Stories That Will Suplex You From The Top Rope (With Myke Johns!)

lengths to funk with me, and I respect that funny thing. Though. Get who else is nominated? Um, that's right, my arch podcast nemesis, Seth Rogan for his work on the other story Time podcast. So maybe maybe they've sucked up, and maybe they I was actually supposed to be nominated and he was supposed to be the honoree. That's probably what happened regardless, Hopefully this gets the word out about hashtag Storytime, you know, and get some more fable babies to join

the stable baby. But it's you know, it's really hard to get more people to listen to your podcast. Um, there's just so many podcasts out there, and they all think they're the best, even though we know that we are the best. So I'm you know, I've been trying to think of some different ways to grab people's attention, you know, guerrilla marketing, do some Maybe I r L events more n f T s. Maybe I need to move the podcast to the metaverse. That's probably what I

should do. Maybe we should make a new coin, fable coin, right, some sort of new crypto podcast currency. Oh what if we do some stunt e things, you know, like what if did like a live slam poetry storytelling jam at a library, you know that will get people talking quietly. Maybe we'll set the world record for most times getting shushed. Or we could do maybe like a intimate storytelling open mic at Niagara Falls or something. I don't know, that's

a dumb idea, but I'm just spitballing here. Okay, what do people like? People like beef? You know that gets people fired up. Maybe I need to actually wrestle Seth Rogan for the ultimate right to the storytime name and trademark. Yeah, now we're talking. I mean YouTubers are getting paid millions to box each other. I'm sure at least a handful of people would watch some podcasters wrastle funk it. Let's do this, Rogan, Seth, not Joe, Joe, you freak me out.

The mustachioed Marauder is coming for you. Seth. That's my wrestling name. And when I hit you with my signature move the lip tickler. That's where I gently rubbed my mustache on your upper lip. You will tap faster than attis Stare on cocaine. And then the rights and the trademarks to the Storytime podcast will be mine baby. Oh yeah, And now I'm calling on all you fable babies out there to tweet at Mr Rogan and tell him that I'm coming for him, so he better watch his harry back,

who went full macho man there. Sorry about that. All of this leads me to today's story told by our guest Mike John's. Now, you may know Mike from the Tender Blood Sport and Popcorn book Club podcasts on the I Heart Network, and he's also the co host of the absurdly beloved literary event in Atlanta, Right Club. Mike told me a story that involves a bunch of bookworms, a novelist, and a Butcher. Imagine this scenario, you see a fight, like are you are you running towards it?

Or are you running away? Is the question? So I want you to imagine me. I'm in my mid twenties, i am brand new, still to my first career type job. I'm a new reporter uh an arts and culture reporter at Atlanta's public radio affiliate station. And I'm not expecting to be running towards or away from anything that even resembles a fight. I'm covering theater. It's not part of the job description generally, No, it's not in there at all. But then the Decatur Book Festival comes along. They've been

going for over a decade now. Tens of thousands of people show up every Labor Day, weekend. Famous authors show up, and they do readings and they give panel discussions. It's a whole thing. But back then it was still very much in its infancy, and the directors were looking for ways to sort of shake things up, make it not your grandfather's book festival. So they staged a wrestling match. What are the what are the youths into these days? Fighting?

It's like we want to do hunger games, but for real, um so I show up with a microphone. It's a bright, sunny, hot Labor Day weekend, and I'm wandering my way through this book festival. You know, it's it's it's nerds. It's nerd Fest. It's people carrying around stacks of books that they've gotten signed by their favorite authors. It's people carrying tote bags around. It's a very NPR crowd. It's comic Con but no causeplay Renaissance fair but in modern day.

And it's funny because here in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend, there is there is dragon Con going on like right across town. So like it is a nerd weekend. It's a it's pretty, it's pretty incredible. It's a perfect storm of nerd. So everything looks normal until I get to the Decatur Square and there is an actual wrestling rings set up. I'm talking you know, stretch canvas, turned buckles, the you know, the brightly colored ropes, the whole nine.

