Speaker 1: Cools Media. Hello and welcome to cool People did cool stuff,
Speaker 1: or as it should be called this week. Margaret didn't
Speaker 1: come up with a funny title for spooky Week. That's
Speaker 1: that's what it's called. That's what my show is called.
Speaker 2: You are, in fact the cool person who did something cool.
Speaker 1: Oh. Thanks, because it's spooky week. And also I'm on
Speaker 1: tour and so I didn't write a script. Instead, I'm
Speaker 1: going to read you all stories. And by you all,
Speaker 1: I mostly mean my friends Prop and Sophie. Hi, how
Speaker 1: are you all? Hi?
Speaker 2: Hey Mac Paisy make the blood sport look easy? It's
Speaker 2: going down.
Speaker 1: I have been listening. For anyone who doesn't already listen
Speaker 1: to Hood Politics with Prop, you're missing out. It is
Speaker 1: my favorite keeping up with what's happening in the political
Speaker 1: world thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I've been telling everyone about this piece you did about
Speaker 1: the future of coffee. Yes, all, it could happen here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how like there's like what twenty seven years left
Speaker 1: of coffee? Spot it and that episode covers everything that
Speaker 1: people who I don't know people might have already heard it,
Speaker 1: but if they, if you haven't, I should go out
Speaker 1: and listen to it because it covers everything about like
Speaker 1: how the problem was formed, basically everything that's wrong with capitalism,
Speaker 1: and almost all of the ideas about how we get
Speaker 1: out of that problem, which usually involves like supporting worker
Speaker 1: cooperatives in the global South.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all there, dude. Thanks. That was like it's
Speaker 2: been simmering for a while because I feel like with
Speaker 2: this is this is me continuing to be vulnerable. I
Speaker 2: just feel like with like the like it could happen
Speaker 2: here team, and you also in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: y'all are like actual writers and journalists. Like I'm a
Speaker 2: poet that can rap and just knows a lot of things.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I was always like nervous to be like,
Speaker 2: oh okay, So I was like, let me, I better
Speaker 2: be thorough if I'm gonna do something for y'all. So
Speaker 2: like I I and it was like something that you know,
Speaker 2: obviously I'm like super passionate about it. But you're right,
Speaker 2: it's like here's here's a microcosm of all that's wrong
Speaker 2: with capitalism, colonialism, right, consumerism, you know, all of it,
Speaker 2: and then the solution being the shit we've been trying
Speaker 2: to say is the solution the whole time just yeah,
Speaker 2: cooperates fort each other. Stop seeing people as resources.
Speaker 1: It's almost frustrating how simple the problems really are at
Speaker 1: the core of it, because then we still can't do them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like on the large enough scale. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: Sophie's our producer. Hi, Sophie, I hey look one to Oh.
Speaker 2: Huh, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's a great it's as of this recording. It feels
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 2: It feels really good. We're talking about the Lakers.
Speaker 1: I figured it was a sports thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's sports ball.
Speaker 1: It feels really good today.
Speaker 2: Yeah at this moment.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah. I just keep watching those span atits of
Speaker 1: JJ's timeouts and huddles versus Darwin Ham's, and I like
Speaker 1: feelverly warm and fuzzy inside.
Speaker 2: So he is now a cool person who did a
Speaker 2: cool thing.
Speaker 1: Because like, the thing is he took a time out.
Speaker 2: Yes, the thing is like for the last few years,
Speaker 2: we've had a coach who just feels like, just play through,
Speaker 2: like and you guys will find your rhythm. So, but
Speaker 2: what you normally do.
Speaker 1: Is like we never did, we never did.
Speaker 2: What you normally do is like if the other team
Speaker 2: is like dog walking you and just like running the
Speaker 2: scoreboard up. You try to stop their momentum by calling
Speaker 2: a time out like okay, well stop stop stop stop stop,
Speaker 2: you know, and hopefully that breaks their zone and then
Speaker 2: gives you a chance to like regroup and maybe get
Speaker 2: some momentum back. He just never did it. So we
Speaker 2: were like so many times yelling at the TV call
Speaker 2: a time out, like he's already dead. We're already like
Speaker 2: you said. So just in game one while we were
Speaker 2: winning beautiful, we just he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he called a timeout like I already love you. Just
Speaker 2: air missing they won and they won.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so all I can say JJ salute man.
Speaker 2: I was I have my I have my concerns, but
Speaker 2: like you have a suage to my concerns. With one
Speaker 2: game one.
Speaker 1: Time, we were like, oh are we oh he different?
Speaker 1: Are we slightly? Are we slightly safer?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, it's like it's like you dating a person
Speaker 2: that finally does the bare minimum of like yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I'll cover to day, cover the meal, like what you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying it just really Yeah, you decided
Speaker 2: to shower before we went out today, like you know,
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 1: Bar was on the floor and you lifted up your feet.
Speaker 2: The bars on the floor. It's like, oh, oh you different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rory is our audio engineer. Everyon wants to say
Speaker 1: hi to Rory. Hi, Rory.
Speaker 2: Rory.
