My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 355
Episode Date: October 30, 2023This week’s hometowns include a mom who is a witch and family lore heard at holiday dinners.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.co...m/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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What a life these celebrities lead. Imagine walking the red carpet, the cameras in your face, the designer clothes, the worst dress list, big house, the world constantly peering in, the bursting bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it.
What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy. I'm Emily Lloyd-Saini and I'm Anneli Young-Rofi, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous
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Hello!
And welcome to my favorite murder!
The mini-sode!
That's right!
Where we reach to your store.
I told you that.
How did you not know?
Don't make a say it every week.
You want to go first?
Sure.
The subject line of this email is deep lake murder mystery.
And then it says, hi y'all, insert praises here.
I mean, I understand why people do that, but you know, you can't
always do it. You want to hear them. At some point, let loose with the compliments. Can we
get one? Just one statement. When I statement, when you say that. The recent hometown about
a scuba diver finding cramans reminded me of a different scuba diving horror story. Do you
remember that one about the cramines? They thought they found treasure.
I first heard this story the day before my sister's wedding.
She was getting married in Lake Geneva,
a small resort town in southern Wisconsin
that's about an hour and a half from downtown Chicago.
The lake itself was formed by glacier thousands of years ago
and despite being only seven miles long,
it is one of the deeper inland Wisconsin lakes
and reaches 135 feet deep.
I remember many a childhood summer
jumping into the middle of the lake
and using my pink kitty swim goggles
to look straight down and see the sunlight
from the surface stretch into fathomless dark green depths.
Wow.
I put eight plus on my actual piece of paper.
You did.
That's some descriptive language.
It's beautifully paced.
It's beautifully chosen descriptive language.
It's not overwritten. It's not underwritten.
It's personal and you could see it yourself.
That's great writing.
That's exactly right.
Anyway, I'm back in the email.
Anyway, back to my sister's wedding,
where we decided to take a booze cruise
before the rehearsal dinner.
We rented out a small boat owned and operated by just one dude who was Captain Bartender Anyway, back to my sister's wedding, where we decided to take a booze cruise before the rehearsal dinner.
We rented out a small boat owned and operated by just one dude who was Captain Bartender
and Torgide.
I love that idea.
My family got a serving platter of Jimmy John's.
The captain was sneaking my underage, self vodka cranberries.
All in all, it was a great time.
Oh yeah.
When we were pretty drunk and the captain had slowed the boat down to an idle cruise,
he informed us that we were over the deepest part of the lake.
He then proceeded to tell us that several years ago, scuba divers had been patrolling this
same spot, and in the black water at the bottom of the lake slammed face first into a body
floating upright in the water.
The scuba divers properly shitting themselves immediately shot to the surface as
fast as possible. The body was in such good condition that investigators first thought it was a
recent murder, but after some investigation, they connected the body to a woman who went missing
six years prior. All of this has an asterisk on it, just so you know, that asterisk is coming up.
Body's that deep in the water the captain said
tend to stay preserved for decades.
After that cheery thought the crews continued.
When we got back to the hotel I immediately googled the story.
Turns out it is a bit less sensational and deeply sadder
than the captain let on.
29-year-old Dawn Bersard went missing in 1997.
She lived in Burlington, Wisconsin, and worked at a nearby bank.
Her body, bound in chains, was indeed found
five years after her disappearance
by recreational divers in 117 feet of cold black water.
However, the body was badly decomposed.
Still investigators were able to note head trauma.
Five years after the body was discovered,
her husband was charged with her
murder. Among the evidence against him was the fact that he told the woman he was having an affair with,
that he was going to, quote, wrap her in heavy chains and cement blocks and throw into the lake
where she would never be found. And, yeah, I mean, so that's that there. What's up? Like, what if a guy you're dating says that to you about his wife?
Like that's, that's when you go ahead and call 911
because you've got some very important information
about an unwell individual in your vicinity.
Holy shit.
I mean, cause that's not like I'm frustrated and I'm going,
it's a plan that he is disclosing to his mistress.
Yeah.
Then they go on to say, I hope he wroughts and I hoped on
is at peace.
Here are the morals of the story as I see them.
Lakes are creepy.
Don't scuba dive in them.
