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- [00:00]
Sponsor Voice
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- [02:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This is our Halloween episode, a big episode for us. I don't know about you, but ghosts freak me out. I mean, okay, all right, here's the deal. I'm not religious, but the only prayer I ever said as a little kid was, please God, protect me from ghosts. Don't let me see one tonight or any night in my entire life. You know, like, you don't want to say, what's it cost you to go? Yeah, I believe, like, why do you want to walk around being like, I don't think there's any ghosts here. And Then some ghost just comes levitating at you with like, a bloody head in its hand and goes, oh, and what about now? You know. But see, now I'm talking like this and I'm getting paranoid that they're going to visit. Well, let's just not do an episode. In today's episode, we've got two stories that fit the occasion of Halloween, and we are putting on our costumes and masks. Let's let the veil between our world and the supernatural world begin to lift. And to start us off on that note, let's hear a story from Eleanor MacLeod. Eleanor shared this story at our London Story Slam, where the theme of the night was journeys. Here she is live at the Mothman, London.
- [03:28]
Eleanor MacLeod
Hello. Can we voyage? Can we, into another dimension? I believe we can. Let me tell you a true story. Some years ago, I was doing summer season on the Isle of Wight. I wouldn't recommend it, but I had to come back and do a Sunday evening show at the Kenneth Moore Theatre in Ilford with the late, great Kenneth Moore. And my colleague in the Isle of Wight company said, I have a flat in Ilford. Spend the night there. Thank you. I said, that'd be great. So I did the show. I voyaged from the Isle of Wight to Ilford, which is a long voyage, and I did the show and I went to stay in the flat and his brother took me around. And when we arrived, all the lights in the flat were on. And he said, that's very strange. Peter wouldn't leave the lights on in his. When he knows he's away for such a long time. I better come in and check. We went into the flat and everything was fine, lovely. So he left and I got ready for bed and I switched the lights off. And in the middle of the night, something very strange happened. A man appeared in my bedroom. Now, that hasn't happened very often in my life. But on this particular night, I didn't show fear. I didn't leap out of bed and say, hooray. I simply lay there and our eyes met and he walked across the bottom of the bed and we looked at each other. And then he disappeared. He made himself heir, into which he vanished. I've also played Lady Macbeth. The next day I made the voyage back to the Isle of Wight and my friend said to me, how did it go? How was the show? How was the flat? I said, the show was wonderful. Kenneth Moore thought I was brilliant. But the flat was rather strange because somebody appeared to me in the middle of the night and he said, oh, that's my ghost, John.
- [06:14]
Sponsor Voice
I said, you have a ghost?
- [06:15]
Eleanor MacLeod
You didn't tell me that. And he said, no, I didn't tell you that, but I do have a ghost. He said, he's very benevolent, and he was probably just sussing you out. He said, if he doesn't like anybody, he rattles the dustbin lids. Did you hear the dustbin lids rattle? I said, no, I didn't. He said, then he liked you. And the other people in the company said, what was he like? Can you describe him? And my husband, who was the company manager, said, wait a minute. Neither of you have seen this guy? You've talked about this guy at all, but you both know what you saw? Yes, we said we did. So they said, right, okay. And he put us one each end of the room with a sheet of paper and a pencil. And he said, draw what you saw. And we did. And when we put those papers together, we had drawn an identical face. It had long hair, he had a beard. And what was even more extraordinary, he had a medallion around his neck. And we had both drawn that. And they said, you've drawn the identical man. And Peter said, that's John. And I said, yes, that's the man I saw in the middle of the night. Did he voyage into my dimension or did I voyage into his? I don't know. But John remains with me to this day. Thank you.
- [08:25]
Dan Kennedy
Eleanor MacLeod is in actress and teacher. She lives in Wales, but works anywhere where there are young performers to encourage. She's also a published author of two books of poetry and dramatic scenes for children. Eleanor never returned to her friend's flat and she never saw John the ghost again. But she is a believer. She says she's had other experiences with ghosts, including sightings of an otherworldly quote lady in White at the Swansea Grand Theatre in Wales. This is freaking me out. Out the more that I consider this. So, hey, who knows? Maybe the next time you go to that theater, let's just say you happen to frequent the Swansea Grand Theater in Wales. Maybe you'll see that ghost, too. Up next, Brian Kett shares a story with us. He told this at our LA Story Slam, and the theme was Nerds and Geeks. Here's Brian live at the Moth in Los Angeles.
