October 25, 2024 • 32 mins
For our 13th episode, Margarita and I embrace the Halloween spirit, bring out the special effects, and dive into the spookier side of life! Join us as we unlock the doors to our fears, from childhood stories to urban legends. We explore our fascination with the paranormal, societal phobias, and the eerie allure of fairy tales. 🧙♀️👹
Discover our takes on the weird and wonderful, from scary clowns to eerie childhood tales, and find out how these stories shape our perception of fear and courage. Tune in for an exploration of human connections and the ever-evolving dance of empathy and survival. 🕯️💀
*special shoutout to Paulette M. Pagán's excerpt clip from Episode 11 to introduce the show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There's this term that you were using, which is a lockdown.
(00:04):
So a lockdown happens internally within the jail.
No visitations are happening.
No one's coming in the jail, coming out of the jail.
Could be for various reasons, mostly safety concerns.
There was one time where I was inside the jail
and there's a mental health floor, padded walls, that kind of thing.
(00:31):
The lights went out and the elevator went out.
Wow. And I was by myself.
And so the way that it works, the doors are locked from the inside and out.
Whenever I'm meeting with clients, like I'm locked in with them.
It's not like I could just like head out.
(00:53):
So without somebody pressing a button from the outside to let me out.
I'm locked in and lights are out.
Any other floor would have been fine,
but it's the padded white wall floor that I get that the lights go out.
Then I'm locked in.
I'm trying to find like the door to at least like pull on it
(01:17):
so that people can hear what's going on.
And then you just I had to wait it out.
I had to wait it out.
So that was the episode where Paulette Pagan talks about
(01:40):
her lockdown in a jail or I think or maybe it was a prison.
But she was in the mental.
It was a prison.
It was a prison. In the mental health floor.
Yeah, Paulette's episode is up.
And hopefully you can go back and check that one out.
But welcome to the Halloween episode.
I'm Kelby Balena.
(02:01):
Hey, everyone, I'm Margarita Rango.
Welcome to this special Halloween episode.
So hopefully, like you and I, our audience is out there.
They're going to celebrate. They're going to dress up.
They're going to go trick or treating and enjoy today.
(02:23):
I really like Halloween because it's one of those days
where a stranger's kid can come up and knock on someone's door
and you can get candy and treats or you get a reason to dress up.
So it's a lot of different ideas and joys all in one.
You can be a creative costume.
You're going out to a party and you're meeting other people
(02:45):
and you get to talk about your costumes.
People love to watch scary movies.
People love to go out and scare other people.
I think definitely for me, the best thing of Halloween was trick or treating.
Trick or treating and getting that bag full of candies at the end of the day
and just eating with my sister all of her candies and my candies.
(03:09):
Which wasn't really good for us, but we end up eating a whole bag of candy.
Sometimes you also judge the neighbors as to like,
oh, that neighbor gave us the good candy.
And then there was always that one neighbor who would give us like money.
Money? What? I've never got money.
I have a neighbor who had given out little pennies.
(03:32):
There was actually a real estate agent who would give out not only their card,
but like a pencil with the real estate advertisement.
Oh no. Shout out to that real estate agent.
I was like, why are you giving this out as a treat?
To kids? You're networking.
What? To kids.
So I thought it was always a fun time.
(03:52):
We did judge neighbors that give not money, but they give away like healthy candy.
I was like, what? No, I want the real candy, sugary and stuff.
My brother-in-law actually would give out little bottles of tequila to the adults.
So that their kids were coming out and they were giving them candy.
(04:16):
But they would give little shots of tequila to the adults.
And the adults loved it because they would come up and they were like,
oh, we get a treat as well.
One of my best friends from high school, she loved scary things.
She was obsessed with that and showing me scary games and I was always running away from them.
But once we played this game called Slenderman.
(04:40):
Slenderman. Tell me about it.
It was so scary. But she made it even worse because we would go to my bedroom
and we would just take out the computer and we turned off the lights.
And it was her and me playing the game in the dark with the music.
How did you get convinced to do that?
(05:02):
I don't know. I have no idea.
Until these days I can have nightmares with Slenderman. I hate that guy.
So we played and every time Slenderman was about to catch us,
I would shut down the computer.
No, no, no. It was so much fun.
She was not scared. But for me it was the worst experience ever.
(05:27):
Have you ever experienced any paranormal experience?
I'm sure you think I'm crazy, but I really would love that opportunity to experience some kind of paranormal.
Even a ghost or something because I would want to run towards it.
I don't think I want to be in a place where I have questions.
And this whole time I'm thinking, okay, if I could see the scary thing, if I could see the ET or something, I would go towards it.
(05:57):
Such an ugly alien, but my mother loved it.
They made them into a little toy at some point.
I have those. It was so scary as well.
I think I blame my mother for scary.
So she used to collect those ET figures.
They were like big toys that moved and everything like robots, ET Von Homme and that stuff.
(06:21):
In the middle of the night, one of those things began.
ET Von Homme.
It would move?
Did you check to see if it had batteries?
She didn't keep them in her room. She kept them in mine.
Why?
I was not the collector.
Put them on your chair and then the chair starts to move.
(06:42):
I would always want to experience some kind of ghost or phenomena or something like that.
Because I think I would want to just, for my own sake, resolve the questions.
Was it real? Was it just a reflection? Could I grab it?
There's a lot of weird things about it.
For example, why are ghosts, why do they have clothes on?
(07:04):
I don't understand. Why did it take that uniform or those clothes?
Wouldn't it technically be a naked being?
Why do they go around carrying clothes?
You're so influenced by...
Do they have shoes? Are they floating?
Or are they walking?
Because I've heard where you hear the shoe tapping coming down in the hallway.
(07:25):
So they have shoes, they have boots, maybe old Confederate soldiers.
For instance, you never see a ghost in a wheelchair, right?
That's a huge trip. I've never seen one.
I've never seen a ghost.
But in movies they don't do them.
Why certain ages? It fascinates me. I think ghosts are fascinating now that we're on the topic.
(07:47):
I always thought that ghosts are actually aliens.
And ghosts aren't really real because the whole idea of a ghost would be that they're trapped between here and a purgatory or hell or heaven or whatever it is.
But not everybody believes that same thing.