And there's a there's a crowd gathered around it, and I spot one of the directors of the book festival and I asked him the question. I stick the microphone in his face. I asked him the question that is on everybody's mind. What And he laughs and he says, well, here at the book festival, we tried to do things a little bit differently. And so I approached this writer and I asked him what he wanted to do. If

you could do anything at the book festival. You know, that's not a reading, that's not a panel discussion, that's not just a book signing, what would you want to do? Now? The guy he's talking about is this author named Michael Mohammed Knight. Michael Mohammed Knight is he's a young man American. He converted to Islam at a young age and he started writing about it. Most notably, he wrote this novel called The Takua coors Um, which drew upon his experience

with the youth culture in Islam. And U it's about this underground, this fictionalized underground punk rock movement. Um. It's it's pretty good, it's it's pretty exciting. So he's bold, he's brash, he's young. And they ask Michael Mohammed Knight, if you could do anything at a book festival, what would you want to do? And he tells them there is a wrestler in Atlanta named a Duelah the butcher.

I want to wrestle him. And then the director of the festival gestures at the at the turn buckles and the stretched canvas and the brightly colored ropes, and he's like, and here we are. I gotta say to Michael Maha, I'm a Night. Is an awesome name for a wrestler. It is a superhero name. Man, It's great, It's it's perfect for what if you know, he's a punk rocker, he's ar wrestling. He's like, he's an amateur wrestler when he's not writing novels. Yeah. Perfect. So that's the how.

The why is a lot more complicated. Wandering through the crowd, I find Michael Mohammed Knight and we exchange pleasantries. Hey, I'm Mike from the radio station. We've been emailing back and forth. Um, could I talk to you after the match. And he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, And he's all jazzed up. He's jumping up and down and I want to I want to plant this. I want to give you this picture he because he looks amazing, as amazing, and as his name is, he looks incredible. He's got these gold

wraparound sunglasses. Look they look like they look like Elvis impersonator glasses. He's wearing this white satin cape that's like billowing in the wind. He's got these gold boots on it that are like laced up to his calves. He looks amazing. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna leave you to it, because obviously your head is somewhere else. You're about to step into the ring. In the shadows next to the ring, there's a little booth, a little tent,

and in that tent is Abdullah, the butcher. Abdullah. He's not a tall man, but in every other way he is enormous. He is wide, he is round, he's he's got these this deep brown skin and these like dark eyes, and his bald shaved head is deeply rutted from years and years of scar tissue getting hit with chairs exactly. And he's selling barbecue sauce because he's retired and he owns a barbecue restaurant here in Atlanta. He's doing fine.

He's what a nice guy. And I asked him, hey, do you have a comment today about the fight that's about to take place, And he says, yeah, I'll talk to you. I have to go kick this guy's ass. First, Oh my god, what do you say to that? Fair enough, I'm not going to argue with the most terrifying motherfucker I've ever seen in my life selling barbecue sauce to I pictured him over there with a cleaver, and he was just like hacking away at you know, like a

lamb's leg or something. So I've still got my microphone, got my big old headphones on. I'm gathering crowd sounds. I'm talking to people. Can you believe there's a wrestling match at a book festival? Yeah? What? What do you believe it? Yeah? And there's a pretty sizable crowd gathering around. I would not have expected that out of a bunch of nerds at a book festival, you know, with you know, carrying armloads books around. But there's you know, there's there's folks,

there's passed by, there's there's obviously readers. There's maybe even a couple of folks who have read some of Michael Mohammed Knight's books. Um, there's people with families, little kids running around. It's like a festival day. It's wonderful. And then a barker climbs up into the ring and he starts shouting at the crowd. We're here today to see the battle between the literary giant Michael Mohammed Knight and the literal giant, Abdullah the Butcher. I see what he

did there, very nice. And then Abdullah's manager gets up into the ring. Now his manager is dressed in a linen see, he looks like Colonel Tom Parker. He's dressed in a linen suit. He's wearing like a cowboy hat, old Southern guy. And he gets up into the ring and he says, now, we have this challenger here set to fight Abdullah the Butcher, but we've got this place here in Atlanta called Grady Hospital. Now you can bow out of the fight now, or we can go ahead

