Speaker 1: What is up? And welcome back to hashtag story Time,
Speaker 1: the podcast where I bring you everyday stories from everyday people,
Speaker 1: brought to you by I Heart Radio and Curativity. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Will Multi Level Marketing McFadden. Exciting announcement, Hashtag
Speaker 1: Storytime was selected as a Webby Awards honoree in the
Speaker 1: category of Best Podcast Host. I you're not this is
Speaker 1: not a joke or a prank. At least I hope
Speaker 1: it's not. I mean, it's on the website, So if
Speaker 1: this is a prank, they went to some pretty great
Speaker 1: lengths to funk with me, and I respect that funny thing. Though.
Speaker 1: Get who else is nominated? Um, that's right, my arch
Speaker 1: podcast nemesis, Seth Rogan for his work on the other
Speaker 1: story Time podcast. So maybe maybe they've sucked up, and
Speaker 1: maybe they I was actually supposed to be nominated and
Speaker 1: he was supposed to be the honoree. That's probably what
Speaker 1: happened regardless, Hopefully this gets the word out about hashtag Storytime,
Speaker 1: you know, and get some more fable babies to join
Speaker 1: the stable baby. But it's you know, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to get more people to listen to your podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: there's just so many podcasts out there, and they all
Speaker 1: think they're the best, even though we know that we
Speaker 1: are the best. So I'm you know, I've been trying
Speaker 1: to think of some different ways to grab people's attention,
Speaker 1: you know, guerrilla marketing, do some Maybe I r L
Speaker 1: events more n f T s. Maybe I need to
Speaker 1: move the podcast to the metaverse. That's probably what I
Speaker 1: should do. Maybe we should make a new coin, fable coin, right,
Speaker 1: some sort of new crypto podcast currency. Oh what if
Speaker 1: we do some stunt e things, you know, like what
Speaker 1: if did like a live slam poetry storytelling jam at
Speaker 1: a library, you know that will get people talking quietly.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll set the world record for most times getting shushed.
Speaker 1: Or we could do maybe like a intimate storytelling open
Speaker 1: mic at Niagara Falls or something. I don't know, that's
Speaker 1: a dumb idea, but I'm just spitballing here. Okay, what
Speaker 1: do people like? People like beef? You know that gets
Speaker 1: people fired up. Maybe I need to actually wrestle Seth
Speaker 1: Rogan for the ultimate right to the storytime name and trademark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now we're talking. I mean YouTubers are getting paid millions
Speaker 1: to box each other. I'm sure at least a handful
Speaker 1: of people would watch some podcasters wrastle funk it. Let's
Speaker 1: do this, Rogan, Seth, not Joe, Joe, you freak me out.
Speaker 1: The mustachioed Marauder is coming for you. Seth. That's my
Speaker 1: wrestling name. And when I hit you with my signature
Speaker 1: move the lip tickler. That's where I gently rubbed my
Speaker 1: mustache on your upper lip. You will tap faster than
Speaker 1: attis Stare on cocaine. And then the rights and the
Speaker 1: trademarks to the Storytime podcast will be mine baby. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And now I'm calling on all you fable babies out
Speaker 1: there to tweet at Mr Rogan and tell him that
Speaker 1: I'm coming for him, so he better watch his harry back,
Speaker 1: who went full macho man there. Sorry about that. All
Speaker 1: of this leads me to today's story told by our
Speaker 1: guest Mike John's. Now, you may know Mike from the
Speaker 1: Tender Blood Sport and Popcorn book Club podcasts on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Network, and he's also the co host of
Speaker 1: the absurdly beloved literary event in Atlanta, Right Club. Mike
Speaker 1: told me a story that involves a bunch of bookworms,
Speaker 1: a novelist, and a Butcher. Imagine this scenario, you see
Speaker 1: a fight, like are you are you running towards it?
Speaker 1: Or are you running away? Is the question? So I
Speaker 1: want you to imagine me. I'm in my mid twenties,
Speaker 1: i am brand new, still to my first career type job.
Speaker 1: I'm a new reporter uh an arts and culture reporter
Speaker 1: at Atlanta's public radio affiliate station. And I'm not expecting
Speaker 1: to be running towards or away from anything that even
Speaker 1: resembles a fight. I'm covering theater. It's not part of
Speaker 1: the job description generally, No, it's not in there at all.