Speaker 1: Our theme music was written for Uced by Unwoman and yeah,
Speaker 1: spooky week. I'm on tour. I'm reading a bunch of
Speaker 1: stories as I go around on tour, and it is
Speaker 1: prop you've toured. I hear you talk about I have. Yes,
Speaker 1: all I'm doing is like waking up, driving for many hours,
Speaker 1: reading for a bunch of people, and then going to
Speaker 1: a hotel and then going to sleep and then repeating
Speaker 1: that yes and yeah. It's also very rewarding and I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying the hell out of it.
Speaker 2: But it is. Yeah, there's no like there's no week
Speaker 2: days or weekends. Yeah, it's just kind of now. Granted
Speaker 2: you're not sweating and throwing your voice out, you know,
Speaker 2: which is great, but that's true. Still You're just like,
Speaker 2: how do I make this city, make them feel like
Speaker 2: this was the first time I've done this? Yeah, And
Speaker 2: because it's the first time, they're experiencing it, you know,
Speaker 2: and trying to make it special. But it can be like,
Speaker 2: you know, wait, what what state is this?
Speaker 1: And the end totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then this you know, this Marriott that I'm
Speaker 2: staying in with the just the free, the free Continental
Speaker 2: egg breakfast that you might as well just flush down
Speaker 2: the toilet, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's just gonna run
Speaker 2: right through you. But like, yeah, no, I get it well.
Speaker 1: And then it's like I ended up at a you know, somewhere,
Speaker 1: put me up in a hotel that I just like,
Speaker 1: I just was like I don't belong here, Like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in this place. Like I'm walking in with
Speaker 1: like patched pants and a dog that's afraid of cars,
Speaker 1: and just like and they're like, there's valet service. And
Speaker 1: I have like this giant West Virginia pickup truck because
Speaker 1: my van broke down before I left on tour.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't sorry, guys, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know how to I don't know how to do
Speaker 1: valet service. And they're like, it's fine, just give us
Speaker 1: the keys to your truck.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, like, I I apologize in advance for
Speaker 2: when you get into this truck. And yeah, I was
Speaker 2: not prepared for anyone else to get into this Corok.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been living in this truck
Speaker 1: for two weeks, so you know, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah for us, it's like if you can climb over
Speaker 2: the boxes of merch, yeah, you know, and bags of
Speaker 2: sunflower seeds, then yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So all right,
Speaker 2: I'm going.
Speaker 1: To read you a story today and then a story. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read you two stories today, but the audience
Speaker 1: will hear one of them today and one of them
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. And this story, the first one I wrote.
Speaker 1: I actually never set out to write horror. The first
Speaker 1: time I really got into writing, and then slowly because
Speaker 1: I don't watch well now I watch horror, but for
Speaker 1: a long time I didn't watch horror because I lived
Speaker 1: in a van alone in like the woods a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. Yeah nah, I don't need to watch
Speaker 1: people like me get murdered all the time. It doesn't
Speaker 1: sound fun, you know. And then eventually I realized that
Speaker 1: actually most horror movies are me murdering people instead. Because
Speaker 1: I moved into like a black cabin in the middle
Speaker 1: of the woods.
Speaker 2: You know, you are the yea, you are the fear.
Speaker 1: And then I could watch horror movies again, and and
Speaker 1: so I started writing more horror, and this story is
Speaker 1: a story I wrote a while ago now, and it's
Speaker 1: the title story to my book We Won't Be Here
Speaker 1: Tomorrow and other stories. Okay, a story is called we
Speaker 1: Won't be Here Tomorrow. Okay. I turned thirty yesterday, and
Speaker 1: the thing about being part of a teenage death cult
Speaker 1: is you're not supposed to turn thirty. It was a
Speaker 1: personal failure on my part, the kind of personal failure
Speaker 1: that meant the ghouls of New Orleans were after me.
Speaker 1: The night air was alive with the usual white noise
Speaker 1: of gunshots and fireworks, and I stalked the cemetery, bouquet
Speaker 1: in hand, past row after row of people who died young.
Speaker 1: Some were at rest in their own above ground tombs,
Speaker 1: others had been crammed into mausoleums. No one ever seemed
Speaker 1: to ask why so many gutter rats and punks were
Speaker 1: buried in relative luxury in a private graveyard within city limits.
Speaker 1: We humans are a relatively non curious species. On the whole.
Speaker 1: I laid thirteen white roses on Deirdre's grave. Deirdre didn't
Speaker 1: like flowers, but I like flowers. What she doesn't like
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, because she's dead, dead and eaten. Everyone I've
Speaker 1: ever loved, really loved, not the like. The requisite and
Speaker 1: insincere love of child for parent was laid out within
Speaker 1: one city blocks worth of marble and cement. Janelle Mariette
Speaker 1: Thompson nineteen ninety to two thousand and nine, the girl
Speaker 1: I came to New Orleans for who broke my heart
Speaker 1: by deciding she was straight after all. She died drunk
Speaker 1: on a freight train before I had the chance to
Speaker 1: forgive her, before I had the chance to tell her
Speaker 1: there was nothing to forgive. Erica Freeman nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: to twenty thirteen, the next straight girl after Janelle. We
Speaker 1: stayed friends. We played in three bands together. The last
Speaker 1: one was Dead Girl, Suicide on stage, Blood on the Crowd.
