Stories That Got a Brand New Bag (With Noel Brown!)

to and generates little to no income. So I'm going to peel back the curtain and show you how the sausage is made. Okay, I'm gonna fighte you and bring you in to my sausage party. Suck on that seth Rogan, so that you may have a taste of my podcast sausage. Okay, So, first order of business when creating an episode of Hashtag Storytime is we have to find a guest, because absolutely nobody wants to listen to an episode that's just me

talking for thirty minutes. And the challenge in finding a guest is we have to find somebody who doesn't like money, because uh, we don't pay them. So that's always challenging and somebody who has free time on their hand and most importantly has a good story to tell. But luckily, I have an amazing producer named Jason who does all of that for me. And then second, we've got to record with the guests, and you know that takes equipment

that someone graciously purchased and set up for me. And then we got to write a script, and we got to write jokes if you can call them that, you know, I'm that was one right there. Thankfully, Jason also does this for me. Um note to Jason if in the future episodes, if the jokes could be funnier, that would

be preferable. Then I get into the studio and by studio I mean closet, and I record these quote unquote jokes and I send all of this crazy crap off to my editor Tony, who literally does everything, and Tony sends it back with a nice shiny bow on it. It sounds all pretty and crisp, and that's the final

product that gets delivered directly to your little earbuds. And then you think we'd be done right, but wrong, because we also have to promote the show, and we have to make social media content to do that, and that's I mean, I don't know how to do that, So thankfully I have two more producers, Danielle and Jordan, who make really awesome, engaging content for our Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. If you're not following us there, you should go do that. You're missing out. Oh god, I mean it is a

lot of work. I mean, I'm ready for a nap just talking about it. Wait. Also shout out to Jessica Ron. They do a lot of stuff too, So I mean, as you can see, I'm pretty much the hardest working man show business, kind of like the James Brown of this podcast, which leads me to our story today from Noel Brown. You might know Noel from Ridiculous History and a ton of other I heard podcast, but Nolan I sat down and he told me a story that involved

his first job, James Brown and possessed microphone stand. When I was in late high school early college. For probably span about four years, five years maybe, I worked at Jay's Music, which was a music store in my hometown of August And it's the kind of job where when you're like a teenager, you know, you get to go to the music store. You're into guitars, and drums and things.

You think, that's where, that's what you want in your life, that that could be like the best possible job opportunities to work in that place that you like to hang out in. UM. But as happens with with a lot of job, you know, when you kind of part the curtain and realize how the sausages made, uh, it sort of sucks some of the magic out of it. And it definitely did that. It wasn't wasn't quite the Empire

Records experience that you were. One of the owners had the worst case of obsessive compulsive disorder that I've ever experienced in my entire life. And for whatever reason, for a time I was her go to person to help her check in merchandise. Um. The store was always a wreck. It was always just kind of like stacks of boxes. She was always quote unquote uh catching up um. But this was a permanent state of affairs, just catching up

everything exactly. And my job was to sit with her while she you know, went through these invoices and checked off the items that were in the boxes of the shipments, and then you know, I would take them and put them on the shelf, tag them, et cetera. UM, just just to show you how deep her O C D extended. A drum set typically comes shipped in two very large boxes,

very very large. One of them has like the kick drum, and within that has nested like the snare drum and some other hardware and things, and the other one has all of the tom tom drums like kind of nested within each other. She would like count them one, two, Okay, count it back to me. And I'd go one two, and she go okay, ok count of back to me too. I'd be like one, okay, one more time and then we're good. And this is you know, obviously this is

a serious condition. And she um wasn't medicated for I don't believe, and if she was, it definitely wasn't working. UM. She was also very unpleasant person. So it was just kind of one thing UM adding on to the other. UM. But there was one kind of magical UM thing that happened every year, UM that I always looked forward to. There are a couple of things actually, so one of them was UM. This was in Augusta, Georgia, which is the home of two things, James Brown and the Master's

Golf Tournaments. James Brown was born there and he lived there up until he passed away. Actually, uh and the Master's Golf tournament to this day continues to to be held there, right next to where Jay's music was. It is no longer there because the Augusta National Um basically has been buying up every piece of property around the golf course for many many years. Jay's was the loan holdout for a long time, and I guess they finally offered him enough money. Um. So now it's just like

bulldozed and it doesn't exist anymore. Um. You know, if if Augusta was cool, if the Masters was cool, they would have had James Brown play there every year. Yeah. But I mean, if I'm sure you know that the history of the Masters, and probably of golf in general, as a pretty checkered racial uh you know, bias kind of pass it was. You know, they only let Tiger Woods play because he was like super awesome and wasn't

like that black. Um So. In fact, Dave Chappelle when he did a stand up bit um when he played in august stuff, and he walked on stage and said, welcome to Augusta, Georgia. The whitest and blackest city in America, UM,

