MFM Minisode 134 - The Ghosts

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Hi.

[2] Hello and welcome to my favorite murder.

[3] The mini -seoed.

[4] The many times when we tell you your many, many stories.

[5] So you've written so many stories into us, and now we're going to present them to you.

[6] Back at you.

[7] Hometowns, things that have happened to you that got you into true crime in the first place.

[8] That was the original.

[9] Yeah, we've gone off into ghost stories.

[10] We've got off into sinkholes.

[11] But this is specifically.

[12] um this is where we gather all those stories yeah and then retell them to you it's almost like the the just the weird stories that you can't tell anyone else yeah we just want your weird stories bring your weird stories here then we'll tell everybody else yeah about them and yeah for example yeah are you ready i'm ready the subject line of this is john balushi haunted my baby brother dear karen georgia stephen and pets i've been wanting to write to you for some uh for a long time and finally, during a recent and still active binge of the podcast, got the inspiration.

[13] I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles with my parents, younger sister, and younger brother.

[14] My brother, at the time of the story takes place, was two to three years old.

[15] One day, our house's septic tank backed up and flooded our entire house.

[16] My mother, being who she is, decided that the only place that could comfortably house a family of five was the Chateau Marmont.

[17] Oh, girl.

[18] Oh, damn.

[19] Once we're talking about the Chateau Marmont.

[20] know we're in Hollywood baby shit girl so so this mother of threes like let's get this whole act down to the chateau mom you know what this is disgusting was do it was your mother candy spelling um okay so we moved into one of the bungalows a two -bedroom standalone house perched above the pool which just so happened to be the same bungalow in which john blushi died from an overdose in 1982.

[21] Shut up.

[22] My parents took the master bedroom.

[23] My sister and I shared the second bedroom and my brother, who was still in a crib, got a large walking closet.

[24] Enjoy.

[25] Throw your kid in the closet.

[26] Strange little things would happen in the house, like smoke alarms going off for no reason.

[27] They do that all the time.

[28] Door slamming shut.

[29] That's the wind.

[30] Lights turning on and off.

[31] Electricity.

[32] Yeah, that's how lights work.

[33] And overall feeling that's the same.

[34] there was just some sort of energy around you and it wasn't a negative energy just a presence that you could feel like a soft breeze blowing by you well well that's the breeze uh that's called a breeze my toddler brother began waking up during the night calling for my mom she would repeatedly go check on him come and comfort him and tell him to go back to sleep one night she asked what was bothering him and he replied the funny man woke me up he wants to play cars oh she would first I frequently hear my brother talking to himself while playing, and strange things continued to happen throughout the bungalow.

[35] One day my brother was playing in his room.

[36] My mom walked by and saw him sitting on the floor.

[37] She walked into the kitchen for a couple of minutes, and then when she walked back in to look in on him, he was no longer on the floor, but standing up in his crib.

[38] Since she knew he couldn't climb up in there himself, she asked him how he got there.

[39] The funny man helped me. The funny man, he said.

[40] This is absolutely the beginning of one of the insidious movies.

[41] Yeah.

[42] I'm positive.

[43] This is a cheap and, uh, ultimately boring, uh, horror movie.

[44] Oh my God.

[45] That you're setting up.

[46] Um, no offense, not boring to you.

[47] I see a lot of those movies.

[48] Really boring.

[49] Uh, we eventually changed bungalows.

[50] Good plan.

[51] Yeah.

[52] And didn't hear any more about, about the funny man. Yeah, but like the funny man, like stay there because at the other bungalow, it might be the scary man exactly right the mean man it might be the funny man is like your best possible fucking possibility think about all the other crazed asshole drug addicts from los angeles that have stayed at the chateau marmonde go with the comedian yeah um okay so uh a few months later my mom was in bed with my brother reading a book on the history of the hotel she turned to the chapter with john balushi with a black and white portrait of him um filling a page my brother saw the photo and clearly recognizing it started giggling.

[53] What is it?

[54] She asked.

[55] He wouldn't answer her.

[56] He just continued to smile.

[57] She asked again, what are you laughing at?

[58] Do you know who that is?

[59] And he giggled and nodded up and down.

[60] Who is that?

[61] She asked, that's my friend.

[62] That's the funny man. It turned out my little brother had been spending his nights playing games with a very lonely John Belushi.

[63] He was so young at the time.

[64] There was no way.