Speaker 1: But then the Decatur Book Festival comes along. They've been
Speaker 1: going for over a decade now. Tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: people show up every Labor Day, weekend. Famous authors show up,
Speaker 1: and they do readings and they give panel discussions. It's
Speaker 1: a whole thing. But back then it was still very
Speaker 1: much in its infancy, and the directors were looking for
Speaker 1: ways to sort of shake things up, make it not
Speaker 1: your grandfather's book festival. So they staged a wrestling match.
Speaker 1: What are the what are the youths into these days? Fighting?
Speaker 1: It's like we want to do hunger games, but for real,
Speaker 1: um so I show up with a microphone. It's a bright, sunny,
Speaker 1: hot Labor Day weekend, and I'm wandering my way through
Speaker 1: this book festival. You know, it's it's it's nerds. It's
Speaker 1: nerd Fest. It's people carrying around stacks of books that
Speaker 1: they've gotten signed by their favorite authors. It's people carrying
Speaker 1: tote bags around. It's a very NPR crowd. It's comic
Speaker 1: Con but no causeplay Renaissance fair but in modern day.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because here in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 1: there is there is dragon Con going on like right
Speaker 1: across town. So like it is a nerd weekend. It's
Speaker 1: a it's pretty, it's pretty incredible. It's a perfect storm
Speaker 1: of nerd. So everything looks normal until I get to
Speaker 1: the Decatur Square and there is an actual wrestling rings
Speaker 1: set up. I'm talking you know, stretch canvas, turned buckles,
Speaker 1: the you know, the brightly colored ropes, the whole nine.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a crowd gathered around it, and
Speaker 1: I spot one of the directors of the book festival
Speaker 1: and I asked him the question. I stick the microphone
Speaker 1: in his face. I asked him the question that is
Speaker 1: on everybody's mind. What And he laughs and he says, well,
Speaker 1: here at the book festival, we tried to do things
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. And so I approached this writer
Speaker 1: and I asked him what he wanted to do. If
Speaker 1: you could do anything at the book festival. You know,
Speaker 1: that's not a reading, that's not a panel discussion, that's
Speaker 1: not just a book signing, what would you want to do? Now?
Speaker 1: The guy he's talking about is this author named Michael
Speaker 1: Mohammed Knight. Michael Mohammed Knight is he's a young man American.
Speaker 1: He converted to Islam at a young age and he
Speaker 1: started writing about it. Most notably, he wrote this novel
Speaker 1: called The Takua coors Um, which drew upon his experience
Speaker 1: with the youth culture in Islam. And U it's about
Speaker 1: this underground, this fictionalized underground punk rock movement. Um. It's
Speaker 1: it's pretty good, it's it's pretty exciting. So he's bold,
Speaker 1: he's brash, he's young. And they ask Michael Mohammed Knight,
Speaker 1: if you could do anything at a book festival, what
Speaker 1: would you want to do? And he tells them there
Speaker 1: is a wrestler in Atlanta named a Duelah the butcher.
Speaker 1: I want to wrestle him. And then the director of
Speaker 1: the festival gestures at the at the turn buckles and
Speaker 1: the stretched canvas and the brightly colored ropes, and he's like,
Speaker 1: and here we are. I gotta say to Michael Maha,
Speaker 1: I'm a Night. Is an awesome name for a wrestler.
Speaker 1: It is a superhero name. Man, It's great, It's it's
Speaker 1: perfect for what if you know, he's a punk rocker,
Speaker 1: he's ar wrestling. He's like, he's an amateur wrestler when
Speaker 1: he's not writing novels. Yeah. Perfect. So that's the how.
Speaker 1: The why is a lot more complicated. Wandering through the crowd,
Speaker 1: I find Michael Mohammed Knight and we exchange pleasantries. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Mike from the radio station. We've been emailing back
Speaker 1: and forth. Um, could I talk to you after the match.
Speaker 1: And he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, And he's all jazzed up.
Speaker 1: He's jumping up and down and I want to I
Speaker 1: want to plant this. I want to give you this
Speaker 1: picture he because he looks amazing, as amazing, and as
Speaker 1: his name is, he looks incredible. He's got these gold
Speaker 1: wraparound sunglasses. Look they look like they look like Elvis
Speaker 1: impersonator glasses. He's wearing this white satin cape that's like
Speaker 1: billowing in the wind. He's got these gold boots on
Speaker 1: it that are like laced up to his calves. He
Speaker 1: looks amazing. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna leave
Speaker 1: you to it, because obviously your head is somewhere else.
