Jai Rodriguez

skin Coat. It's a really great skincare line. And they're doing this whole campaign with all different kinds of models and I happen to be one of them. And it's called hashtag for All People. So if you check that out, you can see these cute little pictures of me posing and stuff. And I get to work with Beverly Johnson and it's just you know, it's part of this June

Pride Month celebration. So I'm really it's really just an exciting time to be alive and to be a drag queen and a queer person, and of course for me here at Gaston, we love everyone and you're all welcome. I got a story to tell that came from Eddie in the Facebook group. Eddie, thanks for listening, he says. I love the show. Thanks Roz, You're such a great host. I'll stop it, Eddie so much. Just story, okay, he says. So when I was sixteen, my friends and I did

a seance in my room. Nothing really happened during the seance, but we heard a really loud bird call, like it was in the room with us, but there was no bird. That's my bird call. Then the phone rang ring, ring, ring, and no one was there. So we waited a bit longer and nothing else happened. So we just gave up on the whole thing. That night, and every night after for a while, a man in a brown suit would be standing at the foot of my bed looking at me. I think of this story every time I hear the

podcast theme song. Lol ah, it's spooky and cooky. Oh that's so funny. But he wasn't scary. It felt like a brother, or like an older version of myself, like some weird. For some reason, for some weird reason, those two things kept coming to mine. So I wasn't afraid at all. My sister saw him and said to me one day, you know, there's a man that stands at the foot of yo bead. And I said, I know, but he's good. I can tell. She said she could tell too. He seemed like a good spirit. We just

thought it was cool. We could both sense him well. After a while, I could tell he wanted to sleep in my bed. Okay, I'm getting turned on. After a while I could tell he wanted to sleep in my bed with me. So after a couple of nights, since I wasn't going, since I wasn't getting a bad vibe, I told him he could sleep in my bed. Okay, where's this going, Eddie? Nothing weird, just you know, a

comforting thing. It pretty much stops there. He didn't bother me and pretty much disappeared after I let him sleep with me. Oh, I've been there, and you let him sleep with you, scatteral. It took me a while to realize who it was. But when I was growing up, my grandparents used to sleep in separate rooms, and so when we would stay over, I would sleep with my grandpa, and my sister would sleep with my grandma in their bed. Oh,

so is this your grandpa. I'm also named after my grandpa, which is why I think I thought the ghost was an older version of myself. I also inherited a brown tux the one he was wearing, like the one he was wearing when standing at the foot of my bed. Wait a minute, I just realized something that I've never even thought about. So you saw the ghost of your grandfather wearing a tuxedo that you also had, probably in your closet. So oh, so.

Now as an adult, I see him as a swallowtail butterfly at times when I wish I could show him my life now or wonder what he would think of me that butterfly shows up and I know it's him sending love. Oh, thank you for creating this space to share these stories. I have a couple scary ones I'll share eventually. Oh, I can't wait to hear those. Eddie, sorry that I thought this was a hot romance story. It turns out it was your grandfather. But it ended

up being a really sweet story. And that's really cool that you saw this man at the foot of your bed and it wasn't scary, because to me, that's like my worst nightmare, but it sounds like a great actually a really wonderful experience. So thanks for sending that in.

And if any of you want to send in a story to me, you can either email it to me ghosted by Ras at gmail dot com or in this Facebook group which is just called ghosted by Ras Jess False And you know, Eddie posted that story in the group, so if you wanted to, you could comment on it and if you had any more questions, or we can start this conversation if anybody knows anything about you know, clothing being able to be a ghost but still be

on earth. I can't stop thinking about that now. And yeah, another thing I can't stop thinking about is our guest today. He is a friend. He is an incredible performers. He's you know, worked on Broadway and he's great musical theater performer and singer. And he's also a radio personality now that you can listen to and he'll tell you all about it. Now I'm from Queer Eye. I mean, he's all over the place acting, he's a personality. He's great and I'm very inspired by him and I'm so happy

that he was here. So let's listen to Jay Rodriguez.

