top Lobster]

Just normal.

[David J]

I'm not normal, but like, yeah, like,

[Top Lobster]

for me, I'm like, oh, my family likes baseball and basketball. You're like, yeah, man. Aliens. And the dust hat guy, man. Like, yeah, this is cool. This is cool.

[David J]

I think when you're so close up to it, you don't. You don't see it as not normal. Correct. When you're going through. When things are happening to you, you don't have a. I don't have any other perspective, you know, to look.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? You didn't have, like, a TV where they were like, the World Series was on. You're like, huh? I bet these guys.

[David J]

Barbara loved football. I mean, baseball. That was a house of baseball. That was a house of the Yankees. The Yankees, yeah, it was. You know, once the yes Network came out, it was fucking crazy. Barbara was like, oh, my God.

[Top Lobster]

Was on the scene.

[David J]

She loved Jeter. But I never, ever, ever, ever got into sports. It was weird. It was like, no matter what they did, they tried to put me in it. They tried to share it with me. They tried to. And I was like, dude, as. At six years old, I was like, it's not my family.

[Top Lobster]

What age did you learn how to do a flip? Because that's pretty athletic for a dude that doesn't play sports.

[David J]

Too old.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean, too old?

[David J]

Like, I was like, maybe 17 or 18 when I finally learned.

[Top Lobster]

No, that's not too old, bro. Like, did you just start it on a trampoline?

[David J]

Way too old. That's way too old.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

Why you don't just be a 17, 18 year old.

[Top Lobster]

No. I think that's awesome around. No. I remember, like, during the courting phase when you were trying to, like, look really cool to me and stuff in the beginning, and you were sending me videos of how you could flip, I was like, I got to do great.

[David J]

I do an annual flip. It's kind of like groundhog. You know when to do one?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

When the groundhog sees the sun. Yeah. And it goes back in, there's gonna be how many more weeks of winter? It's very similar. I don't know.

[Top Lobster]

Pucks a tiny Phil.

[David J]

If I nail it, then summer's coming. If I don't, then we got like six more weeks of winter. You know what I mean? Like that kind of smart. So yeah, I mean it's the beginning for me of this. You know what, what ends us up in your.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, I mean you're doing what you were like. You hate to say it like this, but like born to do. Like you were born into this. Well, I think you lived it the whole time. Like there's probably a lot of. I don't know enough about it, but I'm guessing if this is like the popular thing today, there's like a lot of Johnny come lately that just start to find out about some stuff. The Hat man or the Boogie Monster, like whatever.

[David J]

Boogie monster.

[Top Lobster]

And then all of a sudden they're like doing a podcast about like aliens. And so you're like, no, dude, I've been living this.

[David J]

I think what I found is that most people are, are in the space are like me.

[Top Lobster]

They've. They've. Otherwise they wouldn't be in the space.

[David J]

Correct. Yeah, there's.

[Top Lobster]

You think even like people who are big names in the space, like they've been, they've been around the alien abduction.

[David J]

I think things have happened to people and, and I used to think that you either choose to ignore it or. And move on with your life or you become fascinated with it. I'm not so sure anybody chooses to ignore it. I think, you know, the only thing that happens is are you making actionable moves towards. Towards what?

[Top Lobster]

I mean, what do you mean? So they don't choose to ignore it. They just, they, because I meet those people ignore it, but they just don't like do anything about it or do it.

[David J]

Sure. But I think if you, if you sat them down and had a conversation with them, like it would all come out and they would reveal themselves to be almost. Over and over again people reveal themselves to be almost exactly like me. And what I mean by that is terrifying. We've all had the. Not all of us, but the people who are doing this have this in common. I'm not unique. I'm just maybe one of the louder ones. That's about it. But you know, we talked to a guy just the other day, Frank Graffio. Graffio. Anthony Graffio. He's from New Jersey. He had a weird ass childhood full of experiences. He gravitated towards the new age and it cold. He had an experience with a, you know, an entity. He eventually came to Christ. He is a podcaster. He went to MMA too. Like it's a same dude, there's a carbon copy.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

I'm not unique. This is just, I think, kind of our season, you know?

[Top Lobster]

Right, right. This has never been in the news before. Been out there. You had to really seek it out before.

[David J]

Yeah, I guess so. You had to seek it out.

[Top Lobster]

But no, I bet if I started talking to like, normal people, I don't really see many normal people anymore. We're not really in like a friend group or anything or where we like hang out with normal people in any way. But I'll bet if I ask them, they. This isn't on most people's radar still. Right.

[David J]

It's just.

[Top Lobster]

It's on our radar because it's what we do.

[David J]

I almost want, I would say more people than not have had an unexplainable experience at some point in their life. And I think some people, the more

[Top Lobster]

people you talk to, it's your experience that they've had an unexplainable thing because I wouldn't say that. I don't, I don't know. I would not say that. It's 51 of people I meet have had an unexplainable experience, but maybe I haven't dug enough.

[David J]

Well, you're, you're not asking those questions. Right. You're asking about, you know, food, forest, whatever, you know, you're just, you're just not. Like, that's where my mind is geared.

[Top Lobster]

You think if you dig in with somebody, more than half are going to be like, yo, this thing happened when I was camping one time.

[David J]

Well, more than half. Half because we live a supernatural experience. Right. This is spiritual warfare. We're in it all the time.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

I don't think you get to breeze. I really don't. I think the percentage of people that move through this life and don't have an experience are so small, I don't know if they really even exist. I think you might forget.

[Top Lobster]

I don't have an unexplainable.

[David J]

We've talked to you before and you, you have. Yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

No, I don't.

[David J]

That's actually what you said. Like, no, I don't. And then you've let some stuff eke out and I've been like, the. Are you talking about, dude?

[Top Lobster]

No, I haven't, but. But Also, like, I'm 10 years older and so it was a lot weirder. Like that 10 year gap makes a big difference, dude. Like, what was a lot weirder? Like, I remember guys on job sites talking about hunting and they believe in Bigfoot. Yeah. And it was very rare. And I talked to people on job sites about everything, bro.

[David J]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Top Lobster]

But it was like, you go back 10 years earlier, and, you know, he heard something snap. He smelt this disgusting smell. There was a. It was very weird. All of a sudden, like, something happened in the woods.

[David J]

Like, everything got silent.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. Everything stopped.

[David J]

Which doesn't happen in the woods.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. And was like, yeah, I believe in Bigfoot. And I remember, like, the people sitting there. This was actually when the Brownwood movie theater was being built. Okay, so that's not even that long ago. I get. Well, maybe it's 15, 20 years now, but even back then, like, the people that were sitting there while this dude was telling the story kind of like, were side eyeing each other, like, bro, what's this guy talking about? You know, I'd be like, oh, yeah, go on, bro. No, that's what I'm saying. But I'm. I don't come from a background of, like, being around people. Like, I was always considered, like, a hardcore conspiracy theorist in the house that I grew up in.

[David J]

Right.

[Top Lobster]

Just because I always thought, like, something was not what it appeared to be. Right. I was totally mocked for that.

[David J]

And, well, that's where all this leads, Right? I mean, so you. You have the experiences, and then they lead to the idea of the occult. And the jump is really easy for me. The jump is the occult is filled with. Occult just means hidden or secret or coveted. Right. So, but when you study secret, hidden things, there are so many symbols associated with them. So the next big jump for me is very easy to make. You have to understand, like, this is like, I'm on a water slide and it's just taking me, and there's very little effort. I just got to be able to, you know, Google the next thing. The symbols are just all over Hollywood in the music industry. So very easy to now go into that. And that's like, you're dealing with the occult, and now you're looking at the symbolism. I mean, Isaac Weissepp has an entire podcast called Occult Symbolism in Pop Culture or some shit like that. Like, it is the. The fountain that never stops flowing so that that body of research, it can carry you forever because it's always being produced. There's always the historical aspect, the now and then the future that keeps flowing towards you of this symbolism in pop culture. So that's fertile ground for a conspiracy theorist. Fertile ground. I'm done now. I'm locked in for the rest of my life from that moment on. So I'm having these moments throughout my Childhood up until about 15, where I'm kind of being nudged in this direction and I'm finding things that are interesting. But that mystery, it's almost like what we do now for. For me at least, is a continuation of, like, the mystery of my family. Because, like I said, it was this. This saga for me that seemed to connect so much, you know, about my experiences, my family's experiences, this. Other people that are raising me, their experiences, aliens and all this. And then it just snowballs, and it never stops. And now I'm sitting here in this studio, and I'm doing it for a living. It's all one big.

[Top Lobster]

But this is why, like, so say somebody with a big name would be like, you know, aliens are not demonic. You know, and where you'd be like, dog. Like, this is kind of my specialty. And I don't care if you're a big name or not. Like, let's. Like, I want to talk about this, because I know this. Like, I've been living this.

[David J]

I'm very aware of this. My issue lately. Well, I will see people say that, like, they're not connected or there's nothing there. And I'm like, dude, the overlap is like, I. There are times when I'll be much more abrasive about it, and I'll call somebody a. And I'll say, no, it is demonic. But there are other times where, like, I'll look at what they're saying where there's no connection. This is not demons. This is. I'm like, hey, dude, the overlap is tremendous.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. But you're also. It's an area of your life that you are humble about. Like, that you're not just like, oh, no, I'm an OG in the game, and I know this, this, and this. I've noticed you're very humble about. Hey, man, this could be something other than what I think it is, or this person could have some kind of insight that I don't really know yet. Like, yeah, I've been around it a lot, but I'm open to, like, hearing whatever other people have to say.

[David J]

Well, how do you tell somebody about God? Do you just tell them outright, or do you. You have to, like, ease people into it. Yeah. I think it. It's far and few in between that it ever works to just evangelize to somebody. Right? To just start reading scripture to somebody.

[Top Lobster]

No, no. I'm not even saying that for you. Trying to, like, evangelize. Alien abductions or whatever. I'm just saying if a topic comes up, you're like, I don't know. I don't think it's that. I've kind of seen you do that before. Like, I don't remember what it was, but say it was Hat Man. Somebody's like, yeah, Hatman always has red shoes. You're, you know, I've seen you be like, well, I, I don't, I think I disagree with that. But I'm open to hear this person. Like, for them to further explain the red shoe thing.

[David J]

I mean, I don't, I don't consider myself an authority on any of it because it's also intangible. It's hard to say that, you know, you have the, this is like my issue when we.

[Top Lobster]

But I can't imagine another person have a greater percent of their life being involved in this.

[David J]

I've heard hundreds, I've listened to testimony from hundreds and hundreds of people who make my story seem like super insignificant. And I think that may not actually be accurate. I think when you listen to somebody's story, like even somebody who's listening to me now, you know, we'll have this conversation for however long it is and you're getting all of the greatest hits condensed into whatever, a two hour window. It feels a lot more normal than that. My childhood felt really normal. My, my life feels really normal. It's. Until you focus in on those strange little footnotes and then you start to weave the story out of that. And I don't know that that's not the right thing to do. Right, because even in the Bible we've talked about it before, there's so much about the, the characters, lives that you don't know. But what God seems to want to tell you is about these supernatural moments in their lives. And so maybe in that way it is reasonable to look at those things that happen to you and instead of just treating them like, you know, things that are outside of the norm or things that are outside the general comings and goings of your daily life, maybe they are more significant. Maybe they do tell a story that's more important. So I don't know if there's anything wrong with that. But, but I've heard a lot of people who make my story seem like insignificant bullshit, you know, because they're getting chased by fucking bipedal dog dudes that are ripping their dogs in half. And you know what I mean?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, that's a little much.

[David J]

I'm just saying, like, his story's not even significant enough to get on the confessionals. And it's, it's a Crazy story. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, if I. If I went on Tony Merkel show and I told my story, it'd be a sleeper episode. Like. Like a sleepy episode in comparison.

[Top Lobster]

I think so. Dude, really?

[David J]

Oh, yeah, man.

[Top Lobster]

So I'm just out of the game. Like, I'm totally out. Like, you're telling me this. I'm like, what?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I, you know, I'm going to jump ahead, but yeah, because

[Top Lobster]

we've left off 15, right? 16. Reading the. Reading the book. As you're the security guard at Aldi, that's kind of where we. Where we left off at.

[David J]

So, I mean, there are things that happened during that time. There was when I was little, I heard a disembodied voice narrate what I was about to do. It was a woman's voice. She was very indifferent about it. She was just saying something was about to happen. And then it happened. And I guess I should. I'll say that really quick because that sounds crazy to whatever audience that hasn't heard it. I'm just so used to telling these stories that sometimes I breeze through. But I was very little. I'm there with Aunt Lisa. I'm in the house, the old house on Rahway Avenue in Elizabeth. Aunt Lisa is not diagnosed schizophrenic at this time, but she is, like, notably fucking crazy. And she asks me to get a silverware drawer from her for her.