Speaker 1: I haven't forgiven her. Jorge Jefferson dead at twenty. Marcel
Speaker 1: Smith made it to twenty four, Damian Polanski twenty eight,
Speaker 1: Robert Lance, Heather Maria twenty three, each of them, Susie
Speaker 1: Hamilton and Suzanne Lanover never saw twenty. Deirdre Hanson nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two to twenty eighteen. I was so sure she
Speaker 1: was straight that she had to hit on me for
Speaker 1: a year before I let her kiss me. The year
Speaker 1: is a long time for people like us. The ghoul Sworn.
Speaker 1: We finally kissed down on the levee at a place
Speaker 1: called the End of the World. We were old then already.
Speaker 1: I was twenty four and it was her twenty third birthday,
Speaker 1: and what I got her was goods and services from
Speaker 1: our sponsors. That's what you get. Ooho, yo, wild you.
Speaker 2: That was the best I would say in the history.
Speaker 2: That was the you got. Because I was so in
Speaker 2: this story. I was like, yeah, God, goods, it's wait
Speaker 2: what oh like.
Speaker 1: Yo, take pride in my work.
Speaker 2: I was in like in that was wow, that was good.
Speaker 1: Here's the ads and we're back. She spent her twenty
Speaker 1: third birthday with me, with just me. Two days after
Speaker 1: her twenty sixth she died in a house fire at
Speaker 1: a party in the Seventh Ward, along with two other people,
Speaker 1: one ghul sworn, one just unlucky enough to hang out
Speaker 1: with the doomed. I would have been at the party,
Speaker 1: but my truck wouldn't start and my bike had a
Speaker 1: flat and I was feeling lazy. So she'd died without me,
Speaker 1: and the Ghules put her here and every year on
Speaker 1: the anniversary of her death, their back at her corpse
Speaker 1: for another little bit of her soul. A knuckle here,
Speaker 1: a femur there. They eat bones and they live forever.
Speaker 1: And Deirdre was dead, like all of us. Ghulesworn were
Speaker 1: supposed to be while we were still young, and our
Speaker 1: essence was still strong in our marrow. There I was alive.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long until dawn until the ghules would rise
Speaker 1: with the sun and haunt me. Haunt me. Already, dogs
Speaker 1: were howling, already, there was light on the horizon. One
Speaker 1: day soon I'd be and the words Mary Walker were
Speaker 1: going to be carved into stone. People go to New
Speaker 1: Orleans to die. I didn't want to die anymore. I
Speaker 1: had to get going. I had to track down ghosts
Speaker 1: and rumors of those who'd escaped. I left the flowers
Speaker 1: for Deirdre. Fuck you, Deirdre, Fuck you for dying. It
Speaker 1: was Janelle who'd offered me the bargain. This would have
Speaker 1: been where I should have done the ad transit anyway.
Speaker 2: N the way you did it was perfect.
Speaker 1: I hadn't been in the city for more than a week,
Speaker 1: and she and I had been crashing on the roof
Speaker 1: of an abandoned grocery store. That place as of whole
Speaker 1: foods now might get torn down by bezos tomorrow. I've
Speaker 1: outlived every derelict building I've ever known. Y'all go hard
Speaker 1: down here, I told her, after an evening that involved
Speaker 1: stealing drugs from a dealer, consuming those drugs, trying and
Speaker 1: failing to steal more drugs from the same dealer, and
Speaker 1: a roving party that moved through the darker bits of
Speaker 1: the city with a generator and a sound system and
Speaker 1: a shopping cart. Revelry had followed us like a cloud
Speaker 1: overhead dancing debauchery. Sobriety was creeping up on me unwanted,
Speaker 1: like a fever, and I wasn't entirely sure how we'd
Speaker 1: made it back from the party to our tarped off
Speaker 1: overhang on that rooftop. I was eighteen. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to describe being eighteen, but you either remember it
Speaker 1: yourself or you might live long enough to know. You
Speaker 1: want to hear why, Janelle asked, Yeah, we can't go
Speaker 1: to jail. What it's gonna sound crazy? She said, bitch,
Speaker 1: I was born for crazy. Worse than that, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you everything unless you join us. Whatever she was
Speaker 1: going to say, I already knew I was going to
Speaker 1: go along with it. I thought the sun shone out
Speaker 1: of that girl's asshole. I would have followed her into
Speaker 1: a wood chipper. Oh to be eighteen again. What's it involved?
Speaker 1: I asked, a permanent get out of jail free card.