which I thought was was very funny. UM. So the Masters was fun because we'd closed the store essentially and then us kids would just would park cars, you know, and um, we'd sometimes get tips and things like that, and it was just like an excuse to not have to really work and just kind of hang out and chat and you know, smoke weed and stuff, and it was pretty awesome. Um. The other favorite part of the

year was James Brown related. Um. Every year, James Brown would rent a bunch of equipment from Jay's to do rehearsals for his upcoming tours. He was you know, he's known as the hardest working man in show business, which meant he was on the road constantly and well the second hardest. We do share a last name in fact them, but no no relation only in work ethic when it

comes to show business. UM. But his management or whatever figured it was easier to rent equipment from Jay's, including the drums down to every single thing, you know, guitars, guitar amps, all of you know, the whole the whole nine, and set it up in this local theater called the Imperial Theater. It was cheaper to do that than it was to take their stuff off of the road or off of their like storage because they were they were

playing internationally, they were always all over the place. So me and my co workers every year, Um, sometimes maybe it happened twice a year. I'm just kind of getting a little hazy, but we would take whatever they needed, go to the Imperial Theater, set it all up, including chairs for the horn sections and you know everything. We kind of get like, you know, told where to put things by H. James's road manager or Mr Brown. Excuse me if you ever called him anything but Mr Brown

getting big trouble. Um, he was very very formal guy. Mr Brown's road manager would tell us where to put everything. We'd set everything up, um, mike everything up, including like p A monitors, microphones, everything on the stage, so literally on the stage of the Imperial Theater, which is this really cool old theater in Augusta, where I also used

to work. After my Jay's days, I was a live sound guy for a period and I worked at the Imperial Theater doing sound for theater productions and live bands and all of that. But this was just before that. Um, so you were essentially a like a roadie for James Brown. It was a roadie, a miniature roady, you know, for

a day. It was actually more than a day because it was like we'd have the set up, the load in, and then they'd practiced for like two or three days, and then we'd come back at the end and pick it all up. Um and my good friends still to this day. A guy named j. J. Bowers Um was the sort of senior member of the Jay's music staff. And by that I mean at the time he was probably like what like twenty four, you know, and I was like he was the veteran. Yeah, totally, and I

guess I was. I must have been seventeen or eighteen something along those lines. Isn't a weird age, like you know in retrospect, you know, seniors in high school when you're in fifth grade, seemed like they may as well be like fifty, you know. Uh, from where you stand, it was kind of like that. I looked up to J. J. He was the best drummer to this day that I've ever known in my life. Absolutely, he can almost rent

a car. He's so awesome, right in incredible. Um, that's the kind of stuff we talked about, you know, But I you know, it wasn't even old enough to drink yet. Um, just driving barely for a for a handful of years at this point. So we'd set up all the stuff. Then we go back to the store, which is a drag because it was like, oh man, the fun you know, little diversion Um is now done, and now we have

to go back to having to sell Taylor guitars. And you know, uh, I was the guy that like reach strung all the guitars and did all the repairs and things, which was fun. I definitely learned a lot, but it was also like under the watchful eye of of the owner of this store, whose name was Vera Um. It

was very stern task mistress. As as I've as I've kind of made clear I think um, but we always had to look forward to when we get to go back and take everything down because then we get to hang out with j J. We kind of got to take our time. It isn't like you know, it was it was in the evening usually, even though that was like technically we were working over time to do this. In our minds, you know, our teenage minds, it was

like a privilege to be able to do this. So I go back to um the the theater, and I

I realized that they're not finished yet. They're they're actually not done um rehearsing, and so I'm standing outside with you know, my my buddy at the time, who I was working with, and we're listening to them like wrap up their set, and you know, I mean, I don't know if you ever saw James Brown live, but this is like super theatrical, incredible, funky, you know horns and you know, everyone in his band as the top of

their game. He was notorious for like if if someone in the band like made a mistake, you know, while they were playing, he would just kind of covertly say gotcha and point at him. And you know, if if you've ever listened to me James brown songs, a lot of the lyrics quote unquote are really just him kind of riffing and going down take it to the bride. He just live got you in there, and no one would be the wiser, but a band member would know, Okay,

that means I'm getting my pay docs I did. I heard stories about him in the studio too, if you know, if they made a mistake that they would get their their pay docked. That's right. He was all about efficiency. Um. And you listen to him, you know, because he's he's directing the chorus, you know what I mean. He's like that, like you said, take you to the bridge, you know, all right, here comes the chorus or whatever. You know.