[Top Lobster]

This story.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. She was sick on the couch. I remember we had a big brown leather couch. She was not feeling well. She tells me to go get the silverware drawer. I maybe am four or five at the time. Maybe five.

[Top Lobster]

Because you're in the spooky house.

[David J]

I'm in the spooky house. I leave there when I'm sick. So I couldn't be any older than six, but I think I was a little bit younger than that. And I go and I get the silverware drawer. I pull it out. It's very heavy. I'm waddling down the hallway with it. All of a sudden, I hear a woman's voice in my head. I remember at that age knowing, like, I heard her, but not with my ears. Like, as a little kid, I knew that.

[Top Lobster]

What'd she say?

[David J]

She said, he's gonna drop it as if she was talking to somebody else. Which is interesting, right? And. And she had a nice voice, and she had this tone of just like. Just observation. This is a matter of fact. He's gonna drop it. And then all of a sudden, all of A sudden? Yeah, all of the sudden.

[Top Lobster]

No, all of a sudden.

[David J]

All of the sudden.

[Top Lobster]

Come on. Everybody's on the edge of their seat right now.

[David J]

My vision distorts. I get, I guess what would be. What do you call it when.

[Top Lobster]

Vertigo.

[David J]

Vertigo. Everything starts to corkscrew.

[Top Lobster]

Huh.

[David J]

And then I, I end up just, like, my hands just open and this thing hits the ground and the sound of all the clattering silverware, like, snaps me out of it. And then after that, I'm pretty sure my aunt chokes me on the kitchen floor and I almost die. Either that or she chokes her own son on the kitchen floor. And I say I'm going to call the. Like, either I got choked or, or they got choked or I did get choked. And I, and I saw it from a third person view. Like, it's really weird. That memory is very strange.

[Top Lobster]

So you look at it like whatever that voice was, was, like, trying to save you because you were taking this silverware drawer with, like, steak knives in it to your aunt who is crazy and potentially going to kill you with the knives. Or like, I don't know. Okay, well, what were you doing with the silver drawer?

[David J]

She was asking me to get it for her. I have no idea.

[Top Lobster]

To stab you, maybe?

[David J]

No, I'm saying, like, just brought her a knife.

[Top Lobster]

I mean, no, it was like the voices in her head.

[David J]

I never thought of it either, but

[Top Lobster]

the voices in her head were doing that stuff too, man. We're saying, like, yeah, tell him to bring the stuff here. That way it'll, he'll, it won't be conspicuous. Like, if you tell him just bring you a butcher knife, like, it's going to be conspicuous. But if he brings a whole drawer and then, so this voice in your head, I don't know, it's female.

[David J]

She is, she's been obsessed with me dying.

[Top Lobster]

So then his voice is like, like he's gonna drop it, like in a sweet voice, and then you're the corkscrew. And then boom. And then she loses it because whatever entity that was, like, you know, controlling her at the time is like, what, the plan's foiled now? You know, like, I don't know, like, snaps her out of it. No, I can snaps out and start choking somebody or something.

[David J]

I mean, that's a. I, I, it's an interesting line of thought.

[Top Lobster]

Why else are you carrying a silverware drawer?

[David J]

Because my aunt's schizophrenic and the demons are telling her to tell me. I don't, I don't know why. I'm doing it. And I don't know that that's what would have happened.

[Top Lobster]

I don't think she was like, hey, I want to get the spoon out and let's have some ice cream. I don't think that's doing.

[David J]

Probably not. And her sons were there with me. And to this day, like, I don't know who got I. For a long time. I remember me getting killed.

[Top Lobster]

Who's Gabe?

[David J]

Gabe is. Gabe's my cousin. He's from my dad's side.

[Top Lobster]

Not one of them.

[David J]

Not one of them.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

This is my cousin Julian. My cousin Manny. Julian, he was diagnosed schizophrenic, like Julie. Julian was diagnosed schizophrenic in the years following shortly after his mother's diagnosis. So she was diagnosed shortly after this event. Not because of it, just shortly after. And he was also diagnosed. They got taken away from her. He went to Julian and Manny. Julian and Manny. Manny's in the new age now and he's a.

[Top Lobster]

Still lives in New Jersey, I think

[David J]

so I don't know. He's all, you know, it's not good. And Julian, he went away from 12 years old to 25.

[Top Lobster]

Doing time.

[David J]

Yeah, they took him. They put him in a juvenile institution.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, like California. We had cya, like California Youth Authority. They probably had like an nj, Ya,

[David J]

I guess so in there.

[Top Lobster]

Then he kept getting in trouble and. Yeah, dude, I had buddies like that that went into CYA as like a teenager. And then he might have been.

[David J]

He might have been in there longer than. Than 25. But either way, he.

[Top Lobster]

The institutions are weird, bro. Like, you can get trapped in the institution and you just can't get out.

[David J]

Well, he was like a wild animal in a lot of ways. He. He said. Because I had a conversation with him not long ago for the first time, like since we were children. And he said, yeah, the woman in my head tells me to run away or. And so there was times where he would take his little brother Manny, who was only a little bit younger than him, and they would run away. Yeah, like they would. The police would find them in the streets of Elizabeth. Toddlers, effectively toddlers running away armed with kitchen knives because somebody's coming after them, he has to run away. That was his big thing, was run away. Run away, run. I mean, man, I've told this story a bunch of times, but there'd be times we were going to the same elementary school and I'd be looking out my classroom window and my fucking cousin is running, dude. And he's climbing the fence. The chain link fence. And the fucking staff is after him. And he's now in the park outside of the fence and he's zigzagging and they're trying to grab him the other

[Top Lobster]

way that I Also trying to get away. So your whole family's just crazy people?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Wow.

[David J]

Also, he would take shits in the urinal, and that's how I would know. Like, there were times when I caught him, I'd go to the bathroom, like the bathroom in school, and I'd find my cousin just pinching a loaf in the fucking urinal. And then there's other times in the future where I would just see the loaf and I'd be like, julian was here. So. But. But he's crushing now. He has a little girl, he's got a good job.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? At some point, he got normal.

[David J]

He got out, and he's. He's kind of like, you know, got his. He just wants a life now. Right. And he had.

[Top Lobster]

Did like 10 years institutionalized too, after all that crazy stuff and can't figure it out how to like, survive in the, like, outside the instit. Like, dude, props for that.

[David J]

He liked and molested a nurse or something like that.

[Top Lobster]

But he was like, well, even. Even if you're not like, doing stuff like that, it's just. People learn the institutional life, dude. Whether it's like rehab.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Or jail or like, whatever, they just learn that life of living on the inside, if you will, like, your meals are prepared for you, your health care is available for you. It's very hard. It is very hard to have that freedom to, like, get out and not just end up doing something crazy. Crazy.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Manny, he never went in. He ended up. There's a lot of crime, a lot of really bad, you know, just immoral. Bad guy. And his. His way of dealing with it, with it is like. I know he got a. A pentagram tattooed on himself. It's like a pentagram in a flame, in a circle. It's literally a symbol that comes from the show Supernatural, and it's supposed to ward off evil, but it's from a CW show. But the point is, homeboy is inundated by. He doesn't understand.

[Top Lobster]

Well, anytime you're using something to ward off evil spirits. Yeah, it is witchcraft. Like that 100% is the definition of witchcraft.

[David J]

He's not denying that. You know, it's just one of those things where it's like, you get. Because I know he went in A similar path. Right. Conspiracy and all that other. And you don't want to look at Christianity as having the answers because it seems like, how could it. It's. It's been sitting right there the entire.

[Top Lobster]

Well, not only that, look at the people in the pews. Like, how could those people be right?

[David J]

How could they have. Have the answers? And how could they arm me against the things that I.

[Top Lobster]

The forces of darkness have an elaborate plot, dude. They got. They've got everybody, like, kept apart for all these different ways and all these different reasons, man. They find a way.

[David J]

It's. It's so. Man, you should talk with Pastor Rick. I think that would be an interesting conversation. Pastor. Pastor. Yeah, yeah. Like, have him.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, he won't go to church now, dude.

[David J]

You say Matt. Talk to him. Matt.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, that'd be cool. No, you should. No, we're talking about you right now, dude. Why is he not going to church?

[David J]

Like, I'm just saying it doesn't make any sense.

[Top Lobster]

I don't know.

[David J]

I mean, it's just reminding me. Because he won't return Pastor Rick's calls.

[Top Lobster]

He won't.

[David J]

How did you know Pastor Rick called me? Because he told me. Oh, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Everybody's trying to get you back in the game, dude. We don't like you not going to the 501.

[David J]

Next time you see him, be like, did you know David's never tithed here? I bet you he'll say he's awesome. That's why I think you should talk to him to figure it out.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, I'd love to.

[David J]

Oh, man. Imagine. I'll ask him. Well, he's no longer head. I don't know what he is.

[Top Lobster]

Doesn't matter if the interview sessions. You don't have to have a title.

[David J]

I'm saying, like, if he was going to go back and change it. Something about the church.

[Top Lobster]

Nobody's asking him to go back and check. I wouldn't talk to him about changing something in the church. No, I just want to know it's going to be what it's going to be.

[David J]

Dude, I want to know if he's a real one.

[Top Lobster]

He is a real one.

[David J]

That's how you find out. That'd be cool. Yeah, I would watch this out of that. So. So, okay, what age are we at now? It's like. So I'm doing that for a couple of years. I'm researching. Oh, I forgot about the alien thing. I'm gonna keep it brief because you've already heard it.

[Top Lobster]

No, I haven't. I just know. Know the one I had. I had to hear about the actual hour. No, no, we got tons of time. I had to hear from Albarino that you were actually abducted. You never. You still never told me the abduction story. Oh yeah, Alberino knows. Dude, I wasn't.

[David J]

I don't.

[Top Lobster]

That was embarrassing. I'm like, he's telling me how bad you guys are and he's telling me your story. I'm like, no, no, he never got abducted. He's like, oh, yeah, he has, man. All right. No, I don't think so. But you told me about like a black baby running through the woods ultimately figured out was a gray.

[David J]

Do you want me to say the black baby story?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

Okay, fine. So in that same trailer park that my buddy lived where we saw the penises on the COVID of the Little Mermaid because he had all the OG VHS is, we had a little wooded area. So basically the. There was the town. And on the outskirts of town was a trailer park. And then right out there was like the woods edge. You know, like that was it. That was the edge of town. And then.

[Top Lobster]

Sounds like a movie set.

[David J]

Yeah, it's very much like I. It kind of is. I had an excellent childhood from the ages of 7 to 15. I had. I'm so grateful for it. It was like a Goonies childhood where like every day was an adventure. I rode my bike from sun up to sundown. Like the summer actually meant something. And it was incredible. Like we were. We were just exploring the mysteries of our small town on a regular basis and, you know, making memories.

[Top Lobster]

And sometimes when you're exploring the mysteries of your small town, you run into a gray alien.

[David J]

So in this area on the outskirts of town, in the woods, kids, it was called the ramps. And we would just. It wasn't actually us who built it. Turned out it was actually my stepdad and his kids.

[Top Lobster]

I mean, his friends like bike ramps.

[David J]

Yeah. And they were still there when I was. When I was a kid. And so we, we spent a lot of time there. We'd hang out. There was all kinds of stuff. There was actually like an entire 18 wheeler.

[Top Lobster]

So it's dirt trail. It's dirt trails with ramps.

[David J]

Dirt trails with ramps.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, all kinds of stuff like that too. That was like the best.

[David J]

It was also edged up again a section of the trailer park where they just took old decommissioned trailers and just abandoned them there.

[Top Lobster]

Nice.

[David J]

So you could explore them endlessly. They were filled with all the things of the people who lived in there prior. Like none of it was emptied out. So you could just go. We'd visit those things. I'd find, like, pocket knives and all. It was the best.

[Top Lobster]

Wow.

[David J]

So we're in there one day, and

[Top Lobster]

I'm sure hat man's, like, breeding in there. Dude. No, I don't think.