Speaker 1: You're about to step into the ring. In the shadows
Speaker 1: next to the ring, there's a little booth, a little tent,
Speaker 1: and in that tent is Abdullah, the butcher. Abdullah. He's
Speaker 1: not a tall man, but in every other way he
Speaker 1: is enormous. He is wide, he is round, he's he's
Speaker 1: got these this deep brown skin and these like dark eyes,
Speaker 1: and his bald shaved head is deeply rutted from years
Speaker 1: and years of scar tissue getting hit with chairs exactly.
Speaker 1: And he's selling barbecue sauce because he's retired and he
Speaker 1: owns a barbecue restaurant here in Atlanta. He's doing fine.
Speaker 1: He's what a nice guy. And I asked him, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have a comment today about the fight that's
Speaker 1: about to take place, And he says, yeah, I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you. I have to go kick this guy's ass. First,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what do you say to that? Fair enough,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to argue with the most terrifying motherfucker
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my life selling barbecue sauce to
Speaker 1: I pictured him over there with a cleaver, and he
Speaker 1: was just like hacking away at you know, like a
Speaker 1: lamb's leg or something. So I've still got my microphone,
Speaker 1: got my big old headphones on. I'm gathering crowd sounds.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to people. Can you believe there's a wrestling
Speaker 1: match at a book festival? Yeah? What? What do you
Speaker 1: believe it? Yeah? And there's a pretty sizable crowd gathering around.
Speaker 1: I would not have expected that out of a bunch
Speaker 1: of nerds at a book festival, you know, with you know,
Speaker 1: carrying armloads books around. But there's you know, there's there's folks,
Speaker 1: there's passed by, there's there's obviously readers. There's maybe even
Speaker 1: a couple of folks who have read some of Michael
Speaker 1: Mohammed Knight's books. Um, there's people with families, little kids
Speaker 1: running around. It's like a festival day. It's wonderful. And
Speaker 1: then a barker climbs up into the ring and he
Speaker 1: starts shouting at the crowd. We're here today to see
Speaker 1: the battle between the literary giant Michael Mohammed Knight and
Speaker 1: the literal giant, Abdullah the Butcher. I see what he
Speaker 1: did there, very nice. And then Abdullah's manager gets up
Speaker 1: into the ring. Now his manager is dressed in a
Speaker 1: linen see, he looks like Colonel Tom Parker. He's dressed
Speaker 1: in a linen suit. He's wearing like a cowboy hat,
Speaker 1: old Southern guy. And he gets up into the ring
Speaker 1: and he says, now, we have this challenger here set
Speaker 1: to fight Abdullah the Butcher, but we've got this place
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta called Grady Hospital. Now you can bow
Speaker 1: out of the fight now, or we can go ahead
Speaker 1: and call to cab County. The choice is yours. Ring
Speaker 1: the bell please, and they ring the bell. Do they
Speaker 1: have an ambulance standing by? I did not see one,
Speaker 1: and they probably should have had one, just out of it,
Speaker 1: just out of an abundance of caution. They were it's
Speaker 1: a book festival. Why do we need an ambulance. Nobody's
Speaker 1: ever gotten hurt at a book festival. There may have
Speaker 1: been some stubbed toes here. There's some paper cuts outside
Speaker 1: for some paper cuts. I got hooked in the eye,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of with a pen when I was
Speaker 1: getting my book signed. I don't know. Did Neil de
Speaker 1: grass Tyson ever start a fistfight with anybody that's yet
Speaker 1: to be seen? I don't think so. He would use
Speaker 1: some you know, he would use physics or something to
Speaker 1: spaghettify somebody. Michael Mohommed Knight jumps into the ring and
Speaker 1: again he looks great. He's all psyched up. He's jumping
Speaker 1: up and down. His satin cape is flowing in the wind,
Speaker 1: and he's taunting Abdullah from inside the ring. Now, just
Speaker 1: to back up a little bit, Abdullah the Butcher was
Speaker 1: a pro wrestler, to be sure, here in Atlanta and
Speaker 1: around the country in the eighties and nineties. He's been
Speaker 1: retired for a long time now. He's probably about sixty
Speaker 1: years old at this point. And I imagine after a
Speaker 1: career of being beat to a pulp and flying through
Speaker 1: the air and getting hit with folding chairs and stuff,
Speaker 1: his knees are not what they used to be. Him
Speaker 1: getting up into the ring nonstarter. So he's standing outside
Speaker 1: the ring, Mike, He's got this young buck just shouting
Speaker 1: at him from inside the ring. So he does what
Speaker 1: anybody would do in that position. He waits for Michael
Speaker 1: Mohammed Knight to get close enough to the ropes. He
Speaker 1: grabs him by his golden ankles and he yanks. Michael
Speaker 1: hits the He hits the canvas hard and nobody has
Speaker 1: time to breathe before Abdullah just yanks him out of
Speaker 1: the ring and into the grass. And then it's a fight.