I think they react to whatever is in the person's mind.
(08:10):
So they're a reflection of your worst fears or a fear that hasn't been resolved.
But there are many things that you can fear that aren't unseen.
I'm okay not knowing if they're true or not. If they're real.
Now that we're on the topic of fear, are you scared of any animals like spiders or snakes?
I held one, a baby boa constrictor one.
(08:32):
They were so cute. They were nice and they were wrapping around my arms.
I love spiders.
You like spiders? Like the fuzzy ones?
They're really cute.
Which is your favorite scary movie?
That's a hard one because I love a lot of scary movies.
In fact, when I was five, I saw this movie and it was all about zombies.
(08:53):
I can't remember what version it was, but to this day, I saw it really young.
My parents left me with my uncle and my cousins were a lot older.
So we ended up surrounding the TV and watching this movie about zombies.
And, you know, I wanted to watch TV.
So whatever they were watching, sure.
But it gets to this point where all of them are surrounding a mall.
(09:17):
Everybody traps themselves in a mall.
The scariest part is at the end where you're trapped inside your own location and they're all coming in.
And there's so, so, so many of them that there is no way out.
I think that really encouraged me and set a tone for my life, to be honest,
because every time it was like I could never be in a situation where I'm unprepared
(09:40):
or I don't have a way out.
Where I feel trapped.
Yeah, you feel trapped.
And the idea of not being prepared is a scary idea.
Let's say even if you're traveling, I mean, it's not zombies, you're traveling
and you find yourself no luggage, no place to go.
What do you do?
And that's a very scary idea.
Yeah.
But also being forced to be in a location and not having a place to go.
(10:04):
I've never been afraid of zombies.
I think zombies are a real thing.
They're just a narrative about the real world.
Yeah, well, I've also seen a lot of zombie movies and I don't understand why they're,
in some cases, they would be fast because at some point they would stop eating
and lose their energy, you know?
I mean, like a Margarita zombie would need her coffee at some point.
(10:28):
Oh my god.
I'm a zombie whenever I don't have coffee in the morning.
What about the fear of clowns?
I don't like them.
You don't like clowns?
I just don't like them.
There's this really great movie that's really cheesy, but really great.
Killer Clowns from Outer Space.
It sounds awful.
If you haven't seen it, they look awful.
(10:49):
They have these huge teeth, but they're aliens coming here, harvesting humans
so that they can, I guess, consume them.
But it's really cheesy, but also very scary.
If you have any kind of fear of clowns, that movie will...
Are you afraid of clowns?
No, no, I'm not.
Well, because I grew up with McDonald's.
I grew up with Ronald McDonald, and I remember growing up with clowns that were happy.
(11:14):
More than a fear, I think it's a pet peeve.
A pet peeve of having clowns.
Makeup? Like seeing somebody in clown makeup?
It's just like someone so happy, like being forced to be happy.
Forced to be happy. I've never seen it that way.
I don't know.
I don't know there are men out there who see it that way.
When somebody wears way too much makeup, I don't feel like I'm with the real person.
(11:37):
You think that happens to guys?
Whenever you see a girl with makeup, you see...
You hear it all the time.
She's saying something.
A lot of times they ask, like, am I wearing too much makeup?
And a lot of men were just like, you don't need that much makeup.
We prefer with less makeup.
If men were wearing that much makeup as well, would women feel like, okay, we'll take that off?
If I went out, I went on a date, and I had white makeup all over my face,
(12:00):
and I looked like a clown the whole time.
Could you ignore it?
I wouldn't be able to ignore it.
I would like to know you, the real you.
I'd rather know from the beginning, who I'm dealing with.
I get makeup usage, imperfections and stuff like that, but I mean we all have imperfections.
(12:21):
But it's an industry of using makeup. It's very popular.
I don't know if other people see it that way, of hiding who you are behind the makeup.
What about darkness? Are you afraid of the dark?
No, I love it.
You love the dark?
I love the dark.
Cemetery?
Never.
At night?
But not because I'm afraid of the dark.
Okay.
Because I'm afraid of whatever else can happen.
(12:44):
You think ghosts will appear?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's whatever.
If someone were to say...
I respect them. I don't need them to prove me that they're here.
I'm okay not knowing.
If someone were to tell me, you will see a ghost if you go through the cemetery at a certain time.
I would want to go.
Shut up.
Because I want to see. Okay, is that real?
One of my favorite scary movies in the world is a Disney one.
(13:07):
A Disney scary movie?
Coco.
Coco. You thought that was scary?
Yeah.
So Coco, I think it addresses...
It was kind of sad at the end.
It's so good. I love how it addresses the death topic.
How you live depends on the impact that you have in other people's lives.
(13:29):
If people remember you, then you're still alive.
You die whenever people stop remembering you. That's harsh.
So according to IMDB, The Exorcist is one of the scariest movies of all time.
You would have to be very Catholic to be scared of The Exorcist.
Because of the idea of being possessed, the idea that demons exist, all that.
(13:52):
You'd have to accept all of that for that to work.
And not everybody would relate to that.
But it is scary to see the possession of a little girl and her not being able to control herself.
So that one is a really old movie.
That was like in 1973.
And it still scares some people.
I think some of The Exorcist's scenes were recorded here in Georgetown.
(14:16):
Yeah, yeah. Just down the street.
The stairs. I've never been there. I would never go there.
I think it's one of those houses over there. The really big ones are like Halloween.
So he's a serial killer who escapes a mental institution.
And he's out for revenge to kill his sister.
(14:37):
Is that a real story?
No, it's not a real story. What's scary is you realize that he started as a kid.
And now he's an adult, always kind of invisible.
He comes out and then they turn around and he's not there.
So he's either really fast or really good at hiding.
Many people are afraid of the idea of big person serial killer who comes with a knife.
(15:00):
And even if you shoot him, they'll still come back.
I mean, that whole idea is just crazy.
In many parts of the United States, they decorate their lawns with scary witches or skeletons or different things to celebrate.
I think that's really nice. We decorate as well.
Or at least my mother loves decorating.
(15:22):
But I think Halloween is better when you have kids.
You know, maybe go trick-or-treating.
I don't know. Here, a lot of people who are single.
Dress up, costumes.