[David J]

I don't know if he breathes. I don't know if he. If he gets any. They would be hanging if he has. So we would spend time by the creek. There was a creek that ran through those woods, and there was tall grass. And we would stomp down paths through that tall grass. And one day I'm in there with my buddy Shane. Shane o'. Brien. Shout out to Shane. And we were walking out of the tall grass to go meet up with our buddies who are sitting on their bikes by the ramps. And all of a sudden something starts rustling. Like, not just rustling, like hauling ass in the tall grass towards us. I grew up in a house where my mom was. We. We loved the Crocodile Hunter as a kid. All I did was watch Animal Planet. We had so many dogs at a time. We had raccoons, we had owls, we had tortoises. We had every critter you could imagine.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? As pets?

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

You had a raccoon as a pet?

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah. They actually make really good pets.

[Top Lobster]

No, I've heard that, but I just. You didn't strike me as the type.

[David J]

I thought you would be more concerned about the owl. We had owls as pets, pirates. All kinds of shit. Like, man, all kinds of.

[Top Lobster]

In your house? Yeah.

[David J]

Yeah. Well, interestingly enough, in the backyard of the railway house, we had. My mom called it the Run or something like that, but it was like giant cages. They would have been for dogs, I guess. Big, big ass.

[Top Lobster]

The raccoons lived in those.

[David J]

They lived in those.

[Top Lobster]

You'd go out there and pet them

[David J]

and pet them and feed them, and they had babies back there, and we had the ba. It was really cool. So all of that to say, like, I know animals. I know animals. I don't give a shit now. It's not something that I talk about now because I was just so exhausted from the. The smell of animals, from having animals and just like, I don't want shit. I got cats now. I'm good. But I knew I was familiar with whatever lived there. In Carteret, New Jersey, there wasn't. I mean, towards the end of me living there, we started to get white tail. That was weird. Like, we didn't have whitetail in the area. And they started to. You know, it became a real problem in the Northeast, actually. The amount of whitetail. And so there wasn't anything that was going to be causing that much ruckus of that size that was pretty much not a dog. So in my mind, in the couple,

[Top Lobster]

you're in the hot. You're in the high grass, trying to go to the homies, and something's causing a rush.

[David J]

Running towards me.

[Top Lobster]

Running towards you?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. You could see the way the grass is parting.

[Top Lobster]

And you can see you're just watching the grass kind of go like this. Getting closer, say.

[David J]

Watching is like, that's a stretch. This happens in three seconds.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

It's so fast.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

I think, dog. I grab my buddy, he grabs me. That's the kind of fear that we're in. We're like. It's so startling as kids. Kids. I'm like 11. I think we just grab each other and this dog, dog, this thing bursts out in front of us now. Now we've created a path.

[Top Lobster]

Right time of day?

[David J]

It's daylight, dog.

[Top Lobster]

I mean, we're just bright daylight.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. Middle of the day, whatever. Summer, probably summertime maybe. I don't know. Middle of the day. It's not cold out. I know that, like, it's. It's a nice. Probably spring or summer day.

[Top Lobster]

You liked it when your friend held you tight like that?

[David J]

I didn't like it, dude. We just prepared to die. Like, I thought we were gonna get mauled by it.

[Top Lobster]

It was that crazy of a situation.

[David J]

It was. It was.

[Top Lobster]

And it just happened so quick.

[David J]

The thing that it was moving towards us so definitively that it was clear

[Top Lobster]

it was coming for us to do something to you.

[David J]

Whatever this thing is, is coming for us. Whatever. So we grab each other. It bursts out into the path that we've created. And then in like one stride, it's out of the path and onto the other side of the tall grass. But what we saw when it came out far enough that I probably could have leaned and touched it was toddler sized. We're 11. This is toddler size.

[Top Lobster]

Baby Herman.

[David J]

Baby baby. Black, black baby. Black baby. Naked black baby.

[Top Lobster]

Wiener or no wiener.

[David J]

Didn't see a wiener. Moving pretty fast. No hair. Naked black baby.

[Top Lobster]

Wow.

[David J]

Black, but like, like black. Like, like gray. Like the COVID of your Bible. Black. Black like that.

[Top Lobster]

Not like a. Like what we call like a black person today, but actual black.

[David J]

Well, when you're 11, that's all you kids. You go, black baby. Oh, black baby. And you run out of.

[Top Lobster]

Out of the well. And I'm sure it's like an instinct For a human, it doesn't matter where you live on the planet or what time period that you're in tall grass and something's coming at you, like, that has to split. You're like, oh, you know, because there's people where it's like lions or bears or whatever. It was something coming for me. And it comes by. Does it make eye contact or is it just like.

[David J]

No, I remember that. It runs by. Like it didn't give a about us.

[Top Lobster]

Like, it didn't even know you were there.

[David J]

You know, knowing we were there. I don't know. Didn't care. Yeah, didn't care. Didn't interact.

[Top Lobster]

And it was just off in the tall grass on that side now.

[David J]

So we run out now because where did it go?

[Top Lobster]

Like, where did you see the gr. You're just like, let's go in that direction.

[David J]

What's your buddy's name is Shane.

[Top Lobster]

You're like, shane, let's go, let's go.

[David J]

No, we didn't say. There's no conversation. We just scream and run out of there. So this whole interaction from inception, from the moment we see it to the moment we react till it passes us by and we run. This happened within a window of five, probably less than five seconds. And we run out of there. We go. We go out screaming. We run past our friends. We run through the trailer park. We run all the way to the park that's nearby, sort of. And we collapse in the grass because we're exhausted by that time. And the story for the longest time is just like, yeah, we saw a naked black baby. It wasn't until I was like, 16 years old.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, that's at 11?

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

So you're just hanging with the homies sometime. Like, maybe you're playing baseball in the street or whatever and it. Remember that black baby. Shane never talked about it.

[David J]

He would when I would ask, but

[Top Lobster]

he never brought it up.

[David J]

Eventually he wouldn't when I would ask anymore. And that wasn't like, we were adults by that time. I would check in with him periodically. I sent him a dm. I'd say, hey, man. Yeah, I want to talk about that thing.

[Top Lobster]

He was like, no, I don't.

[David J]

He's like, I don't want to talk.

[Top Lobster]

He ended up growing up and being normal.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

So he was like, yeah, dude, I don't want to have any association with, like, when I was.

[David J]

So what I do know about Shane is like, he didn't see what it was because when we grabbed each other,

[Top Lobster]

he maybe closed his eyes, and so

[David J]

I Would ask him like what he saw. And rather than say it was a dog, it was a raccoon or whatever, he would say, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what we saw. I just know I was scared. And then years later when I'd bring it up again because I just can't let these things go, he would say, I don't want to talk about it.

[Top Lobster]

Did he ever say, I like the way you held me though?

[David J]

No, I don't think he ever said, I like the way that I held him. We held each other. It was a mutual holding. Okay, so I didn't do it. It wasn't like it was one sided.

[Top Lobster]

Top is a tough crowd today, dude. I cannot even get him to smile. I don't know what he's doing over there. No, I know, but he's just like, not even. He's really upset. He's not going on the next show.

[David J]

That could be it. I think he's just, you know, he's like, I've heard.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, so. Okay, so we got the 11 year old black baby thing. Shane doesn't ever want to talk about it again.

[David J]

Doesn't want to talk about.

[Top Lobster]

We didn't kind of close out that whole thing.

[David J]

Yeah, that's. That's okay.

[Top Lobster]

What was the abduction or potential abduction.

[David J]

Okay, so that's actually brings us right back to when I was researching and I had this notion because of course, when you're looking up sleep paralysis in the Hat man, people will say it's purely a psychological phenomenon. Your body goes into a state of paralysis so that you don't act out your dreams, which. Which you know.

[Top Lobster]

And everybody's having the same dream about happening.

[David J]

No, no, no. But they're saying like, first and foremost, you're in a state of paralysis while you dream. It's a biological function. Makes a lot of sense to me, actually. Secondly, some people suffer from a condition where they will wake up, but their body will still be in that paralysis. But since you're kind of in a pseudo sleep state, you still have the ability to hallucinate visually. And so the state of paralysis causes fear because you are unable to move. And since you're still in this pseudo sleep sleep state where you can see visual hallucinations, the fear causes the hallucinations to be menacing. So that actually really makes a lot of sense to me. And I would. I had some hang ups because Barbara told me a story one time about seeing the Hat man where she saw it and she shared a room with her sister when she was little, and the next morning, she was talking to her sister, and she goes, I saw it last night. And her sister goes, I saw it too. And now, as if that's not strange enough, they were speaking in hushed tones they didn't want their mom to hear, and. But she did end up overhearing at the breakfast table, and she's like, what are you girls talking about? When they finally tell her that they've been seeing a man with a black hat, she goes, I saw him last night, too. She's in a different room of the house. So two girls of the same age see it in the same night, and then their mother, who's in a different room at the house, also sees them that night. So when you tell me it's. It's purely a visual hallucination, that.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, initially, but now you're like, I don't know, guys.

[David J]

So I'm just in the. This mode where I'm like, maybe some of it, but not all of it.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, that's weird. It reminds me of one time, me and Scotty Boy and Lebowski were eating mushrooms at Delval, and we were looking.

[David J]

Not a real story. We were looking Scotty Boy Lebowski.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, Scotty Boy and Lebowski. The three of us. And my dog Mickey, when she was a puppy, got sprayed by a skunk. Like, we just took mushrooms and, like, right when they kicked in, a skunk sprayed my dog. We had to chase her all. It was crazy. But anyway, we're at the top of this mountain, looking down on the lake at Delval. Anybody from Livermore will know what I'm talking about.

[David J]

Shout out to Livermore.

[Top Lobster]

We all three watched the same scene from Baywatch. Like. Like, it was like Baywatch. You guys don't remember Baywatch? Okay, yeah, there was super. It was like this whole. Yeah, there's a lot of that. We watched this whole chase scene down on the lake. Like, it's. It's probably midnight or one in the morning. We're just tripping, like, on the top of this mountain, looking down on the lake.

[David J]

Who's chasing who?

[Top Lobster]

It was just this whole boat chase scene. I don't know. I called it. Well, the three of us all saw it, like, because at some point, we're all watching this chase scene in the boat and this whole thing going down on the beach and everything.

[David J]

So do you think actually happened?

[Top Lobster]

I don't know. It's just. That's what I'm thinking of. When you're telling the story. I'm like, what? What is it?

[David J]

I heard that because I'm like.

[Top Lobster]

Because we're all watching it, and at some point, like, all three of us, like, look at each other, like, yo, are you. Are you. Are you watching this? Are you seeing this? And, you know, I think I was like, what? Watch him. What? They're like, this whole boat chasing down. I'm like, yeah, you guys see it too? Like, what? Like, we're all seeing this.

[David J]

You guys could have bore witness to something at night that was actually much more. When I was younger, me and my wife. My wife, we were on Adderall and unisoms. So one is keeping you awake and one is forcing you to sleep. Yes.

[Top Lobster]

Used to get mad at me for doing them. Doing the highs and lows.

[David J]

Okay, so. So did you ever have those moments where I would be able to take my phone and streak it across the night sky and it would leave a visual tracers? Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

I only had those from, like, acid or mushrooms or ecstasy.

[David J]

So I would be able to num. After I did it, the light would stay in the sky from Adderall in another and unison. So unisoms, I think it was unisoms,

[Top Lobster]

which one of both pharmaceuticals.

[David J]

One is to put you to sleep, the other one's keeping you up.

[Top Lobster]

That's wild.

[David J]

So you're in this, like, REM state, walking and. And dreaming, sort of. And. But I was able to see it three dimensionally. I could put my head underneath the streak of light, and also my wife could, too.

[Top Lobster]

What?

[David J]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

I don't remember being like. I mean, I would get streakers. Like, I was on acid and drank Jagermeister the first time I drank Jagermeister.

[David J]

You know, Jagermeister is. Is actually supposed to, like, be super good for you.

[Top Lobster]

I don't know.

[David J]

Not alcohol. It was a medicine.

[Top Lobster]

All I know is I thought. Yeah, I thought it was cough syrup. Like, I was on acid. I drank it and, like, who's. Who are we drinking cough syrup? Like, what's going on right now?

[David J]

It tastes like ass.

[Top Lobster]

And then, like, when I gave it back to somebody and my hand came back, I had tracers, and they went like that, and it was straight. Like. I just remember that was the very first time I ever saw tracers. But then it was a pretty common occurrence with hallucinogens, but I've just never heard of it with, like, pharmaceuticals.

[David J]

Dude. Yeah. Adderall and Unisoms don't do it. So. So you know, a lot of what I'm reading as far as, like, the biological function of sleep paralysis is making a lot of sense, but there's still things that like, like this is data that I can't let go of, you know, in the sense that she saw it and her sister saw it and her mom saw it. I can't just chalk that up to

[Top Lobster]

visual hallucinations having the same hallucination at the same time.