Speaker 1: Then it's a wrestling fight. Michael Mohammad, he know, he's
Speaker 1: trying to recover. He gets up and it's just a
Speaker 1: moment later that Abdullah swings a folding chair bam, hits
Speaker 1: him right in the head. Where did the folding chair?
Speaker 1: This is a standing room only crowd, mind you, where
Speaker 1: did the chair come from? Well, if there wasn't a
Speaker 1: folding chair around, there wouldn't be a folding chair there
Speaker 1: to hit another wrestler with. So it's wrestling. This is
Speaker 1: the butcher brings his own folding chairs wherever he goes.
Speaker 1: He gotta have him on stand by. You know, he's
Speaker 1: got his his like Swiss army knife of like wrestler
Speaker 1: tricks right here right right, hits him with a chair night,
Speaker 1: hits the ground and he's you know, he's on the recovery.
Speaker 1: He gets back up to his feet, he's just on
Speaker 1: his feet, and Abdullah the Butcher grabs him and throws
Speaker 1: him into a folding table. Again, where'd the table come from?
Speaker 1: If there wasn't a table there, there wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: table there for a wrestler to get thrown through. It's
Speaker 1: it's not rocket science. Is there a ref at this No,
Speaker 1: So there's no clear way for somebody to get pinned.
Speaker 1: And this thing not not that I remember I do.
Speaker 1: This is is very very grassroots. So Michael is he's
Speaker 1: getting back up to his feet and Abdullah is standing
Speaker 1: over him. Now, let's zoom out for a second. Abdullah
Speaker 1: the Butcher had his wrestling career in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: He was what was known in wrestling parlance as a heel,
Speaker 1: a bad a bad guy wrestler, the guy that the
Speaker 1: audience loves to hate. And he got his nickname Abdullah
Speaker 1: the Butcher because this guy likes to bring knives into
Speaker 1: the ring with him. Oh great. Michael is getting back
Speaker 1: up to his feet and Abdullah is standing over him,
Speaker 1: and I see from the other side of the ring.
Speaker 1: Abdullah raising his fist in the air and I see
Speaker 1: something glint in the labor day sunlight, and he brings
Speaker 1: that fist down onto Michael's head. Bam. Michael hits the
Speaker 1: ground hard and he does not move. The crowd fucking
Speaker 1: loves this. The crowd goes ape shit. People are screened,
Speaker 1: People are dropping their books and like hollering and yelling
Speaker 1: get them, kill them, finish them off. I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like that. The crowd tasted a little bit of
Speaker 1: blood and they were swarming and it was it was crazy,
Speaker 1: was incredible. And then the blood starts to pool on
Speaker 1: the pavement outside of the ring. I'm still recording sound.
Speaker 1: I've got my microphone out. It takes people a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes to realize this is real. That's not a
Speaker 1: blood packet. He that man is hurt and he's not
Speaker 1: getting up. A couple of minutes goes by and somebody shouts,
Speaker 1: can somebody get an ambulance. Paramedics are called. A couple
Speaker 1: of minutes later, they arrive. Police start pushing people back
Speaker 1: and I'm scanning the crowd and I see the directors
Speaker 1: of the festival and they are looking from the paramedics
Speaker 1: to Michael, to the ambulance and at me, and they
Speaker 1: are no longer my friend. They are very worried because
Speaker 1: an author who they invited is about to get put
Speaker 1: into an ambulance and they are responsible. And I'm a
Speaker 1: reporter doing my job. So the paramedics bandage his head,
Speaker 1: they put him on a stretcher, they load him into
Speaker 1: the back of an ambulance. And that's when I realized,
Speaker 1: damn it, I was supposed to interview him after the match.
