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[Assistant] There are a handful of experiences and they give birth to a wider story. And story, as we know, spreads like water. It flows and seeps and has a way of reaching through barriers. Given enough time, story, like water, will leave its mark and transform a place. And Gloucester was certainly being transformed.


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[Assistant] One and a half centuries later, on August 6th of 1817, two women were walking near the inner harbor of Gloucester when they saw something moving through the water, as if following the tide inland from the sea.


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[Assistant] They stopped to watch it for a moment, before realizing exactly what it was they were looking at. It was a serpent.


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[Assistant] A monstrously large serpent. Too large to be anything they might typically see in the waters there.


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[Assistant] Naturally, they were frightened and shared their story with others.


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[Assistant] Four days later on August 10th, others had a similar experience. Susan Stover was walking with her father when they saw the creature in the water. They described the body as long and serpent-like, and said that its head was long, like that of a dog or a horse.


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[Assistant] That very same day, Lydia Watson had her own sighting. Except when she saw the serpent, it was coiled up at the water's edge. When it uncoiled itself, Watson claims it was nearly 70 feet long. More sightings followed.


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[Assistant] Local man Amos Story claimed to have watched the serpent for at least half an hour. He only saw portions of it as it moved through the waves, but his impression was one of awe and fear. Henry Rowe, along with his sons, had multiple sightings that week.


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[Assistant] On August 12th, Solomon Allen claimed that the monster actually circled his boat a few times. He described it in roughly the same terms, 80 feet long, head like a horse, black eyes.


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[Assistant] But he watched it for hours from the side of the ship, and he never felt threatened. In fact, Alan described the creature as almost playful, something he never expected from such an otherworldly monster.


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[Assistant] The summer of 1817 was filled with sightings of the Gloucester Sea Serpent. Every time the tide came in, it seemed, there was something new following it. More whispers. More fear. More first and second hand reports. And for many tales, that would be enough.


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[Assistant] Whatever it was, it was already guaranteed a place in local lore. But not this creature. The sea serpent of Gloucester, you see, was far from finished.


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[Assistant] In the coming days, the culture in Gloucester would shift. For almost 200 years, the people of the region had whispered about the creature. They warned their children to beware the coast, to keep a watchful eye on the dark Atlantic waters just beyond their door.


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[Assistant] But as the sightings piled up at an alarming rate, people were beginning to wonder if something else should be done. More than just talk. More than just fear. Maybe they needed to take action. Perhaps, some suggested, they should hunt it down.


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[Assistant] It's a very human reaction. When we fail to understand something, we tend to attack it. If it's an unknown, it could be a threat. At least, that's our gut reaction in these moments. I'm not saying it's a good reaction, just the natural one. So the people of Gloucester can't be blamed for acting out of character. They were, after all, afraid for their safety.


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[Assistant] The tipping point seems to have been on August 14th. It holds the record for the largest number of sea serpent sightings in a single day. Not just in Gloucester, but in all of history.


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[Assistant] And when that many people have that many frightful experiences,


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[Assistant] Well, it has a tendency to push a society over the edge.


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[Assistant] That's when Matthew Gaffney decided to take matters into his own hands.


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[Assistant] He was the carpenter for a local fishing vessel, but on August 14th of 1817, he didn't go out with his crewmates. Instead, he stayed behind and took his own boat into the waters just south of Gloucester Harbor.


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[Assistant] And he didn't go alone either. His brother joined him as did one of their friends.


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[Assistant] It wasn't long before the three men found what they were looking for. Off in the distance, they could see it.


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[Assistant] The dark undulating shape of the sea monster slipping in and out of the water.


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[Assistant] So they guided their boat closer for a better look and, of course, a better shot.


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[Assistant] As they approached, they could see the creature in more detail. Same horse-like head. Same dark eyes. It was apparently a dark green color, modeled with brown, but white on the underbelly.


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[Assistant] Here it was. The beast that had been frightening the village. The monster that shouldn't exist. Here was the thing they had come to hunt. So he reached for his rifle and took aim.


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[Assistant] Gaffney fired, and all three of them swore he hit the target. Right in the head, in fact.


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[Assistant] But nothing happened. They saw no blood. The serpent didn't even flinch.


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[Assistant] Instead, it dove under the dark waves, and that's when they noticed that it was headed straight toward their boat.


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[Assistant] Maybe that Native American warrior had been right all along. That if someone was to shoot at it, but not kill it, the creature would become an angry, deadly threat. Gaffney and the others braced themselves for an attack. But the attack never happened.


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[Assistant] The serpent resurfaced on the other side of their boat and began to coil and uncoil in the water, moving erratically and stirring the ocean into a cauldron of foam. But it never approached them.


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[Assistant] In the end, Gaffney and the others sailed home empty-handed.


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[Assistant] What he didn't know was just how easy it could be to get close to the creature.


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[Assistant] In fact, just two months later, two boys would accomplish what Gaffney never could. They stood over the serpent's dead body. Well, sort of.


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[Assistant] You see, in the late 1700s, there was a Swedish botanist named Carl Linnaeus. He's the person responsible for developing the scientific system for classifying living organisms. The same system we still use today.


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[Assistant] In the 1790s, Linnaean societies were formed all across Europe and America, with the goal of discovering and classifying new plants and animals.


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[Assistant] So when two boys stumbled upon the dead body of a sea serpent on the rocky beach near Gloucester Harbor in October of 1817, their parents called upon the Linnaean Society of New England to help study it.


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[Assistant] What they found was a three foot long snake-like creature.


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[Assistant] It was much smaller than the sightings had reported, but the reason was obvious to the Linnaean Society members standing over the body. It was a baby.


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[Assistant] The full-grown serpent had entered Gloucester Harbor to lay its eggs, and this was one of the young that didn't survive.


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[Assistant] They declared it a new undiscovered species of snake, and they called it the Scoliophic Atlanticus, the Atlantic Humped Snake. For a while.


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[Assistant] A few days later, another naturalist, Alexandre Lasseur, studied the corpse and said it was nothing more than a common black snake. With no specimen left to study today, it's difficult to say who was correct.


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[Assistant] And then, things sort of slowed down in Gloucester. There were only 12 sightings in 1839, and that decreased to nine in 1875.


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[Assistant] It's not that the town itself was shrinking. To the contrary, Gloucester has grown a lot since then. But the sightings just sort of faded away.


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[Assistant] In the first five decades of the 20th century, the frequency of serpent sightings dropped to roughly one per year. A far cry from the golden days of the early 1800s.


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[Assistant] Whether or not that has been a disappointment to the people of Gloucester is unclear. But there's no more fear, no more worry, and no more cautious glances cast at the dark waters of the harbor.


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[Assistant] If the Gloucester Sea Serpent was, in fact, a real undiscovered sea creature, we will most likely never know.


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[Assistant] That's the sort of space that invites fear and stories and superstition.


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[Assistant] For centuries, sailors have been considered some of the most superstitious people in the world. Their culture is full of bad omens, good omens, mythical creatures, and unique rituals.


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[Assistant] It's most likely a side effect of their risky profession. On the open seas, your life hangs in the balance every moment of the day. An unexpected storm, a hidden reef, a concealing fog. Anything can sneak up on a vessel and pull it down into the depths of those cold black waters.


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[Assistant] So it's no wonder that sailors have feared something darker. Something more deadly than just the waves.


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[Assistant] Whether it's been the tentacles of the kraken, the call of the siren, or the endless coils of the sea serpent, the ocean's mythology is home to a dangerous aquatic menagerie.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, science has pulled the veil back on a number of these tales.


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[Assistant] Sometimes, as in the case of mermaids, there really is nothing to fear.


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[Assistant] Other times, the tentacles are just as long as we might have imagined, but far less deadly.


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[Assistant] But there's so much about the ocean we still don't know.


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[Assistant] In many ways, it's the final undiscovered country.


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[Assistant] Beneath the waters off the coast of Gloucester, there's a shelf in the ocean floor. It's like a plateau that skirts the mainland, where the water is shallower, maybe 200 or so feet deep.


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[Assistant] Further out to sea, it drops to over 3,000 feet, which makes the waters of the shelf a sort of world of its own.


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[Assistant] And that shelf extends all the way up the east coast of North America. And it was there, in the waters of Fortune Bay on the southern side of Newfoundland, that something odd happened in May of 1997.


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[Assistant] Two fishermen from Little Bay East were in their boat when they saw something large in the water.


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[Assistant] At first they assumed it was a collection of garbage bags, floating free after having fallen from another ship. So they guided their own boat over to retrieve them.


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[Assistant] When they got there, they quickly realized that the shapes weren't garbage bags. They were the humps of a long necked creature.