[David J]

But what I do think is reasonable is to say, well, if any aspect of this is a psychological slash biological phenomenon, then by nature of looking into it as aggressively as I am, which is to say like, like till 5 o' clock in the morning. By this point I'm pretty much, I'm kicked out of my house and I'm sneaking in the bedroom of my girlfriend through the window.

[Top Lobster]

You're kicked out of your house with the mom's boyfriend?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, I get kicked out shortly after that, so. So they separate. I don't see Barbara basically ever again.

[Top Lobster]

No way.

[David J]

Then we just move in with some new dude again and, and then they kick me out.

[Top Lobster]

Like at what age?

[David J]

Age I was kicked out the tailwind of 16. So we leave Barbara.

[Top Lobster]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you leave the, you leave the mom's boyfriend that you were living with, Barbara, about 50, go to the other house with mom and new boyfriend and get kicked out of that house?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so we leave there about 15. We live in the hood. During that time I get KO'd with a baseball bat and I think it really changed a lot about me.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? One on one fight or like.

[David J]

No, no, I got jumped by like, like, I don't know, it was, could have been like 10 dudes, they cracked my head with a bat. They beat the out of me.

[Top Lobster]

You were just walking through the hood or did you start like saying something or.

[David J]

No, you don't say. You just walk through the hood. I had to go through them because they were on the avenue. That led to where I lived in the hood because we moved from one area to the really bad area of town because my mom couldn't afford, you know, to live in a house on her own, so she had to get a shitty apartment in the hood. And, and at that time, 15 years old, right? Like I remember that night, I was hanging out with some girl and it was later then I usually would have gotten home because I was trying to put the moves on her. And before you knew it, it was like, you know, 10, 10:30 at night. And I'm like, all right, I got to start getting my mom, like the leash was off. You know, when this happened, when we moved my life, there's no more rules. There was no more rules. That's it. It was just like chaos. And so.

[Top Lobster]

So you start walking through the hood

[David J]

and basically there's like a bunch of dudes and they're all like slap boxing and chopping it up on the corner. And. And you know, they see me as soon as I see them. Now I have a decision to make. If I turn and they're like, oh, they're gonna give chase. Yeah, I know it. I just know enough about it. I've lived there long enough. I go, okay, they're gonna chase me. So the only that I could do is like, I gotta move right through them. So I moved right through them. I just kept walking. And they were on the same sidewalk that I was, so I walked right through them. And like, I feel like I almost made it out. They kind of like didn't give a about me. Then all of a sudden I heard like, yo,

[Top Lobster]

you don't say, like, hey, what's up, guys? You don't say anything.

[David J]

You're 10:30 at night and it's 10 black dudes. You don't say really anything. Yeah, you know, so they go, what are you a. And they weren't talking to me. They were talking to the kid with the bat. I think he's a kid because I think they were actually a little bit younger than me. You know, I don't know how, but either way, he wasn't. So he swung and I could almost like. I remember the sound of the bat.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, you didn't see the swing of

[David J]

the bat came to the back of my head? No. So they clapped me in the back of the head and I woke up, I was. I had a bunch of cuts and bruises and everything all over me. And I was leaking from my arms and shit. I think it was mostly from just hitting the ground like a tree, like. And. And I couldn't see out of my left eye. And I was in and out of consciousness and I. And I managed to somehow get my way home, which was like, this is a little twisty and turny. I wasn't fucking exactly close to home. It was still like a good 10 minute walk. And I keep having these, like, these moments where every time I come to consciousness, I'm closer to home than I was before. So somehow I'm on like, autopilot.

[Top Lobster]

It's just straight concussion stuff.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, I get home and I just fucking throw up everywhere. And. And my mom puts Me in a tub of cold water, tells me not to go to sleep.

[Top Lobster]

Concussion protocol.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah. We don't go to the hospital because they're just gonna make you pay a lot of money to tell you not to go to sleep, right?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

We call the cops. The cops can't do anything about it because it's like, who am I even?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

I don't know. But after that, I become, like, a very wild person. And that is, like, wild how? Like, reckless. Yeah, reckless and much louder than I ever was. I used to be a pretty reserved kid.

[Top Lobster]

So something happened. You're like, you know what? I'm not gonna go through this. Silent man, like the Cypress Hill song. I ain't going out like that. I came on your head, and you were like, you know what? Yeah, I'm not sort of.

[David J]

Kind of. I mean, I just became this really loud person. Like, I wasn't always like that. I used to be, like, pretty reserved, pretty. In my friend group. That was one thing. But, like, you know, what did you think?

[Top Lobster]

Guys like that are just gonna get beat up with bats in the hood? Like, I'm gonna have a voice now, you know?

[David J]

So after that, I move, right? And I move in with this new guy. I do go to school for about a year and a half before I'm kicked out. And I'm, like, standing on teachers desks. I'm kicking their papers off their desks. All kinds of crazy.

[Top Lobster]

You're just wiling out.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of, like, lost my. A little bit. And. And it was. It wasn't ever, like, mean. It was like I just became this character. But whatever. So I move out after that, and. And, you know, after I get kicked out. So I get kicked out, like, the tail end of 16, something like that. So I don't know. You know, the whole thing is a little bit blurry. Maybe. I move into this place at, like, 15. 15 and a half. A half. By the end of, like, 16, I'm kicked out already. I obviously didn't keep going to school, and I'm pretty much homeless, and. And I'm staying over my girlfriends a lot. There's, like, some. I'm messing up the timeline a little bit. Like, there's some molding or melding together of, like, a year of my life that.

[Top Lobster]

But it's the last couple years of high school.

[David J]

Well, I mean, I was kicked out. Out, you know, so I never did that. I got kicked out sophomore year.

[Top Lobster]

So did you have a job when you were kicked out, or did you Just like you were just like roaming the streets?

[David J]

No, I mean, I. I ended up moving into some dude's house. He let me stay there. He was a heroin addict. He ended up going to jail shortly after he let me stay there. So I have like a whole house and. But then, of course, we don't pay the bill. So all the lights go out and it's the crazy and it becomes abandoned and they get like these notices on the door of like, evacu or not eviction and yada yada, but we don't evict.

[Top Lobster]

So that's when you moved to Florida?

[David J]

No, no, no. Okay. So. But during this time, I'm electing to stay at my girlfriend's a lot. And I am looking this up till like 5 o' clock in the morning every night for a long time. Like, I. I never had access to a computer like that. So I'm just going nuts doing all the research. And I remember saying to myself, like, if this is a psychological phenomenon, all this stuff that I'm looking up, then it stands to reason that by. By nature of looking at it, it might happen to you. Like if you watch a movie and then you have a dream about a movie. Right. So I'm prepared for that. And I don't think that it's.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, I could see what you're saying. It's like as you read the Bible and you see these supernatural stories, you're saying, yeah, one of these stories could happen to me now.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is like such obsession. And I think I'm also doing it because I'm outsourcing my own pain and suffering of, like, my life being chaotic and fucking, you know, not having. I don't have anybody in my life anymore who, who was there since the beginning. Like, it's all. Sure, that's all gone. So rather than face that reality, I'm like, I'm outsourcing everything. I'm looking into this. This is my. My great, you know, mountain to climb.

[Top Lobster]

Because one day you're gonna have a podcast called Nephilim Death Squad and you're gonna be big doing this.

[David J]

Well, no more. So I don't want to. How could I do the insurmountable task of fixing my life?

[Top Lobster]

Right.

[David J]

I'm gonna focus on this instead. So it does happen. One night I'm laying in bed next to my girlfriend, and I suddenly wake up and I'm paralyzed. And I had had sleep paralysis once before. And mostly what I was comfortable with at this point in my research was that it was purely a Biological function paralysis. So you don't act out your dream dreams. So when I wake up, my brain works really well, just as well as waking life. And I go, oh, shit.

[Top Lobster]

But you can't move.

[David J]

I can't move. And I go, it's happening. But my follow up thought is like,

[Top Lobster]

all right, let's have a good time here.

[David J]

Let's relax. Yeah, let's see what's going on. And I'm trying to wiggle my fingers and toes. I'm trying to get out of it. I'm looking around the room. Everything's normal. I can see my girlfriend. This is the room. I am awake. I just can't fucking move. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden I see the shadow of a man. Not a shadow, man.

[Top Lobster]

The shadow of a man.

[David J]

As if there's a light over here and a man over here. And he's walking, which doesn't make sense. There's a wall. I'm up against a wall. There's no fucking buddy over here, there.

[Top Lobster]

But there's this shadow that's cast on the other wall.

[David J]

And he's walking across the room.

[Top Lobster]

He's got a hat.

[David J]

I don't remember. And I go, oh, shit. And that's about the last thought that I have before I get this full body sensation. Like. Like farting. Nope, that wasn't a fart. All right. I could see how it was like, it was like I was being tased, except my whole body was getting tased and it caused me to. Like, I was already in paralysis. But I. Like everything is tense. Like everything is getting electrocuted.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, but that's like a seizure, bro. Like, that's what you ever see. Have you ever seen somebody have a scene and they lock and they're so. Like. You can't move their arm, dude. Their arm feels like it's just the strongest arm in the universe.

[David J]

But it was my whole body. And that. The stress of that and the. And the sudden involuntary wave of. Of fear. But it was so much more than fear. It was like doom. Doom?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

You never feel this outside in waking life? I've never felt that. Doom rushes over me. My whole body is. Is like excruciatingly tense, exhaustingly tense. And I black out and I come to and I'm on the other side of the bed head. And my girlfriend's feet are by my head now I can see her feet. I can see the room. And I'm my. Once again, all faculties are good. I'm going, what the was that? What the is Going on because you

[Top Lobster]

went from just seizing up, getting tased, and now all of a sudden you wake up and you're in a different position.

[David J]

Different position, same bed, same room. Everything is.

[Top Lobster]

She's been asleep the whole time.

[David J]

She's asleep the whole time. I'm now looking at. Because of my perspective. I can see the closet that would have been behind us. And that closet is just like one of those big closets where it's an opening. You might have, like, double doors that lead, like collapsible. Collapsible accordion double doors. But there's no double doors. It's a sheet.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

A sheet on a string.

[Top Lobster]

It's the hood.

[David J]

Yeah, right. That covers the closet. And as I'm thinking, like, what's going on? All of a sudden this unbelievably bright white light is pouring out of the closet, which doesn't make any sense because there's no light in there. There's no switch. There's nothing. There's just. And it's not even a closet that you can get into. If you put your arm in, you could touch the back wall. It's only deep enough for clothes. And. And then it's happening again. I'm getting buzzed the fuck up and electrocuted. And I'm looking at this light and everything's like. And then I black out again. And I wake up in the morning and it's like it never happened.

[Top Lobster]

You just. The next time that you're come to, it's the morning.

[David J]

Yeah. And I didn't. You know, you don't have. When that happens, you go, okay, so

[Top Lobster]

that may or may not be an abduction.

[David J]

I don't know. I don't think it was an abduction. I think. I don't think you always have to be abducted. I don't think you're always getting removed. I think sometimes you're getting.

[Top Lobster]

They can do something to you. Like, hell knows. Yeah.

[David J]

Who knows? I wouldn't say I was abducted. That's why when Albarino Alberino must have heard me tell that story and said that I was abducted, like, I never said that I was abducted. I never. I never. To be perfectly honest, I never felt like I was removed from that place. I guess you could say that. That, you know. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Well, they say you get taken, you get brought back, they erase the memory. So you don't. Sure.

[David J]

But like, that's not the feeling that I get. I don't know. And I think that counts for a lot when you have a supernatural experience. The way that you feel about A thing.

[Top Lobster]

Your interpretation of it is.

[David J]

I was not left with the impression

[Top Lobster]

that I was feeling. You kind of go with the gut feeling, discernment, maybe.

[David J]

I don't know what you would call it, but I just never felt like I was taken.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

That wasn't something that really even crossed my mind, like, the next morning. Morning. You know, it's only after the data chunking and seeing the patterns that I can see how you might come to the conclusion I was taken.

[Top Lobster]

So at that point, you're like, I gotta get the F out of Elizabeth, New Jersey. I wasn't even in Elizabeth.

[David J]

I wasn't even in Elizabeth. By this time, I'm far from Elizabeth. I'm In Edison, New Jersey. It's very far. It's like maybe 45 minutes an hour.

[Top Lobster]

But that's the point where you go, I'm moving to Florida.

