BONUS - Metra Listener Mailbag 3 - What to Do if You Hear a Voice

Tom hears from an old friend and proposes a way forward.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Miss Maker's medium presence.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Hi, Metro Listeners. This is Tom Mulpey with your final Metro Listener Mailbag from everybody here at Mythmakers Media. We thank you for being part of this story, and we hope you've enjoyed the show. Today, in our final listener mailbag, we're going to take a very special question from a very special listener. It's an email from a young journalist. An email that we received about a month ago. It'll be read by Emily Hartford.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Dear Mr. Molpey, this is a very strange letter to write. I'm a journalist. I usually don't listen to audio drama. I mostly listen to news and political podcasts. But sometime in late October, I started having a dream. Night after night, a dream where I'm standing on a stage performing a song, performing with another woman and a guitarist and a strange, small creature of some kind. Human features, but not human. Green. Short. Green, human-like creature who sings beautifully. Very odd dream. In the dream, the four of us are performing a song for a cheering crowd of mostly people, but also in the crowd are more of the same little green human-like creatures. The dream is not a nightmare. I wake up from this dream exhilarated. In no small part because in the dream, I am a woman. Recently, I got hired to interview Jeanette Bayardell, the Tony nominated musical theater actress. I rented a car and drove out to New Jersey, where she's currently rehearsing, and went to the rehearsal room, the theater set up for the interview. When I walked in, Jeanette was already there listening to something through a pair of earbuds. I assumed she was maybe rehearsing a song from her show, but then, to my shock, I realized she was singing the song from my dream. The very same song. She saw me and stopped singing and took off the earbuds. And I'd like to say that interview went well. But I think I must have seemed a little disoriented. She was very patient. And that's how I found out about Matra. Mr. Mulby, I just finished listening to episode six, where the character, Sam, interviews the sweet old woman. It's a scene that is almost word for word and moment for moment an exact description of an interview I conducted this past summer. In that scene, there are details from that interview that I haven't told anyone, and decisions I've made as a result of that day that definitely only the closest people to me know, including the name I'd like to start using. Tom, I would like to meet with you. And if this is all what I think it is, if my dream was, is, will be something real, and you are who you claim to be. Well, I would like an interview with you and with your younger self. I hope to hear back from you soon. Sincerely, Samantha from Brooklyn. P.S. You can call me Sam. And you can read this on your podcast if you want.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Well, Samantha from Brooklyn, by the time you are hearing this, you know that you and I already got together at my favorite little diner here in New York City. When I first saw you, I was, well, a little taken aback by how young you are now from when I last saw you. But when I got over that initial double take, I gave you a great big hug. And then you were the one taken aback because, well, you'd never met me before. In retrospect, I can see how that big hug must have been a little disconcerting, and I apologize, but social etiquette gets really confusing on multiple timelines. And that diner I asked you to meet me at, Sam, as you now know, is exactly the same diner that my younger self and I had sat down in on that fateful day of Tuesday, February twenty eighth, twenty twenty three. And then, seated in that same booth at that same diner, I explained to you, Sam, why an interview with both me and my younger self would not be possible. Because my younger self was gone, had been since 2023. And I had no idea where he'd gone or what he was doing, at least until today. And I'll get to that. But first, these are the events that led up to my younger self deciding to leave. We were just sitting there in that diner, my younger self and I, and we just agreed to do this podcast, right? And we're talking, and while he and I were discussing how to make the podcast, making those plans, my younger self suddenly, mid sentence, became really distracted and started looking around the diner, very confused. I asked him what was wrong. My younger self asked me. He goes, Did do you hear that? Hear what? I replied. Singing, he said. Singing, a voice s singing. It's it's telling me I have to go. And I've told you, Sam, I don't know where he went, kept that to himself, at least until today, which we'll get to. But okay, he heard this voice singing, a voice telling him to leave and to go somewhere that he wouldn't reveal to me. He sold the company pennies on the dollar, but you know, still a fortune. He left me with enough money to set me up here in this apartment, buy the recording and mixing gear I needed to make the podcast with more than enough money left over to easily get me through as much time as I have left on this mortal coil. And after I described all that to you, Sam, as you know, I then pulled out a checkbook and I wrote you a check. And I'm grateful that you eventually acquiesced and accepted the money because I know you were pretty shocked by the amount. But in my world, you are a dear friend. In my old world, I watched you put your own safety at risk many times with the conviction that it would make a safer world for others. In this world, I hope that money's gonna keep you safe and will give you a secure foundation for the life you want to live and the work that we're gonna do next. See, I I'm here today on this brand new timeline in no small part because of you. So I am so glad you took the money. And I remember you trying to wrap your head around it all, how the world's on this new timeline now. It's a timeline where where things are already changing, you know, little changes so far, you know, like my younger self disappearing, right? But it's all rippling out. It's all very exciting. And you were like, We've got to figure out a way to make sure the new timeline doesn't end up like the old one. And that's when I said to you, Sam, I've been thinking about that myself. So folks, dear listeners, you remember back in episode seven when Heinrich Garns tells Corey that insider trading is a good thing because it keeps the rich people on the inside and keeps out everybody else? Well, because of this new timeline thing that we're on, I am perhaps the ultimate source of inside information. I you know, I've got a decent memory, and if I just read the news, you know, I can recall any number of major events that are gonna happen in the next few weeks or months because I lived through it all already. It's kind of an unfair advantage, I guess, but uh I make a very good investment advisor. As a result, Sam and I conveniently have a rather unlimited budget for our portion of the work ahead. You know, we're gonna use it to bend back some of the levers of power that for the last fifty plus years have been bent in the billionaire's favor. And I and I thought about just making Sam the richest person on earth so that she could fix