Speaker 1: Cops will look the other way, the courts will look
Speaker 1: the other way. In exchange, you gotta die before you're thirty,
Speaker 1: like someone will kill me, not unless you turn thirty.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to turn thirty anyway. The way the
Speaker 1: world was and is who does survival didn't really seem possible,
Speaker 1: so I refused to prioritize it. I'm in that morning
Speaker 1: as a ketamine hangover started in on me. Janelle took
Speaker 1: me to meet the Ghules for the first time. The
Speaker 1: hot winter sun bore down on me, but I kept
Speaker 1: my hood up, as if a ratty black hoodie offered
Speaker 1: me any sort of anonymity or protection. In the kangaroo pocket,
Speaker 1: I fingered my revolver snubnose. Shit for most purposes, good
Speaker 1: for killing someone, point blank, good for killing myself. I
Speaker 1: walked through the Upper Ninth and everything was weathered wood
Speaker 1: and smiling people. Somewhere in the distance I heard the
Speaker 1: horns and drums of a second line. This is a
Speaker 1: city that knows how to celebrate death whenever. The Ghules
Speaker 1: were going to catch me. When not if because I
Speaker 1: was too much of a coward to hold that smith
Speaker 1: and wesson to my temple. They weren't gonna kill me
Speaker 1: so much as they were gonna let me die. I've
Speaker 1: been to their dungeons. You lived a twenty five as
Speaker 1: a ghule sworn, and they tap you for work down there, sometimes,
Speaker 1: probably just to remind you of their power, probably just
Speaker 1: to remind you to get on with dying. They were
Speaker 1: gonna hang me from chains, and they were gonna cut
Speaker 1: me open and remove every bone from my body, one
Speaker 1: by one. They were gonna crack me open to the marrow.
Speaker 1: They were gonna let me watch. It wouldn't work to run.
Speaker 1: The Ghules owned the legal system inside and out. As
Speaker 1: soon as I'd turned thirty, they'd set me up as
Speaker 1: convicted of every crime they'd ever got me off of.
Speaker 1: Once I got popped, there'd be someone in my cell
Speaker 1: willing to take a full pardon in exchange for a
Speaker 1: knife in my guts. I turned the corner and saw
Speaker 1: the levee all handsome and full of birds. A few
Speaker 1: dogs ran off leash, while a few happy people passed
Speaker 1: a bottle on the grass. My finger found the trigger,
Speaker 1: and I know it's bad, but I let it sit.
Speaker 1: There no safety on that thing besides the hard pull
Speaker 1: of a double action. I needed to die. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to die. They live forever, and I was only
Speaker 1: going to live a few more minutes or hours or days.
Speaker 1: A seagull landed on the concrete ruin under its feet
Speaker 1: in red spray paint. Someone had tagged the devil let us.
Speaker 1: I stopped and watched that bird, because it was beautiful,
Speaker 1: because it was worth the risk. After some time, it
Speaker 1: flew off, and I went back to walking. Desmond lived
Speaker 1: in a little fortress of an apartment in the heart
Speaker 1: of a massive ruined factory, up on the fourth floor.
Speaker 1: If you want a view of the water, or of
Speaker 1: the city, or really just to see the sun or
Speaker 1: the sky at all, you've got to leave that safety
Speaker 1: and walk a few hundred yards across trash and needles
Speaker 1: and rubble to look out any windows. Desmond says, the
Speaker 1: privacy is worth it. Desmond is only twenty two, but
Speaker 1: he's been sworn for a decade already. He's second generation.
Speaker 1: His mother hanged herself when he was fourteen. I gutted
Speaker 1: his father in an alley because I blamed him for
Speaker 1: his mother's death. I might have been right. Ever since,
Speaker 1: Desmond has been one of my best friends. He undid
Speaker 1: about fifteen locks and alarms in active defense systems to
Speaker 1: let me into his place. At least three or four
Speaker 1: million dollars in stolen lab equipment was barricaded inside. Didn't
Speaker 1: think I'd be seeing you again, he told me, from
Speaker 1: where he lay on a ragged couch. His pupils had
Speaker 1: eclipsed the brown of his eyes. His black skin glistened
Speaker 1: with sweat. Despite the relative cool of the room. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure what he was on, But then again I
Speaker 1: was never sure what he was on. A vape pen
Speaker 1: dangled loose in his hand. The whole place was bathed
Speaker 1: in dim lavender light. Even the dozens of led indicator
Speaker 1: lights had been modified to glow pale purple. The walls
Speaker 1: were wallpapered with flat screens. Most were broken. Some were
Speaker 1: playing a carry Grant film. I perched on a milk
Speaker 1: crate stool across from him. What do you want dead? Girl.
Speaker 1: He didn't turn his face to look at me. You
Speaker 1: can't hide out here. Won't work out for either of us.
Speaker 1: You give a shit about danger. He took a drag
Speaker 1: and let out a cloud of vapor. It smelled like jasmine.
Speaker 1: Desmond scent coated his drugs. But I didn't remember there
Speaker 1: being a jasmine one. I guess not, he said. His
Speaker 1: hands dug into the ragged upholstery, tensing and releasing of
Speaker 1: their own volition, and he gasped as something course through
Speaker 1: his veins. I can give you something to get out
Speaker 1: for good, he said, after his body came back under
Speaker 1: his control. Painless euphorick. Even Danny took some last week,
Speaker 1: said it was pleasant before she went under. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to die, I said. Life is a death sentence.