[David J]

No, I. I then spend many years being homeless and eating dumpster donuts and,

[Top Lobster]

like, from 16, 17 to, like, young. Young ad working or not working.

[David J]

There were times where, like, I was working and then, you know, you were

[Top Lobster]

just kind of mooching off this chick at her house or.

[David J]

In a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, I was a burden on that girl. I, you know, put her family relationship in jeopardy. Like, I was not those people, was not a blessing to them. It was a piece of, like, I never did anything.

[Top Lobster]

But at that age, you don't even think about how do I be a blessing to somebody else or better somebody else's life? You're just thinking server survival.

[David J]

I was like, I was never rude, and I was always like. And, you know. But just the existence of a young man.

[Top Lobster]

Sure.

[David J]

Sneaking in and out of your house.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

You're trying to.

[Top Lobster]

Trauma for the household. Yeah.

[David J]

What would you say, you know, sort of counsel your daughter against dating this homeless and.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

Then that creates tension in there. And it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love him. He's got so much to offer. He's not what you do a great job of sometimes securing the bagel bag from the donut dumpster. You know, it was. It was not good, man. Embarrassing those people were. Were. They suffered greatly because of me.

[Top Lobster]

Okay, so that's not the. What time period is the welding job? Because I know you had a welding job with the uncle. So do you just do, like, Loserville for a couple years?

[David J]

I do Loserville till about 20. I get my shit together enough that me and this girl can have an apartment.

[Top Lobster]

You guys get an apartment together?

[David J]

Yeah, we have an apartment successfully for Like a year and a half only. So I guess by 20, 21 years old, I had an apartment. And I made this foolish decision that I needed to get an apartment that had enough room to take like, some of the homeless, like my homeless cousin with me. My cousin was homeless at the same time, and I took him with me and, and his girlfriend, and they stopped paying rent almost instantly. So we lost that place. So that falls apart. And then about the next year, I get, you know, a job that's steady enough that I can get enough money and we can take another crack at it. This time I get an apartment with just my girlfriend. So from like 21 to 22, maybe a little bit after that, we have an apartment. And I am. I'm a merchandiser, which is a guy who stocks the shelves, rearranges the shelves in a supermarket, you know.

[Top Lobster]

That's kind of cool.

[David J]

Yeah. And I was. I was good enough at it, and I got raised to like, a management position pretty quickly.

[Top Lobster]

And so you're capable of keeping things like, clean and organized.

[David J]

Yeah. And I don't know. And in that apartment, she ends up cheating on me and our relationship falls apart and we go our separate ways. And all of a sudden I find myself back at my mom moms with that dude, like the new, I guess who is my stepdad because they get married. They let me stay there for a little bit. So I stay there for maybe four or five months, something like that. And in that four or five months, my wife comes into my life and I become hyper obsessed. And I go through this like, rapid.

[Top Lobster]

You knew her before?

[David J]

Knew her before? Met her in high school. We really hit it off. But I was dating somebody, she was dating somebody. So it never went past anything, like, crazy.

[Top Lobster]

As soon as she found out were single, she broke up with the other guy.

[David J]

She had been separated from that guy for a little bit, and she found out that I was single. And she hit me up one day. I get a message from like, her friend because I think I had her blocked. I had her blocked because she was like, serious temptation. And I was like, not trying to fuck up and be a bad person. But she reaches out to me through a friend and says, hey, do you want to come out? She immediately takes me out to like a bar. I had never been to a bar. And. And I'm just trying to act cool, you know, But I was, I. I took her up on it immediately I went out and. And I became so obsessed. And I went through this, like, rapid transformation because when you get into a Relationship. When you're in high school, sometimes you kind of remain the same person.

[Top Lobster]

It's almost like everything kind of fell into place. Then you found the right job. You're doing the stocking in the grocery store. No, no, no.

[David J]

By this time, I had switched the grocery store stocking, and I was a furniture salesman at Ashley's Furniture, and I

[Top Lobster]

was actually crushing, but, yeah, I could see that. But a real job. So you upscaled a little bit from the grocery store.

[David J]

Yes.

[Top Lobster]

Selling furniture. Now you're ready for a real relationship. Yeah, everything's kind of falling into place.

[David J]

So I. I saved up money real quick, and. And we ended up moving out. You know, she. She hung out with me at my mom's house a couple times. I was like, I can't do this. Not doing hanging out with this chick at my mom's house. So saved up money, we got an apartment together. Like, everything, like, moved because we knew each other really well.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

Like, she was.

[Top Lobster]

It's like, you tell young people, like, when you know, when you know, you know.

[David J]

Yeah. Things move so fast. Before you know it, we were. We had a kid on the way and all this other stuff and. And that, like, so that's 10 years ago. It's 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

You know, 10 years and nine months.

[David J]

Thirteen, really, because I. We met when we got together when I was 23. By the time I was 24 and a half, maybe 25, like, we were already in this apartment and expecting, you know, and married and all this shit. Like, it was just.

[Top Lobster]

Whoa, Wait, so where was the wedding at?

[David J]

Wedding? It was in my living room. Room. We had. We got married by. We had somebody who officiated, I think is a terminology in our. In our living room.

[Top Lobster]

And who's there?

[David J]

Nobody for me. Just. Just her family. Just her family?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. No way, dude.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah. And. And then, you know, however many.

[Top Lobster]

So she just loves you. This is a chick that just loves you. She's just like, yeah, he's crazy. He. Nobody even from his family's even here for our wedding in our living room. But, like, I just love this dude.

[David J]

I, I. So I start podcasting maybe, like, two years after that. Something like that. And because I think in total, it's been nine years now, and she, like, never ever. She always, like. She used to say shit to me so good. She's like, yeah, you're gonna make it. She knew we were fucking bums, dude.

[Top Lobster]

No, I know. I'm hearing the story.

[David J]

No fucking money whatsoever. I'm selling game systems and belong to try to make ends meet. Like, struggling. Struggle.

[Top Lobster]

You're crushing as a furniture salesman, I guarantee.

[David J]

No, no, no, no. I lose that job.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, you piss somebody off because you're good at the job.

[David J]

It wasn't that I pissed somebody off. It was that I was so obsessed with her. Like, it was, like, all I could think about. I didn't want to do shit. Like, I didn't want to go to work. I wanted to be with her. I was like, that's all I wanted to do.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, before we go too far, what's the story where you saw somebody get punched? Punched your mom? Somebody, a male? You watched a man punch a woman and, like, she hit the ground? Yeah.

[David J]

That was brutal.

[Top Lobster]

So what was that? When. When was that?

[David J]

Hard to say. How old? I was maybe nine.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, it was that. It was that far back?

[David J]

Yeah. So who was it, you know, annual visits with? Dad. Every time I went over there. He lived in Elizabeth. He lived in the slums of Elizabeth and would always go wrong. It was always bad. I mean, I watched my dad fight people. I watched him go to jail. I watched everybody el. Fight people. I watch just all the worst shit all the time, every time I went over there. So my mom was, like, in no hurry to send me over there, but she also never dissuaded me. So if I wanted to see my father, she would try to make it happen. Eventually, I stopped asking because it was, like, trauma every single time I went. But this was probably one of the last times for a really long time, because he went away for, like, I think maybe a few years for this. I think he. They even sent him to Texas because he was technically still a citizen of Texas. Texas. And so they sent him to Texas.

[Top Lobster]

Was a Texan.

[David J]

Yeah, He. They came from South America, landed in Texas, and then came to, like, New Jersey.

[Top Lobster]

What South American nation?

[David J]

Uruguay.

[Top Lobster]

So your dad's from Uruguay?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Like, from Uruguay and live in Texas?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. So what ends up happening is he. He gets together with a lady after he separates with my mom. They have three kids, and she fucking hates me. So on the very rare occasion, she's

[Top Lobster]

a Spanish chick, too.

[David J]

She's. She's a bitch, a monster. And I've, you know, prayed for her and all that shit, because the fruits of her behavior have led her to a life where she's, like. She's on, like, hospital, not hospice. I don't know what she's in. Like, her kids are separated from her. She's in some sort of, like, an institutionalized medical Facility where she's lost her marbles and she's crippled.

[Top Lobster]

She just can't get away from the crazy.

[David J]

It's like, oh, 100%. I like, I've. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that day in particular, she's really mad because my dad takes me to Foreman Mills. Foreman Mills was like, you go there to get. Get off brand dirt cheap clothing.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

So. And he buys me a. A pair of red high top, red and white avxes. Averx is like a b. A brand that nobody. But I saw them, I thought they were the coolest in the world. They were all shiny and red and. And so he buys them for me. Could have been more than like $20. And when we get back, they start

[Top Lobster]

arguing because he spent money on 20 bucks on shoes.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

And you know Jess, when she bought

[David J]

me these shoes today, she speaks Spanish. So like, she was always.

[Top Lobster]

So was a Spanish chick.

[David J]

Yeah, she. She was Portuguese. So she was always talking about.

[Top Lobster]

She was speaking Portuguese.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Which is like similar.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

They say like poco instead of paquito. It's like very similar.

[David J]

I don't know any of the words. So she is arguing with him, which happens every time. It's like when you're a kid, you don't know what they're saying, but you can tell it's not. Not good. So every single time I'm there with them, she's arguing with him.

[Top Lobster]

Pronounced them.

[David J]

Them. She's arguing with him about me.

[Top Lobster]

Right.

[David J]

But I don't know what they're saying

[Top Lobster]

because it's in Spanish, but I can pick up on. That's freaking awesome.

[David J]

So they're. They're going back and forth and basically she's so mad, she decides to take the money out of his wallet.

[Top Lobster]

And I don't like it.

[David J]

Burn it on the stove, which is no fucking retarded.

[Top Lobster]

Took the money, turned the stove on and like in Spanish was like f

[David J]

you set it on fire. And my dad just so defeated. Just so defeated.

[Top Lobster]

And like, I'm tired of arguing with you.

[David J]

He just shuts down and he takes me, he puts me on his shoulders. It's nighttime, it's raining, and. And he just starts walking with me. And we're walking through the streets of Elizabeth. We're walking pretty far. I had some family, I guess, that lived. I don't know if you'd even call it walking distance. A lot of the time when I spent with my dad was spent walking through the hood because he didn't have a car, which is why he never came to See me, I usually have to get dropped off or he'd be illegally driving to come and get me. And we've gotten into police chases and shit. And it's this hatchback Honda Civic. So crazy. So anyway, these people are all on drugs. I think my dad was a big fan of cocaine. So she gets in the car, like she has a car, she has a license. And she gets in the car and starts following us. It's night time. It's like late enough that there's not like a whole lot of congestion around the streets. And she's just following us around, honking, honking, honking. She's yelling out the window. He's just walking with me on his shoulders. I don't know what's going on. He's not talking. She's just following us for what feels like the entire night. And then eventually she managed to like tap him with the button bumper, hit

[Top Lobster]

him with the car.

[David J]

And he's got me on his shoulders, so he almost falls, everything gets all crazy. And he takes me and he puts me down. And I don't know how he managed to contact my relatives, but I think they were kind of trying to meet us at the halfway point. And so he puts me down and I'm sitting on the curb and it's raining and he's arguing with this lady. She gets out of the car, they're going back and forth, one thing, Spanish, yeah. And she starts slow, slapping him over and over again. Bam, bam. Slapping him in the face, slapping in the face. And you know, I don't know how many slaps it took, but eventually he just cocks back and open hands her and kos her and she falls like a fucking tree and her head bounces off the curb. And then he just sits down next to her body. And I'm sitting there, he's sitting there and there's this fucking, what it appears to be a dead bitch, like fucking 10ft from me just sleeping on the curb.

[Top Lobster]

And so he just kneels, he just sits down next to her. He's like, well, well, the cops are coming.

[David J]

Yeah, cuz we drawn so much attention by this point. You know, the car is in the road with the weight.

[Top Lobster]

Oh, geez, man, this is a lot, dude, because I hate to say that it's like honorable, but you're looking at your dad saying, damn, dude, the dad's actually like an honorable dude. Like he tried to get out of

[David J]

this, he tried to get out.

[Top Lobster]

He tried to love his kid, he tried to get away, he tried to diffuse the Situation. This chick's bumping him with the car.

[David J]

When he finally.

[Top Lobster]

Open hand slapping. And then he ultimately does a thing that he obviously regrets and hates or whatever, but. What, Dave, what the was that? Regrets and hates. But, like, he tried as long as he could to just not be a part of that, and then, boom. Next thing you know, he just is like, bang. Yeah, do the thing.

[David J]

I don't know what.