You don't need to sensationalize the death of a young woman
to tell a good story.
And Captain Bartender tour guides who give 19 year olds
booze are maybe not the most upright characters around
Anyway, your podcast is getting me through my PhD. So SSDG and wish me
Say sexy don't get and wishing you all the best
Joke I thought that was gonna be a joke. It's just DG. It's funny to me.
So anyway, your podcast is getting me through my PhD.
So SSDG and wishing you all the best, Julia she, her.
Julia, you forgot an M.
You forgot a crucial part of that, sign up.
I mean, that's essentially like a hometown
that he's been telling and the details got away from him.
I don't think it's like you can call that sensationalizing,
but I think that's the thing of saying,
oh my God, can you believe this happened here,
which is what we all do?
I can't believe the coincidence that the divers
ran straight into her body.
And otherwise she might have never been found.
It's just that one day those divers happened to be
in that one area.
And boom, the sky goes to prison, hopefully forever.
Also, the idea that you would be
as Julia very beautifully described,
like down in the deep, murky blackness
of the bottom of a lake
and swim into a body that's down there
is from every horror movie.
Like that's so scary.
Totally. So scary. Totally.
So scary.
Wow.
And that was like a cold case that got solved
because of those divers.
Yeah.
I love it.
This is called babysitting snafu.
Hi, ladies, gents, pets, and hackers reading this email.
Oh.
Obviously, you know I'm a big fan since I'm writing in.
So let's do it.
I mean, there's a lot of withholding.
I think we've encouraged it.
You asked for baby sitting stories recently,
and boy, do I have one for you.
Circa, 2011, I was working as a nanny in NYC.
On our walk home one day,
to get the little one ready for a nap,
I found a cell phone sitting in the middle of a busy crosswalk.
Would you pick it up, Karen, yes or no?
Depends on where I was headed to. Depends on how many people are on the crosswalk with
me, too, though. Like, it's just me, maybe, but if it's a bunch of people, I'm out of
my business. Yeah, there's a mind your business element where it's like, what if this is involved
in something? What am I supposed to do? Right. Well, here was what we do. Oh, always trying
to do the right thing and instill good morals and values into the toddler brain I was influencing, I decided to pick up the phone so we could try
and return it to its rightful owner.
That's what I would have done, too.
Really?
No.
I explained to the 2.5 year old that this was not our phone to keep, and that after nap time
we'd be sure to get it back or if belonged.
Fast forward 30 minutes so the little guy is napping, so I get to work trying to track down the owner
of the Motorola.
I immediately think Bernhard Fountain,
someone just like left in the middle
of the intersection to get run over.
Yes, this person has a clear conscience than I do.
Yeah, I love a description of that Motorola
because obviously it could have slipped out
of someone's pocket, but it's much more likely
that there's something else going on.
Right, right. Well, here we go.
Oh, I immediately go to the most recent text, thinking these would be the closest contacts
and pals of the poor soul who was now without their cellular device.
I was puzzled that no names were saved, and all texts were just random numbers.
But no stress, I'd move forward with my plan.
I texted the top three numbers explaining, hi, sorry to bug you that I just found this
phone and I'm trying to return it to the owner.
Please let me know if you know how to otherwise get in touch
with whomever that may be.
Thanks.
One number texts me back pretty quickly.
Thank you.
Yes, it was her boyfriend's phone,
and she would try to figure out how to coordinate with me
in order to return it to him.
As I was early on the iPhone train at the time,
I didn't have a charger for this particular
phone and shared with her my own phone number and name, giving her my rough coordinates
in the city to figure out a plan to meet up later, explaining that if his phone died,
she could still get in touch with me to coordinate the return.
She thanked me, promised to get back to me, and I resumed my normal nap time tasks, feeling
pretty righteous about my good deed for the day.
A few seconds later, another text comes through.
Now remember, no names are saved on this phone, so I see a number pop up and think maybe
it's one of the other two people I texted or even the girlfriend again.
Instead I open the text to read, hey man, do you have those rocks I'd asked for?