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[Assistant] The skin color was lighter than the Gloucester Serpent, sort of a medium gray. But the rest of the description sounds eerily familiar. 40 or so feet long. Large, dark eyes. And a head, both men described as horse-like.


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[Assistant] As they approached, the creature lifted its head above the water and looked at them.


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[Assistant] For a moment, no one moved. No one made a sound, the men or the creature. And then, without warning,


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[Assistant] It quietly slipped back into the water and disappeared beneath the waves.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research assistance from Marsat Crockett.


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[Assistant] Lore is a lot more than just bi-weekly audio stories. You can catch Lore on tour starting this June on the West Coast with Midwest and East Coast dates to follow.


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[Assistant] There are extra mini-episodes available only to Patreon supporters. And there's a companion email newsletter for each new episode called The Epitaph, where you can get exclusive updates on the TV show, the book series, as well as episode source material.


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[Assistant] And all of that can be found in one place, lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And if you're a social media sort of person, you can follow the show on Twitter, on Facebook, even on Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I love it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] On January 17th of 1894, a couple stood before a minister at the Vendome Hotel in Denver, Colorado.


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[Assistant] Henry Howard and Georgiana Yoke were about to be married. Standing near them was their witness, a woman named Minnie Williams.


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[Assistant] The bride had come from Indiana to escape a scandalous reputation and had found work in Chicago at a store owned by Henry.


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[Assistant] She was a tall, slender woman, about 25 years of age, with blue eyes and blonde hair, and she was madly in love with Henry.


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[Assistant] It sounds wonderful. It sounds perfect, actually. But there was trouble in paradise even before they met the minister there at the hotel.


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[Assistant] You see, Henry was already married. He was, in fact, married to two other women. And Minnie, the woman standing as witness, was actually Henry's mistress of over a year. Even Henry's name was fake.


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[Assistant] His real name had been abandoned long before, and it would be months before Georgiana would discover who he really was.


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[Assistant] Sometimes we think we know a person, only to discover that we were fooled.


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[Assistant] Community is built on trust, and that trust allows us to make connections, to let down our guard, and to feel safe. When that trust is broken though, our minds quickly shift to disappointment and stress and outright fear.


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[Assistant] Sure, it happens less often now in the age of Facebook and social media. But in the late 1800s, very little stood in the way of a person falsifying their identity.


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[Assistant] And Henry Howard or whoever he was prior to that moment in Denver had turned that skill into an art.


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[Assistant] Few people knew this about Henry, though. In fact, few people could have imagined what deep dark secrets boiled just beneath the surface of this smiling young groom. And when the world finally did find out exactly ten months later, they could barely contain their horror.


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[Assistant] Henry Howard was born in New Hampshire in 1861 as Herman Mudgett. His parents were wealthy, well-respected people in their community, and their son was born into that privilege. But from an early age, Herman was a problem child, constantly getting into trouble.


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[Assistant] According to Mudgett himself, as a child his classmates forced him to view and touch a human skeleton after learning that he was afraid of the town doctor.


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[Assistant] Their prank backfired though, generating a deep fascination rather than frightening him off. And that obsession with death would only grow.


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[Assistant] Soon the boy was expressing interest in medicine. One report claims that he would actually perform surgery on animals. Along with his excellent performance in school, he was able to pursue that interest and enter medical school, enrolling at the University of Michigan as H.H. Holmes in 1879.


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[Assistant] Far from home, and with access to resources that he previously lacked, college allowed homes to get creative.


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[Assistant] It was there that he devised an easy way to make money. A drive that would fuel many of his future crimes. It involved stealing a cadaver from the medical lab.


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[Assistant] Holmes would disfigure the corpse, plant the body somewhere that gave it the appearance of being the victim of a tragic accident. And then a few days later, he would approach a life insurance company with a policy for his deceased relative and collect the cash.


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[Assistant] His final insurance swindle in Michigan netted him $12,500, but he knew his welcome was wearing thin. After collecting the money, he vanished, abandoning school and his new wife and child, who never saw him again.


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[Assistant] He moved around the country after that, doing legitimate work, but also learning his way around the business world. He mastered the art of buying product on credit, avoiding the bills, selling the items, and then vanishing with the profit.


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[Assistant] Armed with that skill, he soon settled in Inglewood, just south of Chicago. And that's where he met Dr. Elizabeth Holden.


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[Assistant] It was 1885. Holmes was trying to avoid creditors from all around the country. But rather than vanish into obscurity, he chose to hide in plain sight. He married his second wife, polygamously, of course, and took a job at a local drug store owned and run by Dr. Elizabeth Holden, whose husband was dying of cancer.


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[Assistant] Holmes spent the next two years becoming more and more essential to Holden's business, paying her for ownership in the business and building relationships with customers. When Mr. Holden finally passed away, the payments from Holmes stopped and Mrs. Holden became upset, threatening to end their business partnership. But nothing happened.


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[Assistant] Nothing happened because Dr. Holden mysteriously vanished.


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[Assistant] When asked about her disappearance, Holmes told the authorities that she had moved out west to live with family, right after she had signed over the business to him, of course. And the police bought the lie.


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[Assistant] Holmes operated the drugstore as if nothing had happened, growing the business and continuing his chess game of evading creditors. But when the empty lot across the street became available, he couldn't resist the temptation. Holmes, you see, had bigger plans.


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[Assistant] The World's Columbian Exhibition was scheduled to be hosted in Chicago in 1893, and he envisioned a hotel that could house the countless visitors who would travel to the area.


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[Assistant] This project was lovingly called The Castle, which wasn't far from the truth.


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[Assistant] It was 50 feet wide and over 160 feet long, taking up half a city block. With three stories and a basement, it would eventually have over 100 rooms within its walls. And Holmes, ever the micromanager, took on the task of project architect, refusing to share the plans with anyone else.


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[Assistant] Workers on the building asked questions, naturally, but when they did, homes would replace them. Most of the men working on the project never lasted more than two weeks. All told, over 500 carpenters and craftsmen worked on the castle.


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[Assistant] True to form, Holmes managed to avoid paying most of them as well. He would accuse them of shoddy work and refuse their wages. Some sued him, but he managed to put those cases off long enough that they eventually gave up.


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[Assistant] Once completed, Holmes moved the drugstore to the new building's ground floor and rented out space to other shops. His personal offices were located on the top floor and the remaining space was rented out as temporary living quarters, marketed as a boarding house for young, single women. The castle was open for business.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, not everyone who stayed there managed to survive the hospitality that Holmes offered them.


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[Assistant] When Mrs. Pansy Lee arrived from New Orleans, she rented a room at the castle. She was a widow and had traveled all over the United States before arriving in Chicago to settle down. When Holmes learned that she kept $4,000 in cash in the false bottom of her trunk,


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[Assistant] While some people came to the castle for lodging, others were looking for work. One of the requirements that Holmes imposed was that all of his employees there were to have life insurance policies for the sum of $5,000. Holmes, remember, knew the life insurance business very well.


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[Assistant] When 17-year-old Jeannie Thompson arrived from Southern Illinois looking for work, Holmes saw an opportunity. She was young and pretty. The exact sort of blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty that he preferred. And he quickly gave her a job.


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[Assistant] In casual conversation, Jenny let slip that her family didn't actually know where she was.


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[Assistant] She had told them that she was traveling to New York but the offer of a good job was enough to keep her right there in Chicago.


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[Assistant] She told Holmes that she couldn't wait to tell her parents about her good fortune.


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[Assistant] Before she did though, he escorted her up to her room, and she was never seen again.


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[Assistant] In 1890, Ned Conner arrived at the castle looking for work. He traveled with his wife Julia, unusually tall for a woman at nearly six feet, and their young daughter Pearl. Ned was a watchmaker and jeweler, and Holmes hired him right away. But it was Ned's wife who captured his interest the most.


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[Assistant] Holmes soon fired his bookkeeper and gave the job to Julia. Not long after, it began to be obvious that Holmes was more than a little friendly with Ned's wife. Ned, for his part, turned a blind eye. It seems he was glad to have a good job with a steady paycheck and a roof over his head.


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[Assistant] When Julia became pregnant though, Ned took the hint. He packed up, filed for divorce, and left her and Pearl in the care of Holmes, who immediately took out life insurance policies on both of them. But Holmes had a new problem. Julia knew the business too well, and she presented a threat to his illicit activities. Holmes found a solution.


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[Assistant] He told Julia that he would marry her, but only if she would have an abortion. Julia resisted at first, but finally on December 24th of 1891, she gave in.


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[Assistant] That same winter, Holmes summoned a man named Charles Chappell to his office. Chappell performed odd jobs around the castle, but he had a particular skill that Holmes required. He was incredibly gifted in the craft of articulating skeletons.


