Pod Insights The Moth A Spooky Scary Halloween: The Moth Podcast About this episode Are you ready to get spooked? Or scared? Or just generally creeped out? Well then, on this episode, in celebration of Halloween, we’ve got three stories all about the larger forces at play in the universe. Plus, a conversation with a Moth director about a haunted hotel. This episode was hosted by Sarah Austin Jenness.
Storytellers:
Ophira Eisenberg dresses as an alien for a Halloween dance in middle school.
Ethan Sweetland-May discovers a creepy room in his attic.
Rich Tackenberg takes some advice from a psychic.
Podcast # 944
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Transcript 0:02 Speaker 00 Welcome to The Moth. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness. I've always believed in ghosts. "Believed in" is such a funny phrase because spirits, to me, are of course around us at all times. I don't find this scary. In fact, I find it comforting. I and the other Moth directors travel the country, helping people tell their stories, and we've stayed in a lot of hotels, a number of which are haunted. In fact, once in New Orleans with our pop-up porch, I was at a restaurant on Frenchman Street and I was tapped on the shoulder, double-tapped, actually. I turned around and no one was there. Not only was no one there, but there was no door
0:44 Speaker 00 behind me, no entrance or way to exit, and I told my friend next to me, and she nodded with a smile. Spirits are everywhere, and I'm into it. On this episode, in celebration of the spookiest of holidays, Halloween, we've got three stories all about the larger forces at play in the universe. Plus, I'll talk with another Moth director about some of the supposedly haunted hotels we've stayed at over the years. First up, a story about Halloween itself. Ophira Eisenberg told this when she was hosting our main stage in East Hampton, New York. Here's Ophira, live at The Moth.
1:25 Speaker 01 I'm just gonna share, like, just a couple minutes on a big night, a story of mine. I was remembering 7th grade, 7th grade. That was the first year for my life that there was a dance that was co-ed. That was a really big deal. And I will admit to you that I was a girl that just always wanted a boyfriend. I always wanted a boyfriend, never a pony, always a boyfriend.
1:53 Speaker 01 And so it was the first school dance and I had a crush on this guy Brad Moore, did not change his name, Brad Moore. And he had, he was, he was kinda goofy and he had brown floppy hair and he, he played saxophone. But I just thought he was, I thought he was incredible. I had a huge crush on him. And so, I was, I went to get a Halloween costume. We were, we were thrifting at the time, even then. And I found this purple and gold jumpsuit that was all sparkly, like some, you know, Ziggy Stardust cover band, fell apart and they donated all their clothing. And so I bought it and I was gonna be a space alien.
2:37 Speaker 01 Uh, seven, very 7th grade mentality. And I was getting ready for the evening and I was pretty excited about the dance. And my sister, my older sister, was an aspiring special effects makeup artist. So she was like, "I wanna do your makeup." Makeup has come such a long way, my friends. Because she decided, she was gonna put glitter all over my face. But the way, there wasn't glitter makeup like there is now. She put sections of white school glue on my face and she would tap the glitter out of the little vial. And we'd wait for it to dry and then she would do more glue here and tap it, yeah.
3:20 Speaker 01 And so she did these bands of glitter that were like blue, purple, gold, silver. All with school glue. We had a friend, I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who had given us some pheasants that he shot to eat. And my mother had plucked them and kept all the feathers, cuz they were beautiful.
3:45 Speaker 01 So my sister was like, "Let's glue the feathers all through your hair." So she glued all these feathers through my hair. So I had all these feathers, made my hair huge pheasant feathers and this crazy glued-on sparkles and this gold and purple jumpsuit. I looked like Big Bird on acid.
4:06 Speaker 01 But I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool. And I went to the Halloween school dance. And I got there and I was so like, I was impressed by myself. I thought, oh, I'm gonna make a big splash. And I walked in and you know what? Nope, nobody was really dressed up.
4:25 Speaker 01 Like, there was some lame, you know, like, I'm an angel, I'm a witch, but like, barely. And I felt, I felt overdressed at a Halloween party.
4:40 Speaker 01 And I felt pretty bad. I felt really out of place. And it wasn't unlike how I already felt in my class. I felt different. And I was like, oh, my god, I am an alien. Like, I literally was like, I am an alien. And Brad Moore did not ask me to dance. He danced with all the other girls. He danced with the lame angel and the dumb witch and the kitty cat and not me. And I was just stewing in my feathers and jumpsuit. The last dance of the night. I don't know, at your school dance, if this is what happened to. But the last dance was always "Stairway to Heaven." Yes, okay. Because it's like seventeen minutes long or whatever. And it was, you know what?
