Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Beneath Your Bed Podcast
The True Story of the Exorcist
Some moviegoers were so overcome by fear when they watched 1973's "The Exorcist" that they passed out. Sometimes, however, the true story is far more terrifying than anything that can be conjured up by Hollywood. Tonight, we'll talk about the chilling real events on which the movie was based.
I'm Jen Lee and I'm Jenna Sullivan. And we'd like to welcome you to beneath your bed a podcast where we drag out all those fears at work, beneath our beds from the paranormal to true crime, to the simply strange along the way, we'll be drinking cocktails and sharing stories from our Appalachian upbringings. Some movie goers were so overcome by fear when they watched 1973 is the Exorcist that they passed out. Sometimes. However, the true story is far more terrifying than anything that can be conjured up by Hollywood tonight. We'll talk about the chilling relevance on which the movie is based.
Speaker 2:TJ,
Speaker 1:Hey Jen, how are you? I'm doing okay. How are you doing? I'm doing well. So do you have any plans this weekend? Actually, I, I did a lot of online shopping that was impulse buying today. Do you want to know what I bought? Yeah. What did you buy? So I bought like 10 cat pens from some shop in Japan, and then I need that and I bought these a set of wineglasses, which you know, that I need like a hole in the head. Cause I have so many wine glasses already. And then I bought a pair of shoes that have daisies like really random. Where are you going to wear those at? I have no idea, but a couple of weeks ago I bought shoes that had citrus on them. I don't know where I'm going to wear those. I think of like grapefruits and oranges. I'm really not sure what I was thinking. Jen kind of like when you went through that, is it Lou LiRo please? I don't want people to know about that. It's so bad. Yeah. I blame it on the pandemic. Can we just give the number though? The number of leggings I own, I own 55 pairs of leggings that I've never worn. So I may have a problem. I just thought it was 37. I thought that no, no. It's 55. I counted them and you've worn. I think you've worn at least one pair. Y eah. I've worn like a couple, but most of them h ave never been worn and they were in a box in my closet. So I'm thinking like maybe I can make a quilt out of them. S ome might be cool, but I don't know how to quilt. I w ore the peacock ones that you gave me when we went t ubing. That's right. Have you worn them since I'll think of one, th e l ike one other time, two oth er times, I can't remember on, on a date with your wife. Prob ably. Th ey don' t loo k so good on me. They don't look good on it's eit her. That's why they're in my closet. But I tell myself at, ye ah, it is. It's definitely not you. It's the print. It's the peacocks. It's a very soft fabric. It is. They describe it as buttery, which I'm not sure if you want to put something buttery on your legs, but if you do help yourself to my 55 pairs of buttery leggings, but are they still thing? Are they still like a business or do they
Speaker 3:Go out?
Speaker 1:I think, I think they're kind of holding on, but it seems like it jumped the shark. There were so many people trying to sell this stuff and it's, mid-level marketing people trying to make an extra buck or two. It just seemed like a really nasty company as I got into it. I mean, as I learned more about it, it sounds like it's the Amway of leggings. It is in t he stuff is so ugly. I'm not sure what compulsion was to buy the stock. It's like, I think you had to claim them before other people did. So somehow when I hit sold, like I felt really good about myself for about five seconds. They had limited prints. Right? They did. Yeah. And then they have these parties where they talk you up and talk about like how great you're going to look a nd these leggings and then you put them on and you're like,, I don't really look so good. So, so what are you having tonight? I'm having, u m, nothing, all that exotic, but it's one of my favorite drinks. It's a lemon drop martini. So I think yo u c an make them a few ways. I just do the vodka, simple sy rup, fresh lemon juice. And of course lemon cello. And then the most important part you co uld l ike take the lemon around the side of your glass and then dip it in sugar. So you kind of get that like sweet sour thing going on. So that's wh at I'm having. What are you having?
Speaker 3:I am having a Georgetown punch and that has clear Bacardi. It has dark rum, coconut rum, pineapple juice, cranberry juice and lime juice. That sounds so good. And you're all about the rum. I am all about the rum and it's really, really boozy. So I think I might've made a bad choice. We'll have to see
Speaker 1:If you start repeating yourself. I'll let you know if I still have my wits about me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. My editing might be really jacked up depending on how I'm doing. You might have your work cut out for you this week. So this is a story. Well, it's a story that I think a lot of people have heard about or watch the movie, but I don't think they really know the full story and what's behind it. Is it I'm going to talk about the true story of the Exorcist? Oh my God. So what was behind the book and also what was behind
Speaker 1:I'm so anxious to hear this. So let me see.
Speaker 3:You're really, really, really early in August 20th, 1949, the Washington post published an article priests freeze, Mount rain. Your boy reported held a devil's grip and it was written by bill Brinkley. And I'll just read you a couple passages from the article. Cool. And what is perhaps one of the most remarkable experiences of its kind a nd recent religious history, a 14 year old M ount R ainier. Y our boy has been free by a Catholic p riest of possession by the devil Catholic sources reported yesterday only after between 20 and 30 performances of the ancient ritual of exorcism here in s t. Louis was t he devil finally cast out of the boy. It was said, another passage goes on to say a nd a ll, e xcept the last of these, the boy broke out into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing, and v oice i t of Latin phrases and language. He had never studied whenever the p riest reached the climatic point of the ritual a nd the name of the, the son and the Holy ghost, I cast the out devil. So I don't think a lot of people have heard about that article. They've just heard about the book
Speaker 1:It's much earlier than I would've guessed 1949. You said
Speaker 3:Yes, 1949. So William Peter Blatty, he's the author of the Exorcist. When that article came out, he was a junior English student at Georgetown university and he read the article and he just became fascinated with the story, but he didn't do anything with it. He just read it. I think he just forgot about it or maybe thought about it throughout the years, but he never did anything with it. And he did a lot of things in his career while he was getting his master's degree at George Washington university. He worked as, um, vacuum salesman, a beer truck driver. He enlisted in the air force. And then later he worked in Lebanon and it was with the United States information agency, which I had never heard of before. So in 1960 he published his first book. It was a like a comedy and it was called which way to Mecca Jack. And it talks about his experiences in Lebanon. So in 1969 is when he began writing the Exorcist and it only took them nine months to write this. Then it was published in 1971 and it sold 1 3 million copies in the U S and was translated, I think in 12 other languages at that time. I'm not sure what it i s now
Speaker 1:Curious when he was at George, you said he was at Georgetown or George Washington university.
Speaker 3:He was at Georgetown. He actually was very poor growing up and he got a scholarship. What did he study? He studied English. I was wondering he did his masters at George Washington university. Okay. He writes the book and it turns into a movie, the write a screenplay and the exercise comes out the day after Christmas in 1973, since it was released$441 million is what it's gross. And people were having all these very strong reactions to them. Like even physical reactions, you know, throwing up some people were shaking, crying. The reports of people feigning their lines, going around the block for people to just come in and see this movie. But there was a lot of visceral reaction to this.