He was a band leader, is what he was. He was a very old fashioned kind of in that way. He would conduct the band, um, and he was the guy who you know, you would look to for the changes and all of that, and if you messed up, then he'd get you and and you'd get got and then you'd get docked. Um. So I'm out there listening to, you know, this performance, and it's like, I'm young music nerd. I think this is pretty cool. I think I was more at that time kind of into like incubus and like,

you know, system of a down. I don't think I ever went to went down the po d road, but um, I was definitely into like harder kind of radio rock. Both of my parents were actually opera singers, so I grew up without like a mentor for like popular music. I kind of had to find it myself. Both of my parents they looked at music as work and so then they were working on um, whatever opera they were singing in, or my dad was a chorl conductor they

were studying. You know, it wasn't like listening for for kicks. So I kind of had to find my way to my own musical taste, which meant that I had a couple of embarrassing years where I was listening to you know, new metal and you know, Limp Biscuit and things like that, which probably way super stoked about the newlymp Biscuit record that just dropped. I didn't even know. I mean last

olymp Biscuit news I heard was watching the Woodstock documentary. Yeah, yeah, well, um, they apparently have a new album coming that just came out called Limp Biscuit Still Sucks. And now Fred Durst is going with this kind of like dad vibe. Look, I don't know if I've seen pictures of him where he's got like a fake gray wig on and like a gray Mutton chop situation. And I remember when he wrote he wrote a movie that John Travolta was in. There was a lot going on there, a lot going

on there. Um it's called The Fanatic or something like that. It's about like a mentally disturbed, stalkery fan of an actor, and John Travolta really gives it as all you can't, you can't, you can't do that. Um. But anyway, so I wasn't like I didn't fully appreciate. I don't think what I was witnessing, Like I sort of maybe took it for granted a little bit and just looked at as an as an excuse to kind of get away from work and kind of like you know, not be

you know, bust around or whatever. And it's kind of like it was just more of like an escape. But I was hearing them play and it was definitely cool. And then I think I walked away because the thing that I'm the scene that I'm about to describe, I did not hear firsthand. I I what I'm about to describe I heard describes to me when I went in, So I couldn't have been standing out there listening the whole time because I didn't hear any of this that I'm about to tell you. So I'm assuming that I

walked away for whatever reason. And I came back a little while later and they were done, and the backstage door was open. There's like a big loading duck kind of situation in the back of the Imperial with like a you know, one of those garage doors that kind of roll up and then like a ramp. And I walked out on the stage and you know, a handful of musicians are still there, um packing up their stuff, and in the spot where where James Brown would have

been singing. You know, he he always used a straight microphone stand, and he was he was known for like manipulating the mic stand and like, you know, kicking it down and popping it back up with his foot or like doing little you know things that like Prince would have kind of learned from him, these kind of moves, you know. And everyone has gathered around, not everyone, but like a handful of people are gathered around this mic stand, just like staring in awe and I'm kind of like,

I don't understand what's going on. I get a little closer and I kind of peeked through the crowd and I see that the mic stand. It's a straight mic stand. It's not sitting straight though, it's sitting at this weird canted angle, like like like it's tilted to the side. It's it's resting on the edge of the round microphone and stand base, and it's sort of like a magic trick. It's like, what is keeping this thing from falling over?

I don't understand, And and clearly a lot of other people didn't understand either, because everyone's looking at this thing, you know, with like wonder in their eyes. And and I'm I look a little closer, and I realized that the cord, the mic cord, had kind of wrapped itself around the base of the stand just such a way that it was like holding it up and and and and at this like canton angle. And this is weird, all right. So I go to my friend j J. I'm like, what the hell is going on? What's what's

going on with this mice? He's like, dude, it was insane. So they're like doing their big finale and it's like, you know, probably the beginning of which I had heard. And then I walked away for a bit and then came back. Um, and James does this move where he spins around and he kicks the mic stand over and then he pops it back up with his foot, like when the things like almost on the floor, he takes his foot and kicks it down onto the base of

the stand and it pops it back up straight. And he was known for doing that, like several times in a row. You do a spin, pop it down, kick it back up, to another spin, pop it back down, kick it back up. And apparently, um, according to my friend j J, on the third um iteration of that spinning kickdown and pop back up, it stops halfway, stops halfway, and James Brown freaks out. He likes, he backs away from the mic, stan he he stops everybody, he stops

the band from playing. He said, stop, you know, everybody, everybody you know take five. And he is clearly just like been spooked in a very real way by what has happened here. Um, his road manager, I believe it was his road manager might have been as manager manager, but as a guy named Ronnie van Zant, which is the best name for a you know, musician adjacent, you know, kind of grizzled to her. Guy that could ever possibly be um, he apparent my friend j J. Here's all

this transpire. He says, he leaned into Ronnie. He gets Ronnie go get the flag. And so you know there's that period of James Brown where he would do the thing with the Cape, you know, and like he had he had this like hype band named um Uh Donny Danny Ray, who actually recently passed away. I knew Danny r. I knew a lot of the people in his band.