[65] There was no way he knew who John Belushi was prior to all of this happening.

[66] What if he was super into SNL as a toddler?

[67] Naturally, no one ever talked about his death in that bungalow to a toddler.

[68] I hope you enjoyed this ghost, right.

[69] It made me feel sorry for John Belushi, but I'm glad he found some solace hanging out with my brother and hopefully got a few laughs from him.

[70] Stay sexy, don't get murdered, Gina.

[71] Oh, my God.

[72] That's amazing.

[73] That is such a good family story.

[74] Okay, this is called Some Spooky Shit for Halloween.

[75] and then a sidebar.

[76] Cats, no. Oh.

[77] That's right, Elvis.

[78] Yes, Elvis.

[79] Hi, guys and gals.

[80] No, hi guy and gals.

[81] Aw.

[82] Steven.

[83] I thought, no, that it's almost Halloween would be a good time for me to write in about my spooky paranormal experience.

[84] I grew up in a small town in Colorado in a house that was super far away from other houses, and it was unanimously agreed was haunted as hell.

[85] All of the spooky was reported happening in the same room, the TV room, basement, of course.

[86] The stories mostly happened during parties with my friends, hearing fucked up things, or people acting weird in the wee hours of the morning.

[87] Except one time when a hippie lady stayed with us down there and told us she heard things screaming in the walls, which we decided to blame on raccoons and move on.

[88] They're a good catch -all those raccoons.

[89] Goodbye.

[90] My personal experience happened when I was about 17.

[91] My parents were out of town and decided to leave me in the enormous haunted house alone.

[92] My dad was allergic to cats, so they had to stay outside in our garage, but I was spooked.

[93] So I brought the homies inside.

[94] It's fucking right.

[95] That's right.

[96] When, uh, we went downstairs.

[97] Because they're really going to help you when you get killed.

[98] Cats milling around as you're murdered.

[99] That's what I'm just like so sad at the idea of a fucking garage full of cats.

[100] Just like nothing as a cat person makes me more sad.

[101] No. Um, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

[102] Homies inside.

[103] We went downstairs to watch some TV and I settled into the couch facing the TV with my back to the majority of the room.

[104] One of my cats One of my cats, Tito, was on my lap and uncharacteristically really on edge.

[105] He kept jolting up and staring over my shoulder at the same corner.

[106] I would turn around and look where he was looking and of course nothing was there, but he would just stare.

[107] He did this several times.

[108] He would go from purring and drooling in my lap to high alert with all his hair on end and staring at the same fucking corner over my shoulder.

[109] Then suddenly he hissed and bolted out of the room.

[110] I decided not today, Satan, and booked it upstairs to my room.

[111] where he was waiting for me on my bed, acting like nothing happened.

[112] So I got in bed and finally calmed down and I fell asleep.

[113] The next thing I knew, I had opened my eyes and my nose was an inch away from a wall.

[114] As I started to come to, I realized where I was.

[115] That's right.

[116] I fucking sleptwalk to the corner in the basement.

[117] I freaked out.

[118] I'm freaking out.

[119] And sprinted upstairs and launched in my bed.

[120] I checked my phone and it was roughly 303 a .m. in the morning, meaning that I must have been in the corner almost exactly at 3 a .m. No. The witching hour.

[121] Is it?

[122] I mean, yeah.

[123] Nothing like that has ever happened to me since, and we are now selling the home.

[124] My mom used to tell my sister and I that the spirits have watched us grow up, and so aren't a threat to us, but might be mad about something else.

[125] But still, fuck that corner.

[126] Thanks for the awesome podcast.

[127] Stay sexy and trust your cat, Taylor.

[128] And then next to Taylor in parentheses, it says, girl.

[129] Girl.

[130] Taylor girl.

[131] Taylor's a female.

[132] Taylor girl.

[133] Taylor's a good story.

[134] That's right.

[135] Trust your cats.

[136] God, that's upsetting.

[137] To fucking sleepwalk and then wake up in the basement in a corner.

[138] That's in the bad corner.

[139] Like if I woke up and I had slept walk to the pod loft, which is a relatively like spirit free safe place, I would be freaked out.

[140] Oh yeah.

[141] No, no, no. There's no good place.

[142] You could be like, you could sleepwalk to the freezer where all the ice cream is and still be freaking the fuck out.

[143] Right.

[144] But to the fucking corner where your cat was.

[145] pissing at?