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[Assistant] Chappell arrived and Holmes led him to a second floor room, where the body of a woman lay on a table. According to Chappell's own testimony to the authorities, the body had been skinned like a jackrabbit. He assumed, since Holmes was a doctor, that he had simply been performing an autopsy on a patient, and pushed his doubts to the back of his mind.


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[Assistant] Homes would pay chapel $36 to strip the flesh off the body and prepare the bones for articulation. The finished skeleton was sold to a Dr. Pauling of the Hanneman Medical College.


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[Assistant] Dr. Pauling would often look at the skeleton in his private office and marvel at how unusual it was to see a woman nearly six feet tall.


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[Assistant] Eventually, Holmes made a critical mistake. Ironically, it was his old love of insurance scams that caught up with him in the end. After killing his right-hand man, Benjamin Peitzel, and attempting to pass the death off as an accident to the insurance company, the authorities caught wind of the crime and tracked him down.


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[Assistant] He was finally arrested in Boston on November 17th of 1894, 10 months to the day from his wedding ceremony in a Denver hotel.


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[Assistant] Before his trial began, however, the castle was mysteriously gutted by fire. Thankfully, the authorities had already been able to search the building, and after doing so, they had given it a new name. The Murder House.


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[Assistant] The authorities discovered that, like any boarding house of the time, the castle had a reception room, a waiting room, and many rooms for residents to live in. But the building had more inside its walls than was expected. There were secret chambers, trapdoors, peepholes, and hidden laboratories.


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[Assistant] Aside from the 35 guest rooms, the second floor was a labyrinth of passages. Some doors opened on brick walls, some could only be opened from one side, and others were hidden from sight completely.


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[Assistant] Trap doors led to staircases that led to hidden chambers. There were even alarms in all of the rooms that would alert homes in his quarters if any of his prisoners had tried to escape.


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[Assistant] Some of the rooms were windowless and could be sealed off and made airtight if necessary. Some were equipped with gas jets that were fed by pipes from the basement. Others were lined with asbestos and had visible scorch marks on the floor. And then, there was the vault.


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[Assistant] It was a room that could fit a single person, and only then if they were standing.


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[Assistant] The walls inside the vault were lined with iron plates, broken only by a handful of gas fixtures and a trap door that led to a shoot. On the inside of the door was a single footprint, the size of a woman's boot. It was a homemade gas chamber that was designed to deliver corpses straight to the basement.


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[Assistant] When the police descended to the lowest level of the building, they discovered that Holmes had expanded the basement beyond the foundation of the building and out beneath the sidewalk. He did this to make room for all of his equipment.


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[Assistant] Here they found the dissection table, still splattered with blood.


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[Assistant] Jars of poison filled a shelf and a large wooden box nearby contained multiple female skeletons.


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[Assistant] A crematorium was built into one wall which still contained ash and bone fragments. A search also found valuables that belonged to some of the victims. A watch that belonged to Minnie Williams, scraps of fabric, tin-type photographs, and a ball of women's hair, carefully wrapped in cloth.


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[Assistant] The bones of a child were found buried in a pit and the remnants of a bloody dress were recovered from a wood-burning stove. When Ned Conner was later asked to identify the fabric, he confirmed it belonged to his wife Julia.


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[Assistant] A rack designed to stretch bodies was also discovered. Beneath the dirt floor, they found a vat of corrosive acid and two quicklime pits used for quickly dissolving the flesh off of corpses. There were human skulls, a shoulder blade, ribs, a hip socket, and countless other human remains.


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[Assistant] Whatever the police had hoped to find that day, they were unprepared for the truth. In the end, they had discovered a medieval charnel house. Right beneath their feet.


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[Assistant] It's easy to feel safe in our own neighborhood, walking past the closed doors and manicured lawns. But what goes on behind those walls is never something that we can be sure of. Each and every person we meet wears a mask, and we're only allowed to peek behind it if they let us.


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[Assistant] Society is built on the ideal that we can trust the people around us. That we can take our neighbors, our family, even our co-workers at face value and enter into relationships with them. But with every relationship comes risk.


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[Assistant] We risk disappointment. We risk pain and betrayal.


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[Assistant] And for some of us, we even risk our very safety.


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[Assistant] European mapmakers of the 15th century would sometimes mark unexplored areas of their maps with a warning. Here there be monsters. There's danger in the places we haven't explored. And while this is true then of undiscovered continents, it has always been true of humanity. Beneath the surface, behind the mask, hides the monster.


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[Assistant] On May 7th of 1896, after a final meal of boiled eggs, dried toast, and a cup of coffee, H.H. Holmes was led to the gallows at Moyamensing Prison. A black hood was placed over his head, and as the crowd outside the prison wall shouted their insults and jeers, he was positioned over the trap door.


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[Assistant] When it opened, Holmes dropped and his head snapped to the side. But rather than killing him quickly, the rogue had somehow broken his neck and left him alive. The crowd watched for over 15 minutes as Holmes hung from the noose, fingers and feet twitching and dancing before his heart finally stopped beating.


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[Assistant] Holmes was buried in an unmarked grave in Holy Cross Cemetery, just south of Philadelphia. As per his request, there was no autopsy, and his body was buried in a coffin filled with cement. Holmes, you see, was afraid that someone would dig up his body and use his skeleton for science. He was probably right.


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[Assistant] We don't know how many people he killed. Holmes confessed to a variety of numbers, even changing his story again on the Hangman's platform. Some experts who have studied the missing person reports from the World's Columbian Exhibition place the possible death toll as high as 200.


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[Assistant] There's so much we don't know about Holmes, a man whose entire life seemed to be one elaborate lie built atop another, like some macabre house of cards. He will forever remain a mystery to us, a monster hidden behind a mask that was painted to look just like you or me.


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[Assistant] But one last insight into the man can be found in his written confession.


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[Assistant] I was born with the devil in me, he wrote. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.


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[Assistant] The story of H.H. Holmes and his murder house has been thrilling readers and listeners for over a century, and it's honestly not difficult to understand why.


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[Assistant] When people settle into a new home, whether permanently or temporarily, they tend to assume that they're safe.


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[Assistant] The actions of Holmes, however, turns that notion on its head.


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[Assistant] But it's not the first time a lodger has found themselves at risk. In fact, if we go back one more century, there's another chilling example of this sort of deadly betrayal.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] The rider appeared at sunset. His horse was in need of care and he himself asked about food. Food and a room.


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[Assistant] Everyone could tell from the moment the stranger opened his mouth that he was French. Adding context is everything, right? Being French wasn't abnormal, for sure, but being French in colonial Connecticut in 1777 certainly was. It made it a lot easier for people to guess what your job was.


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[Assistant] You see, while the colonists who would someday become Americans were battling the British forces, each side had brought in allies. The British had their Hessian mercenaries hired straight from Germany, while the Americans had help from France. So this writer was at once both a stranger and an ally.


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[Assistant] He stepped inside the Horsford Tavern as the sun was going down and planted himself and his heavy saddlebags at one of the tables.


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[Assistant] He probably had every reason to keep to himself and ignore the crowd that was drinking around him. But the legend says that he was more social than that. He chatted, drank, laughed, and ate. And then he retired for the night.


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[Assistant] Weeks later, more Frenchmen arrived at the tavern there in Canton. They were clearly military officers, and they were looking for their missing countrymen.


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[Assistant] According to them, he had been carrying a month's worth of payroll for the French forces gathered in New York. They had been following his trail for days, and all of the clues went cold right there at the Horsford Tavern.


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[Assistant] The tavern owner shrugged. Sure, he remembered the traveler. There were probably a dozen or more men who could say the same. But he departed the following morning and they never saw him again.


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[Assistant] So, the Frenchman moved on, hoping the trail would pick up in the next town. They never found him, though. Or his saddlebags full of gold and silver.


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[Assistant] Of course, stories like that have a way of evolving into legend. And sometimes, as we've seen through countless examples in history, those legends take on a more frightening tone.


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[Assistant] Not long after the Frenchman went missing, a local farmer claimed to see the ghostly shape of a rider moving through the fog around the Farmington River, just west of town.


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[Assistant] He claimed the writer was dressed in a French uniform and was making his way toward New York. Even the horse was frightening, with eyes that were set to glow.


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[Assistant] But we don't know if the rider's eyes glowed because according to the farmers who have seen him over the years, he doesn't have a head.


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[Assistant] The visions still happen today, by the way. A number of people have reported seeing a headless man on horseback out west of town near the river. It's said that when their headlights pass over the shape of the rider, it just sort of passes right through, as if he and the horse are nothing more than a memory. And in some ways, I suppose that's true.