It becomes the biggest day to find a date.
I don't know if you knew this.
So in case you didn't know this.
A date?
(15:43):
A date. So you dress up, you know, your makeup or your mask or whatever it is.
I think one time I dressed up as Zorro.
And you go out to like a bar or something that everybody's dressed up and you end up getting to talk to people.
People are like, oh, what's your costume?
I think it's also becomes the biggest icebreaker because everybody is in costume.
(16:05):
Somebody's dressed up as a mermaid and somebody else is dressed as a bunny or something like that.
So you can have small talk, break the ice.
Oh, what are you wearing? What is this? What is that?
Can you guess my outfit?
You get that chance to be creative.
Like, oh, I'm a chess piece. I'm actually a pawn.
But you know, this is why.
Or somebody wants to be a lawsuit, but then they have pieces of paper all over their suit.
(16:27):
So I'm going to dress up as my thesis correction.
It becomes one of the biggest days for single people to find each other because everybody has this icebreaker.
Usually when you're going out, you don't have a reason to talk to somebody.
But now here you are.
One horror movie that I remember is Jaws.
(16:48):
I don't know if you ever saw Jaws.
I love it.
Yeah, you love Jaws?
It's so cool.
Well, it can happen. It could be real.
But I don't know about them.
I love shark movies.
Monster Jaws.
Monster Jaws.
I was such a fan of Jaws.
My sister hates sharks.
She's not scared of anything.
Just sharks.
So she doesn't go swimming?
(17:08):
No, she likes swimming.
Somewhere sharks are not going to be like a pool.
Did you watch Sharknado?
No, I've never watched that.
That's when you want a really bad shark movie.
It's funnier than it is scary.
Because the idea of a tornado in the water.
Sounds so bad.
(17:29):
And it just sweeps up all the sharks in one big tornado and starts moving.
What shark movie?
It made a lot of money.
Open water is a really great one.
Tourists go into shark-infested waters as a group where it's safer.
In open water, the boat miscounts and leaves the two tourists behind.
(17:53):
That's something that can happen.
So they have a whole group.
So it seems like something that would really happen.
And they leave them in the water and then they just go.
So they have no idea when they come out of the water.
What would you do in that situation?
I would start swimming.
Because the moment it gets dark, no one's ever going to see you.
Not only sharks.
(18:14):
I don't know what's down there.
Eels, stingrays, all sorts of animals.
I don't like the ocean in general.
The idea of taking a cruise.
Maybe that's one thing I would be afraid of.
Taking a cruise because the whole idea is just like, I just cannot sink.
I've seen Titanic enough.
You've seen Titanic one too many times and you realize.
Titanic is your scary movie.
(18:36):
I know that if you're on a boat, especially in the middle of the ocean,
it's going to be hours before anyone's going to get to you.
And everyone, whenever watching those movies, thinks,
what would I do if it was me in that situation?
What would you do?
I'd throw Leo off the door.
This is my door.
Yeah, we just met. Bye.
(18:58):
To be honest, this was not serious. Bye.
So much other furniture in that movie where people could get on.
I don't understand.
This one door is the one that's going to keep you afloat.
Just do something. Search for whatever you can.
What are you going to end up doing this Halloween?
I love dressing up.
I love wearing costumes and stuff.
(19:21):
That's what I love about Halloween and going to a good party.
Do you like dress up with your family?
I'll dress up. We won't be coordinated.
So my daughter might be like a mermaid.
My son might be like a taco.
I'll be Batman and my wife will be like a witch or something.
They're not coordinated at all, but we're all doing something fun and different.
(19:42):
I like Halloween because it takes you out of the routine.
I love it.
I remember when I was a kid, I would dress up as a wolf
and put up makeup like hair all over your face and stuff like that.
It's funny to think that years and years ago, people would have been scared of poetry like the Raven.
I like the Raven.
And there are stories about the Brothers Grimm who gave us many, many stories.
(20:07):
That is a big hit in Colombia.
But do they read the original stories?
We had this TV program.
It was every Saturday morning.
I know just go through a bunch of Grimm Brothers stories.
But they were cartoons.
(20:30):
But it was so cool.
All of their stories without that scary component.
Because then we grew up and we realized that those stories were really, really scary.
But when we were children, when we were younger, we would just see them as cartoons.
The originals are a lot scarier.
And they've been revised over the years.
(20:51):
But like, for example, Snow White, the witch is actually the mother.
There is no stepmother.
So it's the mother that's trying to kill her because she's more beautiful than her in the original story.
Whereas now with Disney and other stories, they've adapted it to the stepmother and that idea.
But no, it's a lot darker.
(21:15):
There are a lot that have created the idea of humans becoming something else.
Like a beast.
The Beauty and the Beast story is very different as well, the original story.
But Disney loves them.
I love Beauty and the Beast music.
I was talking to my wife about this and she tells me that the Blair Witch project was not seen in Mexico the same way it would have been in the U.N.
(21:42):
I'd say they didn't get it.
They were like, why is it scary to be in the woods?
Unless you've ever gone hiking, you don't know what it's like.
But if you're in the middle of the woods, you know how scary it can be when it gets dark.
You can hear noises all around you.
I was planning to go to the Rock Creek Park during the weekend.
Now I'm not going to do that.
(22:03):
Well luckily there are paths.
But when you're going in the middle of the woods, it can be huge.
And you can feel like you're so lost and go around in circles.
And I think that's one of those things that unless you've ever been in the woods, you don't understand the fear of that little sound.
That creaking over there.
(22:24):
You hear something that you don't know where it's coming from.
So the Blair Witch project was huge in the United States.
Not as many countries understood it because they don't have a ton of wood.
But yeah, that one was a big one.
Anything about woods or witches.
(22:45):
Witches was a big thing in the United States.
I don't know if witches are in Colombia.
Yeah, we have.
We have a lot of witches.
Real and unreal.
The ones that have magical powers.
Actually in our rural areas, whenever you wake up and see horses that have braids in their hair, we have the belief that witches did that during the night.
(23:11):
You have horses that have braids in their hair?
Yes, exactly.
Braids just appear randomly in your horses.
And when you see that, the belief is that a witch did it.
You have to be careful.
They're warning you.
They're braiding hair.
Exactly.