5:24 Speaker 01 This is so old fashioned. It was totally not a thing where a girl would ask a guy to dance. Seventh grade, so innocent. And "Stairway to Heaven" started, doon, doon, doon. And I was just, you know what? Enough. And I marched over to Brad Moore, who was dressed as a punk rocker. Which just mean he took a jean jacket and cut off the sleeves. And it had some, a whole bunch of safety pins. Because, you know, one safety pin is safe, but many are dangerous.
5:57 Speaker 01 And he had spiked his hair and it was sprayed green with that, like, classic spirit of Halloween hairspray that you would only be available at the Kmart right in October. And I just marched over to him and I said, "I think we should dance."
6:16 Speaker 01 And he said, "I didn't know you wanted to dance with me."
6:21 Speaker 01 I know, it was the, a man, I'm fifty years old. A man has not been that vulnerable to me since that day.
6:32 Speaker 01 And I was like, "Yeah, I want to dance with you." So we danced, and we danced like this. Arms on shoulders, hands on hips. That's what we were supposed to do. But we did creep closer and closer. And at one point, my head was right beside his head. And I was deeply inhaling that sweet toxicity of the Halloween hairspray. It's such a specific smell. It's like turpentine and Fabreeze.
7:04 Speaker 01 And I'm, you know, I was, my entire body was just on fire, electricity. Or maybe I was high off the fumes, I don't know. But it was exhilarating. And, uh, and then after that, uh, we went around for two months. That's what we said back in seventh grade. We went around. And I will, I will just tell you that, you know, sense memory, when it comes to smell, is one of the strongest. And I will go into stores right around Halloween and find, you can still find it, "Spirit of Halloween," that particular hairspray. And I'll just be like, "I'm just trying it." And I'll spray it on like a little card and inhale it.
7:45 Speaker 01 And I'm just reminded of being exhilarated and empowered.
7:58 Speaker 00 That was Ophira Eisenberg. Ophira is a stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the podcast Parenting is a Joke. She'll be recording her new comedy special, I Used to Be Nicer, at The Comedy Cellar in New York City on November 9th, produced by Lewis Black's Production Company. So I mentioned earlier that while crisscrossing the country as a moth director, I've stayed in some haunted hotels. I invited fellow director Jodi Powell to talk about some of our shared experiences.
8:29 Speaker 02 Sarah, I'm so excited to be here. This is right on my alley. I love this topic. So yes, I have one moment in particular. And I remember we had a show coming up in West Virginia. And when I looked around the area of the venue, there wasn't any place for us to stay. So we had to stay a little bit out of bounds, let's call it. And when I looked up the hotel... Um, that was available to us. It it proudly mentioned that it was haunted.
9:00 Speaker 00 Oh.
9:00 Speaker 02 I didn't have to search for it. It was right there.
9:02 Speaker 00 Oh.
9:03 Speaker 02 And I thought to myself, well, we could stay here or nowhere. There was nowhere else. Right? So I put my producer hat on and I shot a voice off in my head. And and let let's be clear, let's be clear. I'm from Jamaica. And in Jamaica, the concept of ghosts and the third wherever realm I want to imagine is a hundred percent there. In Jamaica, we call them dumpy.
9:25 Speaker 00 Hmm.
9:25 Speaker 02 And but I had to kind of quiet that down a little bit and I had to put on my produ- producer hat and and I said, I'm gonna book it. Nobody will know. And we're just there for two nights and we're gonna be in and out. And, you know, we'll get over it. It's it's gonna be fine. And I booked it. We showed up and when I showed up, I thought, oh, oh, it looks haunted.
9:49 Speaker 00 Hmm.
9:49 Speaker 02 It has kind of like the shining vibes.
9:51 Speaker 00 Hmm.
9:52 Speaker 02 You know, like long carpeted um carters. You know, you could imagine somebody walking towards you.
9:58 Speaker 00 Hmm.
9:59 Speaker 02 Somebody not alive, you know?
10:01 Speaker 00 And did you yourself feel an energy there when you walked in?
10:04 Speaker 02 Sarah, a hundred percent.
10:05 Speaker 00 Okay.
10:05 Speaker 02 A hundred percent.