Speaker 1:You can see why. I mean, having watched the movie several years ago, I get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I just watched it yesterday. I've been putting it off all these years.
Speaker 1:Was that your first time watching it? Yeah, it was a very first time. How can we hear what you think about it?
Speaker 3:Well, that type of thing, like demonic possession, that really scares me.
Speaker 1:It does me too. I think I could deal with any ghosts or cryptids, but you get the devil involved, which I'm not even sure. I believe in. Maybe I should touch wood, but that freaks me out.
Speaker 3:I didn't watch it all these years because of that. And when I was reading, we're doing the research for this. There was a night or two. I was here by myself and I was like really creeped out. And what I would do is I would, u m, go check the doors and lock them, check them over and over again, I brought a flashlight upstairs. I looked into the walk-in closet. U h, I went to the bed. Did you look under your bed? I didn't look under it. We have all these boxes under the bed. I know that someone could not fit underneath there. Well, that's still, so what I did, I was too scared to look underneath. I just kicked it a couple times, but I feel
Speaker 1:Like locking the doors. It's not going to protect you from the devil.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. Not to freak you out, but it just made me, I guess, feel better. Like, you know, it's hard to battle a regular person and Satan at the same time. That's true. I was trying to hedge my bets very wise. So with the, with the reactions that people were having, I read that there was an article published in 1975 and it was in the journal of nervous and mental disease. And it was called cinematic neurosis. Following the Exorcist, I report a four cases by JC Bazuto. So I thought that was, um, I thought that was crazy because people were having such reactions. And that is fascinating to me. Have you ever heard of that before? I have.
Speaker 1:I work in mental health, but I actually have never, never heard of that. It almost sounds like hysteria, what they used to call.
Speaker 3:Well, hysteria. I would like to read that and it says following the, following the distribution and release of the movie, the Exorcist much publicity concerning the psychiatric hazards of the film was reported numerous cases of traumatic neurosis and even psychosis were supposedly noted. So that would be a good read, but you know how journals are, it's sometimes really hard to, to get the article without paying an arm and a leg are so expensive. And I don't, if the journal of nervous and mental disease is still going strong. Yeah. Kind of doubt that. I try and find that that sounds so interesting. There used to be something I paid a membership to. It was called Lexus nexus, I think. And you could get, have access to all sorts of documents and journals. And I don't know what happened with them. That's too bad, but I used to use that a lot to do research. So when the movie was released among the moviegoers were father William S bodhran and father Walter Halloran, the priest who performed the actual exorcism. So how Peter bladdy came to write the book was that 20 years later, after reading that article, he had a friend, um, some say it was a professor that knew father Belden. I knew that father Bowden was involved in the exorcism. And so Peter bladdy reaches out to Belden and asked him, you know, is this true? And Beltran revealed to bladdy that they had kept an impeccable diary of the exorcism itself, but refuse to share it with him. Somehow he gets a hold of it. And in an article entitled exorcism receives renewed attention by bill Broadway in 2000. And that again was in the Washington post. It says that bloody is among a select few who know the identity of the boy and the news account, but said he will absolutely not reveal his name or whereabouts. He said, the boy lived in cottage city, not Mount Rainier as most reports, including the Washington post indicated.
Speaker 1:Well, so that's a huge difference. I mean, that's on the other
Speaker 3:Side of the country Mount Rainier, that's actually right outside of DC.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought[inaudible]. I thought they they're talking about Washington.
Speaker 3:No, no. I think it's a, I don't know if it's in Montgomery County, but it's not far from, from the city of DC and cottage city where it's not cottage city is near Bladensburg and it's, I think it's less, almost six miles, a little bit less than six miles, six or seven miles from DC. So in the fictional account, it's actually a really big deal in the movie. You know, there's a famous scene where the priest dies at the steps and it's actually kind of a bit of a tourist attraction. People go and, you know, go and take their picture, go by and see it. Not knowing that, you know, that's the fictional accounts. Interesting. So they're not really at the right place. No, no think they are, but they're not. So in the fictional account of the Exorcist and the book and also the, the movie, the main character was Reagan MacNeil and is played by Linda Blair and a not so fun fact. Do you wanna hear not so funny fact about Linda Blair? I do. Am I going to be shocked? Maybe because she gave such like a realistic portrayal of the character and the possession. Some people thought that it glorified Satan. Really? Yeah. And she was receiving a ton, a massive amount of death threats. Insane. I can't believe that it was so much so that she had to have security or a house. And I think one time, I think it was, was it at Warner brothers? I think that released it. I think they provided security for a while too.
Speaker 1:She was really young when she did that was, she must have been a young teenager. Do you know?
Speaker 3:She was, I think she was around the same age as the boy, the real boy, um, was when, when this happened 13 year old, I think she's around 13 at that time. So yeah. So she was getting a lot of death threats and she also, I haven't, I couldn't find it but years ago I was watching something and I think on YouTube and she's, um, an equestrian and she would go and compete. Yeah. She would go and compete and people would shout at her like, turn your head around. So this thing scene this whole like character, you know, just dogged her for the rest of her life,
Speaker 1:Still acting. I mean, trying to think of she, did she have a career later trying to remember?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, she had, she was in a very disturbing movie called gosh, what was it called? She was a runaway. And she had a problem with alcohol and she went to detention center. It made a real impact on me. So let's just put it
Speaker 1:That way. Well, not straight, but