But yeah, we do have a lot of stories like that.
That's kind of cool actually.
They're just braiding hair.
There's also the idea of the skinwalkers.
(23:34):
I don't know if they've had that in...
What's a skinwalker?
Maybe kind of like the chupacabra in other countries.
There's something that's absorbing an entire animal.
Animals have been found with no blood, but there's no sign of how they died.
There's no bite mark or anything.
(23:55):
They just kind of completely have no blood in them.
And it's a skinwalker idea.
I don't know why they like to attack animals.
Yeah, well, I guess you gotta eat.
Yeah, well, we do too.
Have you ever seen a chicken being killed in front of you?
Yes.
I guess I was like maybe 10 the first time I saw this.
(24:18):
I was in a Peruvian family.
I get one of the chickens, take it down to the kitchen, and they're like,
oh, we're going to cook chicken.
I didn't know that.
I've never seen an animal being killed.
My aunt ends up grabbing one of the chickens from the coops,
brings it down to the kitchen, and tries to chop off its head.
(24:39):
The chicken comes loose, and it's running around.
I'm just like a 10-year-old kid, and the chicken's just spreading blood everywhere.
And it's walking around, and she's out there trying to chase it and just grab it.
And this chicken that is running around with its head cut off.
It was a really weird and scary thing to watch as a chicken.
(25:02):
No wonder why you don't get scared.
I've turned that experience.
I think I got scared very early in life.
I don't know, I'm sure there's something wrong with me.
But I saw that.
But after that, I don't blame you.
Yeah, she dipped it in boiling water and started plucking the feathers off,
which didn't look easy.
(25:23):
No, it's not.
It makes me appreciate how much work goes on with farming and butcher shops to do all of this.
I wonder how many people who have never done this,
if there was a massive crisis or something like that,
could hunt their food, one, and skin their food, prepare their food.
(25:44):
That's not easy.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons I actually really enjoy a good zombie movie.
It makes me question myself, could I get to that point where I could survive out of pure need?
A lot of us would not be able to survive if we had to grow our own crops or fruit.
I mean, it takes months for vegetables to come out, berries to come out.
(26:07):
So the first alternative would be to hunt cats and dogs.
I know.
At our family farm, we all learn certain skills.
Your family farm? Wait, you had a farm?
Yeah, my great-grandfather had a farm and it has been in our family for generations now.
Oh, really?
(26:28):
But yeah, they taught us how to fish.
They taught us, I know how to kill a chicken.
You've killed a chicken before?
I've never done it. I know how to do it.
You've seen it then?
Yeah.
Okay.
Were you surprised?
A pig as well.
A pig, really?
Yeah. It's worse, the pig.
(26:50):
I've never seen a pig.
The Cheejan, they cry but scream at the same time.
How do you say Cheejan in English?
Like squeak?
Yeah, squeal.
Squeal, yeah.
It sounds so awful, poor pigs.
They sound awful whenever they're dying.
This reminds me of the movie.
That's terrible.
The Silence of the Lambs. Have you watched this one?
(27:12):
No, of course not. I tried and no, no, no.
No, that one's a scary one.
That's where they're talking about the scream of the lambs, how they sound when they're being slaughtered.
Basically, the scream of the pig.
Pigs.
Part two.
Yeah.
No, it's terrible.
But yeah, we know how to do those things.
I can't imagine.
(27:33):
My favorite activity was to pick the eggs from the Cheejans.
That was nice.
I didn't have to kill anyone.
Just pick the eggs.
Yeah, I loved it.
For me, riding a horse, even just walking around the land with the horses, that's amazing.
I love it.
(27:54):
I feel so free.
There's a power to it, right?
You're out there.
For me, connecting with nature is really important.
Yeah.
So I love it.
It's nice to connect right before you kill it.
Well.
It makes me, anytime I connect with nature, I don't know if you've ever gotten this feeling,
that idea of connecting with nature, it makes me feel like I don't belong.
(28:21):
And by that, I mean, we're the only species that depends on other things to survive.
Unlike animals that can live off the land and give birth to their offspring.
And immediately that offspring feeds itself, walks, is able to sleep, pee, poop, whatever
(28:47):
they have to do.
Humans rely on things.
We cannot walk well without shoes, clothing.
We depend on time.
We depend on products.
We have allergies.
We need moisturizers.
We need shampoos.
(29:08):
We need this and that.
It makes you always wonder, do we really need it?
What would we look like if we didn't have it?
What would it look like if we didn't need shoes?
What is that need of having to be dressed?
I'm actually really glad that we evolved from those primitive instincts.
I think that we would have those instincts in a survival situation.
(29:32):
There's people that still have a lot of animal instincts, because we're animals at the end,
you know, but I love that we have been evolving.
But see, my point of view is that as you evolve, you adapt to more.
But the more that modern society evolves, the more that we depend on things.
Many of us can't live without our smartphone.
(29:55):
Many of us could not live without shoes or socks or a clock.
At what point did we evolve differently?
The way we evolve is very different than how animals evolve.
Animals can rely less and less on things.
They become better hunters or better killers.
We are the only species that sympathizes with a disability.
(30:20):
We have empathy.
We let the weak ones live.
We take care of them.
But in the animal world, being weak will make everybody else weak.
You do away with the weak one.
The animal evolves and becomes a stronger being, not weighed down by the weaker being.
(30:41):
So anytime I think about being out in nature, it makes me wonder, it's like, what is our place here?
Where did we come from?
And why are we so different from the rest?
We really have to take care of this place, because even if it wasn't intended for us or wasn't made for us,
it was made for everyone else.
The outsiders, maybe we originate from aliens, who knows?
(31:04):
But really, we rely so much on other resources, which makes it more important for us to communicate, to work as a society.
Because that's the one thing that we do that's very similar to other beings, other species, is that we thrive in communities.
We need people.
(31:25):
Many people do not survive very well alone, without people, without a community, without some kind of interaction, stories.
Still the thing that we need more empathy, though.
We need to be more empathetic, and not just interspecies speaking, but also with other living things.
(31:48):
Yeah, that's true.
There's a lot of societies right now that are squealing like pigs.
And then, but we're not listening to them. We don't hear them.
Or we choose to ignore them.
And that's very hard.