Speaker 1: My editor is going to be pissed. Also, where where
Speaker 1: did Abdullah go after that brutal blow? Did he just
Speaker 1: vanish into the crowd? It was it was as if
Speaker 1: it was as if he was a ninja and he
Speaker 1: threw a smoke bomb down and just just disappeared him.
Speaker 1: His manager, Bartles of Barbecue Sauce gone nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: He he ski daddled. It was. It was amazing. So
Speaker 1: they zoom away in a in an ambulance and I
Speaker 1: head back to the air conditioned hospitality uh tent, and
Speaker 1: I begin to drink because I know two things. One
Speaker 1: that man is seriously injured, and two I'm about to
Speaker 1: blow past my deadline. And that's just gonna have to
Speaker 1: be okay. I get back home and I start madly
Speaker 1: trying to get in touch with Michael Mohammed Knight, if
Speaker 1: only to make sure he's alive, but also I have
Speaker 1: a story to finish. I eventually get a hold of
Speaker 1: him on Facebook and I message him, Hey, I'm probably
Speaker 1: the last guy you want to talk to right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: the second the last guy you want to talk to
Speaker 1: you right now? But would you mind going on the
Speaker 1: record to talk about the wrestling match that took place.
Speaker 1: I hear from him two days later. I'm sweating bullets
Speaker 1: and he goes, yeah, let's talk. We get on the phone.
Speaker 1: Thank god, I can breathe this huge side relief. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's alive. He's okay, so is my story. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get him on the phone. Let's get you one tape.
Speaker 1: He answers the phone. He's back at his He's back
Speaker 1: at his place in in New York. And I get
Speaker 1: a chance to ask him what everybody else in the
Speaker 1: crowd was wondering, What the hell were you thinking? What?
Speaker 1: He tells me he had to get seventeen stitches in
Speaker 1: his head. Oh my god, but he's back home and
Speaker 1: he's resting. He's gonna be okay. He says that when
Speaker 1: he was a kid, he used to watch Abdullah the
Speaker 1: Butcher on TV and he was one of his idols,
Speaker 1: and he was also terrified of him. Who wouldn't be
Speaker 1: giant guy with knives who stabs people. He was the boogeyman.
Speaker 1: He was the monster. Onto the bed to Michael and
Speaker 1: he tells me a little bit about his writing process.
Speaker 1: He says, when you're a writer, you need to approach
Speaker 1: it like a pro wrestler. You need two leap off
Speaker 1: the top rope. You need to take the chair shot
Speaker 1: flush in the dome. You need to bleed to tell
Speaker 1: your story. He tells me that when he stepped into
Speaker 1: the ring that day, he pretty much knew that it
Speaker 1: was going to go down the way that it went down,
Speaker 1: But he had to do it because the only way
Speaker 1: that you can approach a story and really bleed for
Speaker 1: it is without fear. And if you step into a
Speaker 1: ring and you're still afraid to get hurt, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be dead meat. He said that he confronted his boogeyman.
Speaker 1: He stepped into the ring and he looked Abdullah right
Speaker 1: in the eye, and he didn't see a monster anymore.
Speaker 1: He saw a man, even if he was the one
Speaker 1: who got beat to hell for it. So, if I
Speaker 1: can answer my own question, if you see a fight,
Speaker 1: do you run towards it or do you run away?
Speaker 1: If you run away, you're never going to confront that fear,
Speaker 1: and your stories just aren't going to be as good. Amen, brother,
Speaker 1: and whoever said like, anybody who thinks wrestling is not real,
Speaker 1: they should, you know, they should go ahead and give
Speaker 1: uh Michael Mahaman night a call. Yeah, ask him about it.
