July 21, 2022 • 59 mins
Scott Johnson is the creator of a show called "What Was That Like." He hails from humble origins. His father; a professional snake handler...his mother; a two-time international trombone champion. His parents raised Scott in a group home where he shared a single bed with two dozen other men, women, and children. And, lastly, everything except for the first sentence of this paragraph is a complete fabrication.
Forget everything you think you know about podcasting and join me as we explore the brilliant mind of Scott Johnson.
https://whatwasthatlike.com/
Forget everything you think you know about podcasting and join me as we explore the brilliant mind of Scott Johnson.
https://whatwasthatlike.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Scott Johnson is the hosting creator ofa show called What Was That Like.
He's interviewed everyone from insomniacs to bearmulling victims to people convicted of murder.
Scott started the show in July oftwenty eighteen and now has over one hundred
episodes. On listen Notes, theshow is listed in the top point five
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percent of all podcasts worldwide. Inthe episode we featured in our feed,
a man named Eric came face toface with a home intruder. In out
of self defense, Eric stabbed theman, who later died from these wounds.
Scott, thank you so much forjoining us today. Thanks Jezy,
I'm delighted to be here. Beforewe talk about your show, could you
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tell us a little bit about yourselfwhere you grew up, maybe a little
about your childhood. Sure. Yeah, it was kind of interesting the way
my parents met. My dad wasGerman and he lived in Berlin and was
working as a professional snake handler,and my mom was a She was a
US citizen, but she traveled toBerlin just by chance for the This was
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in nineteen fifty six for the nineteenfifty six International Trombone Championships and incidentally,
she was the reigning trombone queen fortwo years in a row. So they
met and they got married and movedback to the US, and I was
born shortly after that, and Igrew up in sort of a community living
facility with a few dozen other familieswhere we all kind of slept in one
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big bed and bathed in the nearbyriver. And one disclaimer, none of
that's true, but it's got togrill on the snake candle. It just
sounds more interesting. Then. Yeah, I grew up with my parents and
my two younger brothers in central Ohio. But that's kind of boring, you
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know. Do you like snakes?Well, actually we actually, quite a
while ago we had a pet snake. It was actually my son's. But
yeah, I'm okay with snakes.I mean, you know, they don't
they don't really bother me. Ihad a snake in college. I love
snakes. Pretty cool, all right. So you started the show in July
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twenty eighteen? Is that right today? That is correct, the fourth of
July twenty eighteen. Oh nice.So your first episode was about a woman
who was involved in a fatal trafficaccident. In fact, I think she
caused the accident. Yes, backback then, did you think the show
would be as successful as it istoday? I had an idea. You
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know, obviously, everyone when theystart a podcast thinks, oh man,
this is gonna be a great show. People are gonna love this, and
then unfortunately that that's just not howit works out for a lot of them.
But of course, yeah, Ihad an idea because really just based
on the idea that people love hearingstories and that's just such a fundamental basic
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thing in humans. At least itis for me, and I know it
is for a lot of people.And that's what this whole show is about,
is, you know, really interestingand bizarre stories. And it's even
better because they're all true. Iverify all of them. Growing up,
did you have an interest in Idon't know if you call it storytelling or
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that kind of medium kind of butI would say, like going through high
school and thinking about, you know, what I wanted to do, I
was pretty fascinated with radio and likebroadcast radio and being on the air and
things like that. A matter offact, at age sixteen, I got
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my ham radio license, so Iwould be set up in my bedroom at
home with my radio equipment and communicatingwith other amateur radio operators operators throughout the
world. And yeah, girls lovethat. They really dig that stuff.
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Well, you got a voice madefor radio. Man, it's a really
good voice, thank you. Inever thought that before before. People have
told me that since I've started podcasting, but I that's that was That's probably
one of the biggest surprises that I'veever had, is people say, Wow,
your voice is really good for podcasting. But you know, even when
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everybody starts a podcast, nobody likesto hear the sound of their own voice,
right, that's just universal. Ihad the same thing. You know,
I don't. I don't hear ittoo often, but I people say
they do like the sound of myvoice. It always was a surprise.
Yeah, it's very good. Yoursjust a good release too. So the
first episode that you did with thetraffic accident, it has some similarities to
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the episode we featured with both peopledealing with some level of guilts involved in
the death of another person. Hasthat theme come up often? Well,
it's come up a few times.I really my fundamental thing is and I
what I find makes a good episodeis when the guest is really as they're
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telling the story, they're okay withbeing vulnerable, and and they just get
to that sort of a raw emotionas they relive that story. And you
know, I mean a lot ofyeah, a lot of my episodes involve
death, um and some kind ofmaybe some kind of other kind of tragedy
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or loss, or in some casesit's happiness, you know. But what
I what I really enjoy is reallygetting down to the the deep emotional telling
of a story. And you know, in some cases that involves death.
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And I'm okay with a how'd youcome up for the name of the show?
I mean, it's very straightforward,but was there something that inspired that
name? Well, it's really it'smy own curiosity is what drives the show.