I suddenly realize that it is very unlikely that I have just stumbled upon a ten-year geologist
professor's phone and more likely that it belongs to a drug dealer. I probably would have
ended my quest to meet up with this person at this point, but remember I had already shared
my own personal number and name with the girl friend. Yeah, you did. So I definitely didn't want to
piss anyone off. And your coordinates. Why aren't you mentioning your fucking coordinates
at this point where you're just like,
here's my front door, here's a copy of the key.
She said general coordinates.
Mm-hmm.
But I guess 2011 you can't do a fine my phone thing at the time.
It's just, I feel like the lessons of mind your business
that we have learned in the past seven years
are really what come to mind where it's like
What's the value of running something down for somebody at the second you saw no saved names?
Why didn't right come on? It's mind your business. Don't be a hero. Yes
Unless it's something that you feel important about I guess if it's just like a throw away cell phone, you know
Mind your business and also because that person could be literally 30 steps ahead of you
and running backwards to get it. So now you've picked it up and now it's in your purse,
and now you're taking it on a whole other journey. There's arguments to be made.
I like the kind-hearted step one, but then there's other steps where it's like,
you have to read the signals that the world might not be as nice as you, God forbid.
Right, right. Read the signals and then move forward accordingly.
Or just become a drug dealer because you have a drug dealer's phone.
Yeah.
Over the remainder of nap time,
the girlfriend ends up coordinating with me for a plan to meet the cell phone's owner on a busy intersection later that afternoon.
I nervously called my mom and explained to her that I would be taking myself and the child I was nannying to meet with a drug lord that day
in case anything were to happen. I guess just another normal day in NYC for some.
Little guy wakes up from his nap and it's time to lead by example and teach him that we are
returning the phone because that is the kind and right thing to do. Man, thankfully the encounter
with Pablo Escobar 2.0 was fine.
A kid probably five years younger than myself showed up very thankful and tried to offer me cash,
which I feverently declined.
There's another mistake.
As a thank you, gesture.
Little toddler man learned a lesson in kindness, and I was able to be rid of the hub of criminal activity
I'd been housing for the last few hours.
So yeah, thankfully all was well,
but that was one baby singing adventure.
I didn't want to repeat.
So stay sexy and keep toddlers away from criminal activity.
D she her.
D, I'm sorry, I've been very critical of you,
this whole email, but at the same time,
had you just moved to New York City from campus?
What are you doing?
But thanks for sharing.
Ghost Sound Real. At least as a journalist, that's what I've always believed.
Sure, odd things happened in my childhood bedroom. But ultimately, I shrugged them off.
That is until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant
of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable, including being visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. And it gets even stranger.
It just so happens that my wife's great grandmother was murdered in the house next door
by two gunshots to the face. Is the ghost somehow connected to her murder?
I decided to go where no son-in-law should ever go, digging up a cold case and asking questions
no one wants answered.
And the guy who did the killing?
It might be my wife's great grandfather.
This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence and the things that come
back to haunt us.
Follow Go Story on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen everywhere on October 23rd or you can binge ad free on Wondry Plus starting the
same day. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.
Okay.
The subject line of this email is the Al Capone story you asked for, and then in parentheses
it says a long time ago.
Hey, pretty ladies.
There you go.
That's a greeting and a compliment all combined in one.
I love it.
I'm new to the murderino fam and have been binge listening to your episodes for
the past couple weeks. In a hope-town episode I listened to yesterday, there was a
story about Al Capone and you asked for more mob stories. So here I am
pretending that was a recent request. Enjoy! This story begins with me getting
put in charge of finding a restaurant for dinner
while on a family trip in Chicago. Just your typical oldest daughter responsibility. Google
Maps showed a decent place called X Checker, a couple blocks away, and I got the gang out
the door. When we arrived, we stepped foot into a time capsule of a restaurant, walls
clad with framed newspapers,
with headlines featuring Al Capone.
When I asked the waiter if the owner was a big fan,
he chuckled and said,
this restaurant was used as a speak easy
and a hangout spot for Al Capone back in the day.
Wow.
Oh, no, I wanna go there.
I wanna go there too.
I wanna go there, I wanna see it.
Seeing how intrigued my siblings and I were
by this declaration, he took us on a quick
tour to see the pub's prized possession, Al Capone's escape route.
The restaurant still has the door and stairway that led to an escape tunnel, which has since
been filled with cement by the city of Chicago.