They were just around. They would they were shop at the music store, like it was sort of like just he was just kind of a fixture, like the way Michael Stipe there's a fixture in Athens, Georgia, like kind of James Brown was always kind of around, Yeah, the kind of way that like Andy Dick is a fixture

of West Hollywood, yeah exactly. Or even Um I forget the guy's name, but he played Josh in the office, who was kind of the boss of the UM the Stanford branch, like carried his bike into work and Jim kind of he had an affinity for him or whatever. That guy whatever that actor's name is. He's also in the show called Um Outer Banks that's very popular. He apparently I was in Nashville for a conference recently and saw him at every bar, like and and like there's

this really famous karaoke place in Nahville called Santa's. It's like in a double wide trailer and it's really really cool Um, and he was there and he's sang in her sand Man and so he's like, you know, clearly. So anyway, James Brown was like that guy UM and Andy dick Uh to Augusta, Georgia. Um. He didn't live in Augusta, though he lived in South Carolina. He lived in a little city called Beach Island, South Carolina, which is where he's like, you know, James Brown estate was.

But he all he had like a radio station that he owned in Augusta, and he was always just around. My A good buddy of mine named Coco had a venue called the Soul Bar that was obviously named after the godfather of soul, and it was full of all this James Brown memorabilia, and James I think got a kick out of the fem sorry, Mr Brown got a kick out of the fact that someone you know had made a bar in his basically hometown. UM dedicated him,

so he popped in every now and then. There's pictures of him and my friend's daughter as she was growing up in all that very very very very cool. But I had never seen the man. Everybody I you had seen him at some point or another where it's like whether it's like in the grocery store or just somewhere his beach child and there's not a lot going on, so he would probably you know, it's very closely. He would probably go into town if he was doing it himself,

or like, you know, send somebody. But um, I had everybody I knew had had some James Brown store where they had seen James Brown. They did encounter James Brown. They said, oh, Mr Brown, it's it's it's an honor to meet you. And he would just kind of mumble and like walk away. But everyone had a story and I didn't have one. I never encountered him in the flesh. Um. And even at this thing where I'm doing what I'm doing, I still don't see James Brown. I see the aftermath

of James Brown. I see his band. I see this weird mic stands you know, um that's like sitting at this canted angle. But James Brown has left the building at this point, so he says Ronnie van zand you know this is when I'm not there, go get the flag, and j J is picturing him bringing out some kind of glistening American flag like you know, uh, star studded kind of Ryan Stone cape right that he's gonna drape over him or do some crazy thing. Um. That is

not what what Ronnie van Zandt brought out. Um. Ronnie van zan brought out a tiny American flag on a stick, like you'd buy it like a gift shop for you know, a national monument or something like you know what I mean, like the fourth of July thing like the one that little Evie waves around in gray Gardens? Have ever seen that? Very similar to that? Um, he gives it, he gives it to James, and then James holds it and leads everybody in the building, the band, everybody who susy asked

to stop playing in an acapella round of God Bless America. Um. And then you know, that's that's what happened. And I'm hearing this from Jam like what that's crazy? What what I don't understand? And then somebody else, some older person, UM, I don't remember if it was somebody with the theater or if somebody in the band or whatever, they kind of clewe us into what was really going on here. Um, James is uh. Mr Brown's previous wife had passed away

not terribly terribly long ago before this happened. And guess where they had her funeral at that theater, at the Imperial Theater, and her casket was laid in the exact place where his microphone stand was situated. And I mean, the only implication being that he had to have in some way thought that the ghost of his dead wife

was holding up that mic stand from beyond the grave. Um. Now he didn't never say that, and and it's just conjecture, R. But I mean he he really looked at it, like, you know again and I trust my friend, you know, implicitly, he he looked at this thing like he's, you know, like you've seen a ghost and it's a cliche for a reason. Um. And then he, you know, did all this kind of ceremonial stuff. UM. I just think that's what it had to be. And I after I hear this,

I'm like, holy cow, this is incredible. Um. At the time I was, I think this is I think I was actually early college by this point, maybe, but I was only like a round eighteen and I had a like a Pentax black and white, you know, um, thirty five millimeter camera and it was in my car. And this is this is before smartphones. You know this is like, so I ran to my car to get this this camera.