Like, you know, if Iwas if I would just happen to
be out somewhere or you know,at a dinner party or something, and
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and I happened to be seated nextto someone and that person happened to say,
yeah, one time I was skydivingand I crashed. Well, I'm
going to be full of question forthat person because I want to know,
you know, how did that happen? What you know, was it an
accident, did you were you jumpingand you were it was too early for
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you to solo jump, or youknow, all kinds of act of questions
that I'd want to ask that person. And that's really the fundamental question in
all of that is what was thatlike? You know, you went through
something that most people have never gonethrough, and so the question what was
that like? Just that's just whatcame to my mind. And from a
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practical standpoint, the domain name whatwas that like? Dot com was available,
so that kind of sealed the deal. What are some of the biggest
challenges you've faced in creating the show. Well, initially, I would say
probably the biggest challenge was finding gueststhat I would that would have a story
that I would want to come onthe podcast. I really got lucky with
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the first episode and Jennifer and because, I mean, at that point,
I had nothing to show her.I had no past episodes for her to
know how I would handle her story. I mean, I could tell her
I'm not you know, I'm nottelling the story. I don't want you
to tell the story just for theshock value of it. I want to
I want people to hear or tofeel empathy for her, And so she
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was just trusting me that it wasgoing to be something that she would be
happy to be okay with after itgoes live. But other than that,
I, you know, finding guestswas kind of difficult in the beginning.
I made a list when I started. I made a list of people who
I wanted to talk to, likesomebody who got struck by lightning and somebody
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who was maybe rescued from a burninghouse or you know, just really odd
situations like that, And then Iwent looking for news stories that matched those
those topics. And these days,you know, a lot of the stories
come to me. But one ofthe other challenges is it's so awkward or
when I have to reject somebody's storythat they're pitching to me, because I
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mean, they're talking about something thatwas a traumatic thing in their life.
But yet if it's not unusual enough, I have a really high standard on
you know, what I accept forstories, and even if something is super
traumatic, and you know, it'slike that's one reason I don't do stories
that are primarily medical. I don'twant to minimize that how terrible it was
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for them to go through that.But yet there's stories like that are so
common that I just don't you dothat kind of story on the show.
Do you get like a lot ofemails with people wanting to tell their story
or messages or stuff? Yeah,yeah, I do. There's a form
on my website that where you cansubmit your story, and I put some
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disclaimers on there about the stories thatI don't do, so so people don't
submit those. But yeah, Iget I get a lot of them.
A lot of the stories that Ihave now do come from the audience,
because you know, after four years, the audience is a lot bigger now
and there's more people, and people, you know, are more likely to
say, hey, wait a minute, I've got a story. It might
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work, so so they send itin. And of course I don't want
to stop anybody from sending a storyeither, you know, I'd rather hear
the story and then decide if it'sgoing to work or not, as opposed
to somebody on their own saying yeah, that's not going to work, and
then it may may have been agood one. You never know. How
many um submissions do you think youget in a week or a month?
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Oh boy, I would say ifyou thought about over a month's time,
probably dozens. Wow. So thathas to be hard. Do you respond
every email or do you yeah,eventually have to just wow, Yeah,
I do. I talk to anotherhost who also does a podcast where he
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submissions from listeners, and he said, oh, yeah, if they if
they're not a if that's not agood story. I just deleted. I
don't even bother responding, but Idon't know. That just doesn't seem right.
My listeners are are really important tome, and I don't want to
alienate anyone. I'd still rather respond, even if it's to say sorry,
not a good fit, as opposedto just ignoring them. Maybe you know,
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if I'm getting ten thousand emails aday, then maybe I won't be
able to do that, But fornow I still try to respond everyone.
Have you had any weird emails orfeedback from episodes you've put out? I
probably have, but nothing really comesto mind immediately. I actually didn't put
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this in the questions I sent you, but I had I wanted to add
it in. I thought of ittoday. I had a really weird email
when we did the promo swap fromthe Bear Malling episode. Yeah, so
what was the email that you got? Okay, let me read it to
you. It's not it's not thatlong. I'm wanting to read the whole
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thing. It's from a guy,Peter Bodine, but I think it's just
a throwaway account. He said,Oh my god, I listened to the
episode about the bear malling. Themiracle of this story is how much BS
can be packed into a single story. The disaster is that a person works
with such great effort to create astory presented as nonfiction. Is fiction?
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Whoever the writer are, I worryfor the depth of depravity to which you
are seeking find a noose. Cheers. Okay, that's yeah, that's wow.
Wow. Yeah. Um. NowI do have um, I do
have some episodes that are they're bizarreenough that people have trouble believing that it
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actually happened, And obviously that's whatthat person thought with it's I mean,
it's kind of hard to deny that. Yeah, I mean I personally spoke
with Dan. I mean it wasonline, but we could see each other
as at the same time we heardeach other, and he is indeed blind,
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and I mean he wrote a wholebook about it. So but that's
you know, honestly, that doesn'tbother me. I had another another episode
that I put out early on,and there was big controversy about it in
the Facebook group, saying, Okay, there's no way this guy's making a
story up. But like I said, I verify this stuff. I saw
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the police report, I saw youknow, I've just I've seen pictures of
the house where it happened, andI've checked it all out. And I'm
not asking when I when I verifystory worries, I don't ask for absolute
proof that every single detail of thestory happened, but just that the basics
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of it actually happened. And sothat's and I have to do that.