Speaker 1: He's got the he's got the scar tissue to prove it. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome back. How were those ads? Did you listen to
Speaker 1: him or did you skip them? I hope you listened
Speaker 1: because that's how we get paid. Now it's time for
Speaker 1: another story from our story Okay, event that we did
Speaker 1: in New York last year, TikTok Legend brand In Alexander
Speaker 1: told a story that involved Taco bell, skateboarding and a
Speaker 1: traumatic brain injury. On October eleventh, actually two years ago,
Speaker 1: I was in a really bad skateboarding accident on a
Speaker 1: boosted board. I left my house from Lower Manhattan going
Speaker 1: to talk about on Fulton Street, and um, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about and my mom was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you go to Mad dogg and Beans in your
Speaker 1: way there? I was like sure, And so I left
Speaker 1: my house at nine fifty or eight fifty pm, and
Speaker 1: by PM I was in the hospital and we're like
Speaker 1: how how did you get there? And so I was
Speaker 1: being treated my mom like my mom got this really
Speaker 1: weird feeling that I was. Um, She's like, what's taking
Speaker 1: so long? Even though I'd only been gone for like
Speaker 1: ten minutes. And I was like okay. So she calls
Speaker 1: the hustle and she first she texted my location. It
Speaker 1: was like, hey, where's Brandon? And she looks at Taco
Speaker 1: Bell and she looks at the hospital right near Taco
Speaker 1: Bell and she's like, he's at the wrong place. Why
Speaker 1: is he not? Why is not to talk about? He's
Speaker 1: at the hospital. So she tells my brother and my
Speaker 1: brother was like called the hospital, and so she called
Speaker 1: calls the hospital, was like hey is my son there?
Speaker 1: And they're like, uh, yeah, we have someone who matches
Speaker 1: his description. Um, will you be visiting? And Moms like visiting?
Speaker 1: Is he is he alive? And she was like and
Speaker 1: they're like well, he's in critical condition and we don't
Speaker 1: really know what's going on. So, um, we're gonna but
Speaker 1: we can't tell you anything more because of Hippa. And
Speaker 1: and she was like, okay, I'm on my way. So
Speaker 1: she gets there and she can see me from like
Speaker 1: the check in. She sees me like where as you
Speaker 1: I can see it. You walk in, it's like right there,
Speaker 1: and she sees me like she described it as flopping
Speaker 1: around the bed like a flounder, which is her terminology
Speaker 1: for saying having extreme seizures. And um, So she walks
Speaker 1: in and the nurses were just like, oh, yeah, drug overdose.
Speaker 1: And my mom was like, no, he's not a drug overdose.
Speaker 1: He was going to talk about and and then they're
Speaker 1: like what and so she was like, no, he his
Speaker 1: skateboards were right next to me. How do you not
Speaker 1: make this connection? And she was like They were like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And so as my mom walks in
Speaker 1: the room. I don't remember this obviously I was incapacitated,
Speaker 1: but my mother told me that as she walked in
Speaker 1: the room, she's like Brandon and I and I stopped seizing,
Speaker 1: and I sat up and I looked at her and
Speaker 1: as soon as I looked at her, she was like, okay,
Speaker 1: lights around, he hit his head, something's okay. And as
Speaker 1: I went she went to reach for my hand, and
Speaker 1: as I went to reach for her hand, it's some
Speaker 1: ship of a movie. And I like, my eyes well
Speaker 1: back in my head and blood started pouring out of
Speaker 1: my ear and I fell back and started seizing again.
Speaker 1: And so then all the all the nurses just witnessed that.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, yeah, he's not a drug overdose. So
Speaker 1: they ended up doing a CT scanner trying to but
Speaker 1: I was like obviously not sitting still. Um. So they
Speaker 1: intubated me and put me under, and then I had
Speaker 1: emergency brain surgery and that was fun. At the entire
Speaker 1: left side of my skull removed. UM, and I have
Speaker 1: a little fun little guy this one because if you
Speaker 1: can see that, I don't know, can you see that
Speaker 1: it was all the way around, It was all the
Speaker 1: way around in the back of my head. Um. And
Speaker 1: so this is like the first part of the story,
Speaker 1: So buckle up. After surgery, my mom asked the doctor,
Speaker 1: She's like, is how long is recovery gonna be? He's like, WHOA, no, no,
Speaker 1: we don't know. If he's gonna walk, we know if
Speaker 1: he's gonna talk. We don't know if he's gonna spive
Speaker 1: the night. And so then they were like I was like,
Speaker 1: oh okay. So they transferred me uptown and three days
Speaker 1: later I woke up from a coma and I had
Speaker 1: they had taken the intubation tube out of me, and
Speaker 1: my first reaction was to take the oxygen mask off
Speaker 1: me and throw it across the room. And so they
Speaker 1: were like, okay, so he's in good spirits. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't speak English. I forgot how to speak English. Um.