At some point, someone's going to be responsible.
It brings up a lot of questions, and many of our guests in the past have their points of view.
We help via immigration, asylum, or making things easier for companies to grow and help people.
(32:17):
There's a lot of people out there trying to help and save the world and help other people.
It's all hopefully an effort to make it a better place, not to make it better for only one people.
That is so true.
There's this term that you were using, which is a lockdown.
(00:04):
So a lockdown happens internally within the jail.
No visitations are happening.
No one's coming in the jail, coming out of the jail.
Could be for various reasons, mostly safety concerns.
There was one time where I was inside the jail
and there's a mental health floor, padded walls, that kind of thing.
(00:31):
The lights went out and the elevator went out.
Wow. And I was by myself.
And so the way that it works, the doors are locked from the inside and out.
Whenever I'm meeting with clients, like I'm locked in with them.
It's not like I could just like head out.
(00:53):
So without somebody pressing a button from the outside to let me out.
I'm locked in and lights are out.
Any other floor would have been fine,
but it's the padded white wall floor that I get that the lights go out.
Then I'm locked in.
I'm trying to find like the door to at least like pull on it
(01:17):
so that people can hear what's going on.
And then you just I had to wait it out.
I had to wait it out.
So that was the episode where Paulette Pagan talks about
(01:40):
her lockdown in a jail or I think or maybe it was a prison.
But she was in the mental.
It was a prison.
It was a prison. In the mental health floor.
Yeah, Paulette's episode is up.
And hopefully you can go back and check that one out.
But welcome to the Halloween episode.
I'm Kelby Balena.
(02:01):
Hey, everyone, I'm Margarita Rango.
Welcome to this special Halloween episode.
So hopefully, like you and I, our audience is out there.
They're going to celebrate. They're going to dress up.
They're going to go trick or treating and enjoy today.
(02:23):
I really like Halloween because it's one of those days
where a stranger's kid can come up and knock on someone's door
and you can get candy and treats or you get a reason to dress up.
So it's a lot of different ideas and joys all in one.
You can be a creative costume.
You're going out to a party and you're meeting other people
(02:45):
and you get to talk about your costumes.
People love to watch scary movies.
People love to go out and scare other people.
I think definitely for me, the best thing of Halloween was trick or treating.
Trick or treating and getting that bag full of candies at the end of the day
and just eating with my sister all of her candies and my candies.
(03:09):
Which wasn't really good for us, but we end up eating a whole bag of candy.
Sometimes you also judge the neighbors as to like,
oh, that neighbor gave us the good candy.
And then there was always that one neighbor who would give us like money.
Money? What? I've never got money.
I have a neighbor who had given out little pennies.
(03:32):
There was actually a real estate agent who would give out not only their card,
but like a pencil with the real estate advertisement.
Oh no. Shout out to that real estate agent.
I was like, why are you giving this out as a treat?
To kids? You're networking.
What? To kids.
So I thought it was always a fun time.
(03:52):
We did judge neighbors that give not money, but they give away like healthy candy.
I was like, what? No, I want the real candy, sugary and stuff.
My brother-in-law actually would give out little bottles of tequila to the adults.
So that their kids were coming out and they were giving them candy.
(04:16):
But they would give little shots of tequila to the adults.
And the adults loved it because they would come up and they were like,
oh, we get a treat as well.
One of my best friends from high school, she loved scary things.
She was obsessed with that and showing me scary games and I was always running away from them.
But once we played this game called Slenderman.
(04:40):
Slenderman. Tell me about it.
It was so scary. But she made it even worse because we would go to my bedroom
and we would just take out the computer and we turned off the lights.
And it was her and me playing the game in the dark with the music.
How did you get convinced to do that?
(05:02):
I don't know. I have no idea.
Until these days I can have nightmares with Slenderman. I hate that guy.
So we played and every time Slenderman was about to catch us,
I would shut down the computer.
No, no, no. It was so much fun.
She was not scared. But for me it was the worst experience ever.
(05:27):
Have you ever experienced any paranormal experience?
I'm sure you think I'm crazy, but I really would love that opportunity to experience some kind of paranormal.
Even a ghost or something because I would want to run towards it.
I don't think I want to be in a place where I have questions.
And this whole time I'm thinking, okay, if I could see the scary thing, if I could see the ET or something, I would go towards it.
(05:57):
Such an ugly alien, but my mother loved it.
They made them into a little toy at some point.
I have those. It was so scary as well.
I think I blame my mother for scary.
So she used to collect those ET figures.
They were like big toys that moved and everything like robots, ET Von Homme and that stuff.
(06:21):
In the middle of the night, one of those things began.
ET Von Homme.
It would move?
Did you check to see if it had batteries?
She didn't keep them in her room. She kept them in mine.
Why?
I was not the collector.
Put them on your chair and then the chair starts to move.
(06:42):
I would always want to experience some kind of ghost or phenomena or something like that.
Because I think I would want to just, for my own sake, resolve the questions.
Was it real? Was it just a reflection? Could I grab it?
There's a lot of weird things about it.
For example, why are ghosts, why do they have clothes on?
(07:04):
I don't understand. Why did it take that uniform or those clothes?
Wouldn't it technically be a naked being?
Why do they go around carrying clothes?
You're so influenced by...
Do they have shoes? Are they floating?
Or are they walking?
Because I've heard where you hear the shoe tapping coming down in the hallway.
(07:25):
So they have shoes, they have boots, maybe old Confederate soldiers.
For instance, you never see a ghost in a wheelchair, right?
That's a huge trip. I've never seen one.
I've never seen a ghost.
But in movies they don't do them.
Why certain ages? It fascinates me. I think ghosts are fascinating now that we're on the topic.
(07:47):
I always thought that ghosts are actually aliens.
And ghosts aren't really real because the whole idea of a ghost would be that they're trapped between here and a purgatory or hell or heaven or whatever it is.
But not everybody believes that same thing.
I think they react to whatever is in the person's mind.
(08:10):
So they're a reflection of your worst fears or a fear that hasn't been resolved.
But there are many things that you can fear that aren't unseen.
I'm okay not knowing if they're true or not. If they're real.
Now that we're on the topic of fear, are you scared of any animals like spiders or snakes?