And actually I've been unable to dosome stories because you know, it was
a while ago. We can verifystuff through a variety of ways, either
the nine one one, audio,a police report, an online story that
includes the person's name, or otherdocumentation, and if people aren't able to
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provide any of that and it's justunverifiable at all, then I just don't
do the episode. So so yeah, if somebody says, come on,
that's not true, I don't reallycare. I know it's true, and
we're fine with that. Yeah,that's what I thought about the Paramolling one,
and it had me thinking, Iwas like, is there any chance
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that's not real? And I looked, I mean, there's no question in
my mind that that's you know,like, like you said, you can't
verify every single little detail, butthe major events of the story you don't
seem to be in question whatsoever.I had a similar email of well,
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not not similar to this, buta woman who wanted to tell her story
about being abducted by a serial killerin the seventies, and it just there
was no she couldn't provide anything thatwould be verification. And did he attack
her in like a public park Itmight have been I think I heard from
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her as well. Yeah, yeah, she might have been making the rounds.
And one of the things she askedright away was how big my audience
was and how many people she couldreach. And it seemed like it was
just hard to if there had beenany like you're saying, a newspaper clip
being a police report something, butwithout any evidence, it's hard to give
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that person a time, you know. Yeah, yeah, I've had some
guests, like there was one ladywho had just moved into an apartment and
a murder happened right out in frontof you know, practically on the sidewalk
of where she just moved into.And she actually went to the library and
got went to the micro fish machineand got the newspaper article from that day
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that that proved you know, thatthat that's that it was true. So
she went all to the trouble,all that to that trouble Tom to demonstrate
that, yeah, it really happened. And you know when people do that,
obviously it's uh, you know,it's legitimate. Yeah. Could I
ask before we go on, couldI ask what that story was that caused
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the little bit of controversy in theFacebook? Yeah, it was the title
of the episode was Tyson was abductedand this is about Have you heard that
one? I haven't? No,Okay, Yeah, this was Tyson was
working in an electronic store and heleft one night, left work and was
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walking through the dark parking lot toget to his car, and he before
he got to his car, hewas approached by a couple of guys in
a land rover and they grabbed him, threw him in the land rover and
took him. They tied him upand took him to this house and he
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was beaten, tortured all kinds ofreally bad stuff, and other people came
and did stuff at this house,and there were other people that were held
there as hostage as well. Hewas held there for a year and a
half before he was able to escape. And so yeah, it's a crazy
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story. But wow, what wasthat just sadism or was there any motive
like for money or there wasn't.Well, the guy that was kind of
in charge kind of saw himself assort of some kind of a cult leader
or something. There was there wassome mental illness involved there, I think,
But yeah, yeah, it's ait's a weird one. Okay,
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So this relates to a little bitabout the turning down stories. But if
you had to estimate for every storythat you publish, how many do you
think you have to turn down?I don't know about specific numbers, but
I would say probably it's a ninetypercent rejection, right, And well,
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I don't know if this is agood question, but I'll ask it anyways,
if you had to pick one storyyou turned down, not saying you
are going to make an episode outof one story you turned down, but
if you had to pick one,is there one you would choose? Yeah?
There was one that um, Iwas gonna. I was gonna make
it. I was going to dothe episode, and eventually just decided,
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Nope, not going to do it. This was a man whose wife had
accused him of pedophilia and uh andformally accused him of sexually attacking their own
four young children. We'll be rightback after this commercial break, formally accused
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him of sexually attacking their own fouryoung children, and he was and he
was he was innocent of all ofthese charges. It came out later in
proving proving his innocence in multiple ways, but at the time, he ended
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up being convicted and he spent aboutfour years in prison, but then he
was he was exonerated later. Andthere was just too many things that went
wrong with this particular episode. Hehad all kinds of computer problems. He
couldn't he couldn't get the microphone towork right, and his computer was kind
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of all messed up. And thenwe got all that figured out, and
then we set a time to recordand he didn't show up, and so
I said, Okay, I've gottwo or three hours invested in this.
I can't keep going. I wouldhave loved to do with a story,
but it just it's one of thosethings it didn't work out, and I'm
in a very fortunate position now thatI've got I'm kind of overloaded with guests
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and prospective stories that I don't reallyI don't really mind saying, Okay,
I'm cutting my losses and onto thenext one. But it would have been
a good story though. Well thatleads into are there any stories you're actively
looking for? Oh? Definitely,yeah, I've got I've got an ongoing
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list that uh yeah, I gotit right up here on my computer.