and call to cab County. The choice is yours. Ring the bell please, and they ring the bell. Do they have an ambulance standing by? I did not see one, and they probably should have had one, just out of it, just out of an abundance of caution. They were it's a book festival. Why do we need an ambulance. Nobody's ever gotten hurt at a book festival. There may have been some stubbed toes here. There's some paper cuts outside

for some paper cuts. I got hooked in the eye, you know, kind of with a pen when I was getting my book signed. I don't know. Did Neil de grass Tyson ever start a fistfight with anybody that's yet to be seen? I don't think so. He would use some you know, he would use physics or something to spaghettify somebody. Michael Mohommed Knight jumps into the ring and again he looks great. He's all psyched up. He's jumping up and down. His satin cape is flowing in the wind,

and he's taunting Abdullah from inside the ring. Now, just to back up a little bit, Abdullah the Butcher was a pro wrestler, to be sure, here in Atlanta and around the country in the eighties and nineties. He's been retired for a long time now. He's probably about sixty years old at this point. And I imagine after a career of being beat to a pulp and flying through the air and getting hit with folding chairs and stuff, his knees are not what they used to be. Him

getting up into the ring nonstarter. So he's standing outside the ring, Mike, He's got this young buck just shouting at him from inside the ring. So he does what anybody would do in that position. He waits for Michael Mohammed Knight to get close enough to the ropes. He grabs him by his golden ankles and he yanks. Michael hits the He hits the canvas hard and nobody has time to breathe before Abdullah just yanks him out of the ring and into the grass. And then it's a fight.

Then it's a wrestling fight. Michael Mohammad, he know, he's trying to recover. He gets up and it's just a moment later that Abdullah swings a folding chair bam, hits him right in the head. Where did the folding chair? This is a standing room only crowd, mind you, where did the chair come from? Well, if there wasn't a folding chair around, there wouldn't be a folding chair there to hit another wrestler with. So it's wrestling. This is the butcher brings his own folding chairs wherever he goes.

He gotta have him on stand by. You know, he's got his his like Swiss army knife of like wrestler tricks right here right right, hits him with a chair night, hits the ground and he's you know, he's on the recovery. He gets back up to his feet, he's just on his feet, and Abdullah the Butcher grabs him and throws him into a folding table. Again, where'd the table come from? If there wasn't a table there, there wouldn't be a table there for a wrestler to get thrown through. It's

it's not rocket science. Is there a ref at this No, So there's no clear way for somebody to get pinned. And this thing not not that I remember I do. This is is very very grassroots. So Michael is he's getting back up to his feet and Abdullah is standing over him. Now, let's zoom out for a second. Abdullah the Butcher had his wrestling career in the eighties and nineties. He was what was known in wrestling parlance as a heel, a bad a bad guy wrestler, the guy that the

audience loves to hate. And he got his nickname Abdullah the Butcher because this guy likes to bring knives into the ring with him. Oh great. Michael is getting back up to his feet and Abdullah is standing over him, and I see from the other side of the ring. Abdullah raising his fist in the air and I see something glint in the labor day sunlight, and he brings that fist down onto Michael's head. Bam. Michael hits the ground hard and he does not move. The crowd fucking

loves this. The crowd goes ape shit. People are screened, People are dropping their books and like hollering and yelling get them, kill them, finish them off. I've never seen anything like that. The crowd tasted a little bit of blood and they were swarming and it was it was crazy, was incredible. And then the blood starts to pool on the pavement outside of the ring. I'm still recording sound. I've got my microphone out. It takes people a couple of minutes to realize this is real. That's not a

blood packet. He that man is hurt and he's not getting up. A couple of minutes goes by and somebody shouts, can somebody get an ambulance. Paramedics are called. A couple of minutes later, they arrive. Police start pushing people back and I'm scanning the crowd and I see the directors of the festival and they are looking from the paramedics to Michael, to the ambulance and at me, and they are no longer my friend. They are very worried because an author who they invited is about to get put