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[Assistant] Many years after the Frenchman's disappearance, the Horsford Tavern burned to the ground.


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[Assistant] Buried just beneath the surface of what would have been the cellar of the tavern was the skeleton of a man.


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[Assistant] There were no clothes and no other signs that could definitively point to this being the answer to the mystery of the vanished Frenchman, but most people felt certain about it. Not because of any clue that was hidden among the remains, but because of a clue that was missing. The skeleton, you see, didn't have a head.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company Grim and Mild specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.


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[Assistant] You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, GrimAndMild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] It's one of the distinct memories from my childhood. And sure, I remember things like summers at the city pool or the way my neighbor's buckeye tree dropped those spiky gems every year. But on the less romantic end of the spectrum, I remember the first time I discovered what veneer was.


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[Assistant] It was an eye-opener, for sure. That desk I had believed to be solid mahogany turned out to be something else. Something cheaper.


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[Assistant] Veneer as a craft has been around for thousands of years. Some of the objects pulled from the tomb of King Tut were made with that technique. And right down through the years, culture after culture has adapted and refined it. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, it was more engineering than art.


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[Assistant] Which is why today we can order a bookcase from a big box store and put it together and from a distance get the feeling that it's a lovely crafted item of walnut or some rare exotic wood. And if we're honest, there are a lot of other things in life that share that concept. That's approach.


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[Assistant] In the end, veneer is all about appearances. It presents the unusual, the expensive, and oftentimes the unattainable without letting us see what's really beneath it all. And it's just as true for people as it is for bookshelves. Even places have a veneer.


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[Assistant] But few locations have such a dark past hidden beneath its glittering surface than the place that pumps out visions of our wildest dreams. It might seem like everything there is picture perfect, but if you look close enough, the truth is more than a little frightening.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of things, it all began with Thomas Edison. Not just because of his inventions, but because of his personality. You see, Edison loved to sue people.


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[Assistant] He registered his own patents in America and then set about enforcing them. If anyone other than the Edison company made a motion picture using technology that he felt had originated from his own, he sued them.


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[Assistant] What happened is sort of like what takes place when neighborhood kids encounter a bully on the way to the school bus stop each day. They did their best to avoid him. A number of filmmakers just decided to pack up and move elsewhere, hoping that different state laws and maybe a bit of distance would protect them from Edison's greedy reach.


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[Assistant] Now, if you remember that cameras in the 1890s needed a ton of natural light, it meant that filming outdoors most of the time was a good thing. So you can see why California held such an attraction. Beautiful weather all year round, lots of sun, and of course, far, far away from Thomas Edison. So filmmakers headed west.


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[Assistant] What they found, just north of Los Angeles, was a valley full of large ranches, lush gardens, and fruit tree orchards. It had been given the name Hollywood just a decade earlier, and the people who founded it had instilled it with some very Hollywood-like characteristics. You know, highly religious, anti-alcohol, and anti-gambling.


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[Assistant] The first movie to be made in its entirety in Hollywood was a silent film called, perhaps appropriately, In Old California. Released in 1910. And from there, everything took off. Studios were built, the town grew exponentially, and the world was changed.


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[Assistant] There's a story about a Spanish government official named Jose Vicente Feliz, who lived there in late 1790. In 1795, the Spanish government gifted him with a massive 4,000 acre parcel of land that he quickly named Rancho Las Feliz. And for many years, the ranch was owned and run by him and his family.


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[Assistant] In 1863 though, the family line had apparently run dry, with no direct heirs to pass it on to. But there was a niece, a woman named Donna Petronia. So when the last male Feliz passed away and willed the land to a local politician instead of her, she was understandably furious.


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[Assistant] Legend has it that she cursed the new owner, a man named Don Antonio Coronel, and anyone else who might own it in the future. The wrath of heaven, she cried out, and the vengeance of hell shall fall upon this place.


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[Assistant] And those words seem to carry some power. Coronel quickly signed the land over to his attorney, but that man was killed in an accident a few months later.


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[Assistant] The next owner invested huge amounts of money into converting the land into a cattle ranch and then lost everything. There were fires and storms and even a flood. And all of it felt like a message straight from Donna Petronia.


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[Assistant] Gifted huge portions of the property to the city of Los Angeles. And then in 1923, a local newspaper owner named Henry Chandler invested a bunch of money into a local real estate development called Hollywoodland and went looking for a way to advertise it.


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[Assistant] 26 years later, the local Chamber of Commerce stepped in to restore the aging sign, and they made some changes to it. The lights went away, and so did a whole piece of it. You see, rather than standing as one massive billboard, Chandler's old sign was just a series of letters, each one over 30 feet tall.


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[Assistant] When they were done, the sign had a new lease on life and has become one of the most iconic shots in the state. And it's perfect, really. By dropping the last four letters, that old real estate advertisement has become a giant label hovering over the town itself. Hollywood.


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[Assistant] Communities are often more than the sum of their parts, but in a place like Hollywood, those parts have a lot of stories to tell. A great example is the legendary Comedy Store, an institution in the world of stand-up comics, located on Sunset Strip.


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[Assistant] But before the building was home to laughs, it was home to vice. Way back in 1940, it was a nightclub called Ciro's, and the owner took advantage of the sort of legal no man land that its location enjoyed.


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[Assistant] You see, Sunset Strip was outside the jurisdiction of Los Angeles, so it made it easier to offer services that were, well, less acceptable.


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[Assistant] The owner, William Wilkerson, offered a great show in the main room, of course. If you were to have swung through there in the 1940s and 50s, you would have been able to watch legends like Lucille Ball, Dean Martin, and Mae West perform there. Later, even Richard Pryor would stand on that stage.


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[Assistant] I can imagine it was a busy place. But downstairs were all sorts of other forms of entertainment. Many of which weren't so legal. And it didn't help that Wilkerson was more than a club owner.


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[Assistant] He was a mob boss. So there are countless stories of his enemies being killed in the basement, along with other murders in and around the building. And all that blood has left a mark.


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[Assistant] One employee described entering a room to set up tables, turn on lights, and get it ready for business, only to return a few minutes later to find the room dark and locked. Upon returning with a key, they found the room exactly as they left it the first time. Open and all lit up.


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[Assistant] Furniture has been seen to move on its own, and lights are known to turn on and off without anyone around to control them.


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[Assistant] Once a staff member walked across an empty stage to turn off a light, and when he turned around, found the stage covered in chairs that hadn't been there moments before.


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[Assistant] And speaking of stages, there's another that's worth visiting. In 1942, a man named John Hampton opened the Silent Movie Theater as a way to preserve the older era of films that were being neglected or destroyed by the big studios.


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[Assistant] The world had moved on to films with actual dialogue. Talkies, as they were called. But those silent films needed saved. Hampton spent decades fulfilling his mission. But the journey most likely killed him. All those chemicals he used to preserve the old footage led to a cancer diagnosis and he passed away in 1990.


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[Assistant] But darker shadows entered the theater when the new owners arrived. In 1997, James Van Sickle hired one of the theater's concession workers to kill his business partner, Lawrence Austin. Both men went to prison for the murder. But if the stories are true, Austin's spirit still haunts the building.


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[Assistant] Employees and visitors have often reported seeing his ghostly figure in the lobby after the theater has closed up for the night. And up in the lounge, a place that used to be the apartment where the original owner John Hampton had lived, people have seen other spectral shapes. It seems that some people just can't let go of their love for that theater.


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[Assistant] One last stop that's a must-see is the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. Built in 1929, it was once the stomping ground for some of the town's biggest names. The hotel bar was a favorite spot for Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, and Elvis even stayed there while filming one of his movies.


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[Assistant] There are other stories that lean harder into legend territory. The biggest is probably the death of Irene Lentz, who took her own life there in November of 1962. Rumors claim that she had been struggling with the death of Gary Cooper, a man that she said was her one true love. But there's not a lot of evidence to back that up.


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[Assistant] Still, there are those who think she's never really left the Knickerbocker. The building has since been converted into apartments, and a number of residents have reported seeing a ghostly woman in various parts of the building. Doors have been known to open and close on their own, and shadows have been seen walking through the halls. Shadows. Without physical bodies.


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[Assistant] You see, escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini had promised his wife Bess that after he died, he would find a way to communicate with her. After he passed away on Halloween of 1926, she lit a candle and kept it burning as an eternal flame.


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[Assistant] After that, she hosted a séance each year on the anniversary of his death to allow him a chance to speak to her once more. She would bring the candle and a number of guests, and they would listen for messages from Houdini. And each year, there was nothing but silence.