I'll read it to you. Here'swho I'm looking for. I'm looking for
someone, and this has been fora long time. This person someone who's
survived falling off a cruise ship whileit was under way, and unfortunately,
you know, when that happens,they usually don't survive. So that's why,
probably why I haven't found that personyet. Looking for someone who had
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a small child kidnapped by a nonfamily member, someone who was in a
pass was a passenger on a trainthat went over a cliff. Someone who
forgot a baby in their car liketheir own child. You know that happens
here in Florida. Sometimes it's it'sreally hot, and you know, the
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parent is just thinking about other thingsand they get out and go in the
house and don't realize that the baby'sstill in the car, and that usually
has pretty tragic consequences, someone whoover their own child or grandchild. And
I was actually just made contact withsomeone in the last couple of days that
that happened. Someone who was apassenger in a car when it was hit
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by a train. Let's see,someone who was not an air an airplane
pilot, but was on a flightwhere the pilot had a problem and they
had to land the plane. Andthat just happened recently, like just a
few weeks ago. So I'm workingon contacting a person that that happened to.
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Someone who was trapped in rubble fora day or two after an earthquake
and then got rescued. Looking fora prison employee who was in charge of
executions, a non firefighter who raninto a burning building and rescued someone,
someone who was left at the altar, and one who inherited an island or
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castle from an unknown relative. Ithink that would be an interesting story.
Oh, that's great. How doyou just kind of whenever you think of
something that you think would be interesting, you drop it down or how did
you come up with the list?Yeah, that's exactly right. That's just
an ongoing list that every once ina while I'll think of something that's like,
wow, yeah, that would beinteresting, let's put that on the
list. Well, that's cool.It's like your bucket, your podcast bucket
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list. Yeah. So I wantto get into the episode we featured called
Eric Killed an Intruder, And beforewe get into talking about it, I
want to urge anybody who's listening tothe interview right now, if you haven't
heard that episode, go back andlisten to it. Probably be some spoilers
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in here for it, spoilers kindof in the title, but it should
be the one right before this onein your feed. So pause the show,
go listen. So, Scott,how did you hear about Eric's story?
Was this one you sought out ordid he come to you with it?
Well, it's kind of interesting.I didn't remember how I heard about
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Eric's story, so I had togo and look it up in my records,
and I initially found this story onReddit, which is where I've gotten
a few stories. Sometimes people onReddit will do an ama. Are you
familiar with that? Yeah? Yeah, ask me anything, and they come
on and say, Hey, thisweird thing happened to me. Ask me
anything, and people come on andask him questions. Well, I don't
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know if Eric did an AMA.He may have commented on some other post
or something, but he had mentionedabout this thing happening, and so that's
how I initially contacted him. Butby coincidence, he lives and this story
happened nearby where I live, youknow, probably twenty thirty minutes away from
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from my house. Oh well,did you get to interview him in person?
I have never done any interview inperson. All of my interviews are
online using a service called Squadcast,and I've done it that way ever since
from the beginning. And I knowhow to control, I know how to
I know how it works, Iknow how to handle the audio quality and
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the recording aspect, and I probablyat some point I'll probably eventually do an
in person interview. But it's justeverything's different. You know, You've got
to have each person has to havetheir own mic, and I've got to
have something to record with, andwhen you do it online, it just
everything is so much smoother. Soyou did a lot of research for that
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episode, and at one part youwere you were telling Eric a little bit
about the well I wrote down victim, but he was kind of they were
kind of too. He was moreof the perpetrator. He was how how
long do you generally spend preparing foreach interview and in that one specifically,
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how long did you spend researching that? I couldn't tell you an exact number
on that particular one, but Ido a lot of research. It's like,
uh, you know, when theysay for an attorney when you're in
court, don't ask a question thatyou don't already know the answer to.
And that's kind of the way itis when I'm talking to somebody on the
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show. I already know what happened, and for the most part, I
try to just let them tell thestory. But you know, I sometimes
I have to ask leading questions andyou know, to kind of direct the
conversation. So if someone has writtena book about their experience, like there
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was like Bill Mitchell, he's arecent guest who's his daughter was murdered by
her boyfriend and he's written a bookabout this because his his cause now,
his mission is to bring awareness todating violence. And so I before I
would even get on the interview withhim, I read his book because that
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has so many details in it,and it would it helps me kind of
shape the conversation and you know,guide the direction of the conversation and figure
out, you know, which thingsI want to talk about, which things
I want the guests to talk about. And so, yeah, I do
a lot of research, and yeah, it takes a lot of time,
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but I think it really it reallypays off. In Eric's episode, he
talks about stabbing this intruder and itwas one of those moments in the interview
where kind of how you're saying beforeyou really want to get the vulnerability or
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that kind of like it was veryraw and very honest when he was in
that moment, describing that when youwhen you reach that moment, is that
something that you have kind of crafted, like you're saying with the questions leading
up to it, And do youfind yourself often having to adapt in the
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moment with new questions or just couldyou speak a little bit about that.
Yeah, I'm always open to adaptingto the story. That's one of the
problems with interview podcasts is that thethe host will have a list of questions
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and they just have to go downthat list and that's all they know,
and they just have to go bythat script. I definitely don't want to
do that. If if something,if the guests is telling the story and
they mentioned something that really piques mycuriosity, one thing I can be sure
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of is that the listeners are alsocurious about what was just said, and
they have questions like I have questions, and so, you know, forget
the list, forget the list ofquestions I have in front of me.