Speaker 3:You know, he's scared the bejesus out of me and I didn't even, that's just something I remember from a long time ago. It's not something that I stumbled across during my research. I just remember she was in that and I wish I could remember the name of the movie. So yeah, she was in other things, but that was really her defining role, but she's a real, um, activist for animals. Um, so she has a foundation for that and I've seen her interviewed as you know, it was going on YouTube and doing research and she seems to have, you know, a positive outlook, I think at one time, y ou k now, she had a problem with drugs and alcohol. She seemed to be well adjusted and doing well. So i t's g ood. Yeah, it does. It makes you feel good about it. So the real story, the r ural possession that this was based on, if you look i n, try to find information about this allegedly or supposedly happening, you'll find various names for this kid. You'll find rolling. Robbie, Ronald. It gets very confusing. As I was saying earlier, it all began in 1949 in cottage city. And he was, he was around 13 years old and he lived with his parents and his grandmother and he had an aunt and later she's, um, referred to is on Harriet. So it was very close to this aunt and she was actually, um, flying in from st. Louis cause they had family in st. Louis and he was very close to her and she was described as a spiritualist. They were Lutheran. But evidently even though the Bible, I think in Leviticus and maybe Deuteronomy, they talk about, I don't know, I think killing you if you're a, if you're a wizard or practice witchcraft. So it was kind of weird that she was regarded and considered herself a spiritualist. Like she could communicate with the dead, but people didn't feel like her family didn't feel like it conflicted with them being Lutheran, which I thought was really interesting. I've been doing a little research on spiritualism too. And I've also read that, you know, for a lot of spiritualists, their spiritualist beliefs co-exist with their Christian beliefs. So that's interesting co-exists with what their Christian beliefs. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I thought that was really interesting. You know, I was raised Southern Baptist and you would have been booted out and exercised real quick. Yeah. So anyway, his aunt Harriet was very close to her and she introduced him to the Weegee board. Oh yeah. She said that she could communicate with the dad. She showed them how to use it. And she went back to st. Louis for a bit and strange things started happening around January 10th, like scratching on the walls, dripping sounds. And then she died. She died suddenly. And he was really, you know, he was really upset about it. He was close to her. And so he continued to get that Weegee board out and try to communicate with her, Oh gosh, he did it by himself. And more than once, this sounded like it was an ongoing thing. So his parents started observing, you know, they started hearing the scratching on the walls, a dripping sounds and his grandmother objects such as a vase, you know, moving on its own and starting to get scared. Can I send a picture of Christ would shake on the wall and scratching in his bed. And this really flips me out. He started to hear, sounds that he described a squeaky shoes walking along his bed and at school, his desk would move to the aisle and collab with other kids. Um, which of course caused a lot of disruption. And the teacher just assumed he was doing it. So eventually he was taken out of school, but back to the squeaky shoes. So he was saying that he could hear squeaky shoes along his bed and in a book written by Thomas Allen and the book is called possess the true story of an exorcism. He described the following. He said after a number of nights of the squeaking Robbie's mom and his grandmother laid on the bed with him, they all heard the sound of moving feet, but the feet seemed to be marching to the beat of drums up the bed, down the bed, up the bed, down the bed. Isn't that creepy, creepy his aunt Harriet. And she's shared this, I believe with his parents too. She was talking about the best way to get in contact with the dead would be having a seance. Another way, I guess, kind of a primitive way would be to, you know, knock on a wall and say, if you're here, you know, not three times or not four times, whatever it may be. And evidently when his mom and his grandmother were on the bed with him, they thought it was Harriet. Yeah. He said, Harriet, if that's you knock three times, so what happened was the bed kind of, you know, if you like sat, you just plopped down on the bed, the force of it would force it up and then become back down on the floor. And so the bed did like three thumps and then they asked again, I believe. And it did it four times. So like I'm not Harriet kind of thing. No, they were saying Harriet is that so she was replying to them if it was, Hey, it's me or it's some other spirit, some other force. And so the, these things continued and his behavior and his mood changed dramatically. He became very angry, you know, highly agitated. And his family supposedly took him to see several professionals, like a psychiatrist, a doctor, a psychologist. And again, this is per Thomas Allen's book. And they all said that there was nothing wrong with him, but he was described as high strong. So incomes, there are Reverend, Reverend Luther miles Scholtz and they go to him and they explained to him what's going on. And he, he didn't really, I'm gonna say he didn't really take it seriously. He really just didn't believe it. And so he would go, he would pray with a boy, talked to his parents about it. He agreed to take Robbie, we'll call him Robbie into his home for observation for a few days. Hmm. That's weird. Yeah, it is kinda, it's kinda creepy now. And he stayed in the same room with him. They had double beds or something in the room, S chultz. He also thought privately R obbie was causing things, but he didn't want to say that to the family. Of course. And he just thought that R obbie was pranking them, but he ended up witnessing many of the same things. Like he saw objects moving on their own R obby's bed would shake. He also, he sat R obbie in a chair at one point it was th e a rm back chair. That's what it was. It was a p retty solid he avy d u ty c hair. So Ro bbie s a id s its in the chair and he pulls his knees up underneath his chin. And Sc hultz s ays that the chair tipped over, but it took a minute
Speaker 1:To do it. Like it was doing it in slow motion or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's what it sounded like. And he tried to do it himself to try to replicate it. He couldn't do it.
Speaker 1:It's interesting too, that that stuff is continuing to happen at somebody else's house. So it's, it's not a haunted house phenomenon. This is following Robbie, wherever he's going.
Speaker 3:It's kind of weird Scholtz. Not only was he a Reverend, he didn't really believe in demonic possession, but he did have a belief in pair of psychology and ESP, that type of thing, which again, you would think conflicts with perhaps a religious beliefs, but it doesn't so Schultz. He felt like it received, like there's nothing else that he could really do for Robbie. So he recommended the family that they reach out, or he took them to, there's a couple of different variations of this, that either they reach out or he took them to the rectory to a local Catholic priest named father Albert Hughes. And this was at st. James Catholic church, which is located really close to them. And this priest, he witnessed many of the same things, you know, objects moving on their own. Robbie also used a lot of profanity and he spoke in a really strange voice and father Hughes. He evidently or supposedly follow the Hughes sought and received permission to perform an exorcism on Robbie at Georgetown university in February. So he said that when he was giving the right to Robbie, he had to stop because Robbie Torah spring from the bed and slashed his arm with it. Also read another report saying it slashed his shoulder. So there's one report until a shes, arm a nd o ther o ne t h an t hat, it's s lashed his sl ashed R o bbie, right?
Speaker 1:Priest. No, he's great.