Speaker 1: Not trying to die. Desmond turned his head and only
Speaker 1: his head to look at me. His eyes seemed to
Speaker 1: glow in the light. It's too late, dead girl, you
Speaker 1: know that right. He turned back toward the ceiling. Avery
Speaker 1: got out, I said. Avery was an old gender queer
Speaker 1: punk who haunted ghoul sworn bars talking to No One
Speaker 1: two years back, twenty nine years old. They'd disappeared. I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen their grave, and I hadn't seen them in
Speaker 1: the dungeons, dead in the swamps. Desmond said, Gator's got
Speaker 1: to eat too. That's not what I hear, I said,
Speaker 1: I hear you deal to them sometimes. I hear you
Speaker 1: know where they are. He took another drag and convulsed
Speaker 1: and filled the room with the scent of flowers. When
Speaker 1: did you go coward? He asked? Wanting to live makes
Speaker 1: me a coward. No, wanting to live makes you a hopeless,
Speaker 1: idiotic optimist. Going to ground makes you a coward. It's
Speaker 1: that or what just die?
Speaker 2: Go out?
Speaker 1: Like Terry Terry Williams nineteen seventy three to two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. She'd set fire to a marine ghulhouse in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, then opened up on everyone
Speaker 1: came out of the building with an impressive assortment of
Speaker 1: fully automatic weapons. Terry Williams is why we know you
Speaker 1: can't kill a ghoul with fire or bullets, I said.
Speaker 1: She was also why we knew there were worse ways
Speaker 1: to die than having your bones removed and eaten in
Speaker 1: front of you. God had been satisfying, though, for a minute.
Speaker 1: When she thought it was gonna work, the only way
Speaker 1: to hurt them I can think of is to starve
Speaker 1: them out. We all assumed they go hungry without us,
Speaker 1: though there wasn't any proof. If they ain't eating you,
Speaker 1: they'll be eating somebody else. He took another hit. This
Speaker 1: time the convulsions kept going for a full thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: You gotta try this, he said, offering me. The vape
Speaker 1: doesn't have a name yet. It's a fast acting upper
Speaker 1: shuts down your motor control intense while it's happening, but fuck,
Speaker 1: when you come down, you come down solid, feel like yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm good, I said, Live a little, he said, then
Speaker 1: smiled at his own joke. I'm good. Here's what you do,
Speaker 1: he said. I got it figured out. Let me kill you, which,
Speaker 1: let's be real, you should let me do anyway, because
Speaker 1: you killed my dad. Only fair. Then there's an old
Speaker 1: cement mixer in here. I'll in case your body drop
Speaker 1: you in the river. I get to kill you, you
Speaker 1: get to die, and gules don't get to eat you.
Speaker 1: Everybody's happy except the ghules. Fuck them.
Speaker 2: Okay. I'm like, I don't know how to do this
Speaker 2: version of the podcast because I'm just loving the story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, no, you can interrupt if you want.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, Like first question, huh, are like these
Speaker 2: things exist, like these death cults exist? Like these are
Speaker 2: a thing?
Speaker 1: No? No, this is my metaphor for a lot of
Speaker 1: my friends in New Orleans have real hard in short lives.
Speaker 2: Oh okay. I was like. I was like, if you
Speaker 2: don't want to reveal yet, that's great. But I'm just like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you have single handedly introduced me to parts of the
Speaker 2: world I didn't know existed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought I've been pretty well traveled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
Speaker 2: Killjoy is laid out a few things where I was like, oh, word,
Speaker 2: that's a thing. So so I was like, maybe this
Speaker 2: is a thing, you know, So okay, okay, cool?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I feel.
Speaker 2: A little less angsty right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that would be even darker than the reality.
Speaker 2: It'd be so dark. He's like, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: was a part of one.
Speaker 1: With Yeah, all right, just tell me where to find Avery.
Speaker 1: You really don't want to find Avery as a friend,
Speaker 1: trust me. Just die. You don't fucking get it, I said.
Speaker 1: Desmond shot upright so fast, it was like a movie
Speaker 1: skipped some frames. He held a pistol aimed at me,
Speaker 1: dead girl, you're the one who doesn't get it. We're friends,
Speaker 1: I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage.
Speaker 1: Adrenaline started my heart racing, and I knew a panic
Speaker 1: attack was on its way if I lived that long.
Speaker 1: We are, Desmond agreed. I'm not killing you. You killed
Speaker 1: yourself a long time ago when you swore a pact
Speaker 1: with demons. This is me just helping another friend not
Speaker 1: make a rash decision. Shooting so some one is always
Speaker 1: a rash decision. The panic attack hit like a wall
Speaker 1: of sound, and it made me question my resolve. Death
Speaker 1: felt preferable to panic. Three, he counted. He raised the
Speaker 1: gun in both hands and aimed it at my temple
Speaker 1: for a man stone beyond reason. He held it steady.
Speaker 1: I wanted to vomit. Two I still wanted to live.