My car was probably a block away, and um I came back and of course and you know, the taking down of all the stuff and you know, straightening up and getting things to reset. The mike stand had been knocked back down to it's uh, it's original straight a position. Damn um. And then it was it was a handful of years later I was I was still in college,

but for for a time. UM, I was actually an intern for public radio for Georgia Public Radio while I was still in college, and I was studying broadcast journalism, and I I went, I got into University of Georgia for music, but I decided not to go because so many people that I knew I was, I played in bands and kind of it was always into you know, music,

and I staid working at Jay's. Everyone that I knew that went on to go to music school or study music academically ended up hating it, or it ended up like sucking the joy out of you know music, the same way working at the music store kind of sucked the joy out of music stores for me. So I decided, you know what, maybe about to go a different path UM.

So I studied broadcast journalism, went to my hometown university UM and I you know, interned there for a while as a kind of about answer phones during UM requests like a classical music request show. My boss was this old dude named Alan Cook, who I adore very much this day. He was like a former He used to write jingles like in um uh St Louis was a big jingle town on the fifties or something, and he was an excellent guitarist and just a really cool dude

and had this classical music request showed. My job was to answer the phones. These little blue hair ladies would call in and make their requests for like you know, um firebirds, sweeten your very obvious things every single week and I would write it down a little sticky note and running into his his booth and stick it on

the desk and he'd play the request. UM. Eventually, Georgia Public Broadcasting the side and they wanted to do news out of all of their bureaus UH and Augusta was one of them, and Alan was like about to retire. He's like I'm not doing that. Um, nol, you figure out how to do news for these radio people, and so I would do little news packages and you know, get vox pop they called it like tape man on the street sound and you know, during elections, local elections

and things like that. And occasionally if a big story happened in little Augusta like then now I would cover the masters and do little packages for you know, NPR sports like I got a few pieces on NPR. But the my big break, I guess you could say, is when Mr James Brown passed away on Christmas Day of I don't fully recall what year it was. Let's look it up just so I can sound smart, um James Brown. It was twenty No, it was two thousand six. He died on December twenty five of two thousand six at

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. And there was all this crazy controversy around his death because he was infamous for kind of not having his ship together in terms of like business type stuff, like he should have and could have made way more money than he did if he had had like some higher powered, you know, entertainment agency looking after his interests. But he always just had friends and local people. And I think people were like Robbin from the Kiddie and things like that, and it just

wasn't you know, it wasn't an ideal situation. And also Cocaine's a hell of a drug, no doubt. And I'm pretty sure he was rocking. No Pun intended that stuff. Pun totally intended after the fact, till till he passed. Um, I don't I don't recall why how he passed. It was a heart attack and fluid in his lungs, according to the Internet, which could be the kind of thing that would be, you know, a byproduct of drug abuse for many, many years. I mean, he worked very hard

on stage two. I mean, I'm sure absolutely heart into everything. He put his heart into everything, and he also gave his heart quite the workout. Um. He he was into like PCP and stuff. I mean, there's a video, there was a whole thing. I don't know if you remember where he like we went on a high speed police chase after he like shot up his business office which was in Augusta, and like you know, the police chased him and shot his tires out and he just kept driving.

Uh And he was apparently on PCP when that happened. But anyway, so I got to cover his passing and n p Are wanted quite a few pieces on that. The guy's like a legend, you know, I mean his civil rights activism and like I mean everything about this man and his career aligned with all of that stuff.

Best friends with like Reverel Sharpton, and like you know, influence on Michael Jackson and and and Prince and you know countless, Like I mean, there'd be you know, like rolling stones, you know, if there wasn't for James Brown. He was like not only was he the godfather of soul, in many ways, he like in reinvented or maybe even kind of invented the what we know today as like rock and roll, you know, in a lot of ways. Um,

So I covered his funeral. Uh. And it was at our local arena, which they had actually renamed not I think it was before he passed, renamed the James Brown Arena. And it's the kind of you know, municipal, big old indoor concrete, pretty hideous arena, but it was it needed to be held in an arena because it was James Brown, and like thousands and thousands and thousands of people wanted

to be there. Uh. Um, Michael Jackson was there. He surrounded by all these like Nation of Islam dudes with these like a little bow ties and it was the weirdest thing. Um, Bootsy Collins was there, Mick Jagger was there, like all of these luminaries were there, Al Sharpton, Dick Gregory did it, did a did a talk or a eulogy. But Michael Jackson got up there and like seeing Michael

Jackson walk into a room like that and talk. It was sort of like if you saw like Scooby Doo walk into a room, you know, or like seriously, it was just like Uncanny Valley. And I'm not speaking about his uh his you know, plastic surgery. It was just he's so loomed so large that to see a person like that you only know from pop culture and television stuff like as in the flesh. It was very surreal. Um. And James Brown's body was laid out in this casket

was open, open casket, um. And that's the only time I ever saw James Brown. It was was in his casket. Man. I uh, I mean the the notion of haunting a theater, uh is if I were a ghost, I would absolutely haunt a theater. Um, and I would be a very critical ghost. I feel too. I would kind of boo, you know, everything that was going on. Oh yeah, the very leash just made the lights flicker, you know in

Morris code saying this sucks. Um, I was trippy though, man, Like I mean, I I grew up surrounded by this dude everything, like in my town, like the bar, Soul Bar, That's where I got cut my teeth, playing gigs and playing and like you know, indie indie rock bands. Uh. Never saw him in person adjacent to this event with his microphone stand. Never actually saw him. Everybody I knew saw. I only finally see him laying dead in his gasket.