Speaker 3:Father Hughes. Yeah. So Robbie tore the spring out from the bed and he slashed him with it. And red scratches began to peer on him, one r ed L ouis. So the family interpreted that, that they were meant to go to st. Louis, u m, where they had family. So they take R obbie to s t. Louis. And I think it's a cousin and they s tay with this cousin or this family member and this family member put them in touch with a professor at st. Louis university, father Walter Holleran. I was talking about earlier and Reverend and father William Beltran. And after consulting with the st. Louis university's president, these two Jesuit priests ag reed t o perform an exorcism on young with the help of several assistants and the pr iests. At first, they went to the house and they observed the behavior that Ro bbie w as exhibiting. And in order to perform an exorcism, you have to get approval. I think from like, u m, a n arch Bishop
Speaker 1:Hearing about that. I wondered if it had to go as high as the Vatican, but like it's an Archbishop
Speaker 3:Be part of the Vatican. I don't know. They went to an Archbishop, I think his last name is Ritter and he approved it and the Durham is kind of like, well, okay, well, who's going to do this. Ritter is like, Archbishop is like, you're going to do this. And he just felt overwhelmed and really didn't know what to do because something like that hadn't been performed in the U S and ages. And it's something that they were very reluctant to give approval for because people were beginning to have a better understanding of mental illness,
Speaker 1:So much sense. And it sounds like he'd never performed an exorcism,
Speaker 3:Right? No, no. I mean, I think it's very hard to find that, especially in the U S so he ends up doing it. There've been various stories about who was there during the exorcism. I've read that it was as few as two, t wo, it was seven. And then I heard like it was over 30 an d a nother report. So it's just all these different rumors flying around. And it's really hard to really verify any of these, u m, t hese assertions, there was also, u h, a f ather Raymond Bishop, and he's the one who kept the diary and was responsible for reporting on the case. So he took detailed notes of everything that was going on and cal led it. H e did th a t. A nd so he was taken, u m, be c ause th e parents were just exasperated and they took him to the Alexian brothers hospital in st. Louis for the exorcism and this hospital, I don't believe exists anymore. So again, Bowden had asked Archbishop Ritter for permission to perform the exorcism. And on April 18th, 1949, Robbie continued to have outbursts. And he explained that Satan would always be with him. So they continued this, right, the exorcism. And later that night, the boy woke up from a trance and he said, he's gone now, really? And he also said that he had a vision of st. Michael battling Satan. So that was the end of the, of the exorcism. Oh, also wanted to say there's also, I read in another article, um, in the st. Louis dispatch, it was called the st. Louis exorcism of 1949, the real life inspiration for the Exorcist. And that was actually published in 2020. This reporter says that there was also a father van roux who also either participated or observed the exorcism of Robbie van Ru Bowden always said, you know, this was the real thing. 100%, this is a real demonic possession and van Rue, father, van Ru. And he was very guarded about whether he believed this was a case of demonic possession, and this is what he said. I'd rather not commit myself on that. He said, speaking by telephone from his apartment at Marquette university. And he was also, they said a renowned theologian. So he didn't want to, didn't want to commit to it. But you said he watched it right. He was there of all these things that I'm reading. I only came across, I think this article in the st. Louis dispatch that said there was a father van Ru that was there. I didn't see that anywhere else. And the book that I was talking to you about, uh, Thomas Allen, I didn't have it, but I was able to access it online, not the complete thing, but probably about 40 pages. So some of the information I'm giving to you came from Alan's book, the possessed book, and in the book, Alan also said that this occurred in Mount Rainier. He said, in addition to, um, in addition to van Ru father Halloran, he actually, what his job was. He had to hold the kid down during the exorcism, the space look of what he did. So father Halloran always kept the perspective. They were helping a 13 year old boy who was in trouble. I've seen him interview too. He said that there was something going on that he had witnessed things moving and that sort of thing. But he seemed like reluctant to, you know, be full on that, you know? Yes, he was possessed like boundaries and was a hundred percent convinced. And he bowed her and went to his grave with the belief that, you know, he had actually fought the devil. When he wrote a letter to William, Peter Blatty, the author of the Exorcist, he said, quote, I was there. This was the real thing. So he was convinced, it's hard to know, you know, it's hard to know who to believe it is. It's really hard to know who to believe and there's even more. And now this is where it gets even more interesting to me. Um, I know a lot of people get hung up on the actual, right. The exorcism to me, that's maybe the least interesting thing of this. That's why I kind of, you know, I didn't go into a whole lot of detail. I think a lot of people already know the scratches, a period of the body, the cursing, the spitting urinating on the bed, those types of meditating. Maybe at least they did that in the movie. I think. Yeah. I love attaining. So the story gets even better because of a bad-ass author named Mark obsessed, obsessed. I think that's how you pronounce it. It's probably not. But for the purpose of this story, we're going to call him Mark. If you want to know how to spell his last name, it's O P S a S N I C K. And he wrote a very detailed series of articles called in parts. I think there was five parts to it. It's called the haunted boy of cottage city sounds creepy. And he, I don't know if he's the owner or, um, of strange magazine. If you go online, you can find that article and you can find other things that are written about, you know, that are paranormal or strange things. So he did some really hardcore research. He was really, Mark was really the first person who really investigated the story of Robbie because much of the information was hearsay. Other people it's just the priests and the family and the Lutheran minister. So the exorcism and people like to say that it took place at 32, 10 bunker Hill road in Mount Rainier, Maryland, but the boy never lived in Mount Rainier, you know, on bunker Hill road. He actually lived in cottage city. As we said earlier, through Mark's research, he said there was no evidence of father Albert Hughes taking him to Georgetown to perform this exorcism or that he was ever injured. He ultimately discovered Robbie's real identity. Oh my God. Really? Which no one had ever been able to do. So how he went about it was he determined his identity through just exhaustive research. Like he went back and he looked at a previous article that indicated Robbie was born on June 1st, 1935. So he was guessing that R obbie probably graduated in 1954. He went back and he r echecked some n ews stories and he found the very first reference to R obbie's address. Um, that was first printed and it was in the Prince George's Sentinel. There was no definitive source for that address that was given. So what he did was Mark went and he went to Mount Rainier. He pounded the pavement, went around, talking to everyone. He could talk to asking him, did this happen here? Were you aware of this? He couldn't find anybody. He talked to a ton of people about this. Couldn't find anyone with that. When was he doing this? I want to say that he was doing this in the, I want to say he was doing this, like in the, in the nineties, in the mid nineties. So he couldn't find anybody. So he started to get suspicious. Like, yeah, this just doesn't seem right. You know, you would think something like this going on, that someone would have known him or his family. And he went to a public library and he found a copy of the Prince George's County directory of the Mount Rainier in Hyattsville college park area. And you know, like the old fashioned photo books, you look up people's names has their phone numbers in it, according to the street address. Um, so he lucked out and he found that, and he looked at the entries for bunker Hill road and he found the listing for the 32, 10 bunker Hill road. He discovered that the occupants, at that time, it was not Robbie and his family. So he's able to verify that Robbie hadn't lived at 32 10 on bunker Hill road. And then he remembered that someone had told him that father Hughes had revealed that Robbie had gone to Gonzaga high school, which is a Catholic school. So then what Mark does, he goes, and he checks the yearbook. And when he was going through the yearbook, it had pictures of people. And it also underneath the pictures and their name, if they would print the student's addresses, Oh my God. And the parishes under the senior picture. And so he found the picture of Robbie, but how did he know what
Speaker 1:He looked like? He just because he knew the name,
Speaker 3:He, he did it through like birthday. Cause they had that information too. And he had a couple of possibilities, but somehow he narrowed it down to just this one guy, R obbie, and they'll just, s o-called, w e'll still call h im R obbie. He determined that R obbie had lived at 38 O h seven 40th Avenue a nd cottage in cottage, city, Maryland. And also from an unnamed source, he got the b oys adult name, the new address and phone number. He didn't say where he got it from. But somehow he got where, y ou k now, t his, this guy lives now his new address, h is new phone number. So he calls t he number and R obbie actually picks up the phone and you know, he was really kind of gruff and R obbie wouldn't verify that he was the boy from the reports, but he was really, he was really surprised and concern that he had been located. And he acknowledged that he had saw the movie. He never gave an impression of it, but he told Mark that he never wanted to be contacted again. I don't blame him. No I don't. And father van Ru and the dispatch, the article, he was saying that, you know how this information leaked out, not that his name, but just that even had an exorcism, it leaked out and that had a potential ruin in his life. And, you know, he said he was very upset about that. So it makes you wonder in, in the diary that they were keeping of the account of the exorcism, they of course had Robbie's rule name and you know, his address at that time. And it was like 24, 25 pages long. Somehow bladdy got ahold.