[Top Lobster]

When you talk about, just does that. Oh, what is happening?

[David J]

That's such a weird time for that to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So he sits there. Eventually, my cousin, who's much older than me, shows up.

[Top Lobster]

Just stories. Story just sucks, dude. It's like a guy who's just trying to get away from the chick, and then he does the wrong way in the end.

[David J]

Yeah, he goes away for that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

And the whole time he's just trying to get away.

[David J]

He's kind of a dude. I think he's got, like, a history of domestic violence. Like, him and my dad. Him and my mom used to fight, but my mom was like, it's interesting because my dad is a dude who does a lot of violence and really loves fighting. It sounds so weird to say, but, like, that was his, you know, like, he's from South America. He grew up in the. You know, like, loving the 80s. Kind of, like, love those action heroes kind of do. Like, he was a macho man in that way. So I watched him fight a lot.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, but it sounds like that scenario. He wasn't trying to be a fighter. He was doing everything he could to just get away, man. Like, chick just.

[David J]

But I'm saying, like, his love for violence wasn't something that he had a handle on. So he had some, like, domestic.

[Top Lobster]

Knew that was gonna happen. She kept slapping him and. Yeah, Yeah.

[David J]

I think he's got it under wraps now.

[Top Lobster]

I always take that. If Jess is watching this, she'll be like, you always take the guy's side. But I'm just like, I just hate these stories, like this, dude.

[David J]

What was she wearing? She was naked, actually. No, no. You know what's crazy is I saw her years later, and she, by that time, had spiraled into madness and was wheelchair bound and morbidly obese and fucking just, you know, so crazy.

[Top Lobster]

You just have, like, this magnet to crazy people, dude.

[David J]

Well, when I was living in that apartment that my girlfriend cheated on me in, one day, my neighbor came knocking on the door, and she goes, I think I smell smoke. Can you come to my apartment? And I go, oh, yeah, dude, absolutely. And I come in There. And she shuts the door behind me. And the first thing she does is walk over to the couch, climb on it and start looking out the windows, like, looking like. And she starts muttering some about like they're touching my mailbox again. And I'm like, I never knew that this lady was crazy. Immediately I'm like, oh, schizophrenia. Like, I know what this is, right?

[Top Lobster]

Oh, yeah.

[David J]

And I go, hey, so they're all drawn to you. What do you say?

[Top Lobster]

I go, I smell about those people about to.

[David J]

No, about the smoke. About the smoke, right? And she's just like, she's doing such muttering crazy that eventually I go, this is going too far. And I'm thinking, like, am I gonna have to boot her in the chat chest? Like, if she tries to stab me or something. And I manage to like slip out the front door and I go into my apartment and I lock the door. But like, yeah, I attract crazy people for sure. My. My whole life I've been that.

[Top Lobster]

So, okay, so there's justification when you really are upset with me for introducing you to people because, like, I'm. I've never introduced you to a crazy person. For the most part, I'm pretty sure that lady, okay, maybe a handful, but for the most part it's pretty normal people. But you have like such trauma from people. I don't even like, oh, they might be a schizo.

[David J]

No, I don't think I have a keen eye for when somebody is. One time I was hanging out with my wife and her friend and her boyfriend. And I really liked that guy. He was a good dude, but he had a history of schizophrenia. I didn't know it at the time, but we were sitting at a round table and we were drinking. And by this time we were already 26, 27 years old. And, you know, everything's fun. We're laughing, we're drinking, might be playing the card game. And this. I fucking just see this guy like switching. Something's changed about. I could feel that something's changed about him. And the girls haven't picked up on it at all. And he's like stone faced all of a sudden, it's so out of place for what's going on. And, and then I can see him muttering stuff to himself.

[Top Lobster]

And you're like, bro, you good?

[David J]

No, no. So. So what happens is I start. They're like ragging on him because they're

[Top Lobster]

like, not a good idea guys.

[David J]

I can see it. He's getting angry, he's muttering shit under his breath. And. And they don't understand what's going on. And I'm fucking kicking my wife under the table, and she goes, why are you kicking me? And I'm like, for f, dude. Oh, my God. And. And I. I'm trying to explain. I'm like, like, motioning over to him, and I'm thinking, like, I'm gonna have to choke this guy to sleep. So I live in a different reality, right? I've seen these people so much, I know what they're capable of. I've grown up around violence so much, I know what it gets. And I'm thinking preemptively, right? Like, the. The. The main way to stop this situation. So long story short, stop it before it starts. Words just choke him to sleep. Nothing. Nothing personal, dude. Nothing painful. You got to go to sleep, and we got to pack up and leave. And. But it doesn't end up coming to that. My. My wife eventually picks up on what's happening. His girlfriend doesn't, so she just keeps on dunking on him. And I. We're staying over there for the night. So I start making some noises that kind of insinuate, hey, we should wrap up. I'm getting tired. Like, let's. Let's get ready for bed. And we end up doing that. That. And they go to the room. Years later, we would find out that they. They banged that night. And her takeaway from it was, like, it was a different person. It was actually really scary what happened to her. Like, the. The whole vibe of it and everything. But, like, that's where my head was going, was like, if this guy.

[Top Lobster]

Which that's just your thing now, is just. You're so used to seeing craziness that you can spot it from a mile away. You know when people are, like, going from one person to another person or one realm to another realm, if you will.

[David J]

I don't discernment as to a person's, like, motives. I tend to attribute a lot of positivity to people, and then it oftentimes

[Top Lobster]

only one who's good at the motive thing.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Usually I don't like to assume motive either.

[David J]

I don't even like to. I've. I've learned a lesson with Top where,

[Top Lobster]

like, you know, he knows the motive of another person.

[David J]

The way we met, he was doing that. So I never, like, whatever you're gonna do, homie, you're gonna go at somebody for what you think you see. Like, that's how I met him. So. So, you know, yeah, nothing's changed there. But in those beginning times, I Would be like, damn. Like, he's awfully mean to this person. And I don't know that I see this thing that. That he sees right now. It's like, I go, yeah, you probably give it enough time. And I'll see it. Top will see it first. I'll see it, like, down the line after they do the thing.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. Cut the guy some slack. No, no. You don't have to know.

[David J]

And then he has a way to see it. But what I have is, like, when you are crazy, crazy. I know it. I can see it. There's something behind your eye. I used to. You know, I have friends that would drink and become different people.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, I hated that same.

[David J]

I hated that. I don't want to be around that. Because you're not even.

[Top Lobster]

You like angry drunks. That's always a weird thing to me. Dude, is the angry drunk.

[David J]

I'm a sleepy, hungry drunk. So if I drink a lot, I'm gonna eat the food, I'm gonna go to sleep, and that's it.

[Top Lobster]

That's pretty safe.

[David J]

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I had that throughout my life. That might explain seeing the craziness. Might explain it. Like, even when I was on hard,

[Top Lobster]

you're like, yeah, yeah. If I'm gonna do this, I don't want to really be involved in anything.

[David J]

I don't lose control.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

So a lot of drugs, you know, they cause you to, like, relinquish control. You become something different.

[Top Lobster]

Like, never.

[David J]

That was never me. That was never me. Like, I. I was on 5 grams of mushrooms one time. My buddy's mom couldn't even tell because I don't like losing control at all. But I'll see other people who do that. They'll drink and they'll become somebody else. I don't like that, man.

[Top Lobster]

I don't like that. Okay, so. So now you're with the wife life, you're rolling along. How do we get to where you moved to Florida.

[David J]

So, I mean, you know, I. I become a welder for a while.

[Top Lobster]

I was blessed, New Jersey, with the uncle.

[David J]

Blessed to have a great uncle in my life. Literally great uncle who took a liking to me and. And taught me how to be successful in a field that I wanted nothing to do with, but I had to because I wasn't able to make ends meet with my family. So he gave me that ability, and I ran with that, and I developed the skills to set, and I was a welder for the better part of the next decade. You know, so if this. I became a welder at like 23, 24. And then so you ended up being

[Top Lobster]

kind of a somewhat normal person then you kind of pulled it off.

[David J]

Yeah, yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Wait, because your son's born and then that's when you start the welding or.

[David J]

Yeah, pretty much my son's born shortly after that.

[Top Lobster]

You're like, yo, I need to switch from like dumpster eating to like full on taking care of the family.

[David J]

Actually big shout out to Joe Rogan because was he, he made me obsessed for a period of time with like self discipline, health and nutrition, martial arts. And those things really helped me to like learning martial arts. Helped me to learn to weld discipline.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, sure.

[David J]

Well, it wasn't even just that. It was like, well, if you want to be a good boxer, what do you do? You just, you practice the fundamentals a million times and then even when you think you've got them down, you practice them a million more times.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

So you identify what the fundamentals are. Okay. You have a good stance, you have a good guard, you have a good jab, you have a good cross. You practice your head movement, you practice your, your footwork. That's it. And you practice them over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. So with welding, so you can just

[Top Lobster]

do it in your sleep. So it's just muscle memory with. Well, they're nervous in a big boxing match, the crowd's going crazy. You already got like this full on, just.

[David J]

Exactly.

[Top Lobster]

Muscle memory.

[David J]

So. So with welding, it's the same thing. I, I just, they taught me what the fundamental welds were. And then on my lunch break before work, so I would come in 45 minutes early and then through my lunch break, which is an hour or whatever it was. So an hour and 45 minutes every day I'm just burning the same welds over and over and over and over. Yeah, yeah. Over and over and over and over and over.

[Top Lobster]

You loved welding?

[David J]

I, I grew to love welding.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz sometimes kids think they, oh, I gotta have my dream job. It's like, no, no, no. Get a job and become passionate about it. That's cool too, man. That you love to get better at something and do good at something.

[David J]

There are more ideal circumstances in which to do the thing that you're good at. Some more than others. Right. So the place that I was welding, I started welding at $13 an hour, you know, and, and I was welding

[Top Lobster]

not bad back then while I was

[David J]

welding really difficult shit and the pay wasn't that great. And then I got to A place where I was getting paid $36 an hour to weld stuff that was a lot easier but was a lot more fun. Like, it was fun, and the environment that I was welding in was a lot more fun. And they appreciated me, and they. They let me be exactly who I am, like this kind of person that I am. Some jobs you have, you have to tone it down. Yeah, not this place.

[Top Lobster]

Good.

[David J]

This place was khc. Crazy House customs in New Jersey. Fantastic. I mean, some of my favorite fucking people, some of my favorite work experiences ever, and I was making parts for, like, the Ford Raptor and a bunch of other trucks, and I was just damn good at it, and they appreciated that, and they also appreciated my humor, and they let me be this crazy person, and I was just. Just like. I mean, I became like, a machine.

[Top Lobster]

What do you attribute it to that you just got normal or somewhat normal?

[David J]

My wife. My wife and my son. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Just kind of locked you in, and you said, you know what? Come hell or high water, like, I gotta do this. I can't leave them here. Like, I can screw up my life, but I can't screw their life.

[David J]

I had, like, a really normal life for a long stretch of time.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And so I. I went through a lot of jobs, though, and each job, I had this thing in my head, like I was supposed to do something else. And that's something else with podcasting.

[Top Lobster]

And it's okay to find your way, especially if you don't, like, go to college for a certain path. Like, you kind of have to jump around, which society says that's what you kind of have to find your way and figure out what's going to stick.

[David J]

Well, I didn't. I didn't. You know, eventually what would happen at every job is I would say that it would kind of, like, kill my spirit and, you know, this idea of, like, life on repeat the 9 to 5 until I die, and I feel desperately like I'm supposed to do something else. And what was odd was that something else felt like podcasting, which was fruitless. And I had people in my life who were talking shit to me or behind my back saying, like, why the is he doing this?

[Top Lobster]

Podcasting?

[David J]

Yeah, why is he trying to podcast? Like, this is literally not going to do anything for him. And I'm like, every time I put it down, I got to pick it back up. So I did this. I did a couple shows. I'm not going to say the first one, because I. I think it was with my wife. I think she'd Be mortified if anybody ever went back and found those. Those episodes.

[Top Lobster]

We don't want to know.

[David J]

And then I did Where I Belong, and then I did Dick Dudes. And then.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? Like, in your. In your house? Like.

[David J]

Yeah, in my house. Wherever I was, I would move to places. I moved here and there.

[Top Lobster]

You just figured out how to set up a.

[David J]

And just do a podcast doing it. Yeah. And then I, you know, I did another show.

[Top Lobster]

Was it always about Alien?

[David J]

No. Stuff.

[Top Lobster]

No, it wasn't about that.