I held one, a baby boa constrictor one.
(08:32):
They were so cute. They were nice and they were wrapping around my arms.
I love spiders.
You like spiders? Like the fuzzy ones?
They're really cute.
Which is your favorite scary movie?
That's a hard one because I love a lot of scary movies.
In fact, when I was five, I saw this movie and it was all about zombies.
(08:53):
I can't remember what version it was, but to this day, I saw it really young.
My parents left me with my uncle and my cousins were a lot older.
So we ended up surrounding the TV and watching this movie about zombies.
And, you know, I wanted to watch TV.
So whatever they were watching, sure.
But it gets to this point where all of them are surrounding a mall.
(09:17):
Everybody traps themselves in a mall.
The scariest part is at the end where you're trapped inside your own location and they're all coming in.
And there's so, so, so many of them that there is no way out.
I think that really encouraged me and set a tone for my life, to be honest,
because every time it was like I could never be in a situation where I'm unprepared
(09:40):
or I don't have a way out.
Where I feel trapped.
Yeah, you feel trapped.
And the idea of not being prepared is a scary idea.
Let's say even if you're traveling, I mean, it's not zombies, you're traveling
and you find yourself no luggage, no place to go.
What do you do?
And that's a very scary idea.
Yeah.
But also being forced to be in a location and not having a place to go.
(10:04):
I've never been afraid of zombies.
I think zombies are a real thing.
They're just a narrative about the real world.
Yeah, well, I've also seen a lot of zombie movies and I don't understand why they're,
in some cases, they would be fast because at some point they would stop eating
and lose their energy, you know?
I mean, like a Margarita zombie would need her coffee at some point.
(10:28):
Oh my god.
I'm a zombie whenever I don't have coffee in the morning.
What about the fear of clowns?
I don't like them.
You don't like clowns?
I just don't like them.
There's this really great movie that's really cheesy, but really great.
Killer Clowns from Outer Space.
It sounds awful.
If you haven't seen it, they look awful.
(10:49):
They have these huge teeth, but they're aliens coming here, harvesting humans
so that they can, I guess, consume them.
But it's really cheesy, but also very scary.
If you have any kind of fear of clowns, that movie will...
Are you afraid of clowns?
No, no, I'm not.
Well, because I grew up with McDonald's.
I grew up with Ronald McDonald, and I remember growing up with clowns that were happy.
(11:14):
More than a fear, I think it's a pet peeve.
A pet peeve of having clowns.
Makeup? Like seeing somebody in clown makeup?
It's just like someone so happy, like being forced to be happy.
Forced to be happy. I've never seen it that way.
I don't know.
I don't know there are men out there who see it that way.
When somebody wears way too much makeup, I don't feel like I'm with the real person.
(11:37):
You think that happens to guys?
Whenever you see a girl with makeup, you see...
You hear it all the time.
She's saying something.
A lot of times they ask, like, am I wearing too much makeup?
And a lot of men were just like, you don't need that much makeup.
We prefer with less makeup.
If men were wearing that much makeup as well, would women feel like, okay, we'll take that off?
If I went out, I went on a date, and I had white makeup all over my face,
(12:00):
and I looked like a clown the whole time.
Could you ignore it?
I wouldn't be able to ignore it.
I would like to know you, the real you.
I'd rather know from the beginning, who I'm dealing with.
I get makeup usage, imperfections and stuff like that, but I mean we all have imperfections.
(12:21):
But it's an industry of using makeup. It's very popular.
I don't know if other people see it that way, of hiding who you are behind the makeup.
What about darkness? Are you afraid of the dark?
No, I love it.
You love the dark?
I love the dark.
Cemetery?
Never.
At night?
But not because I'm afraid of the dark.
Okay.
Because I'm afraid of whatever else can happen.
(12:44):
You think ghosts will appear?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's whatever.
If someone were to say...
I respect them. I don't need them to prove me that they're here.
I'm okay not knowing.
If someone were to tell me, you will see a ghost if you go through the cemetery at a certain time.
I would want to go.
Shut up.
Because I want to see. Okay, is that real?
One of my favorite scary movies in the world is a Disney one.
(13:07):
A Disney scary movie?
Coco.
Coco. You thought that was scary?
Yeah.
So Coco, I think it addresses...
It was kind of sad at the end.
It's so good. I love how it addresses the death topic.
How you live depends on the impact that you have in other people's lives.
(13:29):
If people remember you, then you're still alive.
You die whenever people stop remembering you. That's harsh.
So according to IMDB, The Exorcist is one of the scariest movies of all time.
You would have to be very Catholic to be scared of The Exorcist.
Because of the idea of being possessed, the idea that demons exist, all that.
(13:52):
You'd have to accept all of that for that to work.
And not everybody would relate to that.
But it is scary to see the possession of a little girl and her not being able to control herself.
So that one is a really old movie.
That was like in 1973.
And it still scares some people.
I think some of The Exorcist's scenes were recorded here in Georgetown.
(14:16):
Yeah, yeah. Just down the street.
The stairs. I've never been there. I would never go there.
I think it's one of those houses over there. The really big ones are like Halloween.
So he's a serial killer who escapes a mental institution.
And he's out for revenge to kill his sister.
(14:37):
Is that a real story?
No, it's not a real story. What's scary is you realize that he started as a kid.
And now he's an adult, always kind of invisible.
He comes out and then they turn around and he's not there.
So he's either really fast or really good at hiding.
Many people are afraid of the idea of big person serial killer who comes with a knife.
(15:00):
And even if you shoot him, they'll still come back.
I mean, that whole idea is just crazy.
In many parts of the United States, they decorate their lawns with scary witches or skeletons or different things to celebrate.
I think that's really nice. We decorate as well.
Or at least my mother loves decorating.
(15:22):
But I think Halloween is better when you have kids.
You know, maybe go trick-or-treating.
I don't know. Here, a lot of people who are single.
Dress up, costumes.
It becomes the biggest day to find a date.
I don't know if you knew this.
So in case you didn't know this.
A date?
(15:43):
A date. So you dress up, you know, your makeup or your mask or whatever it is.
I think one time I dressed up as Zorro.
And you go out to like a bar or something that everybody's dressed up and you end up getting to talk to people.
People are like, oh, what's your costume?