I want to know about, Wow, what you just said? What you
know? And I really want todig into that deeper. And so,
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yeah, the guidelines that I havein front of me when I'm talking to
someone is they're just that guidelines.It's not something that I always have to
stick to, and I kind oflet the guests go on and tell the
story. You know, some peopletend to kind of ramble and they get
off on tangents and stuff like that, and that's fine. I let them
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do that because I know if Ineed to later on, I can edit
out some of that if it's notreally directly pertaining to the story. But
I don't want to interrupt them andsay, okay, wait, a minute.
Stop, You're you're going off ona tangent that's not really what we
want to talk about. And becausenow they're gonna they're gonna feel self conscious,
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like, oh okay, I messedup. And because the people I
talk to don't normally get interviewed.They're only on my podcast because this one
weird thing happened to them and sothey're not used to being interviewed or or
some of them don't do public speaking. This isn't what they're used to.
So they're already outside their comfort zone. And so I want to keep them
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feeling as comfortable as possible. Andso yeah, I let them. I
let them do do what they want. And I mean I try to kind
of keep it, not not togo completely off the rails. But um,
I guess that does that answer thequestion I kind of got off with
that answer that format. Is thatsomething that's evolved or have you pretty much
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kept the same kind of format fromthe from the start. I kind of
had that idea from the start.But you know, it's funny. I
did an episode with I don't rememberthe guest's name, but it was someone
who fell through the ice and hewas alone and there was a person in
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a house just you know, thiswas over in Finland. I think that
this happened, and this guy wasby himself. He fell through some ice
out in the middle of a bigbody of water and he was not going
to make it. But this personthat was in a house a long ways
away happened to be looking and seesomeone go down through the ice, and
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so they told their son or somebodyto get on the snowmobile go out and
check on this person. And that'show this person, that's how my guest
survived. And after that episode,I got and I think it was an
email maybe in a Facebook message froma listener who was offering some advice,
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and it was really good advice.The advice was just let the listener tell
the story. Don't interrupt is notthe right word, because I don't really
I don't want to. I nevertried to interrupt people while they're telling it.
But the idea was fewer questions fromthe host, more story the from
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the guest. And that was reallygood advice. And I've taken that and
kind of expanded on it, andnow I get a lot of comments or
a lot of feedback saying, wow, it's so great. The way you
just let the guests tell the storyand you don't interrupt with questions all the
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time. Well that's what people hear. But sometimes I do interrupt with questions.
But when I'm editing that audio later, if the guest has answered that
question in a way that makes itpossible, what I'll do is just edit
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out my question. So it justsounds like the guest is continuing to tell
the story because you know, Icould ask them something and then they're answering
the question and continuing to tell thestory. My question isn't really necessary.
People can still hear the whole storywithout hearing me ask that particular question.
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It doesn't always work that way withevery question, but when I'm editing a
show, now, whenever it's possible, I edit myself out because people didn't
come to the show, they don'tsubscribe to the show to hear me.
They want to hear the story fromthe guest, and so that's what I
really try to focus on. Yeah, that's interesting. How much how long
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do you think you spend on editingeach episode till a long time? Yeah,
that's that's the longest process. BecauseI do what I call a surgical
edit. So if a guest,like I said, most of these people
don't get interviewed, and so theyhave crutch words like they maybe they'll say,
(34:21):
you know, or um or inbetween each sentence it's end um and
then they go on. I tryto edit out a lot of that so
that it's not distracting from the story. Not all of it, but I
try to get that out and sothat that takes a long time, but
(34:42):
to me, it's time well spent. I think it's worth it because it
makes them sound much better than theymay have you know, when they were
actually telling the story. You doa really good job. Because I listening,
I think editing is one of thosethings that if it's done well,
you don't notice it. And yeah, that's true. Listening to your episodes,
(35:08):
I've thought at times, Wow,he just takes this audio and it's
just like, what a lucky guy. He just gets these people who tell
these stories perfectly. And so it'sit's kind of reassuring, at least from
a creator fellow creator standpoint that Okay, you're you're spending some time polishing this
(35:28):
up so that uh, and itsounds great. It doesn't sound like it
did is heavily edited, Well,I try. You got to leave some
of that stuff in just to makeit sound natural. You know, it's
like taking out breath noises. Somesome podcast hosts do that. But then
if it's if you don't hear peoplebreathe, it sounds it just doesn't sound
(35:52):
natural, right, And so Iwanted to sound very natural, but yet
you know without you know, thefunny thing is when people, if people
that have a lot of crutch hoords, like if somebody says, you know,
every other sentence. When I'm talkingto him and actually doing the interview,
I don't hear any of that.I don't even notice it. But
(36:13):
when I'm editing, I'm thinking,man, this person really said that a
lot. How did I not hearthat when I was talking to them?
But it's just it's weird. Idon't I'm so focused on the story itself
and the content that I don't notice, you know, the speech problems.