There was pop culture news like Lance Basted, and it really had pillars of the community who maybe you knew, some of you didn't know, really kind of giving you the inside tea about LGBTQ stuff that kind of kind of rolls off our shoulders and we kind of here, but we don't really focus in on unless we're at a gala or something. And it was so vital. And so I guested for Lance a couple times as one of his guests, and then when he was out of town, they were like, do you want to step in a

couple of times. It really kind of give me a passion for it. So I think you need to be specific when you asked the universe for something. So I asked the uniforse last year, I said, I'm going to be forty and twenty eighteen. In about a month, I'll be forty forty four zero. So I was like, I want some more stability in my career. I love that I'm guest starring, that I've arcd some things, I'm shooting

films and things are great. I'm like the Puerto Rican Andy Cohen for Dance Moms about to go to two one hours for them again and so I love the path. I just want more of consistency. And the universe brought this radio station called Channel Q into my life about late August, and we started in September, launched a late October early fall that kind of vibe, and I host the morning show from six to ten am with MICHAELA.

Gordon for American Idol Lesbian Funny. She's the drag queen and the dynamic as you well know, she's so gorgeous she is and she loves being glam and she's very now. Yeah, she knows what the kids say, like she just gets it. And so thankfully because of al Q and Dirty Pop and Lance Bass, I got sort of the feel for the radio thing. I really loved it, and now it's

it's become the gig. Thankfully they let me leave and come back to continue doing what I really do, which is television, and that's been great, and so there's an ease to it now. Also kind of forces you to pay attention, like I'm constantly just going through Twitter, following all the right news sources, and you feel like a big boy at parties when someone chimes in about something

that ordinarily would have gone over your head. Now you have a thought, you've an opinion total because you've talked about it for hours, you know. So it's interesting, well.

up that early and so I'm balancing it all. We're trying to figure out well maybe maybe, just maybe I will I don't know. Year is like turning thirty, but like you know, times one hundred, because you're reevaluating where you are. And even though I still get carted and like I like the way I look everything that's cute. Thanks, the real truth is you are still your agent. So you are like, well, how am I gonna? Where do I want it? Where do I want to live out

the rest of my life? I had to work in Miami. Have you been?

report to work until eight thirty in the morning. Luxury that I felt like a rich white woman. I did and at eight thirty, Oh my god, and I went out some midnight, got home by one.

getting chelse. There's something about, oh, this is creepy. There's something about watching something you experienced reenacted. And I don't know how they cast those kind of things, but part of me thinks they say to people listen, would really love it if those playing these roles are open to these kind of experiences having happened, because there was an odd authenticity to the way they were playing stuff that

like creeped me out further. It was like not really trum sizing, I don't want to say that, but like reexperiencing it in the way and I was like too real, too real.

you grow up in Long Island? Yeah, so in New York and then the suburbs essentially for all time purposes, just very suburban upbringing in a very culturally diverse neighborhood. And my mother, my grandmother, moved into the home when she was fourteen and pregnant and married, which at that time was not uncommon. And so she's first generation from Puerto Rico. Grandfather moved in and they bought her this home.

Started a family, and by the time my grandmother was twenty one or twenty, she had six kids, no.

my cousin and I were raised as siblings. We often vacationed together, okay, And so one of the vacation spots for New Yorkers was upstate New York. This place called Lake George had a lot outdoorsy activities but also had a fun night life scene, and being two women in their twenties, it was the perfect place for them to go. And my cousin and I were about seven or eight, can't quite remember, maybe nine if I really push it. If I look back, I'm going by pictures and I'm like,

I'm trying to remember the dates of these things. But it was somewhere in that window where you're like in second, third, FOURTHI ish grade. You know, you're not quite in sixth grade, but like you're younger than that. That being said, we were on this vacation of Lake George and we were staying in a hotel, you know, to full sized beds. My aunts and my cousin female. What's up, Jackie. So

we're sleeping closer to the bathroom. So if you open the door to the bedroom, to the left is the first bed, separated by a nightstand, and then the second bed, which was also a full sized bed. And if you kept walking further, there was in the distance you could see a bathroom. To the right before you hit the bathroom was just like a club chair, you know, like a chair to sit down and relax in. And then in front really remember, oh, I remember it like it

was yesterday. I can tell you re single detail. And then across from the beds, of course, was the television like the old school, like yeah, not a flat screen kids, we didn't have those yet, but the TV that had like thirteen channels, right, and the weird antennas. And then when you opened the window, it was one of those windows.

Rather the blinds were that of like it was fabric on one side but kind of plasticy white on the other side, and it had the stick and you drag the stick to open and then drag the stick to close, right, and the window looked down onto the parking lot, and just off of the parking lot in the distance you could see the pool. So that's the layout of the actual mote. It was more of a motel. That's kind of vibe of Lake George.