I think it's also becomes the biggest icebreaker because everybody is in costume.
(16:05):
Somebody's dressed up as a mermaid and somebody else is dressed as a bunny or something like that.
So you can have small talk, break the ice.
Oh, what are you wearing? What is this? What is that?
Can you guess my outfit?
You get that chance to be creative.
Like, oh, I'm a chess piece. I'm actually a pawn.
But you know, this is why.
Or somebody wants to be a lawsuit, but then they have pieces of paper all over their suit.
(16:27):
So I'm going to dress up as my thesis correction.
It becomes one of the biggest days for single people to find each other because everybody has this icebreaker.
Usually when you're going out, you don't have a reason to talk to somebody.
But now here you are.
One horror movie that I remember is Jaws.
(16:48):
I don't know if you ever saw Jaws.
I love it.
Yeah, you love Jaws?
It's so cool.
Well, it can happen. It could be real.
But I don't know about them.
I love shark movies.
Monster Jaws.
Monster Jaws.
I was such a fan of Jaws.
My sister hates sharks.
She's not scared of anything.
Just sharks.
So she doesn't go swimming?
(17:08):
No, she likes swimming.
Somewhere sharks are not going to be like a pool.
Did you watch Sharknado?
No, I've never watched that.
That's when you want a really bad shark movie.
It's funnier than it is scary.
Because the idea of a tornado in the water.
Sounds so bad.
(17:29):
And it just sweeps up all the sharks in one big tornado and starts moving.
What shark movie?
It made a lot of money.
Open water is a really great one.
Tourists go into shark-infested waters as a group where it's safer.
In open water, the boat miscounts and leaves the two tourists behind.
(17:53):
That's something that can happen.
So they have a whole group.
So it seems like something that would really happen.
And they leave them in the water and then they just go.
So they have no idea when they come out of the water.
What would you do in that situation?
I would start swimming.
Because the moment it gets dark, no one's ever going to see you.
Not only sharks.
(18:14):
I don't know what's down there.
Eels, stingrays, all sorts of animals.
I don't like the ocean in general.
The idea of taking a cruise.
Maybe that's one thing I would be afraid of.
Taking a cruise because the whole idea is just like, I just cannot sink.
I've seen Titanic enough.
You've seen Titanic one too many times and you realize.
Titanic is your scary movie.
(18:36):
I know that if you're on a boat, especially in the middle of the ocean,
it's going to be hours before anyone's going to get to you.
And everyone, whenever watching those movies, thinks,
what would I do if it was me in that situation?
What would you do?
I'd throw Leo off the door.
This is my door.
Yeah, we just met. Bye.
(18:58):
To be honest, this was not serious. Bye.
So much other furniture in that movie where people could get on.
I don't understand.
This one door is the one that's going to keep you afloat.
Just do something. Search for whatever you can.
What are you going to end up doing this Halloween?
I love dressing up.
I love wearing costumes and stuff.
(19:21):
That's what I love about Halloween and going to a good party.
Do you like dress up with your family?
I'll dress up. We won't be coordinated.
So my daughter might be like a mermaid.
My son might be like a taco.
I'll be Batman and my wife will be like a witch or something.
They're not coordinated at all, but we're all doing something fun and different.
(19:42):
I like Halloween because it takes you out of the routine.
I love it.
I remember when I was a kid, I would dress up as a wolf
and put up makeup like hair all over your face and stuff like that.
It's funny to think that years and years ago, people would have been scared of poetry like the Raven.
I like the Raven.
And there are stories about the Brothers Grimm who gave us many, many stories.
(20:07):
That is a big hit in Colombia.
But do they read the original stories?
We had this TV program.
It was every Saturday morning.
I know just go through a bunch of Grimm Brothers stories.
But they were cartoons.
(20:30):
But it was so cool.
All of their stories without that scary component.
Because then we grew up and we realized that those stories were really, really scary.
But when we were children, when we were younger, we would just see them as cartoons.
The originals are a lot scarier.
And they've been revised over the years.
(20:51):
But like, for example, Snow White, the witch is actually the mother.
There is no stepmother.
So it's the mother that's trying to kill her because she's more beautiful than her in the original story.
Whereas now with Disney and other stories, they've adapted it to the stepmother and that idea.
But no, it's a lot darker.
(21:15):
There are a lot that have created the idea of humans becoming something else.
Like a beast.
The Beauty and the Beast story is very different as well, the original story.
But Disney loves them.
I love Beauty and the Beast music.
I was talking to my wife about this and she tells me that the Blair Witch project was not seen in Mexico the same way it would have been in the U.N.
(21:42):
I'd say they didn't get it.
They were like, why is it scary to be in the woods?
Unless you've ever gone hiking, you don't know what it's like.
But if you're in the middle of the woods, you know how scary it can be when it gets dark.
You can hear noises all around you.
I was planning to go to the Rock Creek Park during the weekend.
Now I'm not going to do that.
(22:03):
Well luckily there are paths.
But when you're going in the middle of the woods, it can be huge.
And you can feel like you're so lost and go around in circles.
And I think that's one of those things that unless you've ever been in the woods, you don't understand the fear of that little sound.
That creaking over there.
(22:24):
You hear something that you don't know where it's coming from.
So the Blair Witch project was huge in the United States.
Not as many countries understood it because they don't have a ton of wood.
But yeah, that one was a big one.
Anything about woods or witches.
(22:45):
Witches was a big thing in the United States.
I don't know if witches are in Colombia.
Yeah, we have.
We have a lot of witches.
Real and unreal.
The ones that have magical powers.
Actually in our rural areas, whenever you wake up and see horses that have braids in their hair, we have the belief that witches did that during the night.
(23:11):
You have horses that have braids in their hair?
Yes, exactly.
Braids just appear randomly in your horses.
And when you see that, the belief is that a witch did it.
You have to be careful.
They're warning you.
They're braiding hair.
Exactly.
But yeah, we do have a lot of stories like that.
That's kind of cool actually.
They're just braiding hair.
There's also the idea of the skinwalkers.
(23:34):
I don't know if they've had that in...
What's a skinwalker?
Maybe kind of like the chupacabra in other countries.
There's something that's absorbing an entire animal.
Animals have been found with no blood, but there's no sign of how they died.