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[Assistant] The tenth and last Houdini seance was held in 1936 on the roof of the Knickerbocker. And after that final failure to communicate, it is said that Bess leaned over and blew out the candle. Ten years, she said, is long enough to wait for any man.


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[Assistant] When the Los Angeles Biltmore opened in 1923, it was the largest hotel in the western United States. And it was undeniably the most luxurious as well. On the outside it was a little bit Spanish Italian Renaissance with the dash of Mediterranean. But inside was where the real beauty waited.


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[Assistant] The biggest example I can give you is that the mural ceilings in the main galleria and the crystal ballroom were painted by the same artist who painted works for the Vatican and the White House. There were marble fountains, crystal chandeliers, imported tapestries, and so much more. I've stayed there, and let me tell you folks, this place is gorgeous.


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[Assistant] Between 1935 and 1942, the Academy Awards ceremony was held there in the Biltmore. Legends like Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, and Ginger Rogers all walked across the stage to accept their Oscars. Honestly, it's a landmark for that reason alone.


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[Assistant] But guests there have reported more unusual sightings over the years. One of the most common is the figure of a little boy seen running through the hallway on the 10th floor. Other ghostly children have been spotted elsewhere in the hotel, as have the figures of a woman that some believe to be a nurse.


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[Assistant] But one of the most memorable sightings is rumored to be the ghost of a local murder victim.


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[Assistant] Her name was Elizabeth, and she had moved to California from Boston back in 1942. She was young, pretty, and part of that constant inflow of men and women who typically came looking to strike it big in Hollywood, so most people just assumed that that was her goal as well.


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[Assistant] It would be a week later, on the morning of January 15th, that her body was found in a vacant lot in the neighborhood of Lemire Park. It was clear that she'd been murdered because the evidence was utterly barbaric. Her mouth had been slashed wide all the way to the ears, and her body had been drained of blood and cut in half at the waist.


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[Assistant] I won't go into any more detail, but the local Herald Express newspaper captured the brutality of her death best by calling it the werewolf murder.


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[Assistant] Some have even claimed to see her enter the elevator and ride it down, only to disappear near the sixth floor.


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[Assistant] Others have watched her walk straight through walls, as if they weren't even real.


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[Assistant] Or perhaps she wasn't. Oh, and by the way, that name, the werewolf murder, apparently didn't stick. It seems that reporters from the same newspaper soon learned of a nickname that some of Elizabeth's acquaintances used for her.


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[Assistant] And while it's disputed whether she went by it herself, it's a name that has taken on a life of its own in the aftermath of her death. They called her the Black Dahlia.


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[Assistant] Our fascination with Hollywood is a mixed bag. Yes, there have been more than enough success stories. Tales of people who gave up everything to move there and try their luck, only to break through and become superstars. And those stories keep the process in motion, attracting newcomers each and every day.


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[Assistant] But those cases are far outweighed by the ones that took their shot and failed. And loss, whether rooted in career aspirations, love, or even death, is the bigger legacy of that storied location.


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[Assistant] From murders of people like Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, to curses and seances, it seems like so many people there have had to struggle through disappointment and pain.


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[Assistant] Even the iconic Hollywood sign hasn't escaped the darkness of the area. It's said that back in 1932, a beautiful blonde actress named Peg Entwistle was struggling to build a career in show business. She had landed a few small roles, but in September of that year, the studio she worked with dropped her contract.


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[Assistant] Heartbroken over what felt like failure, she hiked up to the Hollywood sign, scaled the letter H, and threw herself off to her death. Her body was found two days later by a local hiker, along with a suicide note. And with her death, the gilded entertainment machine had claimed another poor soul. Certainly not the first. And tragically, not the last. Hollywood, after all, is a veneer.


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[Assistant] There's a lot of beauty to be seen from a distance, but the closer you get, the darker the shadows become. There's something hopeful in the attraction it has for people, but there's also something sinister. For so many people, beneath all that golden promise lies pain and loss.


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[Assistant] One last story. In 1990, a young couple went hiking in Griffith Park. Part of the land donated to Los Angeles by Griffith J. Griffith that had once belonged to the Feliz family. And as they were approaching the gigantic, famous Hollywood sign, those enormous letters looming ahead of them,


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[Assistant] They saw a woman a few paces away who looked like she was lost or disoriented.


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[Assistant] The couple stopped for a moment and watched her, and then gasped as the figure disappeared right before their eyes. And while that's shocking enough,


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[Assistant] As always folks, thanks for watching. Credits for today's episode are in the description below. Of course, Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with over 350 million downloads to date. You can learn more about this show over at lorepodcast.com.


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[Assistant] And of course, click the subscribe and the bell icon so that you don't miss future episodes. And if you enjoy this video, be sure to click the thumbs up.


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[Assistant] And you can follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Today's episode of the NateLynn Podcast is brought to you by Aura Frames, DraftKings, ButcherBox, and DeleteMe.


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[Assistant] My name is Dusty Slay and I'm the host of this podcast tonight. Alright. And I'm here with my good buddies, uh, Brian Bates. Alright. And Aaron Weber.


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[Assistant] Although, as squatters, we do have some rights now.


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[Assistant] The Dusty land podcast has taken off and, uh, I'm running the show and it feels good.


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[Assistant] Yeah, we put the kids to bed and then, you know, some nights we watch a movie, some nights we just veg out with some fun YouTube videos. Uh, I watch a YouTube channel called Zeducation.


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[Assistant] Uh, that guy, uh, Tyler Zed, it, it does that, and he gave my special, my Netflix special a shout out on his channel. Wow. He wrote a book called A Trailer Park Parable, and this show is mostly light stuff, but the


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[Assistant] Hannah read it. I don't read books, but Hannah read it and it was very serious, but she really liked it. So we, we vegged out to several episodes of that. He mainly just shows memes and then makes jokes about them. That's fun. And I'm into it. Yeah. I love a meme. Even if it's about trailer parks.


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[Assistant] Well, the first, when I first saw his, uh, cause we had communicated a little bit. So when I first saw his book, I was like, this dude's ripping me off. We're doing okay. Yeah.


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[Assistant] But the book was, uh, you know, a pretty like serious book, nothing to do with, you know.


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[Assistant] Well yeah, uh, we did, uh, the hot ones, uh, whatever it's called, Nashville hot that we've done. She did one with me last week. Did you really? Yeah. Oh, I bet that one's great. So the new episode, and I gotta tell you, I'm getting better at eating the hot stuff. We went hottest of the hot at this place called Lily's in, in the farmer's market.


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[Assistant] And I think they were like watching us when we ate the hottest of the hot. And I think they thought we were about to lose our minds. And I was like, this is good. Did you handle it better than her?


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[Assistant] A little bit. She like, she drank her whole glass of milk. I'll say that. I didn't touch the milk. Wow. But uhm.


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[Assistant] I don't know. I felt, I almost felt bad for them. Like the food was very good. Lily's in the farmer's market downtown. Uh, really good. Uh, the chicken is great, but I was like the hottest of the hot. I was like, I'm okay. I kept eating it. You're building up a tolerance now.


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[Assistant] I mean, I'm sure if any hot chicken place is listening, they're like, Oh, we'll get it. Yeah. We'll destroy it. But I'm just saying I liked it, but I, you know, I don't know. I felt all right.


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[Assistant] Yeah, but I think party foul, the hottest of the hottest party foul is not meant to be eaten. It's a, I feel like it's a, just a gimmick. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like it, it, it lilies, it's like, it was very hot, but it had a good flavor. Hattie B's too. Party foul was delicious, but, uh, that hottest of the hot was like, that ain't, that's just a joke. That's meant for you to like ruin your vacation.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you know, and they're my neighbors, those people that kids play in my cul-de-sac. Oh, I'm sorry. And I, that's fine. And I saw, they don't communicate with me, but I saw the oldest daughter, you know, I'm friends with all the kids out there and I told her about it and I said, show this to your parents. And I thought they would like, you know, become my friends or whatever, but, uh, they didn't.


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[Assistant] But I did hang out with, uh, Chelsea Lynn and it's great. We have a lot of, you know, I think her childhood was like rougher than mine, but we have a lot of like similarities and I think that's fun. I really liked her.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, it's like, you just gotta like, my, you know, I used to do improv. I know that everybody think that's funny to think about me doing improv, but it's like, that's what you do in improv. You take suggestions from the audience and then you just kind of go, all right, what does that make me think of? And then you just tell a story and it's like, I just feel like,


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[Assistant] If we're comics, like we're all funny people. So if you get a story and you just start telling it, eventually something funny is gonna come out. You're gonna find a laugh. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Well, where were you this weekend? I was in, uh, Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville. First, I did my, uh, my show at Zany's on Wednesday. Really great. Such a hot show. It was on it. The lab is coming. I don't know if it's open yet, but the second.