[David J]

No, it wasn't. Those stories always came up. If you ever go back to those old.

[Top Lobster]

What were you talking about?

[David J]

Whatever. Whatever. Interesting. No, no, whatever I thought was interesting. So I talked to, let's say, my first thing with Where I Belong, I talked to a guy who was doing psychedelics. I talked to another dude that was a stand up comedian who did a documentary on psychedelics. I talked to a bow hunter. I talked to. To a guy who did, like, the, The. What would you call those? The really big trails that go across America. There's three big ones. There's the Appalachian Trail. Not the chemtrails, you guys both say.

[Top Lobster]

He's awake. Oh, that's good. That's good.

[David J]

The Appalachian Trail. The. The. The Pacific Crest or something. And then there's another one. So I, I talked.

[Top Lobster]

Those trails took him, like, days and days or months. Whatever you want to. Whatever I wanted to talk about.

[David J]

But I always kept going back to it. And so this last job, you know, the, The. The. The one that I was welding at, that I was really good at, I started doing Dave and J Versus the World, which was a comedy show, and it was like, well produced. And we bought a studio and we bought all the equipment and we did it. Wait, what?

[Top Lobster]

When. When was that?

[David J]

That was 2020. During COVID Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

In New Jersey.

[David J]

In New Jersey. And I was doing it at the same time that I was working, and I felt really, really good. Like, I felt really good. Like, I was doing.

[Top Lobster]

You're in a good groove.

[David J]

I was doing a product that I was. I was happy about. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Dave and J versus the world, bro.

[Top Lobster]

That's awesome.

[David J]

Yeah, there's. There's our set. I was really proud of that. And. But we got no views because we couldn't market worth of. We couldn't promote worth of. We didn't know how to use social media.

[Top Lobster]

Let's click one of those pictures bigger. I want to see what he looked like back.

[David J]

We were doing a.

[Top Lobster]

Is he got your head in a Noose.

[David J]

He's got my head. I bought him a knife. I don't like one of his things.

[Top Lobster]

Like it.

[David J]

And I don't like that picture. Oh, I remember that episode. We were talking about a guy from, like, Survivor who gores a pig on the. On the show.

[Top Lobster]

I get down with that, but not with the doing it to a human. Okay, so you're doing that in 2020. We. We don't have a ton of time. I wish we had more time, but Cops gotta go. He doesn't want to go on the next show.

[David J]

Part two. Okay.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, we gotta.

[David J]

Anyway.

[Top Lobster]

No, no, no. I gotta know. How did you leave New Jersey? Did you meet Top while you were up north, or did you meet him when you got here? How did all this happen? Part of the story that everybody wants to know.

[David J]

I'm in New Jersey. The podcast ended because my homeboy had a baby, and he was like, I just want to do all hands on deck with the baby. I said, okay, man, that's cool. So we stopped doing the show. I was still working at khc. I still wanted to do a show. And the other thing was, like, I'm making pretty decent money, but, like, the housing market still looks like a nightmare. I'm still going to be stretched thin. Like, I want to go and have something more. I don't want to just. Just stay here and settle. Because there was still something in me. This is what really showed me, like, there's something wrong. There's something calling to me, and it calls to me across all these jobs. And even when I have one that's good, and these people love me and I love them, and they've become almost like family, which is the gayest cliche to ever say about a job.

[Top Lobster]

Still, like, something is wrong.

[David J]

Yeah, something is wrong. So we decided, like, hey, man, let's take a chance. Let's go to Florida. And my wife's about it. I was also getting sick, so I had cancer. Cancer. And then after I. I got the kids.

[Top Lobster]

The testicles.

[David J]

Yeah, the te. The one. Well, one of the testicles, you just

[Top Lobster]

get them cut out.

[David J]

You just lose the nut. And.

[Top Lobster]

But after that, how did you know you had.

[David J]

I felt it in the shower over and over again.

[Top Lobster]

What do you mean? You could feel the nub on it.

[David J]

Especially when you got your balls all sudsy. You know, you get a real good feel for them. You know your balls, right? You're with them all the time. Every shower you take, you go, I know these balls. And then all of a sudden, like, one day, I was like, I don't know. These balls and. And then, like, the next time I showered, I was like, yeah, that's still there. So it took, like, a lot of confirmation showers. Was always the place where I'm like, no, I. I know this thing has not always been there. Like, there's some sort of tough spot on my nut, and it ended up being cancer. We didn't get it biopsied because we didn't want it to spread. Doctor was like, look, you're still going to crush. If I cut this thing off, nothing's going to change. I said, all right, man, let's just cut it off. It turned it out to be, yeah, it was cancer, but it was like, real low grade sh. Like seminoa cancer. I don't know what the it was. It was such a blip on the radar in my life. It moved really fast. Like, I found it, I took care of it. I had no history of going to the doctor, but at this point, like, something just moved me through the system. I took care of it, recovered from the surgery super fast, and I was doing David J. Versus the world while I had that

[Top Lobster]

whole surgery done, ready for content.

[David J]

It was fast, man. It was. And I'm never like, the type of person, like, you've never heard me say. Have you ever heard me say I'm a cancer survivor? Never. I. I won't say that because it's like, bro, it barely existed in my life. It was so fast.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And it was not. But.

[Top Lobster]

Well, you don't have a victim mentality either. You know, there's not. Not. Not to knock anybody who's as ill. I'm a cancer survivor. But I'm just saying, you don't associate. You don't associate with, like, yeah, this is who I am.

[David J]

I also didn't go through anything. You know, I went through surgery, which was like, the recovery time was really, really fast. But something did happen in my immune system after that, and every winter from that moment on ended up giving me pneumonia and a collapsed lung and all this other. So I was like, it's to. Time. Time to go. We need to go someplace warm. I can't be here anymore. It's kicking my ass, and we can't.

[Top Lobster]

What year do you move to Florida?

[David J]

2023.

[Top Lobster]

And you no top at that time or don't.

[David J]

2024. I mean, I'm sorry. 2022, I move in. 2022, I. I land. I buy a house. Within a month and a half, I have this really weird moment where I am Received by family that I've never known. I haven't had.

[Top Lobster]

You moved to the area because you had family in that area?

[David J]

Yeah, yeah. I had like 30 family members in one area, plus Port side. Yeah, yeah. So I had no relationship with any of them. And I wanted to try to be able to give my son like a grandfather. And I wanted to ease this old man's suffering because I knew that he was so remorseful for not having a relationship with me. And I thought, like, yo, I don't have to harbor resentment. I can go and build something and give my son something and. And take some responsibility for whatever part I play in this distance from my

[Top Lobster]

dad has surrounded himself by crazy people

[David J]

now she's a witch. And it just would not work out like every witch. I mean, literally a witch like putting panties in the coffee pot. She's burning effigies and whispering to them. He tells me she's a witch. Like she does spellcraft and he's too realize it. So, you know, I do have this really beautiful moment where like I get to. I buy a house. I immediately land a job as a welder. I get paid pretty decent, especially for somebody in my area. And I have family, like, very cool, very normal.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

And it's beautiful. I'm having kids over for pool parties, barbecues with my family at my house.

[Top Lobster]

And you're just playing it cool like you're a normal person. You're like, sweetie, don't let anybody find out we're crazy. Like, just play it cool.

[David J]

Then spiritual insanity after spiritual insanity, entities and, and banging on my windows and doors and walls that all throughout the day and night, night and. And big black flies that seemingly have no source, they're just filling my house. And, and the only way, of course I've had by this point a demonic encounter which I've talked. Talked about and it's gonna be too long.

[Top Lobster]

Told me.

[David J]

I, I did tell you the, the thing that I prayed away in the name of Jesus Christ. I, I literally can't get into it because we don't have the time for it and people can go and find this. Like, I've talked about it every which part too. So I, I'm. I'm coming to Christ during this time and I know how to deal with it. So the only way I make this shit stop in my house, my new house, is by taking authority over it. This is my house. In the name of Jesus Christ. You have no.

[Top Lobster]

How did you even get into the Jesus game? Like, how did you even.

[David J]

I, I had an experience that I needed to make stop. And it was a demonic entity that I had seen, that my wife had seen in that and that my son had seen. And I didn't know what to do because you don't have any recourse.

[Top Lobster]

Well, how did you even have a grid for that? Like, Jesus was no idea anything?

[David J]

Well. Well, no. No.

[Top Lobster]

So you're not really a Bible reader. You're not a churchgoer.

[David J]

Of course, in conspiracy, the Bible comes up constantly.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

So, like, I guess I had that kind of framework.

[Top Lobster]

Okay.

[David J]

Like, I wasn't unfamiliar with it, and

[Top Lobster]

you're like, let's give it a shot.

[David J]

I had no other option. So that event stopped when I did that. Yeah. So now that I'm having, like, these things all around my house, I start taking authority over my home and praying the blood of Christ over my home and. And telling these things that they have no right to be here. I'm the legal owner of this house, in the name of Jesus Christ, leave this place, this, you know, property, all these things, and it stops.

[Top Lobster]

Wow.

[David J]

And then.

[Top Lobster]

But nevertheless, you're like, honey, we got to get out. Out of here.

[David J]

No, no, no, no. So, I mean, we're still in that house. I mean, the one that I bought here in Florida. And around the same time, I start to have a presence on Twitter. And I decide after, like, having some interactions with some content creators that ended up being, like, occultist faggots, I go, I'm gonna start my own show. And it's time to just do, like, I'm gonna do a show, and it's about this stuff instead of comedy or my interest. Like, it's about this. So I start a show called the Ravens, where Watch. And we're gonna wrap it up, you know, because I know we're coming.

[Top Lobster]

No, no, no. We got 20 minutes, man. We have plenty of time. All right, all right.

[David J]

So I start this show called the Ravens Watch. And I also, because of the event where I saw this demonic entity and my family saw it, I start looking for anybody else who's talking about seeing, like, I've seen. Yeah. And stopping it in the name of Christ. And I find Tony Merkel at confessionals, which is every episode is pretty much that.

[Top Lobster]

And that's 20. What, 2022.

[David J]

That's 20. 2022. So I'm listening to that show all the time. I'm listening to other people who have had these experiences and have called on Christ and stopped it, and I'm orienting towards Christianity, and I'm starting to tell These stories and, and you know, talk about conspiracy. And I'm having a lot of success, actually, like, really fast success. I mean, the amount of time that it took to grow.

[Top Lobster]

But you're OG in the game at that time, dude. You've been living it.

[David J]

Nobody knows me though.

[Top Lobster]

Like, it doesn't matter in the game. I know, but your content is what matters. Matters, dude. Like, that's still what matters. And like, you've got the content because you've been living it your entire life.

[David J]

Well, I, I managed to grow that show. I mean, Dave and J versus the World had all the production, had a studio, all this. We couldn't break maybe a couple of hundred subscribers. But I got the Ravens watch, which was just happening in my bedroom with a backdrop and a microphone to over a thousand in like a couple of months. And that was crazy because I had been working at Dave and J for like a straight year and just did nothing, nothing with it. And the way that I was doing it was I was going and getting involved in conversations that were happening on Twitter about the hat band, about this entity.

[Top Lobster]

And then people were finding you from the Twitter and coming and watching.

[David J]

I was dropping YouTube.

[Top Lobster]

You're like a thousand on YouTube, a thousand on YouTube. They find you on the Twitter and then boom, they come check out your YouTube.

[David J]

Yeah. And. And so one day I'm, you know, I end up finding Top on the members community of the confessionals.

[Top Lobster]

It's like you're. What do you mean? You're like Patreon for the confessionals.

[David J]

More or less. And I see him, he said a couple of interesting things.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, yeah.

[David J]

Oh, yeah, There we go. That's. I mean, that's the backdrop. That's me and Top talking to Tony Merkel. That's funny.

[Top Lobster]

You guys went on Tony Merkel.

[David J]

No, we had him on really early. No, but that man, I mean, that brick backdrop is the corner of my bedroom. Brilliant. And I had some leftover equipment from when I did Dave and J versus the World and came on your guys

[Top Lobster]

show right when you met.

[David J]

In fact, that is the backdrop from Dave and J versus the World. Look at this. Two years ago. Yes. With Thomas.

[Top Lobster]

Yep. That's only two years ago.

[David J]

Sheen Cashman. Yeah, man. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

What?

[David J]

So I find. Hey, look. Shout out Bill and Ted. Oh, there you go. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

No way. That's only two years ago.

[David J]

That's the guy there that stormed the Capitol with the bull helmet. What was that? Yeah, the shaman. The Qanon shaman.