10:06 Speaker 00 You knew.
10:06 Speaker 02 The back of my.
10:07 Speaker 00 You knew.
10:07 Speaker 02 Here on the back of my neck stand up.
10:09 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:09 Speaker 02 They have an abandoned restaurant or a restaurant that was not fully functioning.
10:13 Speaker 00 Okay.
10:14 Speaker 02 And you'd go through little, it just feels creepy, like it lives in the the textures of the wall and the carpet and everything.
10:21 Speaker 00 Or it feels full, maybe.
10:23 Speaker 02 Or or yes.
10:24 Speaker 00 Right? Without.
10:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
10:26 Speaker 00 Physical people there.
10:27 Speaker 02 That's that's, there are some other things turning around in this, in this hotel, let's say. But again, I kept it buttoned up.
10:35 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
10:35 Speaker 02 Told no one and we had a good time that evening and we all went off to bed.
10:40 Speaker 00 Hmm.
10:41 Speaker 02 And the night was okay for me. I was hoping the morning would come rather quickly.
10:47 Speaker 00 Did you sleep okay?
10:48 Speaker 02 Not really.
10:49 Speaker 00 Okay.
10:49 Speaker 02 But I imagine the rest of the cast did, cause I was hanging out with one of the cast members downstairs. And Jennifer Birmingham, you know, one of our staff members came barreling at me the morning. And and she looked like, I don't know if she looked shocked or she just looked a little bit off. And she came to me eyes wide and she said, this place is haunted. And you know, something in the way she was, she was so convinced of it, made me feel like there was no lying here, you know? And so I said, yes, um, it is. I thought nobody would know, da, da, da. And she's like, yeah, well, I do, I know, and it's a hundred percent true.
11:34 Speaker 02 And then the rest of the cast got wind of it.
11:37 Speaker 00 Hmm.
11:38 Speaker 02 And that day, kind of going into the second day, because remember we have one more night, right? You could feel it in their body language. Everybody was just a little bit more hesitant, just like over the shoulder looks. Something else is here with me, a little bit more uncomfortable, wanting the day to end and the night to end even faster.
11:56 Speaker 00 Hmm.
11:57 Speaker 02 You know? And then for me, it became a hundred percent real. Because remember, all this time I was producer. I had to now contend with the fact that this is real and we're gonna all individually go into our bedrooms that night and sleep. And I was terrified. Almost as if there was some different type of ghost in West Virginia than in Jamaica that, you know, I didn't come up with, but I was terrified.
12:22 Speaker 00 Hmm.
12:22 Speaker 02 You know? And we all slept. I, I did kind of with one eye open, more open than the night before. And then we woke up and let's just say we exited the premises rather quickly.
12:38 Speaker 00 Well, thanks so much for sharing your story today.
12:40 Speaker 02 Anytime.
12:42 Speaker 00 After the break, stories about the secrets that lie beyond mortal can. Be back in a moment.
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13:46 Speaker 00 Welcome back. Ethan Sweetland May told our next story at a Louisville Grand Slam. Here's Ethan live at the mall.
14:03 Speaker 04 So even if three separate strangers hadn't told us that our new home, our first house was haunted, by the end of the first two weeks of living there, even Aberlin and I were admitting that the house had an intense energy. I mean, I mean, we loved the house. We loved the 100-year-old wood floors and we loved the high ceilings. But like if after three years of marriage, her, the temperate rationalist, and me, the paranoid spiritualist, both were weirded out by something as ephemeral as energy, it was serious. It felt like the
14:44 Speaker 04 house like wasn't ours. It was like holding on to like the memory and the secrets of the people that lived there before us. So I was actually really relieved when I heard Aberlin coming in through the front door after she'd been gone on a run. And I got up from unpacking and I came to greet her and she kind of stopped me and she was like, "Did you open the window in the attic?" And I was like, "No."
15:05 Speaker 04 And she's like, "That's weird because I was walking up just now and it's open a little bit." And I was like, "Oh." The paranoid spiritualist is like, "Uh..." And she's, but Aberlin is like high on running endorphins, right? And she is not thinking about the randos who told us our house is haunted. And she's like already got a flashlight and she's like, "We gotta get up there and close that thing before it rains." And before I've really thought it through, like I am following her up the ladder into the creepiest part of the house, right? The area in the attic, only a little bit of it, has a floor like right around the ladder. The window To close is on the opposite side of the attic. I have to squeeze through this gap in the wall they've put. And I've got the flashlight and there's all this hanging black plastic blocking from getting there. So I have to like half crawl, half crouch through the claustrophobic dark around the edge of the attic to get to the window.