There was like not a roller coaster, like a haunted, housy thing that you get in it's like a roller coaster seating.

closest to the door. And our parents, our mothers are conversy and kicking over those little mini colouas and the mini smear knops at the nightstand right, So they're sitting on the bed facing each other, much like you and I are right now right nights standing here, TV there, bathroom there, door behind me, and so we are like, you know, I hear them, and you know when you're a kid and adults are talking and you're just not for bed, and you know, have the TV on because

adults who are drinking, you're like and you're like pretending you're a sleep so you can just.

enough where I could see my catch the conversation. Then it became like a TV show, right, and they were so drunk and key king that they didn't really think anything to check on the kids who might be somewhat awake, because like, who cares whatever as long as they're not making noise. Yeah, Well, the only light they had on was the bathroom line, which again is furthest from where

I am sleeping. So all of a sudden there was you know what happens if you put your hand in front of a light bulb, you can see the presence something might disappears for a second, right, And that happened, And as it began to happen, you're alerted of a change, so you perk up in your everyone's eyes go to that direction, and we saw the figure of a man nineteen fifties, very madman, trench coat fedora, pass from one side of it to another. My mother screamed to the

top of her lungs, reached back and grabbed me. You know that familiar from watching Animal Planet would dogs grab another dog by the scruff of their neck to carry them to a safe space. It was very that aka Puerto Rican mother grabs you. That being said, it was like I heard them, and then my mother screamed, which triggered my aunt to turn. She saw something that didn't register as right. She screamed, scruffed her daughter, and then

me and my cousin were dragged out of the room. Now, at the time, smurfs was very popular, and plush dolls, right teddy Bears were popular. So I had to pop a smurf like plush doll like that I had been sleeping with and using as like you know, like a body pillar, I guess you could say, And I can't remember exa, but I so I went into basically grabbed the thing and I left it on the bed. It didn't make its way past the center where I had been spooning it, right, and so it stayed on the bed.

I know because it's red on white linen, so you can easily see that's still there. Leaving the room, they go down to security, they are literally wearing you can totally in pictures, barefoot, manicured, but barefoot long t shirt. Right. Two women in their twenties, one with it what we call the Puerto Rican dooby doo, which is where if you have curly hair, you wet it and you wrap it around and you bobby pin it all the way around so you can wake up dry totally and it's

straight doing yeah, and the other one rollers. So the we're down at like the security does with some guy who like looks like he's straight out of light Tails from the crypt, and I remember, like it was yesterday. It was like perfect iconic motel person at hired for after hours. Yeah, I mean like where you're like Central Casting, Central Casting, murderers slash whatever. But but then like when he speaks, you're like, oh you're sweet. You just look scary,

so good job for you. Yeah, and like the like a grounds keeper, look, thank you groundskeeper is exactly it. I hope that's like his nickname on Instagram. So he literally we get down there and my mom air like someone, we have kids, we have kids. They're like scream crying because they were a little drunk, but they were like blaming the hotel for allowing them to be in a room that was unsafe, so they really worked up about it. But I know what I saw, so I was like, yeah,

they're right on this, like all coast sign. I didn't have any kalua.

is the shower. And okay, so you're looking at so yes, there was a little not necessarily just a box that when you're looking at the bathroom from the door, what you see is not the full space of the bathroom. That's not the full width of it. Right, So he basically in our vision went from left to right. And and because of the back light and the room itself was dark and they were using that as for ambient lighting.

There was big confusion as to if it was a person, if it was an animal, if it's a big bat, what was the thing. At this point, they just feel very safe, so we go back down.

walks in. He's got this big, like, you know, big flashlight, and he goes in and turn all the lights, looks under the beds op in the closet. There's nothing, Ladies, there's nothing here. And now here's the issue. They've been drinking.

So now it's like, ladies, maybe because he walks in, he sees they've been drinking, so that it's like, but I know what I saw, right, So, and I'm like, I'm the kid who my mom would take me to jazzer sized class and I would sit on the sides completely quiet, and then they'd be like, Janet, your son's

really precious. How long has he been a mute? Because I wouldn't talk so like I'm an observer, so like I was picked up on everything, and so it was not uncommon for me to just to kind of be more observant than I shouldn't see things I shouldn't have seen. That being said, he comes in, he's like, ladies, listen, there's nothing. He don't I don't know what you want to do. I can put you into the room and like, none, no, it's two in the morning. No, No, A burd in

the hand is better than two in the bush. They're giving them all these like weird long Island quotes, and they're like, we're out of here, crack a dog. We're at here. So we try to fake some sleep. Everyone just basically faking sleep. The door is typical dripple locked.