Speaker 1:I wonder how he got hold of that. You mentioned that earlier and I'm just, I mean, somebody had to given that to him or would think,
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you don't know, you know, who did that, but also this Thomas Allen, he evidently in his book that I was talking about the most recent edition, which I think is maybe 2013, he supposedly actually published the diary. So somehow he got his hands on it and he actually, he said he got it kind of indirectly through father Halloran. So that all sounds kind of, a lot of, it just sounds kind of shady and how this information got out. And I kind of speculate just reading from things that the minister or Reverend Schultz, the Lutheran minister that they first went to. I had read somewhere where he was having pray. Um, he was having prayer circles for Robbie. So the information could have gotten out
Speaker 1:That way. The more people you get involved, you
Speaker 3:Know, the, the less, so something just, you know, something just kind of didn't seem right with him. And I, I think that's maybe one of the ways that it had gotten out, but it c ould h ave gotten out from some of the other people that were observing this exorcism, as I said,
Speaker 1:It's something, how can you not talk about it? I mean, if you've been through something like that, I would think the urge to tell what you've seen would be tremendous.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I wouldn't be able to, I don't know. I wouldn't be able to, I could take your secret to the grave, but I don't, it's something like that. Yeah. So anyway, what Mark did as well was he went to cottage city and again, he was looking for people that had grown up with Robbie or heard a Robbie before. And he was able to get in touch with a few people and cause he wanted to find out like, what was Robbie like evidently he was seen as kind of, um, he was seen as a prankster and a bit of a bully or he was a bully. Like he had this, he had this dog, he had this Cocker spaniel. I believe that, you know, which is by people, you know, on a dime. And so Robbie would think it would be funny to, Oh, call a friend over to play and then sick, the dog lot sucks. Yeah. So he did things like that. So Mark, he comes to the conclusion that he thinks that, you know, this wasn't a possession. He was very critical of people. He felt that didn't thoroughly research would report on this, but didn't really research or even try to find him. And I think Thomas Allen was one of those because he felt that he s hould h ave tried to at least find out R obbie's story, locate him, talk to people that knew him. C ause you have t hose huge gaps, y ou just r elying on other. Y eah. So he believes that R obbie was, was a bully. He believes that he, u m, that he was actually disturbed. T here w as some type of disturbance there and that's what some other people thought as well. There was something going on with n ow
Speaker 1:Call that conduct disorder. I mean, as he got older or maybe he had oppositional defiant disorder when he was younger, along with some psychosis, you know,
Speaker 3:He had some real problems and some people had viewed him as spoiled. So I can't remember where I read this one account, but o ne a ccount was that, or maybe it was reported for one of his friends that they saw, the mom is be ing hyper religious
Speaker 1:And I
Speaker 3:Had never seen that anywhere else. So it makes you think if that somehow played,
Speaker 1:That's very interesting. And like, somehow that was her interpretation, but I can't get away from, you know, not that I definitely want to believe he was possessed, but how do you, how do you account for the objects flying across the room or the bed shaking? That's just crazy to me. Levitating. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's really, it's a mystery. So to me, to me, the most interesting aspects of the story is one like the whole account with his relationship, with his own Harriet, i t seems, I d on't k now for whatever reason that kind of creeps me out a bit.
Speaker 1:W what part of it creeps you out that she was kind of teaching him to
Speaker 3:Kind of treated him more like a peer, I think. And, and just that she was introducing these things to him and he was becoming immersed in, you know, we G or whatever else that, yeah,
Speaker 1:The interesting thing is too, like if his mom was hyper religious, I mean, did she even know what cause if she was, I can't imagine she would have been okay with that, with what supposedly she wants really,
Speaker 3:She was a spiritualist. They, the mom even bought into that. And so they were okay with that. So there's all this information that just is contradictory, all these conflicts. And it's just so complicated to try to figure out what's true, what isn't true, but you know, I'm with you as far as, how do you account for, you know, a vase flying across the room or levitation or the screen
Speaker 1:I should hit the whole time. You've been talking about this, I'm looking through my French doors into the other room and there's this vase sitting in my fireplace and I'm just expecting it to come flying across the room. Really scared.
Speaker 3:So do you think that's, I mean, as I was saying, like, for me, the interesting part was Harriet and then the final part where this, you know, author, Mark tracks him down. Yeah. And time, and the effort that he took to, to find him or to find out the real story. He never, to my knowledge, he never divulged this guy's name and it is out there. You have to look for it, but it is out there. I don't want to say it because he still could be alive. He would probably be in his mid eighties,
Speaker 1:He was born in what? 1934, 35, 45. So he was like two years younger t han my dad a nd my dad. I think if he were still here would be like 82. So yeah,
Speaker 3:That's right by accounts. He had lived a normal life. He had gotten married, he was of course converted to Catholicism. And some say that he worked for NASA. He was a scientist, but it seemed like he, you know, had a good life set up for himself. So that's the interesting part to me too, is that with this author, he goes and he actually tracks him down, interviews his friends. And there's all this mystery. That's always been trotted with this exorcism. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It makes me wonder about that. Guy's motivation too. I mean, especially because he didn't share the name, it's not like he was out to out this guy, but I'm like, why was it such an important thing for him to know that always fascinates me? Why people want to know what they want to know.
Speaker 3:He was really into it. And I think there's a tendency you want to kind of believe, even though it's something terrible, I was just going to ask. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you're wanting to be true, like if you could decide what is true about the story, what would you want it, would you want him to have been really possessed?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure what I think about this. I'm just feel like the author that did all this research and eventually tracked him down. He might've been a little bit harsh in his assessment, but he's the only one who took the time to do this. So I think that speaks a lot of him. And also the fact like you brought up, he did not give out guy's name. Right.
Speaker 1:And I mean, you know, if what he got was accurate information, I mean, it sounds like he was the only one. He's the only source that we have that really had firsthand accounts of what this kid was really like. And I think that that information does complicate it. C ause it does seem like he was a troubled kid. I d on't k now. Yeah. And then it gets me going back to that relationship with A nne Harriet that you talked about like, w ell, that's just an interesting relationship, especially if he was already kind of troubled. And what do you think I'm a skeptic as well. And r eally, you know, I'm not a religious person I'm agnostic. I do think or want to think that there's a higher power, u m, or maybe not in the world, but beyond the world, but I'm still a skeptic and I'm agnostic. So it's just k ind o f like, I don't know, but I'm afraid to say that it's not true because I don't know. There's something about demonic stuff that really just, even though I'm a rational 21st century person, it's really scary to me to think that, you know, against your will, someone could invade your spirit or your body and take over. That's just really, really terrifying to me. I don't want to say it couldn't happen because I feel like, you know, maybe something wants to prove me wrong. Um, so yeah, I think in my heart of hearts, if I'm being really honest, I find it really, really scary. And like, I don't want to get too close to it. Um, have you ever had a Weegee board by the way?