There's no bite mark or anything.
(23:55):
They just kind of completely have no blood in them.
And it's a skinwalker idea.
I don't know why they like to attack animals.
Yeah, well, I guess you gotta eat.
Yeah, well, we do too.
Have you ever seen a chicken being killed in front of you?
Yes.
I guess I was like maybe 10 the first time I saw this.
(24:18):
I was in a Peruvian family.
I get one of the chickens, take it down to the kitchen, and they're like,
oh, we're going to cook chicken.
I didn't know that.
I've never seen an animal being killed.
My aunt ends up grabbing one of the chickens from the coops,
brings it down to the kitchen, and tries to chop off its head.
(24:39):
The chicken comes loose, and it's running around.
I'm just like a 10-year-old kid, and the chicken's just spreading blood everywhere.
And it's walking around, and she's out there trying to chase it and just grab it.
And this chicken that is running around with its head cut off.
It was a really weird and scary thing to watch as a chicken.
(25:02):
No wonder why you don't get scared.
I've turned that experience.
I think I got scared very early in life.
I don't know, I'm sure there's something wrong with me.
But I saw that.
But after that, I don't blame you.
Yeah, she dipped it in boiling water and started plucking the feathers off,
which didn't look easy.
(25:23):
No, it's not.
It makes me appreciate how much work goes on with farming and butcher shops to do all of this.
I wonder how many people who have never done this,
if there was a massive crisis or something like that,
could hunt their food, one, and skin their food, prepare their food.
(25:44):
That's not easy.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons I actually really enjoy a good zombie movie.
It makes me question myself, could I get to that point where I could survive out of pure need?
A lot of us would not be able to survive if we had to grow our own crops or fruit.
I mean, it takes months for vegetables to come out, berries to come out.
(26:07):
So the first alternative would be to hunt cats and dogs.
I know.
At our family farm, we all learn certain skills.
Your family farm? Wait, you had a farm?
Yeah, my great-grandfather had a farm and it has been in our family for generations now.
Oh, really?
(26:28):
But yeah, they taught us how to fish.
They taught us, I know how to kill a chicken.
You've killed a chicken before?
I've never done it. I know how to do it.
You've seen it then?
Yeah.
Okay.
Were you surprised?
A pig as well.
A pig, really?
Yeah. It's worse, the pig.
(26:50):
I've never seen a pig.
The Cheejan, they cry but scream at the same time.
How do you say Cheejan in English?
Like squeak?
Yeah, squeal.
Squeal, yeah.
It sounds so awful, poor pigs.
They sound awful whenever they're dying.
This reminds me of the movie.
That's terrible.
The Silence of the Lambs. Have you watched this one?
(27:12):
No, of course not. I tried and no, no, no.
No, that one's a scary one.
That's where they're talking about the scream of the lambs, how they sound when they're being slaughtered.
Basically, the scream of the pig.
Pigs.
Part two.
Yeah.
No, it's terrible.
But yeah, we know how to do those things.
I can't imagine.
(27:33):
My favorite activity was to pick the eggs from the Cheejans.
That was nice.
I didn't have to kill anyone.
Just pick the eggs.
Yeah, I loved it.
For me, riding a horse, even just walking around the land with the horses, that's amazing.
I love it.
(27:54):
I feel so free.
There's a power to it, right?
You're out there.
For me, connecting with nature is really important.
Yeah.
So I love it.
It's nice to connect right before you kill it.
Well.
It makes me, anytime I connect with nature, I don't know if you've ever gotten this feeling,
that idea of connecting with nature, it makes me feel like I don't belong.
(28:21):
And by that, I mean, we're the only species that depends on other things to survive.
Unlike animals that can live off the land and give birth to their offspring.
And immediately that offspring feeds itself, walks, is able to sleep, pee, poop, whatever
(28:47):
they have to do.
Humans rely on things.
We cannot walk well without shoes, clothing.
We depend on time.
We depend on products.
We have allergies.
We need moisturizers.
We need shampoos.
(29:08):
We need this and that.
It makes you always wonder, do we really need it?
What would we look like if we didn't have it?
What would it look like if we didn't need shoes?
What is that need of having to be dressed?
I'm actually really glad that we evolved from those primitive instincts.
I think that we would have those instincts in a survival situation.
(29:32):
There's people that still have a lot of animal instincts, because we're animals at the end,
you know, but I love that we have been evolving.
But see, my point of view is that as you evolve, you adapt to more.
But the more that modern society evolves, the more that we depend on things.
Many of us can't live without our smartphone.
(29:55):
Many of us could not live without shoes or socks or a clock.
At what point did we evolve differently?
The way we evolve is very different than how animals evolve.
Animals can rely less and less on things.
They become better hunters or better killers.
We are the only species that sympathizes with a disability.
(30:20):
We have empathy.
We let the weak ones live.
We take care of them.
But in the animal world, being weak will make everybody else weak.
You do away with the weak one.
The animal evolves and becomes a stronger being, not weighed down by the weaker being.
(30:41):
So anytime I think about being out in nature, it makes me wonder, it's like, what is our place here?
Where did we come from?
And why are we so different from the rest?
We really have to take care of this place, because even if it wasn't intended for us or wasn't made for us,
it was made for everyone else.
The outsiders, maybe we originate from aliens, who knows?
(31:04):
But really, we rely so much on other resources, which makes it more important for us to communicate, to work as a society.
Because that's the one thing that we do that's very similar to other beings, other species, is that we thrive in communities.
We need people.
(31:25):
Many people do not survive very well alone, without people, without a community, without some kind of interaction, stories.
Still the thing that we need more empathy, though.
We need to be more empathetic, and not just interspecies speaking, but also with other living things.
(31:48):
Yeah, that's true.
There's a lot of societies right now that are squealing like pigs.
And then, but we're not listening to them. We don't hear them.
Or we choose to ignore them.
And that's very hard.
At some point, someone's going to be responsible.
It brings up a lot of questions, and many of our guests in the past have their points of view.
We help via immigration, asylum, or making things easier for companies to grow and help people.
(32:17):
There's a lot of people out there trying to help and save the world and help other people.
It's all hopefully an effort to make it a better place, not to make it better for only one people.
That is so true.
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