They've gone through everything. The bags are packed, and I remember I had a blue samsonight hard luggage, the kind where you like slide the sides of it and it opens and then you pull it up very mad many that's probably my grandfather's is something, and that's where all my little weekend clothes were, and so everything was in there and was open so that I could switch out what my pajamas were for what I was gonna wear and then put the teddy bred, do the whole business

and leave. So it's now, you know, bedtime, everyone's to sleep. The gentle snoring of the communal masses of Rodriguez clan is happening, and I just can't sleep. There's something very unsettling, but it's it's not unsettling in the space of like feeling threatening. It's just very much like I can't sleep. So I open so I like to sleep a little more heads up, so I put the usually two pillows so I'm not flat, but I'm always a little angled up.

And so when I opened my eyes, I saw a man at the left corner of the room, and who creepy. I'm like getting emotional. So the guy is sitting there, and it literally stood up in my best version of me being thirty nine years old. Now looks like a character out of Madman, because it's a plain shirt, time specific tie that would have made sense in that era, with a trench coat over like just this whole look that is at first slightly threatening. But this isn't so terrible.

But growing up, you know where I grew up, where it was like really ethnically mixed. You only saw white people if they like, if you were getting in trouble, you know what I mean, so like and so it was like scary. And so then I was like, I didn't know. It was very paralyzing. You know that kind of sleep where you want to wake up and you can't move, that kind of sleeper press, that kind of vibe. It kind of felt like that. But I could blink, I could move my face. It was just more of

a sheer. I don't know what this experience is. I clearly now know you are what we saw. But in this moment and in this exchange that's silent.

And then when we came back, the gripkeeper dude he found it under the bed was on the bed because I got pulled from it, and I remember like making trying, you know, when you try and throw an age appropriate tantrum and they won't have it because there's a bigger issue to play. That was what happened in that moment, and so I got so it was under there. So I was like, I already knew that what I was holding was like to my thumb, Yeah, yeah, but I didn't know. You don't think magic or ghosty things at

that point. You're not thinking anything like that. And then when you see someone in this kind of moment, it's very eerie. But there is a piece. And people talk about this a lot when they experience something supernatural in any space, there is a kind of piece or well, okay, the Vegas thing, we'll talk about that a minute. There's a difference between when you see something that you know is not of this world, yes, and there's a you

can either feel threatened or you feel a piece. I've heard you probably no better mean you've been talking to people. I felt an immediate peace, and I didn't understand it now. Mind you, my data had left probably three or four years prior. I didn't really have any male role models in that time, and you're just in the space where it just feels too real to even imagine.

can hear them. My mom is still like that. She's also the kind of woman who says, like, no, I don't care what nobody says. The leopard could never change its stripes. She's very that woman. So for us, like the moment in that, for me, seeing something other worldly meant maybe it's this is something unexplainable. I'm sure I'm

wrong in this. I did. I had a lot of self doubt in what I was looking at, so I offered the guy the Papa Smurf, and he was like, and I distinctly remember this, and this is going back to the actor who played it. I just think about him being like shaking his head and he just looked at me with this calming energy. And then it went from like being frightened of him to him caretaking or wanting to provide some sense of calmness to the situation. And then I fell asleep and when I woke up,

he was gone. There's a big mad dash to get out of there because they had a choice of driving home in the dark. When you're in late George, there's there's miles and miles of miles with no street lights. Oh no, right, so they were like nope. So then we get back. We're stocking everything in and which is whatever, and can't find in the morning, brush, my teeth, shower everything, can't find the Teddybear, I can't find Papa Smurf.