And in parentheses, it says, boo, no fun.
No, all fun.
For the rest of dinner, my family couldn't shut up about the mob.
My dad, a shy man who usually
observes conversations rather than partakes in them,
quietly interjected, my grandfather
was forced to work for Al Capone, and then
took another bite of his burger as if he hadn't just
dropped that bomb.
After receiving looks of shock and frustrated replies,
questioning why he'd never told us this before,
he set the scene.
Back in the day, my great grandpa had owned a landscaping company in the outskirts of Chicago.
One day, a car pulled up, men hopped out, blindfolded him and drove away.
Oh my god.
I bet they put him in the car after they blindfolded him.
Part of it just drived away.
Yeah, that's so mean.
He pulled the blindfold off, was really mad,
and that was his experience.
OK, when they stopped, they revealed to him
that Al Capone was building in a state for his granddaughters
and requested my great grandpa do the landscaping.
Realizing he really didn't have any choice,
he gave them a quote and got to work.
My dad said his grandpa had kept this job a secret,
given how polarizing it would have been to people in his life if they knew that he had accepted or declined work from
the notorious gangster. You don't decline work. I don't think you can. Weeks passed,
he wrapped up the job and was paid. As he began to drive away, he received a send-off message
that clearly communicated, don't come back. His rear rear view mirror was shot. Why? He just did them a nice thing.
I don't know.
That's wild. Bye. Thank you. Here's your money in a tip.
And maybe they're that good where it's like, I'm just going to give him this warning shot
of keep your mouth shut or this will go where it's supposed to go next time.
Absolutely, right?
Yeah, well, I couldn't they just say it with a firm handshake staring you deeply into the eyes.
There's other ways to do the same thing.
Yeah.
Anyway, my dad wrapped up this story with a sheepish smile
admitting that he thought it was pretty cool.
And then in typical protective dad fashion
began to warn us about drugs and alcohol.
Ha, ha, ha.
Moral of the story, dads or gems,
and if yours is anything like mine,
they might be unintentionally hiding some pretty cool stories
and just need some help jogging their memory.
Even though I'm new here, I can already tell you guys have something really special here
by listening to the anecdotes from other listeners.
Keep doing what you're doing.
Stay sexy and don't do landscaping Elizabeth.
That's just the general rule.
I love it.
Just stay away from all landscaping gardening.
I love it when those are just like
these sweeping statements of like,
just don't go in the forest.
Don't go into a lake.
Don't go into a lake.
Stop scuba diving entirely.
That's right.
That was a good one.
Yeah.
Hey, how about a deathbed confession?
Love it.
Hello, this is my third fourth time writing in
and I really hope it gets picked.
In episode 382 called Under Underpants.
Did you remember that?
Nope.
I mean, Georgia stated that the mini-sodes
were severely lacking in deathbed confessions.
Well, I got one from my great grandma Marie,
who I was named after, middle name.
Now, let me paint the innocent picture I had
of my lovely great grandma.
She lived behind the Lutheran church
of our small hometown of Ronan, Montana, a devout Lutheran who I spent many a days playing in her flower
garden after preschool. The town was very small and the classroom was also in the church.
She would make popcorn balls and she would pray to Jesus when I would try and spell dirty
words during Scrabble.
Hell yeah, yeah.
Grandma Marie was diagnosed with stomach cancer and her last weeks on this earth were very
hard.
She was surviving on ice ships as her family gathered around in her family home.
One by one we all said our goodbyes.
My grandpa Ted, Marie, was his son, went in several times to see his mom deteriorate
in her bed surrounded by embroidered
Bible quotes. She set up in bed for the first time in a long time and gave him her deathbed confession.
Ted, the man you thought was her father is not your dad. I'm not entirely sure who is.
Wow. Then she proceeded to lay back down and go back into a trance like state, what a fucking
mic drop.
I mean for real.
Apparently my great grandma Marie was quite the run around Sue.
Pretty soon the rest of his six siblings started to question who their fathers were because
none of them really shared any similar qualities.
I love this so much.
However, they decided it didn't matter because their adopted dad, Dick, was their chosen dad.
He married my great grandma and adopted all the kids
when they were adults.