And it was actually an important moment for my career because I you know, I'm a podcast producer and that all came from my work with public radio. And if it wasn't for you know, the James Brown thing definitely got me more uh gigs and more clout and the fact that I had, you know, had pieces on NPR and they started using me more because they were aware of me at that point. Um, I don't know, it's

all just very serendipitous and and and fascinating to me. Well, at least you got to finally see him, you know, at least it was an open casket. If it was a closed casket, then you know, you never would you never would have seen him. He was very shiny. I remember that. Then there was a whole thing where they

didn't bury him for weeks. They had him like laying in like cryostasis or something like that, because there was like the family was arguing, like I was talking about earlier with like all you know, his affairs were not in order as they say, and the family was like arguing over whatever, like who owned what and I don't. For whatever reason, they didn't bury him for a really long time. And remember that being the source of quite

a few conspiracy theories. And if I'm not mistaken, there was a documentary, Uh maybe it's not out yet, but it was something to do with CNN, um about this whole you know, uh controversy and like it did he did they ever really bury him? Is he still like laying out, you know, frozen in someone's basement even in death. He's still the hardest working man in show biz exactly. So of that that whole experience, what did what would you say that you how are you changed after? What

did you learn? What did you take away? From it. Well, it's you know, it's weird. Like I'm one of the only things I do for for work is a critical thinking approach to conspiracy podcast. So I'm always you know, up against the idea of our their ghosts is there and afterlife, you know, are their extraterrestrials or you know, other extra um dimensional beings? Right, And I don't know, like you can explain away what happened with that Mike stand.

You can, you can totally dissect it down to um it was this mike cord wrapped around the base of it. But I've never seen anything like that happen before. I'm sure if you tried to do it times again, never never make it, never make it happen. Um. So yeah, I definitely left me with a sense of wonderment about that stuff. But also I think what I just said it left me with a sense of like, Okay, I think sometimes things happen for a reason, um, serendipitously or

or whatever. Like all of that stuff, and all of that experience working at Jay's, you know, being there for all of that, having that experience leading to me kind of coming full circle with me covering his funeral for public radio all kind of lad to where I am today, and it's sort of made me open to experiences and all.

It's just being kind of like on the lookout for not on the lookout because that's sort of like cheapens it, but just like being I think it's just as simple as just being open to experiences and just letting things kind of wash over you and letting things happen and not trying to always control everything or like could you know, because at the end of the day, what what will be will be and if you can just be ready to kind of bob and weave and you know, adapt,

chances are you can make a good go out of whatever happens to you. But um, I have found that I've been throughout my career and my life exposed to these kind of awe ball situations that because I was open to them, kind of led me to other interesting things. So I think it's that well, I love that. I think.

I mean, I often, I often my brain immediately starts to want to, uh, pick things apart or figure them out, and then I have to go just just enjoy that thing before you try, and you know, get down to the fundamentals of it and figure out how that magic trick works. Can't we just enjoy the magic trick? Yeah? And sure, I mean it's fun to figure out how to do magic tricks yourself, you know, or like learn

you know, the secrets behind things. But also, like I said, when I worked at the music store, it made me kind of like music stores less because I knew too much about how everything went into it, and it wasn't fun. I wish I wish that happened to me because my first job was an ice cream chop and it did not have that effect. Well that's fair, I mean I think I think you also didn't have to hang out with a with a nightmare woman checking in, you know,

boxes of guitar cables for thirteen hours a day. What if she was my boss too? Would be weird. That would have been wild. Okay, count the chocolate chips in exactly. She would have done it. She would have done it. She They also like sent us, uh, they sent us kids out for food they never cooked. So we always just would like go and get her the same meal every day from this deli called the Sunshine Bakery, every single day. Um. And so I could tell a million

stories about Jay's in and of itself. But this is kind of the central one for me, this sort of defining one. And like I said, now it's gone. Um. The Masters that are the Ustin National is kind of bulldozed or turned into Master's adjacent properties, everything that's around there on Washington Road. You guys needed to do like a concert to raise money to save Jay's. Nobody wanted to save Jay's. They had a bad rep they were.