[146] To the Blair Witch corner where the bad children go right before they're murdered.

[147] Exactly.

[148] At 3 .4 a .m. That's right.

[149] Yoy.

[150] Okay, this one, the subject line is Haunted Elevator with a surprise celebrity cameo.

[151] Love it.

[152] Love it.

[153] And how about this?

[154] Hi, everybody.

[155] Perfect.

[156] Thank you.

[157] Get creative though sometimes.

[158] Love it.

[159] Love everything about it.

[160] Oh my God.

[161] That's the first line.

[162] That's the best.

[163] Beautiful.

[164] Okay.

[165] So my hometown in Atlanta, Georgia, my hometown is Atlanta, Georgia, and my hometown murder forward slash ghost story, also happens to include the single most bizarre encounter in my life.

[166] Back in 1994, my mother remarried into an extremely wealthy Jewish family when she married my stepdad, get it, and stack it up.

[167] My new family and I come from vastly different backgrounds.

[168] Don't know if you ladies have watched the show Shameless, but the character Mickey Milokovic is a male version of me when I was coming up.

[169] If you haven't seen the show, I was on my way to being a piece of convict garbage.

[170] No offense to a convicted felon.

[171] Anyway, on the first night of Hanukkah, 2002, my family celebrated at my step -grandmother's home.

[172] She lives in a high -rise and an uber wealthy part of Buckhead in her building has elevators you can only use after the front attendant has given you clearance.

[173] Oh, I get it.

[174] Let it.

[175] Be fancy.

[176] my stepdad Andy is my usual sidekick at family functions but he wasn't feeling well that night so he didn't attend the party without him I felt out a place and ended up hanging out that's so sweet her stepdad was her sidekick I know it's very sweet um I felt out a place and ended up hanging out with one of the concierge staff in the downstairs lobby we were shooting the shit drinking some booze I'd smuggled down from the party um when I started hearing a consistent dinging sound coming from the elevator from a side corner of the lobby.

[177] It sounded like somebody was pressing the button to open and close the elevator but wasn't getting off for whatever weird reason.

[178] I looked over and could see the floors opening and closing, the doors opening of closing, and the lights inside flickering on and off.

[179] I asked the attendant if the elevator was broken and he casually responded, no, it's just haunted.

[180] He told me that a few years earlier, a bloody man had run screaming into the building after being shot in an altercation down the street.

[181] and had collapsed and died in the elevator.

[182] Apparently, the guy who had been the perpetrator was trying to run from the police but didn't make it very far.

[183] Oh, the guy had been the perpetrator and was trying to run from police but didn't make it very far.

[184] The attendant told me that ever since the death, the elevator had behaved strangely no matter how many times they had its service.

[185] What?

[186] The doors opened and closed on its own and it acted like it had a mind of its own, taking tenants to random floors going up um going up them all the way back down without opening the door shit going up then all the way back down without opening the door and generally being pretty creepy i thought the attendant was just pulling my leg and i told him i thought he was full of shit when a pleasant british voice chimed in behind me saying oh no that elevator's most definitely haunted and i refuse to use it i turned around to see who else believed this bullshit only to see, it was Elton fucking John standing there.

[187] What?

[188] Wearing a blue, a pair of blue pajamas and one of those stocking cap hat things that you might expect to see on an elf.

[189] Wait, Stephen is laughing so hard right now.

[190] Did you write this as a prank?

[191] This is insane.

[192] You found it and you were like, I have to get this to them.

[193] He's laughing in a way that he's like excited.

[194] Oh, it's so good.

[195] It's so good.

[196] You gotta love a celebrity cameo.

[197] This is an epic.

[198] After a second of me staring at him while I tried to process what I was seeing, he gave me a cute little head nod and wandered off down a side hallway.

[199] What?

[200] That's the story of how I learned that Elton John lives in my step -grandmother's building, that he believes the elevator's haunted and that he has some sweet -ass pajamas.

[201] Cheers, Amber.

[202] P .S., my stepdad is my personal hero and best friend, and without him, I wouldn't be half of who I am today.

[203] He listens to the podcast with me sometimes, so on the off -chance this was read, I wanted to add that.

[204] to the record.

[205] Why am I crying so much of this?

[206] That's lovely.

[207] Amber, that's very sweet.

[208] And a great fucking story.

[209] That's beautiful.

[210] I'm so happy for you, Amber.