Their biological dad, maybe, was an abuse of alcoholic.
Dick accepted and loved them all the same.
I miss grandma Marie and I wish she could have gone out
in a better way, but she always gave her whole heart
whenever someone needed it.
Stay sexy and get a genealogy test.
Lauren, they them.
Grandma Marie, just epic journey, just what an arc.
Like live your life, do your thing.
Women for so, for thousands of years
have been painted into this corner.
They're supposed to be the perfect mother. They're
supposed to be the sexiest lady. They have to answer every single goddamn call. And it's like,
you know what? Your grandma did. She did it all. She lived her life. Not someone else's.
Her life. And then she was like later on, I'm going to make good with Jesus. It'll work out.
I'll make some popcorn balls and we'll, you know, it'll all be good.
Hell yes.
The subject line of this one is my mother, the witch.
Hi, ladies.
I can't tell you how much I love this podcast.
And I want to share with you the time my mother ruined my life by being a witch.
That's a good one.
I could have one.
Right?
Yeah.
My family has one claim to fame, and that is that we are direct descendants of the man
who founded the town of Salem, Massachusetts.
Interesting.
And then it says, yes, that Salem, Massachusetts.
I don't think there's multiple Salem, Massachusetts's.
I grew up in New England, and every few years we would take a day trip to Salem, and my
brother and dad and I would have to take a million pictures in front of the Founders statue.
And then Princesses, it says, if you've never seen it, he's on top of a giant boulder with
a rather fabulous, wind-swept cloak like someone is holding a fan.
Well, he poses for an America's next top model
photo challenge.
So in 1995, I was 12 and it was time to take one of our trips to Salem.
It was October and if you've never been to Salem in October, you definitely should go.
Those people know how to celebrate Halloween.
After a morning of gala vanting around town eating caramel apples and having our fortunes
told, we headed over to the old courthouse where they always do a reenactment of one of the witch trials.
I didn't know they did that. Wow. That's cool. I settled into the wooden pew next to mom
ready for the show, but what I did not realize was that the witch who has to face the trial
was a random audience member that the performers would choose to join them.
Well, my former amateur actor turned professional storyteller mother saw this opportunity and
she took it.
Wow.
The trial started.
The elders of the community shouting that there was a witch in our midst who must be brought
to justice.
Pretend me was rolling my eyes and sighing at the absurdity, when suddenly they all screamed,
she's the witch and pointed directly at my mother.
The level of embarrassment that took over my body was crippling, as if I was standing
in front of my entire middle school with a giant period staying on my jeans.
Oh God.
Yep, we know the levels, those levels of humiliation.
I wanted to be burned at the stake myself, those levels of humiliation.
I wanted to be burned at the stake myself
just to end the humiliation.
My mother, God love her, has never once turned down
the opportunity to perform.
She started screaming and hurling insults and accusations
at the other performers, things like,
I'm not a witch, how dare you accuse me?
And I'll take all of you down with me.
Oh my God, mom is like my time to fucking shine for real.
She also said, just try to burn me.
You'll see what happens followed by a few choice
insane witch cackels.
Oh my God.
The audience went crazy.
The performers knew they hit the jackpot and I was so embarrassed
by my ham of a mother that I was in actual
real tears.
The trial went on with her on the stand screaming at non-equity actors dressed like Puritans
for what was, if I recall correctly, seven solid hours.
Finally, it's all improvised, yeah.
That's so awful.
Finally after an excruciatingly long time,
they found her guilty and dragged her,
yes, dragged her under the armpits
as she had committed so fully to the role
that she refused to walk.
Oh my God.
Screaming out of the courthouse.
Then to the cheers of the townspeople
and all the tourists with their Kodak cameras
and nylon windbreakers, they threw her in the stocks
and marched back to the courthouse triumphant
that they had disposed of yet another witch.
My father was laughing so hard he was in tears
and high-fiving my brother,
who was old enough to be spared the shame I was feeling.
The actors found her after the performance
and thanked her profusely for playing along
and making the show so much fun.
I, on the other hand, hauled my 12-year-old ass back to the car where I refused to come
out until we arrived back home and get kids.
Fucking pre-teens, man.
Pre-teens.
Pre-teens, girls.
Wow.