into an ambulance and they are responsible. And I'm a reporter doing my job. So the paramedics bandage his head, they put him on a stretcher, they load him into the back of an ambulance. And that's when I realized, damn it, I was supposed to interview him after the match. My editor is going to be pissed. Also, where where did Abdullah go after that brutal blow? Did he just

vanish into the crowd? It was it was as if it was as if he was a ninja and he threw a smoke bomb down and just just disappeared him. His manager, Bartles of Barbecue Sauce gone nowhere to be seen. He he ski daddled. It was. It was amazing. So they zoom away in a in an ambulance and I head back to the air conditioned hospitality uh tent, and I begin to drink because I know two things. One that man is seriously injured, and two I'm about to blow past my deadline. And that's just gonna have to

be okay. I get back home and I start madly trying to get in touch with Michael Mohammed Knight, if only to make sure he's alive, but also I have a story to finish. I eventually get a hold of him on Facebook and I message him, Hey, I'm probably the last guy you want to talk to right now. Okay, the second the last guy you want to talk to you right now? But would you mind going on the record to talk about the wrestling match that took place. I hear from him two days later. I'm sweating bullets

and he goes, yeah, let's talk. We get on the phone. Thank god, I can breathe this huge side relief. Okay, he's alive. He's okay, so is my story. Okay, let's get him on the phone. Let's get you one tape. He answers the phone. He's back at his He's back at his place in in New York. And I get a chance to ask him what everybody else in the crowd was wondering, What the hell were you thinking? What? He tells me he had to get seventeen stitches in his head. Oh my god, but he's back home and

he's resting. He's gonna be okay. He says that when he was a kid, he used to watch Abdullah the Butcher on TV and he was one of his idols, and he was also terrified of him. Who wouldn't be giant guy with knives who stabs people. He was the boogeyman. He was the monster. Onto the bed to Michael and he tells me a little bit about his writing process. He says, when you're a writer, you need to approach it like a pro wrestler. You need two leap off the top rope. You need to take the chair shot

flush in the dome. You need to bleed to tell your story. He tells me that when he stepped into the ring that day, he pretty much knew that it was going to go down the way that it went down, But he had to do it because the only way that you can approach a story and really bleed for it is without fear. And if you step into a ring and you're still afraid to get hurt, you're gonna be dead meat. He said that he confronted his boogeyman.

He stepped into the ring and he looked Abdullah right in the eye, and he didn't see a monster anymore. He saw a man, even if he was the one who got beat to hell for it. So, if I can answer my own question, if you see a fight, do you run towards it or do you run away? If you run away, you're never going to confront that fear,

and your stories just aren't going to be as good. Amen, brother, and whoever said like, anybody who thinks wrestling is not real, they should, you know, they should go ahead and give uh Michael Mahaman night a call. Yeah, ask him about it. He's got the he's got the scar tissue to prove it. Hey, welcome back. How were those ads? Did you listen to him or did you skip them? I hope you listened

because that's how we get paid. Now it's time for another story from our story Okay, event that we did in New York last year, TikTok Legend brand In Alexander told a story that involved Taco bell, skateboarding and a traumatic brain injury. On October eleventh, actually two years ago, I was in a really bad skateboarding accident on a

boosted board. I left my house from Lower Manhattan going to talk about on Fulton Street, and um, I just wanted to talk about and my mom was like, hey, can you go to Mad dogg and Beans in your way there? I was like sure, And so I left my house at nine fifty or eight fifty pm, and by PM I was in the hospital and we're like how how did you get there? And so I was being treated my mom like my mom got this really weird feeling that I was. Um, She's like, what's taking

so long? Even though I'd only been gone for like ten minutes. And I was like okay. So she calls the hustle and she first she texted my location. It was like, hey, where's Brandon? And she looks at Taco Bell and she looks at the hospital right near Taco Bell and she's like, he's at the wrong place. Why is he not? Why is not to talk about? He's at the hospital. So she tells my brother and my brother was like called the hospital, and so she called calls the hospital, was like hey is my son there?