So but yeah, I just Iwant to make them sound as good as
(36:37):
possible, and that means they're morelikely to share that episode if they sound
really good. It's one of thosethings, you know. Public speaking is
not something that people are comfortable doing. And I feel really fortunate that the
guests on my show have come onnot only to speak, but to really
(36:58):
talk about a really, a reallytraumatic thing that they've gone through. And
I don't take that privilege lightly.I totally understand what you're saying too.
And in editing these interviews that likethe one we're doing right now, I
am listening a lot back to myown voice, and I never realize how
many times I said um and yeahin the actual interview like you're saying.
(37:22):
I don't notice it at all.And then you know, my own show
is scripted, so there's not toomuch of that when I'm recording my show.
So in these interviews, it's beena a eye opener to realize how
many Crutch were to like and mare definitely mine. Yep, it's very
(37:44):
common. Speaking of inspirations, itseems like you would be a fan of
documentaries, and if you are,do you have favorites? I do.
I like watching documentaries. The onethat I watched not too long ago,
well, I guess I spent afew months ago, now was there was
one called My Octopus Teacher. Haveyou seen that? I haven't. It
(38:08):
sounds interesting. It's on Netflix.And I heard a lot of good things
about it people on Facebook stuff likethat. They're they're saying, man,
you gotta watch this, and Ididn't. Really, I don't really,
I don't watch any TV. Theonly time I watch anything like on Netflix
is when I go to bed.I have like an hour that you know,
(38:28):
I go to bed, I've gotmy iPad, my dogs are in
bed with me, and I watchedlike an hour. I'll probably watch like
Shark Tank or like the I justfinished the most recent season of Alone and
I didn't. I don't that thattime is so limited. I don't want
to waste it on something I'm notgonna like. And this documentary called My
(38:52):
Octopus Teacher. It just sounded likeit was going to be kind of silly,
but man, it was amazing.I would watch it again probably,
But yeah, that's as far asa documentary, that's one that I would
highly recommend. And I like watchinganything that's on space exploration. I just
(39:13):
I'm just totally fascinated with the vastexpanse of space. You know, the
new pictures that just came out fromthe James Webb Telescope. Yes, just
unbelievable. What a tiny, littledot we are, and so yeah,
I love watching stuff like that.Yeah, I love Space documentaries as well,
(39:34):
and pretty much any documentary, butI enjoy the fly on the wall
kind of style, which is whyI think I like your podcast because it's
very similar to that let the lettingthe story tell itself rather than try and
force it. Yeah, so wedidn't really get into Eric's episode too much.
(39:58):
I should ask if there's maybe anybehind the scenes. I know you
said that he lived, or theincident happened just thirty minutes from where you
live. Is there anything that didn'tcome up in the actual episode that you
think would be interesting to mention?Ah Man, that episode was from a
(40:24):
couple of years ago, at least, I think. I don't know exactly.
I'd have to look up and seewhen it initially went live, But
and it was long enough ago that, knowing that I would be talking with
you about it today, I listenedto it again and I just love that
(40:45):
episode because for a variety of factors. One is that Eric is a really
good storyteller. He got into thedetails and yet he kept moving. It
was he really know how to crafta story, and I was able to
get the nine one one audio.You know, the intruder that came into
(41:07):
his house had already tried to getinto two other houses, and each of
those people had called nine one one, and I got the audio for each
of those people, so I wasable to insert that nine one one audio
in the story as Eric was tellingit like it went when he went to
(41:30):
the first house, then he wentto the second house, and then so
so it just worked out perfectly froma timeline standpoint. And and the other
thing is nobody else has has everhad Eric tell this story. I found
him on Reddit and I approached himabout coming on the podcast, and he
(41:52):
agreed to do it. But thisis a story that no other podcast has
ever done. You know, there'slots of true crime pod casts, and
if you listen to a lot ofthem, you'll hear the same stories over
and over all, the you know, the the nationally known ones that you
know, Ted Bundy, and youknow other stories that were with names that
(42:13):
everyone would recognize. But Eric toldthe story on my podcast, and he
doesn't want to talk about it anymore. So my show is the only place
where you can hear that story.And that's that's pretty special. Yeah,
that's really that's really cool. That'ssomething that I I wish more podcasts would
(42:37):
do, is especially in true crime, because there's literally probably about one hundred
crimes every day that are really interestingto happen, and yet we tell the
same maybe two dozen stories over andover. Right, Yeah, you hear
the same ones on the different podcasts, and you know, each host has
(42:58):
their own commentary. And not todowngrade those shows. I mean people people
love those shows. They have alot of listeners, but yeah, I
like hearing the ones that nobody's heardbefore. So the nine one one calls
getting access to those, how didyou did you have to get in touch
with the county clark for those nineone one calls? Yeah, that's kind
(43:21):
of tricky because it's different for everylocal city or county. In some places
like here in my here in mylocal county, if you have a nine
one one audio and it includes anykind of medical information, like for example,
(43:46):
if someone says, yes, theperson is bleeding, well, they're
not going to release that nine oneone audio because of hippah regulations. Now
in other places doesn't matter. Anynine one one audio is public information.