Speaker 3:Yes. I had a really bad weed board experience. So I got
Speaker 1:A weird one t oo. We should talk about that.
Speaker 3:My grandmother who was very, very religious again, she was Southern Baptist. She had some board games and one of them was a Weegee board and we used to play it h im one day. She comes back from church and she takes the board and she puts it in the trash and we're like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Pl ay w ith that? And she wouldn't really, she wouldn't tell us why she was putting in the trash, but she told us, yo u k n ow, that we weren't to play with it anymore. And then I play with it o nce. And, u m, a nd I, I think, you know, when I was growing up, maybe, you know, nine, 10, 11, and then again in college. And that's when I had the bad experience. I' ll l e t y o u
Speaker 1:Tell me about the bad experience. Cause I had a weird experience too,
Speaker 3:As I said, I played it quite a few times before because my grandmother had it and then I played it with friends later who had it. And when I was at college, we had all been drinking a lot and I was pretty torn up and there was three of us playing and I don't even remember what we were asking it or anything. Any specifics about that? All I know is that what's the little thing that you put your hand on the plant chat. Yeah, the plant yet, that thing was going crazy, but it i t's one thing. Like if it's just drifting, if, if you have your fingers barely on it and it's just drifting, I think it's easier for someone to guide it. Sure. Without being, without being detected, but the pl ants, it w as just going nuts an d i t didn't seem, I know it wasn't coming from me and he d id not seem to be coming from the other people. I mean, it was going around and around and around and zi gzagging. And ca n y ou tell what it was spelling? It wasn't spelling anything, but there was like this, there was this fo rest b ehind it. That was propelling it and no, and I ha ve n ever played with it since.
Speaker 1:Well, my experience and I was in college too. And I'm trying to think what year it was. It was probably my junior year. Cause there was this girl named Kelly and I think she was the person who had the Weegee board. So we were playing, I had a single room at that time. Um, most of us did. So we were in my room and the light I had was an overhead light, you know, where you'd have to get up and like change the light bulb. I mean, of course you always have to change the light bulb, but you had to like unscrew the whole thing or whatever. So we're doing it. And we seem to be, um, like I was somehow we made contact with something or someone who said it was my grandmother, my, I called her Lala growing up and she was answering all these questions and it seemed like it was her and it was just really freaky. And then, and I swear, I swear to God, this is the truth. The light bulb blew out on top of the ceiling and it was completely dark. We about died. Um, and that was it. You were screaming, Oh God, we were screaming and we've been playing with it for a few nights. And that was, that was it. How old were you? I was 1920. It was junior year of college. We think
Speaker 3:This way that we both had, we both had experiences at college.
Speaker 1:It is, you know, and I was with all girls. I don't know where you with girls guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think girls are more into that stuff.
Speaker 1:No, I think so too. And sometimes I'm just thinking about robbing, you know, they talked about how this happened when he was around 13 and sometimes people say around puberty that people become like the channels inside them sort of open up for, I don't know, spirits or demons to kind of take control, but then it's, you know, if you think about it, it's also that time of life when you're going a little crazy, you know, your hormones are all over the place. And it's just so that, that to me is interesting too, about how, you know, it often kind of hits kids at that age
Speaker 3:When I would go to church, they would talk about, and again, this isn't the Appalachians or Appalachia
Speaker 1:That's right. Under the Abilene Appalachia,
Speaker 3:We talked a lot about revelations and they were always talking too about being cast into the pit of hell where there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I remember them
Speaker 1:Terrifying as a kid to hear that so scary.
Speaker 3:It is. And um, so to them, the devil's a very real physical thing. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I can't say that, I believe in that, but superstitious part of me that believes I could be possessed, you know? So I better,
Speaker 3:Better. You better straighten up. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I know I've told you this before. I think we're, uh, my favorite pastor not, uh, his name was Joe and he get up and when there had been, had been a fatal accident, he would get up and do a sermon on, well, you know, they weren't saved and you know where they're going to go. Basically.
Speaker 1:That's just all that really. I don't know that tiny definition of what they think you need to do to be saved. Just seems so crazy. Like you can just mouth the words and that would suffice, you know, in the go do something horrible and you have like a get, get out of jail, free card. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Someone wanted to get baptized. Of course they had the taint behind the pulpit, but in the summer and the spring, if you wanted to get baptized, they would take you to the river and have a, either two ministers or a minister and a deacon. T hey'd Wade out into the water. Did they
Speaker 1:Put a rope on him? Like a white robe? No,
Speaker 3:I mean, they would just wear like their Sunday best dress and everybody would gather at the river. And you know, I remember one time they, this woman, she looked like I said, she was wearing her Sunday best and they take her and we're all standing around and watching. And then they put her under water and she comes up and she's like screaming and yelling and happy, I guess, happy. But it frightened me as a kid.
Speaker 1:I can see that. I can't believe you actually witnessed a baptism at the river. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:There was that same. My fav Joe, he did this whole sermon on how he went to wash his car. You know, t hose car wash bays, where you get out and you just spray it down yourself. I t was like, do it yourself things. So he goes, he takes his car there and he doesn't have anything to really wash the car with except just this spray gun. And he looks over and on this bucket is t he sponge and he goes on and on and on i n the sermon about how Satan was tempting him to take that spot.
Speaker 1:Wow. It really stuck with you.
Speaker 3:I remember thinking at the time, it's like, I was so bored and he was going on and on about it and I was just like, take the s pot
Speaker 1:And then put it back. Exactly. Just use the sponge.
Speaker 3:I can't take this any longer t o s it i n here, listen to this. So yeah, so it was a very real, tangible thing.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. Wow. So I went to the Baptist church too. I didn't go every week, but I went pretty often, um, not with my parents, but I went with my mammo and I don't remember a lot of fire and brimstone, but I do remember the Bab dismal thing, you know, they would dunk people. That was actually exciting. I like to see people kid, but I definitely didn't want it to be me. I just remember like, they'd go on and on about like all that man had done, like the sins of man and man was going to be punished. And I just thought, God, I'm so glad I'm a girl. I thought I'd escaped all of that because I was a girl because clearly it was only man that was in trouble. I don't know, in your church where the women are allowed to speak because in mammals, church, women, couldn't like, they couldn't lead anyone in prayer. They couldn't preach, you know, they couldn't speak up. No, they couldn't. I mean,
Speaker 3:Behind the scenes. Yeah. I think they had a voice and it was just a very male dominated thing.