So I thought it'd be safer to bring up to my aunt. And I was like, remember the time we're in Lake George, you guys freaked out because you thought you saw the ghost person. She was like and She's like and then the guy remember then he lost his son. I was like what, and she was like yeah, because momber they got almost we didn't tell you because you guys would okay, well the guy Okay, So look, here's what happened back in the fifties to something. There was

some I'm talking to my aunt now. She was like, there was some guy and he was there with his family and then like the kid was not paying, he was not paying send she was kids, and the kid went to do a die or something and he hid his head on the shallow and he died in the pool. And and so the rumor is, and the legend has it that essentially that father still lingers in the hotel

because he never had closure. He would go back and visit the place where he'd lost his son, and he just never could turn the page on feling like he was responsible for allowing his son to die in his presence.

mixed with my previous anxiety and fear really lulled me. Wow.

a tour of the first three rooms. We're already like appropriately wigged out because it's a lot of uh creepy memorabilia. There's one part of it. Then there are objects and items and rooms and things like trucks like he's got Kavorkians van oh No in the museum that he used to kill people in or euthanized or however you gonna look at it.

investigator believed. The first one comes from Kelly Marie on YouTube.

have been around those parts from date for decades. There's a lot of cemeteries there that literally look like something from New Orleans turn of the century. That's kind of the shape they're in. A lot of iguanas and roosters run ragged like that. You cannot kill her or try to reduce the rooster of population. So it's just a kind of city that feel the rooster goes. I mean, there's just a lot of tomfoolery and there's like the weak cocadoo boo, that's how did you like? That's how

they go. Yeah, but there's something mystical about that place. So I'm staying at Bourbon Street Pub, which is like an infamous gay bar there that also has like an outdoor pool, outdoor patio and the whole thing in the back and a gay bar. And it's a hotel. And they put me in the first year. So I'm saying in this room that they was like their fancy room was decorated like Blanche Devereau's room.

do it. But they had one of those chairs. Do you know the wicker chairs that people used to take the bridal photo in. Oh, you're like a big huge Yeah, that's up there too, which is already creepy.

was something like that. And they're saying that basically there is just a gentle presence upstairs who deems that room her own. She company, but she loves to interact with them. It's something they take pride in. I'm like, maybe you should have said that. I should have said that upon chicken, Oh my gosh, she's a big wicker chair. That's that's like an easter bunny. And a lot of days they there, like in Key West, which is already like there's like

it's clothing optional on some days in the backpool. So I'm like, the things pour upstairs, Sally is seen.

Fun and of course you can always find me on we Are Channel Q, which is nationally syndicated FM and digital station for those who like the LGBTQ community, and it's easy to find. You can yell at your Alexa, Hey Alexa, play Channel QUE on radio dot com. You can get the radio dot com app, or if you live in La you could just go to ninety seven one HT two and just listen to us there. And it's so easy. Just final just say how to listen to Channel Q and it'll all come up on your

Google search. Yay. Yeah. And then official Jai Rodriguez on Instagram, Ji Rodriguez on Twitter, Facebook, same, everything's got a blue check mark. I'm really kind of hard to miss. If it looks like Mario Lopez, that's probably not me.

They call it the Devil's rocking Chair, which is the chair that has ties to Lorraine Warren and the whole you know, the devil made me do it case and on TMZ. I'll post this on the Facebook page ghosted by Ross dressful Us. This whole article that has some videos of this woman fainting. I guess there. It says that there was a light focused on the chair went out when a power cord was mysteriously yanked out of the wall. And then this woman she's bawling and she says,

why did this happen? Why is this happening to me? And she fell unconscious. It's just it sounds crazy and I don't know that this is something that I want to do. Holy shit, he dropped sixty seven thousand dollars on that rocking chair. Yeah, well, honey, you just made a deal with the devil. Literally. So check out the Facebook page ghosted by Rol's dressful Us. There's also the Facebook group ghosted by Ros's dress for us. Please join.

We're building a beautiful community there, and you know, leave us a five star review. It really does help if you just leave five star rating. If you have something nice to say, please say it. If you don't have something nice to say, just send me an email or something. Let me know. You don't have to do it there. And you know I'm on Instagram at Ro's dres Fales.

If you're in Boise, I'm going to be doing performance of Mean Gays for Boise Pride the fourteenth this Friday tomorrow, and I've got I've got a lot of exciting stuff coming up, this play Virgin that I'm in. I've got the dates on my social media and also I'll be hosting Ross Matthews Brunch at Rockwell on the twenty ninth. The twenty a twenty first, I have my comedy game

show though once Over. It's going to be a Pride edition, which is at the world famous Hollywood Improv with Sam Panca and Drew drog He's going to be aghast and it's going to be so gay and fabulous and hilarious and it's at ten thirty on the twenty first. So I'd love to see you there. I love you all, both living and dead. But if I didn't ask you to haunt me, don't haunt me.