They were not the best folks um in terms of like just just trying to put one over on people a lot of the time, like they would try to sell you something for the you know what the list price was, as opposed to it acting like they were doing you a solid. Because this is also before the days of like um musicians, friend and catalogs and boy, when the Internet and those came along, they were not happy because it took the power right out of their hands and they had to like match prices and stuff.

And so I think they saw the end in sight, at least as far as their business model was concerned. Welcome back. So I've got another story from you from our Live story Okay event that we did in New York City, And this one's from Tamara Davis, who, in my opinion, was the hardest working person in Times Square. Alright, So this story is kind of two birds one stone, because this is not only the story of the worst job I ever had. This is the story of when

I got robbed in the middle of Times Square. And if you guys know anything about Times Square, you know how sometimes they have the cops with the bazookas and the A K forty seven. For whatever reason, on this particular day, they were not there and they were completely ghosts. So I was on my own. Uh. And this is also technically my first job. I worked for a tourism company in New York City, so you did like hop

hop on, hop off tours. Typical tourist trap were like the top of the bus was open and you could gaze up at all the overpriced real estate and like take pictures. So I didn't work on the street, you know, the ones that harassed tours like, oh, you want to buy a ticket now. I worked inside the office where if you bought a ticket online, you had to bring a voucher to the office so that we could exchange

it for the real ticket. A really antiquated system, so antiquated that we actually didn't have registers, so we didn't have changed. So if you didn't have card or exact change, we either sent you really sorry, or we ourselves had to go out and find change. We had a location and yeah, I know, we had a location in Port Authority bus terminal and it was just me and my coworker there and I told her, you know what, you stay here, I'll take this hundred dollar bill and I'll

go get a change. So I went to Dwayne Read. It was right across the street from Port Authority. It's still there. Fun that Dwayne Read. Anyway, I went to the I went to the the cashier and I said, do you have changed for a hundred dollars? And at the counter was this guy who I actually subconsciously thought was the manager because he was dressed very like professional, and he had like he had a lanyard with like his idea on it. And so I said to the cashier,

do you have change? She didn't really say anything to me. She just kind of looked at the guy. And the guy was like, you need change, and I was like yeah, and so he's like okay, cool, and so he takes the hundred dollar bill and he starts walking and I think he's walking behind the desk to the register to get changed, but like he keeps walking like towards the door, and so quickly. I'm like the fun So I go and I'm like, my guy, where are you going? And

he's like, what do you mean? I said my change? He's like, you didn't give me any money. I'm like, oh, hell no. So he walks out right and I'm like, dude, my hundred dollar bill. Where you going my hundred dollar bear? He's like, I didn't take no hundred dollar bill from you. What are you talking about? And so I'm like, dude, you have my money and I want it. And so he's not really having that. He walks out into traffic, like trying to get away from me, like with full

on car. You guys have been in time square full on cars coming. He does not care. He's willing to die for this hundred dollar bill, and I was. I guess I was willing to die too, because I followed him and he's walking into traffic and I'm like, dude, there's this traffic cop right that we come. When we get to the other side, there's this traffic cop there.

I'm like, this guy just stole a hundred dollars from me, And the traffic cop is like, well, I can't really leave my post, and he says to the guy, did you take the hundred dollars? And then I was like, I didn't take any money. You can search me and I said, well, I'm not touching you. That's number one. Number two, you definitely did, and I want my money or I'm gonna call the cops on you. Bottom line.

He's like, okay, call the cops. And I guess he thought I was bluffing, but I called his bluff and I pull up my phone and I start calling the cops. So he's like naturally, he's like oh shit, so he starts running away. The traffic cop already told me he can't really do anything. He has to stay where he is, so I start chasing him. Mind you, at this point, this isn't even my money. This is the company's money. I'm employee of the month after this for the worst

job of my life. It's the company's money. But like, I'm like, the guy just took a hundred dollars from me. Also, technically it's my money because at this job, if you are short money, they make you pay it back, and I really was just not doing that. So I was like, Okay,

I need to get this hundred dollars back. So I'm on the phone with nine one saying that this guy just I'm in the middle of Type Square and this guy just stole a hundred dollars from me, and I'm like following him, and he's like trying to get away from me, and so the cop the people on the phone are completely incompetent. They're like, wait, where are you what street? Wait? But where are you in front of? And I'm like, oh my goodness. NYPD is so useless.

And so he stops at this random like smoke shop and he goes inside, and I'm like okay, and then he's telling me come inside the smoke shop, and I'm like, no, why would I do that. I'm gonna stay here on the phone with nine one and I'm going to tell them to come to the smoke shop. So I guess he realizes that I'm really not gonna come into the smoke shop for whatever he's trying to pull, so he runs out the store. He punches me in the face,

and he takes off. He bolts, he takes off running, and I'm like, oh, hell no, So I take off running. I take off running after him, right, I'm employee of the month. Oh my goodness, I take off running after him. And I was, oh, I was about to uh if I got my hands on him, I was about I was prepared to fight. So he's running. He runs it to the subway right, hops the turnstyle, gets on the train that happens to be there. Fuck the m t A happens to be there, trains during during doors closed.