You just have to know how torequest it, and they sometimes they charge
(44:07):
for it, like, you know, just to do the research and send
you the Sometimes they'll send it ona CD by mail. Sometimes they send
it by email as an attached file. So I've kind of you have to
be adaptable because every like, like, there was one incident in Tennessee that
I wanted to get the nine oneone audio, and yet this person in
(44:30):
this particular jurisdiction said, oh,you have to be a resident of Tennessee
in order to get that audio.So I had to contact one of my
friends in Tennessee to get that audioand send it to me. But yet
in others, no problem, we'llsend it to you, and in other
places, no, that's we don'trelease that audio at all. So it
(44:52):
just kind of depends on where ithappened and what local m agency that you're
dealing with. I got really lucky, i'll tell you, with the very
first episode with Jennifer, who shepulled into an intersection and motorcycle came up
that she didn't realize was coming andhe ran into her car and he ended
(45:15):
up dying. And I got thenine one one audio from her at the
scene as she's there in the streetwith this motorcycle writer who ended up dying.
And when I first contacted the jurisdictionthere in Texas, that's where it
happened. The person that I contactedsaid, Okay, I'll check and see
(45:38):
if we have that, but ifthere's any personal information, like somebody gave
their phone number or somebody said theirname or something like that, then we
can't release it. And a fewdays later, or maybe a week later,
I got that CD in the mail, and what had happened is,
(45:58):
yes, there was on that recordingthere were people who made calls who gave
their phone number or they said theirname, but the person in that office
that sent that CD had redacted thatinformation. Rather than saying, hey,
I can't send you this. Weyou know, we just can't do it,
they had gone to the trouble ofbleeping that information out and then sending
(46:24):
me the redacted version. So Igot really lucky on that, and so
I sent that person a Starbucks giftcard just for how to gratitude. So,
especially for my first episode, thatwas a really good thing to have
happened. For Eric's episode, specifically, it was that when a challenge or
(46:45):
did they did you get a CDby mail for that one it wasn't at
all. I don't remember how theysent it, either by email or by
physical mail, but no, itwasn't. I just requested all of the
nine one one calls that were pretendingto that particular incident, and and they
just send it to me. Sosome more general questions about podcasts. If
(47:08):
and I want to kind of focusthis a little bit towards maybe other aspiring
podcasters or people who already have theirown show, what advice would you give?
Do you have any general advice forsomebody who wants to make a true
crime I know you're not a truecrime show, but maybe storytelling something similar
(47:30):
documentary style. Sure, Yeah,I would love to give encouragement to people
who are starting a podcast now.It's I think we're still in the infancy
of podcasting and there's a lot ofa lot of big shows, shows that
will be really big, that haven'teven started yet. But what I would
(47:54):
tell people just starting out now isto manage your expectation. Don't don't think
you can start a podcast and thensix months later quite your job. It's
not. It doesn't happen that way. You need to deliver quality content and
(48:14):
be consistent about it, like frommy show, it's every other Friday,
every two weeks, and for fouryears, I've never missed a Friday when
I'm supposed to deliver an episode andallow three years to get traction, to
get a substantial audience. So,if you're going to go three years talking
(48:37):
about some kind of topic or whateveryour podcast is about, whether it's true
crime or the local sports team,or movie reviews or whatever it is,
whatever you're talking about, you've gotto be passionate about it enough that you're
going to talk about it for threeyears and not have any kind of substantial
(49:01):
audience. But once you've done thatconsistently, if it's good content and it's
and it's something that people are interestedin, people will find that show.
Of course, you've got to promoteit too. I spend a lot of
time promoting, and I've done alot of even non traditional type of promotions,
(49:23):
and you got to do that too. It's a lot of work.
You know, what's the most nontraditional type of promo you've done? Most
people? When you if you livein a city or even like a small
town or something, there's a localcity commission and the city commission meetings here
(49:44):
in my town which is Safety Harbor, Florida, their public anyone can go
and speak if you're a resident ofthe city. I mean, they'll have
their agenda to talk about, likecertain code enforcements and building permits and whatever
else they want talk about. Butthere's a certain a segment of each City
(50:05):
Commission meeting monthly where they'll say,Okay, who wants to who's gonna who's
gonna come up and speak? Theygive you three minutes. You say your
name, your address, that youlive in the city, and then you
got three minutes to talk about it. And you know what, I talk
about my podcast. I've only donethat once. But the thing is a
(50:28):
lot of people, a lot ofpodcasts think or hosts. I think I
need to find that big thing,that big thing that's going to give me
a big break. I'm going tobe written up in the New York Times
and that's what I'm going to getthousands of new listeners all at once.
But that's not the way it works. The way you build a big audience,
it always happens a few listeners ata time. So when I'm talking
(50:53):
about my podcast in front of theCity Commission here in Safety Harbor, Florida,
which is a population of about seventeenthousand people. Not many people are
gonna well, first of all,not many people even listen to podcasts.