Speaker 1: I tensed my legs under me. One I sprung at
Speaker 1: the ground. He fired, missed. My ears rang. I shot upright,
Speaker 1: closed on him, wrenched the gun from his hand, held
Speaker 1: it to his temple. A dead girl. We're friends, he spoke,
Speaker 1: loud like he could barely hear himself, which was probably
Speaker 1: the case. My ears rang, Tell me where to find avery,
Speaker 1: I said, just as loud. I won't tell you anything
Speaker 1: when you got a gun to my head, he said,
Speaker 1: matter a principle. He was right. I dropped the mag
Speaker 1: and cleared the chamber. He lifted his vappen and I flinched.
Speaker 1: He took another drag, a tiny one. His hands clenched
Speaker 1: and unclenched. I sat next to him on the couch
Speaker 1: and he passed me the vape. I took a hit,
Speaker 1: and my panic intensified for a second before it dropped
Speaker 1: away entirely. I was as calm as I'd ever been.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's the way through panic, same as danger. Don't
Speaker 1: hide from it, embrace it. Avery's in the swamps, Desmond said,
Speaker 1: and they're not dead because they've been living off of
Speaker 1: the goods and services that support our podcast, including various
Speaker 1: things that you can go vape. I don't know if
Speaker 1: vape sponsor us or not. If they do, don't do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If there are drugs that are being advertised, you should
Speaker 1: trust your friends about drugs more than you should trust ads.
Speaker 2: These don't believe it.
Speaker 1: Which is saying something because you also shouldn't trust you
Speaker 1: friends about drugs.
Speaker 2: Your friends have no idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's also true. Well, here's are the rest
Speaker 1: of the ads and we're back.
Speaker 2: Oh. This lady right was like I don't want to die. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but one of the homies was like, but you promised, yeah,
Speaker 2: And then he tried to do it, but she joked
Speaker 2: him yep, okay, cool, I'm with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then was like, go tell me where this
Speaker 1: person who didn't die, Go tell me where they are at.
Speaker 2: Turns out they didn't die, okay, all right, yeah woo.
Speaker 1: The character of a city is shaped as much by
Speaker 1: the wilderness around it as it is by its architecture.
Speaker 1: The character of a city is shaped as much by
Speaker 1: its closest wildlife as by its rulers. New Orleans is
Speaker 1: as much a city of cyprus and cormorants as it
Speaker 1: is of shotgun houses and ghouls. I cut through the
Speaker 1: swamp and a stolen canoe, the white noise of traffic
Speaker 1: and people replaced by that of water and wildlife. Avery
Speaker 1: lived in a hunting shack built on piers, disguised from
Speaker 1: all directions by trees. I parked at their dock, climbed
Speaker 1: a few stairs, and knocked at their door. They answered
Speaker 1: in aviators, A real tree punk vest and tight black pants.
Speaker 1: They looked exactly like I'd seen them perched at that
Speaker 1: bar every night for years, except they were paler than
Speaker 1: I remembered, and they had a shotgun pointed at my belly.
Speaker 1: Fuck you want Mary Walker to live? I said, go away?
Speaker 1: How'd you do it? How'd you survive? I ain't survived,
Speaker 1: for shit, not yet. I only got a year on you.
Speaker 1: That makes you the oldest ghulsworn I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1: I said. They couldn't hide their pride. When I said that, look,
Speaker 1: can I come in just talk to you? We can
Speaker 1: talk out here. They stepped outside and closed the door.
Speaker 1: There were no windows. We sat on the dock, feet
Speaker 1: dangling over. Their fingernails and toenails were painted the blue
Speaker 1: of dead flesh. They spent a good moment lost in thought.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can help each other. They said, we'd never
Speaker 1: been friendly. Avery and I. Avery hadn't any friends as
Speaker 1: long as I'd known them. Rumors said they lost most
Speaker 1: of theirs in a gang fight and never bothered finding
Speaker 1: new ones. So why the swamps? You know they're afraid
Speaker 1: of water. What I've spent the last two years studying
Speaker 1: the fucking things learned an awful lot. They need sunlight
Speaker 1: to function. They're not just cold blooded, they're unblooded. They're
Speaker 1: afraid of water, not because they'd drowned they can't, but
Speaker 1: because they'd run out of energy down there where the
Speaker 1: sun can't reach. It's over for them. Torpor forever. You're
Speaker 1: in the swamps, because if you see them coming, you
Speaker 1: sink their boats. Bingo. That's it. Then just hide in
Speaker 1: the swamps by yourself, only come out at night. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you how to stay alive, Mary Walker. You
Speaker 1: cling to life. You claw at it until your fingers bleed.
Speaker 1: You tell yourself every time you take a breath that
Speaker 1: you're going to live to take another one, that you
Speaker 1: will live forever, no matter what it takes, no matter
Speaker 1: how much it hurts, no matter how much you hurt
Speaker 1: anyone else. You sound like a ghoul in the distance.
Speaker 1: Some animal called out like a human, quietly screaming. They
Speaker 1: weren't always ghules. They became ghules, each of them individually.
Speaker 1: How I asked, you know how the marrow of the
Speaker 1: gul sworn. There's more to it than that, but it's
Speaker 1: mostly the marrow of the ghul sworn. All the gulls
Speaker 1: were once ghul sworn, how can that work? I don't know,
Speaker 1: Avery said, it's the chicken in the egg. Chickens though
Speaker 1: they eat eggs. Avery was going to try and kill me.