And they're like, uh, yeah, we have someone who matches his description. Um, will you be visiting? And Moms like visiting? Is he is he alive? And she was like and they're like well, he's in critical condition and we don't really know what's going on. So, um, we're gonna but we can't tell you anything more because of Hippa. And and she was like, okay, I'm on my way. So she gets there and she can see me from like the check in. She sees me like where as you

I can see it. You walk in, it's like right there, and she sees me like she described it as flopping around the bed like a flounder, which is her terminology for saying having extreme seizures. And um, So she walks in and the nurses were just like, oh, yeah, drug overdose. And my mom was like, no, he's not a drug overdose. He was going to talk about and and then they're like what and so she was like, no, he his skateboards were right next to me. How do you not

make this connection? And she was like They were like, well, I don't know. And so as my mom walks in the room. I don't remember this obviously I was incapacitated, but my mother told me that as she walked in the room, she's like Brandon and I and I stopped seizing, and I sat up and I looked at her and as soon as I looked at her, she was like, okay, lights around, he hit his head, something's okay. And as I went she went to reach for my hand, and as I went to reach for her hand, it's some

ship of a movie. And I like, my eyes well back in my head and blood started pouring out of my ear and I fell back and started seizing again. And so then all the all the nurses just witnessed that. They're like, oh, yeah, he's not a drug overdose. So they ended up doing a CT scanner trying to but I was like obviously not sitting still. Um. So they intubated me and put me under, and then I had emergency brain surgery and that was fun. At the entire

left side of my skull removed. UM, and I have a little fun little guy this one because if you can see that, I don't know, can you see that it was all the way around, It was all the way around in the back of my head. Um. And so this is like the first part of the story, So buckle up. After surgery, my mom asked the doctor, She's like, is how long is recovery gonna be? He's like, WHOA, no, no, we don't know. If he's gonna walk, we know if he's gonna talk. We don't know if he's gonna spive

the night. And so then they were like I was like, oh okay. So they transferred me uptown and three days later I woke up from a coma and I had they had taken the intubation tube out of me, and my first reaction was to take the oxygen mask off me and throw it across the room. And so they were like, okay, so he's in good spirits. And I couldn't speak English. I forgot how to speak English. Um. Three days later after that. So six days after the accident, I was eating a turk a sandwich and the doctor

walked into there, like what are you doing? And he was like and my mom was like, he wanted a sandwich. And they're like, he cannot be sitting up right now. He doesn't have a skull in his head. What are you doing? And um, I was like and I was like, I just wanted food and I just wanted to eat and they're like, no, you get apple sauce and that's it. And seven days later I started walking, and then three days after that they were like, how is he Okay, to rehab, you go, And so I was in rehab

for two weeks after that. Then fast forward two months December, I got my new skull put in and that new skull was UM. Was supposed to be a fully custom made like skull for my head um, and it turns out everything was great. I was like, okay, we're good. I'd fine. In the process started working for three six sixteen months. Following all the way up until um January of this year, I had gotten really insecure because I had a bump in my head, like on my side of my face, and I was like, what am I

gonna do? Like I I can't, I can't look at myself in the mirror. So I went, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go see a plastic surgeon and see what they can do. Go to the plastic surgeon and he was like, let's run some CT scans on you just to make sure like everything's good up there. And so in this they did this really cool CT that showed like every orifice of my face and it was really weird that you could even you could even even see the mask on my face, and I was like okay.

So following that we we got to sit down after he's examined the X rays and I go back in for a follow up appointment. He was like, okay, so, um, you have a death button. I was like what He's like, yeah, a death button. Was like, what do you mean? He was like, the back of your head, you know, you would talk to me about because I had I had a little like well it felt like a little dent in my head um and I was like this. I was told by my old surgeon that it would um

fuse together over time. If anyone knows anything about brains and skulls, they stopped growing when you're like fifteen, so they there's there's there's not nothing's fusing. And so I'm sitting there and he was like, basically, you have a gap about an inch two inches wide and two inches tall in the back of your head that if someone were to flick you at any time or like like ha ha, what's up, Brandon, they'd be like I would

die immediately. I would have immediately stoke and die. And so I was like, oh okay, and so like the past sixteen months of my life from just like so the time the snapple fell on my head could have killed me. Oh cool. And and so then three months later, two months later, I go in for my at this time third brain surgery UM and he gave me three options.