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[Assistant] But I did that show, uh, who was on it? Uhm, who was on it?


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[Assistant] Patrick Keene. Right. Uh, oh, Aaron Webber. I was waiting how long it took.


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[Assistant] It's fun. You know, Hannah's like been, you know, at the house. She don't drink very much. So it's fun to see Hannah like let loose. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And, uh, I don't know, in a theater, I don't- Caravan?


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts or something like that.


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[Assistant] It was 420 and a lady yelled out about some material related to that holiday that I have and asked me to do. And I don't really even remember those jokes right now, not done them in a while. So I just, it made me think of some other stuff and I was like, all right, so I talked about that and I think that took about 10 minutes.


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[Assistant] And then I had, you know, my hour 20 that I've been doing.


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[Assistant] So I was like, so I did an hour and a half and uh, it was awesome. Wow. Yeah.


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[Assistant] That's fun. And it's, uh, other than one joke that I did on that show, it was all new stuff. So, I'm pumped. Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah.


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[Assistant] The crowds are great. I did, uh, probably 2021, I did a bunch of COVID jokes there and, uh, I put them on YouTube and, uh,


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[Assistant] Well you got to see a gorilla smear feces though, that's pretty cool. That is fun. His own little protest. I have video of the aftermath.


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[Assistant] Okay, I've got, oh, we've all got comments. Okay, great. So, I read last week, so.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, that's true. That is true. Uhm, you know, I don't think Auburn fans are always, I mean, cause you know, the guy poisoned the trees, right? And not that the- Harvey Updike is his name.


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[Assistant] Right, so obviously that is nowhere close to poisoning the trees. And believe me, I'm from Opel Ica, right? I got a picture of me and my mom, I'm on my mom's shoulders, I'm probably


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[Assistant] Maybe a year old, maybe two. I got a little toilet paper in my hair from where they've rolled Tumor's Corner. I got a lot of history with Tumor's Corner. It was devastating when they killed the tree.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so it's like, but you're right though, Auburn fans, uh, uh, they all, they all think they're the smart and they may be the smartest, but they all.


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[Assistant] Here's a picture of uh, young Dusty. Look at that. Apparently Alabama, I wish I had that hat my mom's wearing, but this is uh, apparently Alabama had beaten Auburn like, I don't know, close to 10 years in a row and this was the first year they won and my mom didn't even have tickets, but Auburn won.


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[Assistant] And she went down to the tumors corner just to celebrate.


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[Assistant] And there we are, Tumors Corner. So it's like, yeaah, the trees have been around, you know.


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[Assistant] 23 years. Yeah. I'd have been around those trees and it's like. Well, they're growing back now, right?


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[Assistant] No, they had to completely replace them. Yeah, they replaced them and then somebody rolled them after a win and a guy comes by with a lighter.


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[Assistant] That's good. Matt Graves. But I love Auburn. The Auburn campus is so nice though.


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[Assistant] Tonight's it. Oh look, I'm wearing some, some Titans gear too. It starts Thursday. I've wore this shirt on here before, but you know, it's a Oilers gear.


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[Assistant] Mainly because Aaron through that we're incorporated thing at us.


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[Assistant] I like Michigan too though a lot. I wanna say, I do go to Michigan all the time. And uh, I've been all over Michigan. I love Michigan. And I also grew up a Michigan fan.


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[Assistant] You know, it's like, just, cause Boston, New England teams, they've been doing, you know, I know the Patriots have had a rough go the last few years, but they've been good for a long time. They had a legitimate dynasty. So you can't like move and be like, I'm a, I'm a Patriots fan. And then you're up in everybody's face all the time. Yeah. You know, that's, I agree though. Did Hannah pick


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[Assistant] Hannah, I can't get her to watch a game. She doesn't care. And, uh, she might be a little busy. Yeah. She got stuff to do. I'm like watch the kids. I got football.


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[Assistant] But I agree with Jane J-J-Jerorski. Jane Jorski, what a great name. Yeah. Jaws.


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[Assistant] You talking about the guy from 007, from James Bond. Jaws? Yea, he did die. Big tall guy? No.


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[Assistant] But also you're just annoyed for them. It's like, why don't you just enjoy the show? Maybe they are enjoying it in their own way. Yeah, maybe so.


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[Assistant] There's a fan theory that the one girl, the weird girl, uhm, is actually the only one in detention and she's making up all of this other stuff in her mind.


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[Assistant] Because she just kinda has every like stereotype in there. The bad boy, the jock, the popular girl, the nerdy guy.


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[Assistant] If Rudy were made today though, they'd put him on some kind of medication.


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[Assistant] Well, PCU is great. Really fun movie. But, I mean, you know, I don't know if you've heard a lot about Jeremy Piven, but, uh, I don't, I don't know. I just, I don't understand that logic.


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[Assistant] Like you think the band is upset that you're wearing their gear?


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[Assistant] I just don't understand. It's like, I'm like, I got a band's t-shirt. I'm going to see the band. Why would I not wear the shirt to the concert? I'm a fan.


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[Assistant] I mean, I feel like you're kind of forced into it because you just seem disrespectful to your mom or your mother of your children if you don't celebrate it, but I don't, I don't understand it. I don't know why we have to.


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[Assistant] The aura frame, it is really cool. I uhm, I don't know, I don't know what's happened.


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[Assistant] Yeah, sorry that was right in that thing. But the aura frame is really great because you know, like old school frames like that, you had to have like a memory card


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[Assistant] Take the memory card out, put it in a computer, load a bunch of photos on, then put it in the frame. Now, just with the app, it's so easy to load them in there. This is not even, I'm not even doing the ad anymore. It's like, it's just good. I like it a lot. Yeah. It's great stuff. Yeah. Unless, you know, you wouldn't want to, I don't know, I can't, I was going to make a joke about John Slay, but the joke wasn't coming to me. So. Tyler Conklin.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I mean, if you guys are getting a new team, I don't know if you are, just, you know, just start going to that one. And uhm.


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[Assistant] I think coyote is an acceptable pronunciation. There's a, a country singer, Jared Morris, that I like. He has a song, Coyote. That's how he says it in the song.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well yeah, but I think the moon is goes through phases. That's probably not a.


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[Assistant] Or maybe the, uh, you know, our governments have figured out a way to make an artificial son.


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[Assistant] I like this. I mean, I agree. I don't think that they should be eating corn. I think some fat is good for you. We're supposed to have fat.


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[Assistant] I think it's good for you. And I think we're, we're told that all that stuff is bad for us. All the things they say is bad for you is probably good for you.


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[Assistant] By they, I mean, you know, the, the, you know, the, the people, the officials who give us this information. The powers that be. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Well yeaah, I mean that sort of stuff is obvious. Don't drink soda, drink water.


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[Assistant] But don't drink tap water. Filter your water and then add back in your own minerals. Add back in minerals?


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[Assistant] You gotta get your minerals. You can do like a mineral salt or a Celtic sea salt. Put a little bit, a little pinch of that in your water. Mix that up. But where do you get the minerals from? Well, it'll be in that salt.


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[Assistant] But where do you get the salt from? You go out and get it yourself? Well you can buy it anywhere.


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[Assistant] Eventually you just gotta give it a shot. Right. And it's like, I made a joke about Flint, right? And it's like, yeah, I'm just kind of making a joke, but it's like, I don't


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[Assistant] I think people still talk about it, that that problem is maybe not fixed. So it's like, if the water's gotten so bad there and they don't even fix it, well, who's to say what's going on with our waters? I mean, maybe, you know, hopefully it's not that bad, but.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was not, I did not have the most sanitary place when I was a drinker.


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[Assistant] I like, I used to like, I wouldn't buy paper towels. I would just have like hand towels that I would like use as napkins. And my buddy came over who was married with kids and he asked for a, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, and when sports are rigged, it's, uh, you can do, kind of do whatever you want with it. Well, sports aren't rigged.


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[Assistant] What's Arbor Day like? That's like tree trees. I'm all about that.


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[Assistant] That's where I'm at these days. I'm not a global warming guy, but I am a let's protect the earth guy. Sure. You know what I mean?


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[Assistant] I think if we just as a whole decided that we were going to reject it and just buy glass,


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[Assistant] Like you can buy, I think I've talked about this before, but you can, on the, on every plastic, it has a little triangle.


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[Assistant] And then it has a number in the triangle. Yeah, we talked about that. Okay. And it's like, I had a water bottle that I still use it because it's for traveling. It's the most convenient thing, but the water bottle itself, the number on it said safe for humans to drink from, but the top said not safe for humans.