- [09:23]
Brian Kett
So I used to teach high school biology, and while I was thrilled to talk about mitosis and photosynthesis, my students would always take the time to remind me that I was a nerd. But I'd heard all before back in college, you know, in high school and junior high and so even though everyone in my classes, you know, didn't really get my enthusiasm, there was one student who really engaged in my lessons, Nathan. He was just as curious as I was at his age. And while Nathan's peers were busy seeing who could smoke enough to get the highest or who could sag their pants the lowest, Nathan was really honing his love for science through one very specific back to the future. There you go. Heard the movie before. And so, you know, even though the movie had come out more than a decade before he was born, it didn't keep him from going home and watching it every day and then coming back to school with a bunch of questions for me about time travel. And so we would talk about it, and then we'd always laugh about the cardinal rule of time travel, which is, as outlined in the film, never meddle in the life of a former version of yourself, as the implications could be disastrous. And at the same time, my parents were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary with a costume mandatory Halloween party. And people were flying in from all over the country, including my parents friend Bob, who with this constant mockery, was kind of like the uncle that I never wanted. And I hadn't had time to get a costume together yet because I had been busy creating lab reports that claimed the three subatomic particles weren't protons, electrons, and neutrons, but rather protons, electrons, and croutons. So I had my plate full. And so as I was leaving school the day before Halloween, I overheard Nathan telling some of his parents that he had something really special planned he was going to wear the next day. And I slowed down, just willing him not to say or do anything embarrassing because no one dressed up at that school for Halloween. And when I heard him say he had finally saved up enough money for an authentic red puffy vest, my blood ran cold. Because he was planning to dress up like Michael J. Fox's iconic character from the movie Marty McFly. And I couldn't tell him not to do it. He was. He was too excited. And I couldn't tell his peers to go easy on him because that would just be a disaster right there. And really the last thing I wanted was for Nathan to experience what I was all too familiar with. You know, just being labeled and ostracized publicly as a nerd. And so I decided to take action, resolute that the only way to avoid this potential catastrophe would be if I were to make myself into a more homely version of Marty McFly. So by comparison, Nathan would look cooler and It'd be great. I could knock out two things at once. I could help out Nathan and I could get a costume for my parents party. It was win win. So on the way home, I stopped at Salvation army and I bought the jean jacket and I couldn't find the Nikes that he wears in the movie. And so I wound up buying these white orthopedic shoes and then taping Nike swooshes made out of construction paper to them. And then I couldn't find the vest. So what I wound up with wasn't a life preserver, but it also wasn't an article of clothing. There's no way. And so when I walked into school the next day, there were two people in the entire building who were dressed up for Halloween and they were wearing the same costume. And when fifth period rolled around, Nathan looked like he had walked right off the movie screen. Looked amazing. And any animosity that would have been directed towards him came to me as I heard over and over again how much cooler he looked, how much better his costume was. And he and I talked about the movie and of course we laughed about. About the cardinal rule of time travel. And I left school that day really feeling good about myself for having helped out someone that I saw a lot of myself in. And when I got to my parents reception that evening, I found like 100 people in these ornate costumes that had taken months to sew by hand. And I look like a guy who couldn't afford Nikes and who was afraid of drowning just on land. And so I, I said my hellos and I slunk to the bar, not wanting to be seen. And I kind of set up shop there. And I turned and there was Bob, you know, pseudo Uncle Bob. And like a shark sensing blood in the water, he had picked up on my insecurity, you know, and he looked at my costume for a second, he studied me and he said, why don't you care about your parents anniversary? I was like, oh, good one, Bob. And I shuffled away thinking the worst was over. But at dinner that night, in front of all these people, he raised his glass and took and thanked everyone for coming and then pointed out how amazing my costume was. Just through laughter from the entire crowd, you know, everyone pointing and laughing. And as I was just there, humiliated and mortified and wishing I could disappear and wishing, you know, I dressed like wallpaper. Instead it hit me. I had inadvertently lived out the plot to Back to the I had meddled in the life of a former version of myself in Nathan, which had in turn set off a chain of events that had negatively impacted my future self. The plot to the movie. And even though day after day I had talked about the cardinal rule of time travel, I hadn't honored the cardinal rule of time travel and the implications, as one would expect, had been disastrous. Thank you.
- [14:47]
Dan Kennedy
Brian Kett is an award winning writer who splits his time between living in Los Angeles and thinking about Chicago. Brian no longer teaches, but he says he's getting back to the front of a classroom one day because that's something that's still on his mind. Meanwhile, he's been staying busy by giving talks, developing a TV pilot, and stressing over the perfect Halloween costume, which he says should be just the right mix on current events and minimal effort that's gonna do it this time around. We'll be back again next week with some more news stories. Until then, have a story worthy Halloween.
- [15:25]
Sponsor Voice
Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller.
- [15:32]
Dan Kennedy
With the Moth Podcast, production by Timothy Luley. The Moth Podcast is presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.