Speaker 1: They were going to try to eat my bones. I
Speaker 1: put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and
Speaker 1: felt the revolver. I've told you how I survived. Avery said.
Speaker 1: Their shotgun was in their lap, and they rested their
Speaker 1: hand on the grip. Now you can help me. For
Speaker 1: a half second, I considered waiting for them to move
Speaker 1: to prove their intentions.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I drew the revolver, held it to their throat, and
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger. The wind caught the mist of the
Speaker 1: blood and brought it to my face. I couldn't hear
Speaker 1: anything in the wake of the blast. Their eyes drew
Speaker 1: open wide, and they started to lift the shotgun because
Speaker 1: they didn't know they were dead already. None of us
Speaker 1: know when we're dead already. I stood up and kicked
Speaker 1: them into the water, and they sank. You were right,
Speaker 1: I told Desmond, it's usually best to lead with the apology.
Speaker 1: You want me to put you down. We sat on
Speaker 1: the roof of his squatted factory. The moon was waning
Speaker 1: in the sky above us. I couldn't see many stars,
Speaker 1: not as many as I'd seen paddling out from the
Speaker 1: swamp with a stack of Avery's notebooks piled in the canoe.
Speaker 1: But the lights of the city are stars of their own.
Speaker 1: Each one holds a mystery and the promise of life. No,
Speaker 1: not that part, I said. You were right about not
Speaker 1: clinging to life so desperately. That's the ghoul's life. I'd
Speaker 1: rather I wasn't caught up in any of the shit
Speaker 1: at all. Sure, but I'd still rather be ghulesworn than
Speaker 1: be a ghoul. That's my dead girl, Desmond said. He
Speaker 1: took a drag from his pen. The air smelled like rose.
Speaker 1: What's that one, I asked, Basically, just speed, he said,
Speaker 1: has a worse come down than speed, though I'm still
Speaker 1: working on it. You want to hit you're not selling
Speaker 1: it well, So what's the plan If you're not gonna
Speaker 1: let me kill you? But you're supposedly not afraid of
Speaker 1: death anymore. Let's kill ghules, I said, How the fuck
Speaker 1: do you kill ghoules? You got a cement mixer, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not me. We're going to drop into the river,
Speaker 1: I said. I like the way you think, dead girl,
Speaker 1: stop calling me dead girl. I'll stop calling you that
Speaker 1: when you're dead, which sounds like it'll be tomorrow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's about my guess. If we're dead tomorrow, want to
Speaker 1: get wrecked tonight? I took one long last look at
Speaker 1: the stars of the city. Yeah, I said, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: And that's the story.
Speaker 2: Dude. I used to think this this might be just
Speaker 2: me being basic that I was like, I don't understand
Speaker 2: how a book can scare you, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 2: I was like I don't get it, but yo, you
Speaker 2: had me in.
Speaker 1: I was like, thank you.
Speaker 2: Where does this stuff come from? Man? Like, yo, like,
Speaker 2: give me some game. What are we doing? Kill joy? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, So this story, more than anything else, it
Speaker 1: comes from, like I think a lot of subcultures, like
Speaker 1: like Punkstone, assume they're going to live to be very old, right,
Speaker 1: very true, And so you have this thing where you're like,
Speaker 1: you hit thirty and then you're like, oh that's cool
Speaker 1: now what you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And uh, and actually that's when life gets more interesting
Speaker 1: and harder because you actually have to like succeed at
Speaker 1: stuff and get things done and help people and yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but but you don't like know that, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't know that when I was like riding trains
Speaker 1: in my twenties and shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of the same with like kind
Speaker 2: of like just like street life when you're like like
Speaker 2: most most guys, Like even talking to one of my
Speaker 2: close friends, he was like, I didn't think I was
Speaker 2: going to live past twenty five. I was like, and
Speaker 2: if I would, it'd be in jail. So like, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't have any plans after this, you know, it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I should get married, man, yeah, have kids,
Speaker 2: but like, I don't know, I have no plans after this,
Speaker 2: Like I didn't. I didn't think i'd make it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah exactly, Like oh I should get my teeth fixed.
Speaker 1: I like, yeah, oh I didn't. Like I didn't think
Speaker 1: I needed those, you know, I work out.
Speaker 2: Be healthy, Like yeah, it's happening right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah exactly. And a bunch of people I know
Speaker 1: have died in New Orleans. And the worst of it
Speaker 1: was that a friend of mine named Flee was just
Speaker 1: shot kind of randomly, and and at his funeral, everyone
Speaker 1: like celebrated in the squat and then slept there. And
Speaker 1: then the squat burned down and like, I think seven
Speaker 1: people died gosh, and it was just like and I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I only knew the person whose funeral it was,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't at the funeral. I didn't know the
Speaker 1: people who died afterwards. But it was just such a like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this shit's hard. Yeah yeah, oh man, and so
Speaker 1: so yeah, no, this is my this is my my
Speaker 1: grand metaphor for how a lot of people don't think
Speaker 1: they're going to live to be old.