Well, it kind of feels like the inside of your body is on the outside of your body, so I understand,
but still, they are true ruiners.
Yeah.
And then it says, I didn't speak to her for the rest of the weekend.
In retrospect, of course, I'm sure the performance was amazing.
And I know for a fact that pictures of my mother exist in more than one
stranger's family photo album.
Yes.
But is the girl in the throes of puberty?
Thanks, I hated it.
So that's it. Stay sexy and if you find yourself in Salem, don't get caught being a witch or a ham.
Laura, she heard. So good, Laura. That was a great email. That was amazing. How did your parents
embarrass that? We're loving shit out of you when you were a kid. Dude, we want to hear your story.
My mom would just pull up to wherever we were.
Doesn't matter how close to the car we were,
if we had already made eye contact and go,
boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
On her fucking horn, every time.
To wait, wait, was she coming to pick you up?
Yeah, she was coming to pick you up.
I was just like my drug friends.
You know what I mean?
When I was 13, I'd be like, we're all hanging out. And we're all punk rockers.
And then my mom would come up in her fucking O's mobile.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, oh.
Janet, why?
Janet, she's trying to look cool.
She's just, she's trying to make it fun for herself.
It sounds like a thing.
Now I get it.
Yeah, now I see that parenting is a fucking nightmare,
especially preteens and you gotta get your joy somewhere.
And you gotta embarrass some, it's kind of your job
just so that the humility is always there.
I mean, it worked.
I thought when you said,
how did your parents embarrass you?
I thought you were asking me,
not doing a call out to the audience,
where I was like,
let's say I am literally 29, a list of 29 items, no less.
My dad, well, because my dad had eight brothers and sisters,
so he was masterful and he knew.
Yeah.
Like one time he always bought old cars and trucks and stuff,
like he always like to have them and redo them and stuff.
We were in this goddamn, this old white truck that he had,
and he was driving Carpool,
and the horn at some point just started honking
on the way to school without him touching it.
And of course, we're all laughing
until we get up close to school.
And I was like 14, I think I was probably a freshman.
And I'm like, Dad, Dad, you have to stop here.
He's like, oh no, we're going all the way to school.
Oh, truly. Should drove in all the way in.
How come ours are both the car horn related?
That's weird.
Yours probably gave me my idea.
But then, but it really happened.
It's like, what a perfect tool for teenage humiliation
than a car horn.
Yeah, like calling you out.
And one time we went to this place called Mountain Home Ranch in the summertime, which
was so fun.
And it was just like this cool, there was all these cabins on the side of a mountain and
all these different things and stuff.
And we pulled in driving through the kind of like cabin area to where our cabin was.
And we drive by these two little girls who are like playing jump rope out in front of their
cabin.
And my dad pulls up and rolls them into Donnie goes,
hi, this is Karen and Laura, will you be their friends?
With this like crazy, like look and the sound in his voice, the look on his face
from like, first of all, that's scary.
Yeah.
Don't just pull up and start yelling.
It's like, but then we, here's the funny part, we did become their friends and their names were
Laura and Karen and they were, I swear to fucking God, they were sisters from San Francisco.
How could it be where they, when he said that, he's like, we're already friends with
ourselves.
I never thought about that.
What that was like on their side.
They're a scary older man to yell at them about their own names
Like a wizard going into the place. Okay, I have one more. Okay. Oh, this is so weird. This is about a dad and a car
No, I swear to God. This is not on purpose
Hello guys gals and animal pals. I am the youngest of six children
Which means anything interesting happened
either before I was born or too young to remember.
I learned most of the family lore
through holiday dinners when everyone was a little drunk
and trying to tell a better story than the next person.
My dad tells this story almost every year,
and it wasn't until I was in my early 20s
that I started to believe him.
My dad was traveling for business
and decided to take the whole family.
All eight of us, I'm assuming I was there,
but there's a chance I wasn't born yet
or just too young to remember.
Found our hotel room.
My dad left to go get our luggage from the car.
My oldest brother begged to go with him,
but my dad said no, knowing that if one kid got to go,
all of them had to.
My dad went to the car alone,
and when he opened the door,
he found of all people, Weird Al Yankovic and his band.
What?