Speaker 1: Three days later after that. So six days after the accident,
Speaker 1: I was eating a turk a sandwich and the doctor
Speaker 1: walked into there, like what are you doing? And he
Speaker 1: was like and my mom was like, he wanted a sandwich.
Speaker 1: And they're like, he cannot be sitting up right now.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a skull in his head. What are
Speaker 1: you doing? And um, I was like and I was like,
Speaker 1: I just wanted food and I just wanted to eat
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, you get apple sauce and that's it.
Speaker 1: And seven days later I started walking, and then three
Speaker 1: days after that they were like, how is he Okay,
Speaker 1: to rehab, you go, And so I was in rehab
Speaker 1: for two weeks after that. Then fast forward two months December,
Speaker 1: I got my new skull put in and that new
Speaker 1: skull was UM. Was supposed to be a fully custom
Speaker 1: made like skull for my head um, and it turns
Speaker 1: out everything was great. I was like, okay, we're good.
Speaker 1: I'd fine. In the process started working for three six
Speaker 1: sixteen months. Following all the way up until um January
Speaker 1: of this year, I had gotten really insecure because I
Speaker 1: had a bump in my head, like on my side
Speaker 1: of my face, and I was like, what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? Like I I can't, I can't look at
Speaker 1: myself in the mirror. So I went, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go see a plastic surgeon and see what
Speaker 1: they can do. Go to the plastic surgeon and he
Speaker 1: was like, let's run some CT scans on you just
Speaker 1: to make sure like everything's good up there. And so
Speaker 1: in this they did this really cool CT that showed
Speaker 1: like every orifice of my face and it was really
Speaker 1: weird that you could even you could even even see
Speaker 1: the mask on my face, and I was like okay.
Speaker 1: So following that we we got to sit down after
Speaker 1: he's examined the X rays and I go back in
Speaker 1: for a follow up appointment. He was like, okay, so, um,
Speaker 1: you have a death button. I was like what He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a death button. Was like, what do you mean? He
Speaker 1: was like, the back of your head, you know, you
Speaker 1: would talk to me about because I had I had
Speaker 1: a little like well it felt like a little dent
Speaker 1: in my head um and I was like this. I
Speaker 1: was told by my old surgeon that it would um
Speaker 1: fuse together over time. If anyone knows anything about brains
Speaker 1: and skulls, they stopped growing when you're like fifteen, so
Speaker 1: they there's there's there's not nothing's fusing. And so I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there and he was like, basically, you have a
Speaker 1: gap about an inch two inches wide and two inches
Speaker 1: tall in the back of your head that if someone
Speaker 1: were to flick you at any time or like like
Speaker 1: ha ha, what's up, Brandon, they'd be like I would
Speaker 1: die immediately. I would have immediately stoke and die. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, oh okay, and so like the
Speaker 1: past sixteen months of my life from just like so
Speaker 1: the time the snapple fell on my head could have
Speaker 1: killed me. Oh cool. And and so then three months later,
Speaker 1: two months later, I go in for my at this
Speaker 1: time third brain surgery UM and he gave me three options.
Speaker 1: He goes, you can even have number one where you
Speaker 1: we can just fix the muscles, because because the way
Speaker 1: your jaw works is like has like muscles that run
Speaker 1: down your jaw and they connect like the top of
Speaker 1: your skull. When the new when the second surgery, when
Speaker 1: they put the skull on, they didn't reattach the muscles.
Speaker 1: So imagine like we were like gotten new currents and
Speaker 1: you like hang them up and they're like really bunched
Speaker 1: up and you're like, come on, just straighten out. And
Speaker 1: then you don't straighten out, and like fox, you like
Speaker 1: steam them. Basically the plastics gonna have to go in
Speaker 1: and steam my muscles and reattached them to my skull um.