15:49 Speaker 04 I am hating this and I like get there and I close the window and I am starting to make my way back. I'm freaking out a little bit, but I'm also starting to feel a little bit better because nothing super weird has happened. And this is over and we can get out of the attic. Right. And I get back to the gap and I hand Aberlin the flashlight and I'm climbing through. And we are like, I see the ladder. We are free and clear and we are almost there. When we hear the unmistakable sound of a hinge turning.
16:18 Speaker 04 There are no doors in the attic. And we turn and a wall has opened. It is not a wall. It is a door. And Aberlin shines the flashlight through this open doorway and there is a tunnel of black plastic leading to the other side of the attic and it takes a turn into the dark and you can't see around it. And I am frozen. I cannot move. I am not thinking. And while I am frozen and not thinking, I realize Aberlin is walking into the tunnel. And like every stupid guy who's in love with a hot girl in a horror movie, I just start following her without thinking about what's happening.
16:58 Speaker 04 And we get to the end of the tunnel and we turn and we are standing in a, this room, all made of black plastic. And the first thing her flashlight falls on is this low table made of plywood and two by fours. And right next to it is an identical table. And all around it on the floor are like zip ties and cords and there's a pile of lamps in the corner. And we look at each other and we both just finished the first season of Dexter and we are thinking one thing. And we just like, without saying anything, we're just like, out of there, backwards, down the ladder, shut it up. And we have this panicked brainstorming session. We are like, what do we do? And I'm like, we call the cops. And she's like, tell them what? We found a room in our attic. There's no blood. There's no crime.
17:41 Speaker 04 And then I remember that like my sister and my brother-in-law like are coming to see us the next day. And I'm like, okay, okay, we just table this for the night. And she's like, I don't have a better idea. That's what we're doing. It was a really long night. I just laid there, listening to the house creaking, staring at the ceiling and like trying to imagine some pleasant harmless hobby that you would need a scary murder room for.
18:06 Speaker 04 And the next day, my brother-in-law gets there and he's one of these walking human encyclopedia people who you bring up houseboats and suddenly he knows about houseboats. I'm like, dude, I gotta show you something. And he's like, okay. And I like take him upstairs through the secret door and the dark tunnel. And he's like, dude. And I'm like, I know. And he starts rooting around, doing his Sherlock thing. And I'm just standing there like, oh my God. People have been murdered in my house. And he stands up with like a handful of aquarium rocks. And he sees the grim look on my face and he just starts laughing at me. And I'm like, what? And he's like, dude, do you know what this is? I'm like, no. And he's like, it's a grow room. And I'm like, homeschooled. What's a grow room?
18:52 Speaker 04 And he's like, these are aquarium rocks with hydroponics. They use them for soil to grow plants, you know? The room's all blacked out because they had UV bulbs. Dude, they were growing pot in here.
19:04 Speaker 04 And I was like, oh my sweet Jesus. It was just drugs. They were just using the house for drugs. There's no murder. Oh my God. Thank you, Jesus. And we go downstairs and I tell Aberlin and my sister and everyone's laughing and we are just relieved. The next day, Aberlin went up there and we ripped it all out. No, no, this is our house now. We burned sage, we prayed. Seven years later, we still live there. And you know, sometimes, you know, we talk about like moving somewhere else or finding a new house. And like every time we do, my stomach gets really tight and I'm like, I just don't think I can go through all that again. Thank you.
19:50 Speaker 00 That was Ethan Sweetland-May. Ethan has loved hearing and telling stories from his earliest memories, and he's been captivated by the power of shared narrative. He's running for state senate in his home of Indiana. Our next story is a reminder that not all experiences with the other side have to be haunting. Rich Tackenberg told this at a New York City Grand Slam. Here's Rich, live at the Moth.