My dad asked him, Weird Al, what are you doing in my car? To which Weird Al answered,
I thought this was the hotel shuttle. Yes, weird Alan, his bandmates,
saw my family's eight-seat van filled with luggage
and assumed it belonged to the hotel.
In his defense, we named our car Jerome
after the football player Jerome Betis,
who is nicknamed the bus.
So it actually looked like a bus.
Oh yeah, I don't know who that is.
Hearing the story growing up,
I thought it was so ridiculous, I couldn't believe it.
But to this day, my brother is upset he missed
the opportunity to meet Weird Al. Also, the last time I heard the story, my dad
said he had gone back up to our room and excitedly told my mom,
you're never going to believe it. Weird Al was in our car and my mom said,
wow, who's that? After years of hearing the story and having several family
members corroborated, I really believe this happened and my family is not playing a prank on me.
Although if I ever met Weirdal, I don't think I would ask him if he remembers mistaking a stranger's car for a hotel shuttle as to not ruin the memory.
Thank you for reading and for all that you do. I want you to know that yes, my bad-ass sister got me into this podcast.
Yes, and I hope she gets to listen to this while she studies dance abroad in Israel.
Whoa, wow.
Stay sexy and keep your car in locked
in case Weird Al needs a ride.
Lily.
Lily, that was a great story.
And I understand your fear of asking Weird Al
and then getting the, I don't know what you're talking about,
but imagine Weird Al going, that was the funniest thing that happened on that tour.
I bet you he remembers,
because he wasn't a drug addict or alcoholic,
because Weird Al, so he really has a okay memory.
Yeah, I bet he remembers.
I did you ever see the movie about Weird Al
that came out that Daniel Radcliffe was in?
How have I still not seen that?
I haven't seen it, either.
I heard it's great.
Like everyone I know really liked it. I somehow missed it. Maybe Lily'siffe was there. How have I still not seen that? I haven't seen it either. I heard it's great. Like everyone I know really liked it.
I somehow missed it.
Maybe Lilly's story is in there.
Maybe it's in there.
I have a lot of empathy for Lilly
because being the youngest like that,
I had a friend who was the youngest,
like she was like a Catholic Goops baby,
so she was like eight years younger
than her brothers and sisters.
And I have to say Lilly,
I bet you're one of the chillest, coolest people to hang out with because you basically have to be because you're just, you're the last one
in the door. So like your family's already like acting like a family and you have to, you're
basically forced into like, you can't cry about it. No one's like, there's no complaints
being received anymore. Your parents had five kids. Yeah, you have to sit and listen. That's
your job is sit and listen. Yeah's your job, is sit and listen.
Yeah.
And by that point, those parents are like great at parenting
because they've done it so much.
It's all over it, so they just ignore you.
Yeah.
You got the best of all the worlds,
but you didn't get to be there for the stories.
The fun stuff.
Yeah.
Hey, tell us about your enormous families
and what you had to go through because of it.
I want to hear about that.
My favorite murder of a gene now send us all your stories. I forgot how big families have to have special cars.
That's right. Because I was like, why would the whole band get into like a four-door cart? It's
like, no, no, no, no. They have a van. A van. Oh my god. Remember when we got into a van?
No. Some other girls got in our van.
When we were playing in Texas, there was a show in Texas
and they thought it was the hotel van
that was taking us to our show.
And they'd seen like they'd had a couple
at the bar before him, but they had hopped in the van.
And then the driver thought it was us.
He had driven them halfway there.
That's right.
Before realizing it wasn't us, because two like girls having fun dressed up ready for a show. They were going to our show.
Driven the back of his van. He starts driving them and then he realizes they're not the performer. Did he still drop them off though? I hope they got a ride. I think he turned around and came back and we were standing there and they the girls like, you know, spilled out of the van laughing their ass is off.
But the girls spilled out of the van, laughing their asses off. I fucking forgot about that.
That's a good one.
I think that was a Houston show if I had to guess.
That's right.
Wow, guys.
Well, if you have ever taken our van or any family's van,
steal a car, have a bunch of brothers and sisters,
tell us about it.
That's right.
And also stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Good bye.
Good bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? it. That's right. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye!
Elvis, do you want a cookie?
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leonis Kulachi.
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