He's gone. Five minutes later, the cops show up at the train station and they're like, where's the guy? And I'm like, first of all, where were you? Second of all, he's gone. He hopped on the train. And they were like, oh, yeah, sorry, Uh, I don't know to tell you. I guess he's gone. And I'm like what. And so I'm like, we can go to the Dwayne Reid and get the security footage

and see, like who the guy is. And so we go to the Dwayne read and the manager doesn't really want to give us the security footage because she doesn't really want to be liable for what happened in the store, and so she's like oh, I don't really want to. And then I'm like, you really need to give a security footage. The cops aren't really having it, and then

they get the security footage in there, like okay. My manager for my job comes to the Dwayne Read because obviously I've been going for like an hour at this point, He's like, what the fund is? Where are you? And I'm like, yeah, I'm in Dwayne Read because I got robbed and like we need the security footage of the guy. And he's like huh. So he comes to the Duyne Read and he's like, so what's going on. I'm like, yeah, I have to follow the police report and then if

they confined him, then it is what it is. And he looks at me dead pan and he goes, you know that's a shortage, right, A shortage meaning I have to pay the one hundred dollars And I said, go fuck yourself, that's a shortage and he was like, yeah, you it's a shortage. I said, I'm not paying that and he's like okay, we'll see. So he sends it up the chain with the with the story and everything, and I guess the higher ups get back and they're like yeah, she has to pay a hundred dollars for

the shortage because she got robbed. And I was like, well, I'm really not paying that. That's not fair. And my manager goes, well, whether you like it or not, you have to pay it. And I'm like, well, whether you like it or not, I quit and he was like huh. He was like huh. I was like, I spoke English. Whether you like it or not, I quit and he's like no, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, because this job has very high turnover. At that point, I've been there

four years. I don't know how I did. I must be a master kiss At that point, I've been there four years. It's still my longest job ever. And he's like, oh, no, no, no, you you don't have to quit. We'll ask about it. A week goes by, they're trying to negotiate, like, oh, she doesn't have to pay it, but the higher ups are like, no, we want our hundred dollars. And I'm like, well, you just lost your best employee for a hundred dollars. So I quit the job, needless to say, um And

the day that I quit, I walked out. I went back to Port Authority, where one of my other coworkers and one of my best friends was working and then I show up and she's like, what are you doing here? I was like, well, I quit, so I'm here to just hang out with you for the rest of your shift and then we're gonna go get drinks and we're going to celebrate because fuck this job. I'm not going to say the company, but they went out of business

and they kind of deserved it. But that's my story. Wow. Yeah, seriously, Uh employee of the Year I think was was said over there. Um, I wonder where that guy is today. Maybe he's outside. Wow. I learned a lot from that story, mainly, Fuck Dwayne Reid, fuck the cops, fuck the m t A, fuck that company, and funk that guy. That guy needs to pay for what he did. There's got to be a way we can, you know, bring him to justice. Maybe he's listening right now, Hey, guy who stole a

hundred dollars and punched Tamara in the face. I here's what I want you to do. If you're listening, guy, I want you to go follow us on Instagram right now and turn yourself in via the d m S. I don't know if that's gonna work. Um, what about all you like true crime armchair detectives out there? Can't you help track this scumbag down? Oh my god, did we just start a fable baby crime fighting division? Am I the Batman of podcasts? Now pod Man? Or is

it the bad Cast? Hey? Seth Rogan, guess what you can have storytime because we're changing the name of the podcast again to hashtag vengeance Time. Yeah, I've listened to the ship out of that podcast. Hey, thanks for listening to the ship out of this podcast. I'd love to give another huge shout out and thanks to Noel Brown for being on the podcast and sharing a story. As always, you can find all the links to the stuff he has going on in the description and if you're enjoying

the podcast, please leave us a review. It helps us out a ton and I literally read every single one of them. Also, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any of next week's episode with the Pointer Brothers. Here's a sneaky little peeky So we show up to this house and we there's a like

a garage door. Right, We opened the garage door and you can't see more than like a foot and a half in front of you, and you're immediately smacked in the face with this smell that I can't even describe. I don't know. I don't know if it's old food, if it's molly something, if it's like a dead animal like you. I have probably no idea what this smell was, and neither one of us. We had no idea. We're getting too and this was just a garage door hashtag.

Story Time is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted by Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony maddox, written by Will McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, Daniel La Mora, and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott Simon's artwork by John Kuzagai.