Speaker 2: H Yeah, that's okay, man, that's powerful. Thank you, thanks Magpie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to read you another story from the
Speaker 1: same book, but I'm going to read it to you. Well,
Speaker 1: i'll read it to you in a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: but I'll read it to everyone else because of the
Speaker 1: magic of time, it'll be different time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if folks want to check out more of what
Speaker 1: you do, how can they do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Prop hip hop dot com has all the things.
Speaker 2: The politics will Prop is the podcast, and it's been
Speaker 2: quite spicy, and I've had to really work hard to
Speaker 2: make it real spicy, giving how boring the political landscape
Speaker 2: is these days. So, oh, what do you think is
Speaker 2: going to happen.
Speaker 1: Wait can I actually wait? So when is this going
Speaker 1: to come out? Before the election? Yeah, before the election.
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen? Not like
Speaker 1: necessarily who do you think is gonna win? But like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen? Yeah, closer landslide?
Speaker 1: Closer landslide.
Speaker 2: My my thought is it'll be not a landside, but
Speaker 2: not as close as we think it's gonna be. And
Speaker 2: I think, no matter what, our holidays will be full
Speaker 2: of protests and riots. Yeah, Like I just think that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the holidays are they're just gonna suck this year, and
Speaker 2: it's just there's going to be chaos and pending doom,
Speaker 2: yeah for most of November and December, and no matter what.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the wildest part is that, Yeah, you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: no matter which one of them wins, it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: people are gonna be real mad and people aren't gonna
Speaker 1: believe it.
Speaker 2: And yeah yeah, and uh I wish it would be
Speaker 2: like somebody just gets a whiff of like, you know,
Speaker 2: smelling sense and they're just like whoa, yeah what happened? Man? Like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 2: I had this horrible dream, you know, like this you know,
Speaker 2: be rad if that went down.
Speaker 1: But I don't remember when like the old Republican Party
Speaker 1: was the normal enemy that we were all used to.
Speaker 2: Well, they're just yeah, like they're just so quaint now when.
Speaker 1: They say cuddly, you know. Yeah, yeah, but they had
Speaker 1: to pretend they weren't racist in public, at least at
Speaker 1: least they.
Speaker 2: Was at least yeah, yeah, they pretended they weren't racist,
Speaker 2: and their racism was a type of racism that I
Speaker 2: could at least comprehend. Yeah, like you know, like, oh
Speaker 2: I comprehend your type of racist. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: don't you know what I'm around your kids? Yeah, got it?
Speaker 1: And I'll say actually again for that's just I really
Speaker 1: like props podcast that's probably come across, But like you
Speaker 1: do a really good job of presenting different people's perspective
Speaker 1: on something.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: You know, I was listening to one you did recently
Speaker 1: where it was about this. I actually don't remember the
Speaker 1: name of the episode, but you were just like you're
Speaker 1: being like, this is what they think they're doing when
Speaker 1: they say we hate gay people, or this is what
Speaker 1: they say they think they're doing. You did a really
Speaker 1: a job of that.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Like I really pride myself in that, like like
Speaker 2: again being vulnerable, Like I I'm as a in my
Speaker 2: own way, a storyteller, Like you have to be able
Speaker 2: to articulate multiple perspectives in multiple and that means getting
Speaker 2: in those shoes understanding at least, you know, and then
Speaker 2: and then to me, the proof of understanding is being
Speaker 2: able to say it back, you know. So like you know,
Speaker 2: the the jd vance phenomenon. I'm like, obviously I feel
Speaker 2: the same way you do, where I'm just like, this
Speaker 2: is a douchebag frat boy like that, you know. And and
Speaker 2: he's not even like a cool one. Yeah, Sometimes douchebag
Speaker 2: frat boys you could be like they're kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, drink, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Still he's still kind of fun, you know.
Speaker 3: Like, but this dude, I'm like, but I get why
Speaker 3: y'all like him, you know, I get why you chose him,
Speaker 3: you know. And he's doing the thing like and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I see why this resonates, Like because you feel about this,
Speaker 3: you know. Now, I don't understand why you fall in
Speaker 3: for it. Yeah, but yeah, I understand why you like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's something that like I try to I
Speaker 2: try my best to be able to say you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and it's it's good and honestly like not
Speaker 1: enough of what not enough of what I listened to
Speaker 1: does that and does it well?
Speaker 2: And so dude, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyone who's listening, go check out hood politics. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So at least you could tell your your uncle Dave, like, no,
Speaker 2: I get it, you're dead wrong, Yeah, I get it,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we will see you all on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and oh, if you're anywhere on the let's see by
Speaker 1: the time this comes out, I will be speaking in
Speaker 1: Portland in a couple of days on November first with
Speaker 1: Robert Evans at Powell's and then I don't have the
Speaker 1: rest of my tour dates lined up yet, but I
Speaker 1: will be going through California and then through the South
Speaker 1: and then up through like probably Tennessee, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So you should check out my substack or my Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'll be posting those dates and or saying them on
Speaker 1: the show. Want to get them figured out, and we'll
Speaker 1: see you all on Wednesday. Cool People Who Did Cool
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website. Foolzonemedia dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.