Speaker 1: But the problem was that there was this hole and
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, so we're gonna gonna We're just
Speaker 1: gonna you can either just leave it how it is,
Speaker 1: which I don't recommend, or you can have us just
Speaker 1: totally redo it. And I was like option to go
Speaker 1: immediately now please, And so now I have, um, this
Speaker 1: is I've had three surgeries in the past two months. Again,
Speaker 1: so um. But now I have a skull made by NASA,
Speaker 1: which is cool. I'm one of idiot people in the
Speaker 1: world with his um. It was designed on the I
Speaker 1: S S like, which is really cool because I can
Speaker 1: like be like, yeah, I'm I'm number one German because
Speaker 1: it was made in Germany. But then engineer Banassa. But
Speaker 1: it was cool and so then I'm like, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1: Everything's great. And then July four this year and I
Speaker 1: wake up and I was like, my nose is bleeding.
Speaker 1: What the fuck? And I was like I don't want
Speaker 1: to get it on my sheets, So I jumped out
Speaker 1: of it and I like start walking to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: By the time I'm get to the bathroom, I'm like
Speaker 1: straight back, nail my head on the floor and I'm
Speaker 1: like here we go again, and like my brain started
Speaker 1: swelling with fluid and like then moving back to the
Speaker 1: city because all on Long Island, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I need to go to the hospital, but they won't
Speaker 1: take me to n y U where all my doctors are.
Speaker 1: They They're gonna take me to Stony Brook and stony
Speaker 1: Brook is not gonna they're gonna mistreat me. And because
Speaker 1: I have trust issues with hospitals now rightfully so and
Speaker 1: so now, um they wanted to put they put a
Speaker 1: para to neal shunt in, which is like a tube
Speaker 1: that runs from the back of my spine to my stomach.
Speaker 1: And then that failed twice and they're like, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put one from your brain down to your stomach.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, so now I have a
Speaker 1: new little tube on my on my body, and um
Speaker 1: I called him to be and he's he's like he's
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll be like, oh, hey, how you doing, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'll forget he's there, and then I'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have this thing and if I like press really
Speaker 1: hard on my chest, I could swell my brain. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'm a Oh I forgot the biggest part
Speaker 1: of the story. Oh my god. Back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: I rode by the World Trade Center and the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve and like going that from Battery Park to Taco
Speaker 1: Bell I'm a ghost the World Trade Center, Federal Reserve.
Speaker 1: Like every building in the World Trade Center, by the memorial,
Speaker 1: no one has camera footage. There's no nine O one call.
Speaker 1: There is no ambulance record, there is no hospital footage.
Speaker 1: My medical records from the day of the accident are gone.
Speaker 1: So like you look at my medical records, it goes
Speaker 1: from September four where I had like my A D
Speaker 1: D medicine re filled and then two October twenty one
Speaker 1: when I left the hospital and was checked in that
Speaker 1: rehabit and y U so I'm literally a ghost and
Speaker 1: there's a diplomat waiting to kill me. So because that
Speaker 1: m the crazy thing, the same thing happened me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole story. Yeah, the same exact thing. So weird. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here though, Man, I'm glad you're here today.
Speaker 1: Um okay, So after listening to both the stories from
Speaker 1: today's episode, I have reevaluated some things, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna skip out on the whole stunt
Speaker 1: e guerilla marketing things, and you know, maybe just keep
Speaker 1: posting stuff on the Internet from the safety of my
Speaker 1: tufted velvet sofa. So if you tweeted at Seth Rogan
Speaker 1: and told him that I wanted to wrestle him, maybe
Speaker 1: just delete those tweets. Um ah, yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: just might not ever leave the house again. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had a near death experience or a full death
Speaker 1: experience and you're a ghost listening to this podcast? If so,
Speaker 1: I would love to hear your story. Please call the
Speaker 1: Storytime hotline at three two three one eight seventy three.
Speaker 1: Next week we are doing a listener Tales episode and
Speaker 1: there's a great chance that you'll be featured on it.
Speaker 1: Call me, leave me a message, tell me a story.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Hashtag Storytime. I'd
Speaker 1: love to give another big thanks to Mike John's as always,
Speaker 1: you can head on down to the description and you
Speaker 1: can find links to all the awesome stuff he's got
Speaker 1: going on. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review. It helps us out a lot and I
Speaker 1: literally read every single one of them. Hashtag Storytime is
Speaker 1: produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted by
Speaker 1: Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony Maddox, written by Will
Speaker 1: McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel La Mora,
Speaker 1: and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott Simon's artwork
Speaker 1: by John Kuzaka.