Speaker 1:And then, but you know, there's something that fascinates me about all of that. So where my mom still lives, there's this guy who lives across the street and sadly his wife just died. Maybe I don't know, two months ago. So he used to be my Facebook friend. He's younger than my mom. He's probably in his sixties and his wife was probably around the same age, but it's just, he's that kind of primitive Baptist, you know? A nd like they're so religious, they give all the money to the church and like t heir poor little h ouses falling down. C ause I don't think they keep any money for themselves. It was just really sad. So I couldn't take any more of his posts about God, this and God that, so I unfriended him several years ago, but his Facebook isn't private. So he makes all of his posts public. And I don't know, I was just curious about how h e was doing after his wife died. And so I find myself checking up on him a lot. It's really weird. I have this weird like fascination with that kind of that certainty of belief, you know? C ause he posts a ll a nd, but it runs along these very conservative political lines t oo, which to me p ortrays the very spiritual stuff he's talking about, you know, but I'm just, I'm f asting. Like I can't look away from it. I don't know. It's just so weird. I k ind o f
Speaker 3:The people in a way that are really spiritual or have that kind of belief because it makes things
Speaker 1:Exactly. And I think that's why I'm fascinated with this guy on Facebook where I love to not love, love is the wrong word, but why I'm drawn to read his posts and to think, think about that. Cause it's so easy. Like if you sign on the dotted line, you don't have anything to worry about. Your life is going to be given over to God and Jesus and you know, like they make it sound and look so simple. Can I say, is there any small, like tiny iota part of you that wonders? Is it true? Like I'm going to be doomed when I die because I didn't sign on the dotted line because I think I have a tiny part of me like that. I don't like to admit it. I think
Speaker 3:I do too. And when they would constantly talk about revelations and revelations is really trippy and scary, you know, if you read it
Speaker 1:Last on it in college, it was on the literature of apocalypse. And so we didn't spend a lot of time on the book of revelation. And I think when you come from Appalachia, you know, I grew up in a town, but it was, uh, a town in, in the middle of Appalachia. And I felt a lot of pressure in high school to join this there's this group called campus life. I don't know if you had that, where you went, but it was this religious group. And so it was almost like, I think I've always felt a little bit like an outsider in my life because that's where I came to really fit in where I came from. You had to be that person, you know, you have to be this person who went to church who accepted, you know, Jesus as your personal savior and belonged to this group. And like in it's like if you did all that, no matter what else you did, like you were okay, you know, am I could never, I don't know, is it enough of a, I think a rebel that I just wanted to do my own thing. And I just felt like that was just such a cheap way out. But because of that, I paid, you know, I think I still have pain in my mind. Like I still never quite feel like I fit anywhere. You know,
Speaker 3:I stopped going to church because I would spend the summers with my grandmother. I lived there at one time as you know, and then we moved in, but I would spend the whole entire summer with my grandmother there. I mean, I l ove the area. I love it. Absolutely love it. It's beautiful. Love the people, but you know, I would never w ould h ave, u m, thrived in that kind of environment. And it's really ingrained in you. And even in that area a t one time, I don't think it's now, but it's very close to Kentucky to o. There were people that were churches that were still doing st eak h andling. Ca use t hey would come into the ER. Wow. Ca use t hey got bit. Wow. And I remember thinking to myself, I was probably about 13 or 14 and I had the Bible out and I was reading like obsessively through revelations and, and all these things that you couldn't do like throughout the Bible, you can't do this. You're going to go to hell, you can't do that. You're going to go to hell. And I remember having, making this decision in my mind that there's something inherently wrong with me and I can't abide by these things. I can't, I don't know how to do that. And so I just went bu ck w i ld a fter that. Yeah. It was all downhill. Actually. It was all uphill. It was all up until I fell off the mountainside that time,
Speaker 1:Her story. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's one of the reasons, one of the reasons why we're such good friends. Ca use I think we both really understand that, that we kind of have that outsider feeling in that, but deep down, like this wanting to belong, but also resisting it, not wanting it either. I don't think maybe, maybe a lot of people do relate to that, but I haven't come across them. So I think that's, that's a big reason why we get each other
Speaker 3:When you're there in that situation and around that you don't feel like you belong, but then when you leave that area, you know, how many jokes are there about Appalachia, you know, and hillbillies, you know? So in a way you don't really belong anywhere.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You're always an outsider because, and I think as I've gotten older, I've kind of idealized, you know, a lot from that culture and wished that I could have. Cause I don't sound like I'm from there. Oh my family sounds like they are. And I think like what was wrong with me that I had to kind of reinvent myself. You're always still part of their, and yet you're not, but you're not fully part of the other place either. I didn't tell you this. This is kind of embarrassing because my family, they were like, they were definitely not religious. My mom was raised Catholic, you know, really some bad experiences. And so we were kind of like, I don't know. I think we were outcasts in a way cause we weren't. Um, and I think bringing up anything religious or having do with Jesus in my house was kind of embarrassing. Like you just didn't talk about it. You know? So anyway, I actually bought a Bible about two months ago. Is that insane? Or what are you shocked? I know, I don't know why this i s w hen I was obsessed with like checking in on this p erson, Facebook and I'm thinking, well, maybe he's right. Like maybe, maybe I n eed t o read t he Bible, but I haven't read very much of it. Like I, I opened it looking for comfort and I couldn't find any comfort at all. So yeah, there's not a lot in there n ow, but I do have it. It's pink and i t i s pretty, I ordered a pretty one. So no y ou didn't, you didn't tell me that. No, I didn't even tell Br ian. It was almost like ordering pornography fo r I'm go ing t o h ide this. So I can't believe I'm ou ting m yself right now, but at least maybe it's beside my bed. Maybe it'll keep me from being possessed. Wh y
Speaker 3:I have a Bible beside my bed? I don't know if you've noticed in the house upstairs or there's all these crosses.
Speaker 1:I would have thought that was your wife's doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. Most of it was. I mean the Bible was mine. She has some rosaries around. And then when my brother, the first time I'd ever been to the house here in the corner, my wife has this huge statue of Jesus, but both of his hands are broken off. I call them no hands, Jesus.
Speaker 1:I told my brother
Speaker 3:Because my brother's a big guy and he was in the guestroom and like, there's, you know, here's no hand Jesus, don't get scared. Don't knock him over. C ause if you knock t hem over, it's going to be then
Speaker 1:My, I have my uncles. Um, he was a Catholic priest actually and I loved him dearly. He passed away. I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, but I have a couple of his crucifixes, um, in a little bag next to my bed too. Mainly because they remind me of him and there's something special that I have from him. I think there's part of me that really envies people who have that kind of certainty, but I'm not willing to give up my curiosity for that in my, you know, my acceptance of so many things. And so I just, you know, I find, I guess I find my version of God and beauty, you know, and in other people in the spark between people and nature and beautiful creations that people make, I don't know
Speaker 3:In life so much more complex than the black and the white. Okay.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of, I think what, we're kind of the underlying theme of some of the things we're talking about is those the gray areas. Right?