[Top Lobster]

These guys are finding you and coming on your low production.

[David J]

No no, no, we were finding them

[Top Lobster]

and reaching because you guys are just crushing on the tweeter.

[David J]

I don't know, I, I guess, I mean, tops. Top had already established a reputation, worked with a lot of big people. He had, you know, some, some clout going on. So he made access to guests very easy. So we had that. He had built this thing, this, this sort of network on Twitter and through

[Top Lobster]

his business and everything shooting out of his eyes. Kill people, but also like working.

[David J]

I mean he's doing graphic design. He's. And he's, you know, he's got stuff too, his own personality on Twitter that he.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, by that time he already had

[David J]

like 20, 000, you know, followers or some like that. So that made the guess a lot easier, but.

[Top Lobster]

20,000? Yeah. So how many does top have now?

[David J]

Like 50, 60,000, something like that.

[Top Lobster]

And they just love him. Just like shredding people to pieces. The problem for that whole.

[David J]

Get it, you know, the other people, they.

[Top Lobster]

So if you're on Twitter, do you have to say stuff every day?

[David J]

You say whatever you, I mean, you do whatever you want. Not every day.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, but almost every day you just go on there things that people.

[David J]

I only say whatever I want to say, whenever I want to say.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, and you go through spurts, it seems like. Cuz you come in here from time to time, you're like, oh man, this thing with the mermaid in India or like whatever. Another thing.

[David J]

Because I only do it when it moves me. But so, so I find him on the members thing and then I find him on Twitter and I see some of the shit he's saying. He's very funny. And I go like, this guy kind of seems cool. So I have a couple interactions with him where I call him the. He's the bad guy from the Zohan, the Adam Sandler film. I forget what his name is, but he looks like that actor. And I, and I dropped that on him. And he's got a good sense of humor about it. And one day you guys just kind

[Top Lobster]

of start courting each other.

[David J]

We start kind of with each other taking some serious stabs. And, and then one day he like, he laughs at something, but he goes, I'm about to block you. And I go, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, I'm cool, I promise. And, and we, we get into this little. Yeah, yeah, that guy. He looks like, looks like that guy.

[Top Lobster]

He's not like Kramer, like the mukin

[David J]

duke, panda fly nose. So I guess what ends up happening is we get into a conversation and I Tell Top I do a show about all this crazy shit and I already know that he's interested in it because we are on the members community of the confessionals. So Top goes, I'm going to actually check it out. And then he fucking does. Which is insane because to tell anybody, hey, watch my two hour long fucking podcast. Even though I have no followers or anything, that's a huge.

[Top Lobster]

So I shouldn't do that to people.

[David J]

You can try, but you just will find that people won't fucking do it.

[Top Lobster]

They don't care. Right?

[David J]

Yeah, they don't give a shit. I don't know that I would watch fucking. Somebody who came up to me and said, watch my whole episode. Episode. Like, probably not, dude.

[Top Lobster]

Fair point.

[David J]

But he watched the thing. He thought it was interesting. We got into a conversation, he said, hey, he was doing his own show called the Top Lobster Show. On the side of the Top Lobster Show. Yeah. Yeah, on this. And it was about very similar. Yeah, very similar testimony. Spooky.

[Top Lobster]

Let's collaborate.

[David J]

We did a collaboration. It was cool. Then I end up going to New Orleans for a vacation with my wife and it ends up being really strange. I mean, a lot of weird crap happened.

[Top Lobster]

Imagine you in New Orleans and anything bizarre happened.

[David J]

I did a. I. I went to a tarot card reader. I did a bunch of. Yeah. And I get a call while I'm out there and it's Top. And he goes, yo, I think we

[Top Lobster]

should do a show.

[David J]

Let's try to make a show like. Like, let's make a show. I already had Nephilim Death Squad tucked to the side. It was originally a Twitter group that I had some people in. It was Top. It was the guys from the phone booth podcast, a few other people. Paul Stobbs, Escanor.

[Top Lobster]

This is only two years ago.

[David J]

Two and a half.

[Top Lobster]

So you guys have moved fast, dude.

[David J]

Oh, that's our first episode, actually. We did a trial episode right there to see how it would work. And it was a swap. Cassie, episode 13, swap cast with Top Lobster.

[Top Lobster]

And.

[David J]

And that guy is actually a New Age sort of. He's more into the occult and he basically.

[Top Lobster]

But you guys were kind of into that back then. You guys were kind of like, no.

[David J]

I mean, he was basically saying Christianity is all. And it's all strictly allegorical for the stars and constellations and there's no. Nothing else.

[Top Lobster]

But even when I met you guys, you were having some people saying the Bible is just like, well, it doesn't matter what they say.

[David J]

You know, we always allow you to have them on.

[Top Lobster]

Let him do.

[David J]

Although we've moved away from that so much these days. But anyway, he calls and he says, let's do this, and I've already got a name loaded up. And I go, like, yeah, man, I think we could. We'll talk about it more when I leave New Orleans. And when I hang up with him, I'm in the middle of the. The hotel. I still remember this moment. I go to my wife and I go, yo, I think this is it. Yeah, like, this is the one. It's actually incredibly, you know, not that to say I would ever prophesy over anything. And it wasn't me prophesying. It was like a stirring in my spirit. Like, I don't know what it means to prophesy. So maybe. Maybe that is what it speak for

[Top Lobster]

the mind of God. Yeah.

[David J]

I said, this is going to be it. And it is. It has been. It's. It's. That was entirely accurate. But I knew that in my spirit, at that moment in that hotel room that was certainly haunted, there was things. It was a whole thing. But I. I just knew it. I knew he was going to say that. I knew he was going to. I knew it's going to sound really weird. Like, I knew it was him. In the chat of Tony Merkel's thing, yeah, I saw this dude.

[Top Lobster]

Something clicks with this guy, man. Me and this guy's spirit kind of

[David J]

came out of my way. I went out of my way to. To seek this dude out, found him on Twitter, and then like, slowly started to be like, poke. Yeah, poke.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. This is a guy I could get down with.

[David J]

There. Something was there. I don't know what the hell it was. And. And you know, now.

[Top Lobster]

Now I'm very familiar with that feeling out process with Top. I'm very. I know exactly what you're talking about.

[David J]

Well, I think that's very much how Top felt about this place because he kept telling me, you know, you got to come to this coffee shop and meet this wanker. And I'm like, I don't know.

[Top Lobster]

When he was courting me, it was. I look back on it now, it was very interesting.

[David J]

I didn't understand what he was.

[Top Lobster]

You didn't like it? You didn't like it?

[David J]

I didn't like it because I don't really go.

[Top Lobster]

Came in. You just had, like. I don't know how else to say it, but a shitty grand. And you were just like.

[David J]

He was like, there's something special here.

[Top Lobster]

You were like, no, you came in. Everybody thought you were Like a undercover cop.

[David J]

Nobody thought that.

[Top Lobster]

Everybody thought that. And you just had, like, this weird vibe. And I was like, that dude's either a total faker and a wanker or he's, like, super real. Anything in between. It was very weird. Then you guys even had to go sit outside to have the initial conversation because Top pushed hard in the beginning. Dude, he was really.

[David J]

He really wanted.

[Top Lobster]

Well, he was really pursuing me here. Yeah, he was really pursuing me, you know, And I was like, okay, got it. And then you guys, like, went outside to talk, and I was like.

[David J]

And I said. I was like, oh, yeah, he seems like a cool dude. He seems like he gets it. But, like, I didn't see whatever Top was. See, I don't think Top knew what he was seeing either. But that's like, any time he was

[Top Lobster]

like, look, we've got a track record of going to coffee shops and starting podcasts. Why wouldn't we do that here? This guy seems like a dumb Southerner. Like, we could probably take advantage of him.

[David J]

He was right about that.

[Top Lobster]

He's a tough crowd today, dude. He's, like, half asleep, man.

[David J]

But, you know, I. I think about that every once in a while because whatever this show becomes, and there's a lot of people I know, if you could imagine this, a lot of people don't want us to succeed.

[Top Lobster]

Who?

[David J]

That's a lot of them.

[Top Lobster]

You know, I don't know what for.

[David J]

A lot more people. You're saying a lot more people want us to succeed than don't. But the people that.

[Top Lobster]

What are the type of people that wouldn't want you to.

[David J]

Wankers? Faggots, you know?

[Top Lobster]

But what. What, like, what is it that you're just touching a nerve, or do you think they're jealous? Like, they can say the stuff that I want to say that I can't say.

[David J]

So. So I could say one camp in particular are people that think that we're not actually Christian and that we're just, like, grifting off of it because there's some profit to be made within.

[Top Lobster]

They'll figure it out. Those guys will figure it out.

[David J]

Well, I mean, that's an interesting thing, you know, on its. On its face, because you don't understand the things that brought us here. You know, Top's got his own.

[Top Lobster]

There's also a funny thing for Christians that they love these passages of story like that Jesus was hanging out with sinners. People love those stories until they're. They're actually watching it. Yeah. Until it's actually real in their life, then they hate, then they hate it. And they can't even understand that. Like, hey, you're talking about this exact scenario that played out in scripture. They don't like it. They don't like the idea of like somebody growing in Christ. They don't like that idea either. They're like, well, if you're not already a super mature Christian doing all the not saying cuss words, eating chick fil a now, then you're not a real Christian. It's like, guys, this is a long game. Like, this is. There's a lot going on. It's.

[David J]

It's weird though, because like I said, I had this notion forever to like, do something like this. I didn't really quite know what it was, but like, God gave me this moment of a crack at a normal life and I don't think it was real. I think you just wanted me to see that because there was a lot of like, doubt in my mind as to what do you mean.

[Top Lobster]

He's like, you could live a normal life, dude. You don't have to live in crazy town forever.

[David J]

I don't think that was really the point. I think it was like, okay, you're not going to understand that you're not meant for this unless I give it to you. And then he gave it to me. And it was like, you're saying the

[Top Lobster]

welding and like the normal life, the

[David J]

welding, the house, the fucking family, like all that stuff. It was like, no, I am meant for something a lot crazier. And I think that.

[Top Lobster]

And still the dad and the husband and doing what's right. Yeah, yeah.

[David J]

Because I have all these beautiful moments. Like, I get to spend time with my wife and my son and, and I get to show my son not to settle. Like, you don't have to settle. There's nothing wrong with having like a normal job. But like, I think there's a, a time and a place. You, you go there, you learn how to. But like, I think if you're called to carve something out on your own, then, like, go and do that.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, Amen.

[David J]

Go and do that. I think so many people are called to do that debt, and it's just scary to take those.

[Top Lobster]

We have the same story. Like people said, oh, you're going to spend all your life savings even though you live in a rental house and open a coffee shop. And half of it, you don't make any money. Half, you're going to pay for double the build out, double the rent, double the electric to have a Christian library. What if you lose everything. And we were like. Jess and I both were like, yeah, I'd rather lose everything. Tell the kids if you. There's something that you dream of, do it.

[David J]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

What are you. If you say that to your kids and then don't do it.

[David J]

Absolutely.

[Top Lobster]

Absolutely.

[David J]

I think, like, if my son ends up getting a welding gig, let's say, one day, like, yeah. Awesome. Hell, yeah, man. And, like, learn that. Because I think there is something to, like, building things and doing things with your hands.

[Top Lobster]

There's something else, man. Don't be afraid.

[David J]

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to do that. And I think that. God, I think part of my life, you know, being so chaotic, was so that when it came time to, like, make a jump, it wasn't. It was not even a decision. It wasn't even, like, a thing that I had to think about.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[David J]

It was like, yo, let's. Let's do this.

[Top Lobster]

This.

[David J]

Let's. We'll put it all. I remember when the show started making enough money, and I told my wife, I think that we can turn this into something. Can you handle the bills for, like, however long this takes? Because I think we're right there. And she said, yeah, I can do that.

[Top Lobster]

So did you call her sugar mama for a while?

[David J]

I didn't do that.

[Top Lobster]

You never said she wanted me to.

[David J]

I didn't say sugar mama, but she held it down for maybe, like, eight months or something like that. And then. And then when got there and it was enough and the show was suddenly doing it, so. Yeah, man, I don't mean to be like, you're looking around, you're making.

[Top Lobster]

Not the same as, like, your hat, man, but I hear boomers, and so. I hear boomers. Yeah, the olds are, like, starting to make their move. All right, so can we just wrap it up? Or do we have to do, like, some big sentimental closing after all this? Because it was.

[David J]

I don't know. I would appreciate if you said anything that was, like, maybe nice.

[Top Lobster]

It.