the world as the very first generous, empathetic trillionaire. She wisely reminded me that hoarded wealth got us into this mess, and it's not going to get us out. We have to change the game. That's where you all come in. So many of you are doing this work already, so many of you fighting locally and globally for a just energy transition, right to clean water for democracy, and the list goes on and on. And so many more of you care about the fight, even if you haven't found your place in it yet. And then some of you are even like me, like I was, blindly trudging forward, believing I had no other choice than to be a cog in a homicidal machine. Well, I hope we've made a story that at least helps you believe that another choice is always possible. Because it's gonna take all of us. All of us need to do whatever we can to get the story out there, the story of how we got here, how we need to go forward to survive, tell that story over and over and over to as many people as possible. We gotta we gotta move that overton window and get as many people on board as we can. We need to work together, organize, protest, attend town halls, raise a lot of good trouble, lots of things we gotta do to stop these billionaires from destroying everything good and beautiful in the world. So one of the things that's going to help immensely, at least here in the United States where I am, is electing progressive candidates and Democratic socialists into office, and lots of them. Because I have been in that room when centrist Democrats stand before billionaires and swear to them that they're never going to raise their taxes or change the rig system that benefits them. I've been there, I've seen it, I've heard it. So we need more true progressives like Bernie, AOC, Zoran Mondami, Rokana, Pramila Jayapal, Jabari Brisport, Gio Say, Rashida Talib, Elizabeth Warren, Ilon Omar, and so many others. Good people, all fighting for a more fair, just, and equitable world, a livable future for all, and then we need to hold them accountable. We need to push them until they succeed in transforming our rigged system, just change the corrupt tax laws and investment schemes that keep making the rich richer while bleeding the rest of humanity dry. And if we get rid of monopolies and billionaires, well, here in America, we could have universal health care, stable housing, child care, a living wage. Just imagine that. And as we Americans catch up on that front, we can all demand a just green transition using all of the solutions and brilliant ideas that have already been conceived, and all of the as yet unimaginable innovations that are sure to come once we start funding them. It may take nationalizing the energy industry. It may take a Marshall Plan dedicated to the Green Transition. But one of the things it's going to take is the Green New Deal. Because the Green New Deal guarantees a rock solid UBI, universal basic income, if any worker loses their job due to the Green Transition. See, right now, billionaires are able to put fear into the hearts of working folks, make them scared of losing their livelihoods as we stop using fossil fuels. The billionaires make the oil workers and coal miners hate the solar and wind companies. They make the auto workers hate the EV technology. They make loggers hate the environmental activists just trying to save the forest. They make everybody so scared and keep everybody at each other's throats so that they can steal and destroy and enslave. So let's take away their power to scare us, intimidate us. Let's put the power back in our hands. Bring on the Green New Deal. Speaking of our forests, lately I have found myself thinking a lot about redwoods. You know, those giant redwoods out on the West Coast that folks are trying to save. Literally. I found myself dreaming about them inexplicably. And then today I received a letter. A padded envelope to be precise. Inside, there were three Polaroid photos. You know, Polaroid cameras, the ones where you take the picture and a photograph slides out and you watch it develop right in front of you. There's wonderful things, those Polaroid cameras. So in the padded envelope, there were three Polaroid photos, each with writing on the back numbered along with a note that said read in order. Alright. Photo number one. The writing on the back read Did you know way up high in a really old red wood whole independent ecosystems exist? Little ponds, fish, salamanders, trees, little trees growing way up in a giant tree. I am standing next to a hemlock tree growing in its own little eco island, almost 200 feet off the ground, in a giant redwood tree that is at least 1,000 years old. That's what the writing on the back of the photo read. Then I flipped it over, and there's my younger self standing next to a little hemlock tree with ferns growing all around it and a giant wall of tree bark behind. Okay. Photo number two. The writing on the back reads Did you know old growth redwood forests store more carbon than any other forest type, acting as some of the most powerful carbon sinks on all of planet Earth? This tree and forest were slated to be cut down. So we've been up here for a month, stopping the loggers while my lawyers purchase the whole darn forest, which will now be placed in a public trust to be protected in perpetuity. Deals done, and to celebrate, we decided to stay up for a few more days. Feels like home. Well, okay. Flip this photo over. It's another picture of my younger self surrounded by greenery with an opening behind him, looking out over a beautiful green forest stretching for miles into the distance. A good way to spend a month, I'd say, a month, and the copious proceeds of selling a weapons company. Okay. Photo number three. The writing on the back reads, change the myth. Change the world. Flip the photo over. And there is the picture of a beautiful red-haired woman surrounded by ferns and greenery, holding in her outstretched arm a little green salamander. A beautiful red-haired woman who looks dazzlingly similar to someone I once knew many years ago. Change the myth. Change the world.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Featuring the stem.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

This episode of Metrolistener Mailbag features Tom Mulby as Tom Mulby. Tom Mulbey takes sole responsibility for the views expressed in this episode.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

The views expressed in this episode do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the production cast or creatives. My name is Tom Mulpee, and I endorse this episode.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Dialogue directed by Emily Hartford. Singing sessions directed by Tom Mulby. Songs written by Aglofinus Corey. Sam and yours truly, Tom Mulpey. Music and vocal arrangements, as well as sound editing and sound design by Tom Mulpey.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

All audio produced and recorded and mixed by Tom Mulpee at Mythmakers Media Studios. Principal casting by McCorco Casting. Additional casting by Mythmakers Media. Public relations and media outreach by TinkMedia. Visit our website, Metrothemusical.com for a detailed list of credits and thanks. Follow us on Instagram and MetroTheMusical of the word.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Change the world. So many have heard the episode where the reference comes from. So that would make sense. See you on the streets.