Speaker 3:So the story of the exorcism, I don't know if some of that stuff was new to you or
Speaker 1:A lot of it was. Yeah. I mean, I think in our conversations one time you had mentioned to me that it was actually based on, you know, this boy, but I didn't know so much of the rest of it. And so I think you did, you did some great research. I'm wondering why, like, why did the film people, o r whoever wrote the screenplay, why did they have to turn into a girl? Is it because like a prepubescent pubescent girl i s much more interesting to watch w heeling around?
Speaker 3:I find that fascinating because when I was watching the movie, I watched it actually I watched it yesterday because I wasn't alone. And it was during the day. Were you though?
Speaker 1:Um, I wasn't
Speaker 3:As scared as I thought I would be, but since some of you know, was here with me, if I had been by myself and it was night, I probably would have been really scared. So it would be really interesting to like examine the whole movie, like from a feminist perspective
Speaker 1:That would be now you're talking my language,
Speaker 3:You know, when Reagan's going through this stuff and they're doing all these invasive procedures and things on her and in the mom, you know, she was divorced and you know, she was independent and a successful actress. That's right. So it kind of gives you the impression because she was these things. That's another way that it was invited into their
Speaker 1:Lives. She opened herself up to it
Speaker 3:And to, you know, she was a very loving mother and very involved and then the priest became involved and she just kind of faded into the, into the background. But what I think disturbing most, I know what disturbed me most was that, you know, the scenes with the crucifix and the masturbation, cause she's like this young, it's a child and it just,
Speaker 1:I can't help. But think that, you know, one of the reasons they made her made the character into a girl is because, you know, for a certain portion of the audience like men, you know, it was titillating to see a pubescent girl doing those things. U m, it was really great. It's really gross. It really is. And t h you know, the other thing, if you're looking at it from a feminist perspective is, you know, all the authority is male. It's this male patriarchal. Um, wh en they have to, and it, I think possession too, i t's like, it's an invasion of your body, almost like a rape. And I think that's, it' s an other way you could look at it, u m, in tha t so mehow like only a man can fix that is suspect at best. Oh, you kn o w,
Speaker 3:Something else interesting. This is, I think, a relation to the get out of jail free card bladdy he was married like 1 4.
Speaker 1:He had, I counted him
Speaker 3:At least had five. I think he had seven kids. He was hyper religious. And, you know, he has divorced after divorce, after divorce.
Speaker 1:And I don't understand how you can get marriages and all that many times to me, it's not being married that many times. It's like, yeah. You know, sometimes it makes you wonder about a person, but, but the annulments are what strike me as strange were probably cause he was famous. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, he was really hyper Catholic, especially I think in later years. Um, so maybe, you know, that's why, again, it's, I guess it's a form of a male privilege b ecause I think of a woman, you know, f or marriages
Speaker 1:Way, especially if you had a child, I mean, usually for an annulment, there has to be like no sexual contact or I don't know, everything relates. Yeah. A lot of times like you can, well, I think in way, way back, like you couldn't get an enormous, if there had been sexual Congress of some kind or you could just lie about it, they'd probably examine you and see if you're, Oh, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's good that we live when we live, you know, I want security, but I also want to hold on to my independent curious mind, you know, I don't want to give that up. I can't really believe that a God would want anyone to give that up to live in certainty. That just seems, I don't think that's what life is about.
Speaker 3:I think if you're going to have a full, meaningful life, everything, can't just be in terms of black and white for me anyway. So well, but I mean, I think too with the region as well, and as we go along, we can do more stories. One of the things I love about the region is that there's always just like such still, like I'm such a mystery and possibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think the good parts of it are really good. You know, I think there's also like deep kinship and I think there's some magic i n some of those stories and beliefs and u h, you know, and I think the other side of t hat evangelical Christianity that's kind of taken hold is that the other side of it is this kind of magical mystical, you know, folklore, folkloric, beliefs. There's that too. So k ind o f, it's not just this one, one way of being, but I think that both of us really felt those pressures. Well, this has been really interesting. Are you drunk?
Speaker 3:Um, you know, I'm doing pretty good because this has so much booze in it. I'm actually I'm feeling all right.
Speaker 1:You said you're doing pretty good because this has so much booze in it. That doesn't make sense. I feel really good. You feel really good, but you're not, you're not super drunk. No, no. Either
Speaker 3:Feeling it though, a few more sips and probably, but I, you know, I'm the only one in this household that d rinks. So yeah. I look forward to kind of, if you're not someone who drinks alcohol, you don't get it, which i s f un,
Speaker 1:But we're not having
Speaker 3:A drink and enjoying it.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I think for us, part of it is we like making, like we make like making our own cocktails and you know, and just trying different things. So that makes it fun too. My husband, he has a drink every night. He's a whiskey man. So
Speaker 3:What to get, I always knew what to get him for his birthday.
Speaker 1:He tells me he wants to try absence.
Speaker 3:So I watched the LSD and
Speaker 1:He told me, cause we, we went out someplace. It's been like four years ago or so. And he had an absence, drip like that brought this whole water thing and you hold this slotted spoon with the sugar cube and then you let it drip, the water drip into your abs. And the, he like, he thought he was in heaven and he's like, and he has add. So he's like, this was like the most clarifying, like inebriation I've ever experienced. So it's nasty stuff. It tastes like licorice, which I absolutely makes me want to gag me too. I'm going to have to buy him a bottle of absence. I'll wait until I do something. When he, when he sees all the money that I spent on the cat pens and the all the other crap, I'll, I'll make it up to them. Some apps they're really, you know, you always dress nicely. Well, that's very nice of you to say it's because I don't wear my 55 pairs of leggings to subject anybody, to seeing that nobody needs to see that when I was trying to coax you into admitting that you had bought a ton of them, I thought it was like 37. I don't know why that piece at 55. It's like it is sick. I have a therapy appointment on Monday and I'm actually going to talk about my obsession with buying things because it needs to stop. I bought a bunch of shapeless dresses from them too. That were really hideous. Like they did me no favors. They looked like nightgown companies. You buy 15, some of that. You need to sell it. You can make a little bit of chunk of change there. Yeah. And then I could buy some more cat pens. I want to have some Yeti leggings is what I want. I want some Yeti. I could probably hook you up with those. That's my dream for myself. All right. Well, I'm on it. I'm going to find you a pair of cue. I think the Yeti is scary. It is scary. Did I ever tell you I was in love with the beast for beating the beast. Do you remember that show in the nineties? I think you had some psychological, his name was always clearly Vincent in that. What was the other? Linda Hamilton was his love interest, but he was like, he was so poetic and like, it was great. Cause like you knew they would never have sex. It was completely safe. And he just like read her poetry and was like super romantic. But like it was kind of chased. I did not know that about you. I just learned more and more as we go along. Paul Vincent beast. Thank you to everyone who listens to the best thing you can do to help us grow is to like review and subscribe on iTunes and better yet tweet about us or post about us on Facebook. Tell your friends if you think that they would like us and have a good night,
Speaker 2:[inaudible].