20:20 Speaker 05 I've always been a very atypical atheist, because I'm the non-believer that wants to believe. I see, it seems very comforting, and I like being comforted, but I'm also very stubborn. So to believe, I need proof. Well, two years ago, my wife hears about a psychic named Pat, who holds salons at her house. Now, if I don't believe in God, I think you can guess what I think about psychics. But I wanna go, because maybe Pat will prove me wrong. So two weeks later, we are in Pat's huge, empty living room. There's six other strangers with us. We're all seated in folding chairs. Pat is a short, older lady,
21:05 Speaker 05 who tells us that her guides will be speaking through her. So she gets around to me, and she says, "One of my guides was a race car driver, and he says, 'Get your car inspected.'" Hmm. Now, I hadn't driven there, so there was no one looking at my car, and I said, "Sure." And she says, "No, there's a problem with your car. The front driver's side wheel. He's saying it's above the wheel, but check out your front driver's side wheel. It's very dangerous.
21:48 Speaker 05 You will get stranded." And this sounds bad, and I'm ecstatic, because a psychic has... Said something to me so specific that I can prove whether it's right or wrong. That never happens. So, a couple of days later, I bring my car in to get an oil change and a general inspection. And I do not tell them about the wheel, because I don't know psychics, but I know mechanics. And if I tell them, "There might be a problem." It's like the secret, "I will spiritually manifest a $500 repair."
22:27 Speaker 05 But I do get a call, and I approve a repair, not for a wheel, for the suspension. So, 5 o'clock that night, I'm back to pay for my car. And it's a very crowded waiting room, there's one woman at the front counter in her late 30s. And I ask her about the repair, and she says, "Oh, okay, um, we changed, we put on a new sway bar. Uh, it's something that sits underneath your engine, it connects at either side of your car. Uh, and one of the two connectors was cracked. And if it had broken off while you were driving, it would have been really bad. And you would not have been able to drive the car." And I'm like, "So I would have been stranded." So I said,
23:08 Speaker 05 "Where exactly does this bar connect to my car?" And she says, "Oh, um, I, I think it connects at the front two wheels." And for a moment, I couldn't breathe. And I said, "The damage... Which wheel?" And she says, "Oh, I, I don't know." And I said, "Well, could you find out?" And she says, "Sir, it, it doesn't matter, because the, the whole bar had to be replaced anyway." So, debit or credit. But it mattered to me, because normal people would hear that there was a problem at either of the front two wheels, and take that as a sign that Pat was right.
23:53 Speaker 05 But I'm so stubborn not to believe, I require 100% accuracy. So I say, "Can you find out?" And so she makes a call, and the other customers are getting very restless. And she hangs up, and she says, "I'm sorry, the mechanic doesn't remember, so, I, I don't know."
24:14 Speaker 05 Unless you want him to look through the garbage. And I think, "Am I now the guy that asks a stranger to dig through garbage for this?" Yes, yes, I am. So I lean over and as quietly as I can, I say, "I'm asking because I have been told that there was a problem with a very specific wheel of my car by a psychic.
24:52 Speaker 05 And now with this news, I can't leave without knowing which wheel." And she looks at me and says, "Sir, that is amazing." I am gonna go and find out, and she runs out to the garage. And I'm in a room full of people who are very annoyed with me, and my body's full of adrenaline, but weirdly, I'm calm in a way that I don't really know. Like, it's like the actually just the idea that maybe there might be something out there that is bigger than me in the universe is bringing me a weird peace that I haven't felt.
25:33 Speaker 05 And I realize I've been looking for proof, but maybe the power in believing is in the believing. And then five minutes later, she comes back in and she says, "Well, we did find the bar, but just to be clear, the bar doesn't actually connect at the wheels." The mechanic explained to me, "The sway bar connects to your car above the wheels." "The damage was above your driver's side wheel."
26:05 Speaker 05 And then I tell her about Pat and above the wheel, and then we are hugging. Appropriately.
26:18 Speaker 05 And I will say, since that day, I still don't believe in God. But I do allow for the possibility that there is a dead race car driver that is looking after me or my car. And I believe just to believe, and it feels silly, but it also feels comforting. And I like feeling comforted.
26:48 Speaker 00 That was Rich Tackenberg. Rich has now lived in Los Angeles longer than he grew up in New York. He's a managing director in executive search specializing in media, entertainment, and nonprofit placements. Married for almost 25 years, he's most proud of not screwing that up, yet. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks so much for joining us. From all of us here at The Moth, happy Halloween, happy All Saints. We hope you'll join us next time.
27:26 Speaker 06 Sarah Austin Jenness is a director, The Moth's executive producer, and a co-author of the bestselling How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, which is available now wherever you get your books. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Marina Cluchet, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinalle, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia Uranya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything
28:11 Speaker 06 else, go to our website, themoth.org.
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