[211] Amber, good job.

[212] You all deserve that.

[213] Your mother deserved it.

[214] You, your mother, and she found a wonderful man. She found a wonderful man. It didn't matter if he had money.

[215] It helps.

[216] It just helps that he's a rich, too.

[217] As my mom would say, it doesn't hurt.

[218] Never hurt.

[219] Never hurts.

[220] Okay.

[221] This is called friendly ghost story.

[222] Chicago.

[223] Hi, MFFM fan.

[224] Thank you so much for making ghost stories fair game from minisodes because I have been so excited to share this old ghost story that has been past through generations of my family.

[225] Sweet.

[226] You people are the best.

[227] Okay, here it is.

[228] So it was smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression in Chicago, and my great grandpa was struggling, like everyone else, to provide food and shelter for his wife and several small children.

[229] one day he heard word that a local bank had a job available he immediately dropped what he was doing and sprinted to the bank but already a huge crowd of men had gathered who all wanted the job and then it says in parentheses what a messed up time it really was tell me about it no women couldn't work there okay he waited for hours but never made it to the front of the line and eventually the boss man from the bank announced that the job had been filled and they should all go home totally defeated my great grandpa went to the local pub sure and then it says good for you grandpa as he is sitting drinking a beer The man sat down next to him at a bar He ordered a drink and they got to talking After several minutes of chatting the man Out of the blue goes, you should go back to the bank They have a job available My great grandpa was like, no, I was just there And they hired someone else The man was like, nope, they have a job available And my great grandpa was like, no they don't This continues and I guess my great grandpa Was pretty annoyed with the guy Eventually he was like, fine, whatever, I'll go back He thought that the guy was completely bonkers But something in him made him walk back to the bank like expected when he got back it was bank business as usual there was the there was no crowd and the posting for the job had been taken down he was about to turn around and leave when the bank doors open and the bank boss man is ushering someone out then he pointed to my great grandpa and said you here for the job my great grandpa was in shock but somehow pulled himself together enough to ace an interview and get hired oh turns out that the guy the boss man was ushered outside was the one they who they had originally hired but something didn't work out as soon as my great -grandpa was done with the paperwork at the bank, he ran back to the pub because he wanted to find the man who sat next to him to thank him for somehow, knowing the bank job would be open again.

[230] You're crying already.

[231] I'm going to cry.

[232] But when he got back, the man was gone.

[233] He asked the bartender, did you know the man who was sitting next to me?

[234] I need to find him.

[235] And the bartender said, I don't know what you're talking about.

[236] There hasn't been anybody sitting next to you.

[237] Sorry.

[238] That's exactly right.

[239] That's exactly right.

[240] I bet you were crazy because you were talking to yourself the whole time.

[241] No!

[242] My great -grandpa was totally confused as he walked home.

[243] My family is convinced that that bank job saved him and his family.

[244] And so also my mom, my siblings, and me. My Irish Catholic family thinks the mysterious man was an angel, but I don't know.

[245] Friendly Ghost seems more likely to me. Stay sexy and always do what your friendly pub ghost tells you to do.

[246] Bridget.

[247] Can I say, Bridget, what I think it was?

[248] Yes.

[249] Because in the Great Depression, in the crash of 1929, all those bankers killed themselves.

[250] And I bet you is a fucking banker from that bank.

[251] And it's the reason one of the jobs was open.

[252] And he fucking went there.

[253] It was his job.

[254] It was his job.

[255] They were billing because he killed himself.

[256] Because why would he even be in that bank or know or haunt that bank?

[257] I love it.

[258] Scary.

[259] I love it.

[260] I should have seen that one for last.

[261] Shit.

[262] Sorry.

[263] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[264] Absolutely.

[265] And when you say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash?

[266] Exactly.

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[269] That's right.

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[279] important note that promo code is all lowercase go to shopify .com slash murder to take your retail business to the next level today that's shopify .com slash murder goodbye oh this one's creepy just because of like the description of the ghost okay okay uh it's called a dead camper question mark oh hey georgia karen stephen and all animals multiple ls huge trend of the show and Since it's October, I'm re -listing to last year's ghost stories.

[280] They put little squiggly lines episode.

[281] In the event, you do something similar this year or a creepy minisodes sometime, I hope you find this creepy too.

[282] I was born and raised in a very small town in New Hampshire, home of good old H .H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H .S. H. H. H.