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[Assistant] The thing I'm putting my mouth all over. It's like, the plastic itself is like, this is not safe.


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[Assistant] But, but yeah, they're like the bottle. So that, you know, when you buy it, it says this bottle is totally safe because they're not lying. The bottle is safe. So do you drink bottle water?


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[Assistant] Yeah, all the time. I don't want to, but. Because of the plastics. Yeah, I'm on the road and I'm like, this is, this is my option.


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[Assistant] But, you know, it's great if you're, you know, not, not taking microplastics the whole time.


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[Assistant] All that stuff seems fun. It seems like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a pro with this. I'll take a coffee and just sip it while I'm doing comedy. And then you get out there and you're like, I'm actually out here working. This is not a relaxed thing.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I look like I'm relaxed, but I'm like, I'm in, I'm in my head. I'm like focusing on my jokes. I'm doing a thing. It's work up there. People don't think it's work cause you're just standing there, but I come off stage and I'm like, dang, I'm tired. We just did an hour and a half. Yeah.


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[Assistant] For an hour, for 90 minutes, you stand there and you're like mentally focused and you're talking.


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[Assistant] I'm loving the theater thing. I mean, I kind of resisted it in a way. I remember. I remember you going like, I don't want to do theaters, man. I know. I really resisted it, but I'm like, once you're in there and actually it's bigger.


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[Assistant] But it kinda is more intimate. Like you don't have the distraction of the server. I love comedy club servers, but it's like, you don't have any of that. You're like,


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[Assistant] And no real pressure, at least for now. I mean, some places I have started to add second shows because the first show had sold out. But it's like for now what I'm doing, I'm doing one show a night. So there's really no pressure to get out of there for the next show. It's like, I can just go. Like when I'm starting doing two shows a night, I imagine I can't do an hour. You'll do an hour twice.


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[Assistant] Well, I think yeah, there's a lot of things going on with lawns. That's too much. It's like, first off, everybody's spraying pesticides or herbicides in their lawns to get rid of, you know, all these other


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but I want light. I got rabbit. I got right now near, I had rabbits, uh, over the, uh, winter give birth in my yard. I have, uh, some Eastern bluebirds housing in one of my bird houses. I have doves raising two baby doves on my flower bed by my house. I'm like, this is what I'm talking about. I'm trying to bring life out here.


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[Assistant] Well because I, now I don't know, but you said a baby raccoon. I had-


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[Assistant] There is foxes, uh, in, in hermitage. I've seen a fox.


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[Assistant] You got a compost? Throw it in there. Compost that bad boy.


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[Assistant] Cause the guys have larvae, larvae that, uh, you know. Send Lucy out there to get it.


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[Assistant] Well, I called him. I mean, I saw this thing. And I was like, dude, I was like, I don't know. I said, I don't know if this is real. I don't know if Kim trails are real or not, but if the bill is, we are not gonna, we don't want people to be able to spray chemicals in the sky. I'm like, let's just go ahead and sign it.


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[Assistant] And that's how I tried to break it down to him. I'm like, dude, let's not worry about if this is real or not. Let's just go ahead and be like, we, you know, it'd be like, uh, you know, I saw people on the internet trying to make fun. They're like, let's go ahead and pass the anti-bigfoot law or whatever, you know, trying to act like this is a conspiracy. I'm like,


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[Assistant] Why, you know, you know, if aliens can't come to our church or whatever, you know, whatever kind of thing you want to, if space aliens come down, I don't want them, you know, I don't want them in the church.


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[Assistant] I've done Omaha. First time I ever went to Nebraska was in Columbus, Nebraska. I went to a bar called O'Bornies Husker Bar.


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[Assistant] And, uh, Todd O'Bourney was the owner and, uh, he fed me steaks and, uh, me and, uh, Hannah opened for me. This was when Hannah was still doing comedy. We went there, Hannah opened for me and, uh, it was, uh, it was a hot show, two hot shows. We did two nights in a row. Now they have some of the Omaha steaks or was it Omaha steak? I guess it was, you know, coming from that area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was good. Yeah. I mean, this guy, I mean, it was, you know, this was a bar, bar, but he had a performance space and Todd ended up coming to see me in, uh, Omaha at another time. Great dude. I hope he listens to the podcast.


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[Assistant] I love a Reuben. I love pastrami in general. I mean, when I went to the Northeast, I was there four nights.


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[Assistant] I had pastrami four nights in a row. I mean, I love it. Sandwiches? Yeaah. Yeaah. It is great. You know what I love is butcher box. Ah, yes.


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[Assistant] Get incredible deals and premium cuts from ButcherBox. We love using ButcherBox. It is high quality meat and seafood you can trust. It is so easy because it's delivered right to your door with free shipping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm always looking to make sure my food is as clean as it can get. I love it because it is a hundred percent grass fed beef, free range organic chicken.


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[Assistant] I'm not home enough to run to the grocery store and I love having what I need ready to go. The value of ButcherBox compared to the grocery store is also much better. Ah, we hate grocery stores.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The cost of grocery shopping has become ridiculous. They offer no deals, but not ButcherBox.


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[Assistant] Use, use my link, butcherbox.com slash Nate. Use code Nate to get $20 off your first order. That's butcherbox.com slash Nate and code N-A-T-E. What's that spell? Nate. That's right.


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[Assistant] Water always finds its level. No matter what it's in, it always finds its level. Sea level. Sea level, yea. It's always flat.


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[Assistant] That is just real quick about the clouds hitting and then I'll leave it alone. But whenever people talk about weather manipulation, they always go, that's ridiculous. And then we're like, oh, hey, we're clouds eating. We're dropping stuff off in the clouds to cause rain. And you're like, oh, is that weather manipulation?


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[Assistant] The two favorite stories. Your story bombing at the farmers market with your mom. So great. And you falling off the mountain.


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[Assistant] They used to give it to us, go farm, make a life for yourself. Now they're like, nah, take that back from me.


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[Assistant] I like that because you're like, maybe when you're voting for them, you've made a joke about this in the past, but maybe when you're voting for them, you actually look at what they're running on instead of the letter next to their name.


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[Assistant] It is funny. There's a little bit of age difference with us, but you, uh, it's like a Chuck Yeager thing. You said this Tom Osborne guy, like you're like, it's a given. Like I like, and I never, I really have not ever heard of him and maybe I should have. That's maybe on my own failing, but I just think it's funny that you'll say something like, we all know this and then I'll have no idea.


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[Assistant] Unreal. I know that a lot of these stadiums are like that or bigger, but that's so unreal. I mean, think about that. 90,000 people gathered to watch a football game. It's unbelievable.


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[Assistant] Lincoln is great. This would be where all that's happening. Yeah. I just went to Lincoln. I'd never been to Lincoln, Nebraska. I really liked it. I thought it was a really cool city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went to a cool coffee shop, uh, I was only there for a day. So I didn't get to experience a lot, but I went to a cigar shop there that was open late at night. Really great. And a lot of cities, uh, don't have late night cigar bars. And this was really fun. And, uh, and then they had a cool coffee shop that I went to the next morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you're right out there. Oh, interesting. I've also been to Falls City, Nebraska. I did some shows there. My agent lives there. It's a smaller city. Uh, a lot of corn, soybean farms out there. Yeah. A couple of shows out there. Really great. Cool little town. What was the venue?


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[Assistant] Well, uhm, it was, I did like a Catholic school. It was a charity for a Catholic school. Yes, sir. And then both shows, I did, I went there two different times and both of those were, one was like a basketball arena, uh, and then the other was outside.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was great though. My friend Chris Covey, uh, lives in Nebraska and he opened for me both of those shows. Very nice guy. Comic. Out of, out of Omaha, I believe is where he lives.


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[Assistant] Ruben sandwich. I mean, I'm all about it. Two years later, I got a couple there in Omaha.


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[Assistant] Back in my fast food eating days, I used to tear up some armies.


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[Assistant] Oh, you know what? Maybe I did have this at the coffee shop I'm talking about in Lincoln. I got a hot stuff pastry. I didn't know what it was called.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I did get something like that. It was delicious. Yeah, it does look good. Yeah, it was very good. I think there was pork in mine and I, so I got.


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[Assistant] I don't know why they put pork in everything, but, uh, cause it's good, but I get it. But it was like a lot of cheese in there and some cabbage. Yeah. I was like, I was into it. I liked that concept.


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[Assistant] I like it. I'm all about planting trees. I just planted, I got 40 trees I planted out in McMinnville.


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[Assistant] Fruit trees and, and uh, nut trees. And then I got two apricot trees I just planted in my backyard at home.