He goes, you can even have number one where you we can just fix the muscles, because because the way your jaw works is like has like muscles that run down your jaw and they connect like the top of your skull. When the new when the second surgery, when they put the skull on, they didn't reattach the muscles. So imagine like we were like gotten new currents and you like hang them up and they're like really bunched

up and you're like, come on, just straighten out. And then you don't straighten out, and like fox, you like steam them. Basically the plastics gonna have to go in and steam my muscles and reattached them to my skull um. But the problem was that there was this hole and they were like, okay, so we're gonna gonna We're just gonna you can either just leave it how it is, which I don't recommend, or you can have us just

totally redo it. And I was like option to go immediately now please, And so now I have, um, this is I've had three surgeries in the past two months. Again, so um. But now I have a skull made by NASA, which is cool. I'm one of idiot people in the world with his um. It was designed on the I S S like, which is really cool because I can like be like, yeah, I'm I'm number one German because it was made in Germany. But then engineer Banassa. But it was cool and so then I'm like, yeah, I'm good.

Everything's great. And then July four this year and I wake up and I was like, my nose is bleeding. What the fuck? And I was like I don't want to get it on my sheets, So I jumped out of it and I like start walking to the bathroom.

By the time I'm get to the bathroom, I'm like straight back, nail my head on the floor and I'm like here we go again, and like my brain started swelling with fluid and like then moving back to the city because all on Long Island, and I was like, I need to go to the hospital, but they won't take me to n y U where all my doctors are. They They're gonna take me to Stony Brook and stony

Brook is not gonna they're gonna mistreat me. And because I have trust issues with hospitals now rightfully so and so now, um they wanted to put they put a para to neal shunt in, which is like a tube that runs from the back of my spine to my stomach. And then that failed twice and they're like, okay, we're gonna put one from your brain down to your stomach.

And I was like, okay, so now I have a new little tube on my on my body, and um I called him to be and he's he's like he's Sometimes I'll be like, oh, hey, how you doing, buddy, I'll forget he's there, and then I'll be like, oh, yeah, I have this thing and if I like press really hard on my chest, I could swell my brain. Um, but yeah, I'm a Oh I forgot the biggest part of the story. Oh my god. Back to the beginning.

I rode by the World Trade Center and the Federal Reserve and like going that from Battery Park to Taco Bell I'm a ghost the World Trade Center, Federal Reserve. Like every building in the World Trade Center, by the memorial, no one has camera footage. There's no nine O one call. There is no ambulance record, there is no hospital footage. My medical records from the day of the accident are gone.

So like you look at my medical records, it goes from September four where I had like my A D D medicine re filled and then two October twenty one when I left the hospital and was checked in that rehabit and y U so I'm literally a ghost and there's a diplomat waiting to kill me. So because that m the crazy thing, the same thing happened me. Yeah, the whole story. Yeah, the same exact thing. So weird. Honestly, I'm glad you're here though, Man, I'm glad you're here today.

Um okay, So after listening to both the stories from today's episode, I have reevaluated some things, and you know, I think I'm gonna skip out on the whole stunt e guerilla marketing things, and you know, maybe just keep posting stuff on the Internet from the safety of my tufted velvet sofa. So if you tweeted at Seth Rogan and told him that I wanted to wrestle him, maybe just delete those tweets. Um ah, yeah, I just I

just might not ever leave the house again. Have you ever had a near death experience or a full death experience and you're a ghost listening to this podcast? If so, I would love to hear your story. Please call the Storytime hotline at three two three one eight seventy three. Next week we are doing a listener Tales episode and there's a great chance that you'll be featured on it. Call me, leave me a message, tell me a story.

Thank you so much for listening to Hashtag Storytime. I'd love to give another big thanks to Mike John's as always, you can head on down to the description and you can find links to all the awesome stuff he's got going on. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review. It helps us out a lot and I literally read every single one of them. Hashtag Storytime 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 Kuzaka.