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[Assistant] I don't know, but they're already, I mean, I planted them and already with the warm weather we've had, they got a little greenage on them. Really? Yeah. Man, I got grapevines going. I mean, that's what I'm talking about. We need a filter up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two or three of these arena shows Nate's done and then I'll never be seen again. But you know what he's going to need? Delete me. That's good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, some psychopath will, uh, look, look for my information and email me and go, nope, found your house. And then we will contact and then they'll get that deleted. So it's like, there's so much out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know him, but I don't know a lot about boxing, so it makes sense.


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[Assistant] Well, when I was in LA, I ran into him. Very nice guy.


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[Assistant] He's really done well for himself, that guy. Yeaah, he's dead now, right?


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[Assistant] Okay. And are they preserving the body?


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[Assistant] I think I remember her best for the movie Next Karate Kid.


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[Assistant] Yeah, she's gotta come back and help him defeat, you know, the other, you know.


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[Assistant] The bad guys. The bad guys. Whoever the bad guys are at this point. A hot show though.


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[Assistant] Yeah. I love Cobra Kai. I'm into it. I'm like at home, go and binge watch. It's the only show I've been binge watched in years. And I'm like, I can't get enough. And I'm like, I'm just watching high school karate here.


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[Assistant] I got a copy of the movie from you the other day. I watch it and check it out. Have you seen?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've seen it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What about, um, the movie frailty? I don't know that movie. So frailty is an interesting one. Matthew McConaughey. You think it's set in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bruce Stern is great. Yeah. Nominated for six Oscars.


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[Assistant] I can't believe they don't even list Digstown here. Digstown's so good. Such an underrated movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ben Harper was married to Laura Dern. For eight years. That's interesting. I love Ben Harper. Ben Harper's got great stuff. Ben Harper's great. Burn One Down. Burn One Down. That's a hot song. That album is really good. He's got a couple of religious tunes on there that I like. Power of the Gospel. There you go. That's a good one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dusty Slate's Country Music Playlist on Spotify. Really great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's not quite that dark. Reese Witherspoon, early Reese Witherspoon, she had a few kind of dark things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's that empty, you're a weirdo for sitting next to someone. If everybody can get their own row and you sit next to someone, even if there's a space in between, I think it's too much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His wife dies and then he's like real sad by it and then he tries to go back to his job, not to go back to work, but just to like see if the new guy needs any help. Right. And he's like, nope, I got it. Enjoy your retirement. So he just like, now is like alone and feels useless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he just kind of takes the RV on his own and it gets a little wild. It gets into some stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, there was a Instagram thing going on for a while where it was like what you see versus reality. It was kind of like that where it would show the zoo and then reality is like just people everywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You always said about otters, every, every aquarium I'm at, there's like an otter tank. I've never seen an otter in there. Never, the otters are never out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why I just go to the Bass Pro Shop here in, uh, at Opry Mills. There's a few fish there that you can look at. It's good enough for Daisy. She's like, oh, look at these fish. Good enough. And, uh, we can be in and out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess. I think so. I think they're like, yeaah, Amazon forest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tonight, uhm, uh, I think this is a college gig, so I don't think people are allowed to come there, but my friend was like, I got some buddies coming to see you. And I was like, I don't think they're allowed to come. And he goes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exclusivity for PSC students. So I'm guessing you can't come. What is PSC? Pensacola State College. Okay. Which is where I'll be tonight. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I've done college gigs where they just open it up to the public. Okay. So I don't know if you're allowed to come, but I told my friend, I mean, this is how college gigs go. They pay me a flat rate and then the students are allowed to come for free and then none of them come. I mean, that's, that's how these gigs go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I go on Thursday and Friday, I'm in Panama city beach. Both of those shows are sold out. So people are trying to get tickets to see me in Panama city. Meanwhile, students for free in Pensacola won't come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and then Saturday, I'm at the Tampa Theater in Tampa, Florida. Uh, I don't think that's sold out yet, but it is getting close. Uh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be hot. I always have a good time in Tampa, so get some tickets to that. It's a great theater. Uh, gonna be a lot of fun. Are you flying into Pensacola? Yeah, I am. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm flying in and I got to tell you, I've been renting cars lately. Yeah. How's it been? It's great. But didn't you have a little dust up with enterprise? Well, just at the Nashville airport. I was so mad. I tweeted about it and then I was like, nah, I'm going to take it down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like, I'm used to like, I've been renting cars at the airport, I check in ahead of time, I just go up, show my thing, they go, go down that section and get a car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I show up on Friday, uh, to Nashville, and I waited in line, not at the counter, I checked in, so I got past the counter, 20 minutes in line to get them to take me to a car. It's like, it's unbelievable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I drove to Louisville and then from Louisville flew to Cleveland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was like ridiculous to fly to Louisville. It was like leave at 5 a.m., get there at 12. It was like I had to go all over the place when it's a, you know, two and a half hour drive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I flew, I rented a car, drove the Louisville. It can be frustrating, but when it works, it's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, the rest of the experience was great. I, I ran a car in Cleveland, had to take a shuttle out to- The shuttle's the worst. That's right. That you go, where's the rental car thing? They go, oh, it's a shuttle. 20 minute shuttle out to the, out to the island. Yeah. You're outside of Cleveland. You're


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next week though, I am in LA and uh, me and Hannah are going to do our podcast. So we're having a good time podcast at live at the Comedy Store. It's awesome. So that's going to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great. Get some tickets to that Friday, LA at the Comedy Store. Cause my shows, uh, do two shows on Friday at the Troubadour are both sold out. Boom. So if you want to see me, come see me at, uh, the Comedy Store on Friday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and, uh, me and Hannah. Little Bible talk. Yeah, well, I doubt it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably leave that portion of the podcast out for us. There's a place that needs it though. Yeah, that's true. I may do a little stand up on the show to open it and then, cause I want, there's some jokes that me and Hannah have both had a hand in writing for myself. So I thought it'd be fun to kind of do some of those jokes and then we can talk about them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's great. Her Instagram channel, hannah slayish, hannah underscore slayish has been doing very well. She's had several videos. She has one video, six million views.


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[Assistant] Now it makes me jealous. Her latest one is almost at 2 million views, and uh, yeaah, I mean, she, it took me, you know, pfft, I can't tell you that much. I had to do a Tonight Show, a Comedy Central set, I was doing David Spade when my, Jimmy Kimmel Live, when my, when I reached 10,000 followers on Instagram. She's at 12,000.


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[Assistant] I don't know how I say it, but, and I wasn't even, um, you know, I don't even notice it with Brian, but the, the, but Aaron pointed it out and then, uh, it hit me in a, it hit me in a way.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Tennessee's got its own vibe, so it makes sense that you guys would say it the same way. Yeah. Yeah. And we're both from Alabama, so we're like, Tennessee words are weird. Isn't that funny?


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[Assistant] Can you create, in your own mind at least, why you're in jail?


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[Assistant] Yeah, let you have that in your own highlight reel for doing shows. That's the clip you want the, the, the comedy club to be using. John Reap's coming and then it's a clip of you making David


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[Assistant] Pizza guy. In real life or in the house? In the movie. In the show.


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[Assistant] What's a guy that knocked over the lawn jockey at Home Alone? Was he redheaded?


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah, this weekend I did Charleston, West Virginia. I did two theater shows. I did Charleston, West Virginia. My first time doing Charleston, West Virginia and not doing the Holiday Inn at the Comedy Zone.


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[Assistant] And, uh, it was really great. I had a lot of fun at this place.


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[Assistant] And then also there was like a volleyball convention in town. So after my show, I had to go not, it was younger and I had to go, um, cause I was going to make jokes about volleyball and I go, how old are they? And then I was like, nah,


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[Assistant] So I walk out into like 10 volleyball games going on. It's still going. I cut through.


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[Assistant] Yeah, the parents. And then the next day I went to, uh, Pittsburgh and did a show in Munhall, PA, right outside of Pittsburgh. Another theater show. Really great. A lot of fun.


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[Assistant] A little bit and it was fun. It was great. We had a couple of cigars and just complained about our old boss. And I got, and his, some of his friends were there and I was complaining a minute about it and they go, this sounds just like you talking about, like he had the same complaints that I had. Yeah.


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[Assistant] I know this guy would be like, I'm gonna come, he had a real raspy voice. He goes, I'm gonna come work with you this weekend. And then he'd go, meet me at the store at 8 a.m. So I'd get there at like seven to really get it straight, right? 10 o'clock he'd call me. He'd go, oh, I had a conference call. And then he'd show up and he'd go, let's get some lunch.


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[Assistant] Uh, but yeah, he was a good guy, but that's it for me. It was hot though. It was a lot of fun. Do you sell merchandise? Yeah.