They're not even gonna know what I'mtalking about. And then some people aren't
(51:13):
going to be listening or interested inwhat my topic is. But you know,
some people are going to watch thatmeeting and think, wow, I
listen to podcasts. Wow, he'stalking about somebody that got shot in a
mass shooting and they're telling that storyfirsthand. Okay, yeah, I would
think I'd like to listen to that. And you just get a few at
(51:36):
a time, A few new listenersat a time is is all that it
takes. And you just have tokeep doing that consistently over time. And
if you can do that and you'vegot content that people want to hear,
then you're going to have a successfulshow. If you could go back,
(51:57):
specifically to yourself and give yourself adviceback in twenty eighteen, before you made
your first episode, what is thereanything you would choose to tell yourself.
I had the advantage when I startedthis podcast. I had already done two
podcasts prior to this, so Iwas starting with some experience, and so
(52:25):
that kind of gave me the abilityto I know how to make a podcast.
But one thing I would start withfrom the beginning, and I should
have known this already, is tostart an email list from the very beginning
of when you start your podcast,because you know, you can have I've
(52:46):
got a Facebook group, but youknow, Facebook, I don't own that.
Facebook could shut down that group endtime. But if I've got an
email list of listeners, I canI own that. I can always email
those people and let them know,Hey, I got a new episode coming
out, you know, I gotthis going on or whatever. And so
(53:07):
I've done that. Now I've onlygot a you know, three or four
hundred people on that list now,but that's something that I will continue to
grow, and I wish I wouldhave started that at the beginning. Just
from a technical side, do youwhat do you use for your email lists,
like mail champ or something like that. Now, I use a service
(53:30):
called a webber, which is veryyou know, it's very well known.
I've in the beginning my first podcastwas for my business, which is a
computer services business, and so I'veused a webber for that email list for
a long time, probably ten fifteenyears, and so I just naturally use
(53:52):
them for my podcast email list aswell. Last question, what is the
weirdest story you've covered? I don'teven have to think about that one.
It's one that's the title of theepisode. Is Shiny ate his own foot?
(54:12):
Have you heard that one? Ihaven't heard it, but I've seen
It's caught my eye. It's onthe list. Yeah, you got you
gotta go do that one. Thisis Shiny is obviously a fake name.
He didn't want to use his realname, but yet I still verified everything,
just like I do with every episode. He has a group of friends
(54:34):
and for a long time they wouldjust talk, you know, like friends
do. And one of the questionsthat would come up sometimes is if you
had the opportunity to taste human fleshand it was legal and ethical and even
(54:57):
healthy, would you do it?And he and his friends would often say,
yeah, sure, I'd try that, why not, knowing obviously it's
never gonna happen. Well, lateron, Shiny had a motorcycle accident.
He was put in the hospital andhe had to have his foot amputated,
(55:22):
and as he was leaving the hospital, he said, hey, can I
have my foot back and they hadkept it like in a refrigerator or something,
and they had paperwork for him tosign, you know, disclaimers and
stuff like that, but they gavehim his foot back. And so he
(55:44):
got back home and he started makingphone calls to his friends saying, hey,
remember that conversation we had about tastinghuman flesh and that kind of stuff.
And he asked him and they said, yeah, let's do it.
So they arranged a brunch and theycalled it foot tacos. And one of
(56:10):
his friends is a chef, sohe cooked it all up and it wasn't
like a full meal, but theyeach had, you know, a little
square of Shinese foot and they allhad some. And you know, it's
funny because some of my listeners tellme, I've listened to all your back
(56:32):
episodes, but that's the only one. I just can't listen to that one
because they think it's going to begory or gross or you know, but
it's it's really not. Shiny himselfis a very well spoken person. He's
an educated person. I got theimpression that he's probably a white collar professional.
And it all it's all presented ina very it makes it makes logical
(57:00):
sense, not that I would tryit or you would try it, but
he has. He has a groupof interesting friends and they tried it and
it was made for a very interestingstory. I need a group of friends
like that. That's pretty close friends. Wow. Uh well, yeah,
(57:22):
I think that that about does it. Thank you so much Scott for coming
on the show. And I wantto urge everybody go subscribe to What Was
That Like? And you can alsogo to Scott's website What Was That Like?
Dot Com? Is there anything elseyou want to plug while you're here
(57:43):
with us? I don't have anythingelse to plug. I haven't written a
book. You know. What Iwould encourage people to do is join the
Facebook group. We've got about notquite three thousand people in our Facebook group
and so we uh you know,and these are all the Nurse of course,
so we talk about the most recentepisodes, but we talk about all
kinds of other stuff too, interestingquestions and you know, topics of the
(58:07):
day and that kind of thing.And we never talk politics. So it's
a it's a great place to comein and talk to other people about all
kinds of stuff. And that's atWhat Was That Like? Dot Com slash
Facebook. So go listen to whatwas that like? Subscribe to Scotch Show,
make sure you catch his episode inour feed or just go listen to
(58:30):
it on his feed. And nextepisode we have coming up for you guys
is one from an Australian across thePond Apple for the Teacher, So stick
around for that one next week andwe will see you guys next time
Scott Johnson is the hosting creator ofa show called What Was That Like.
He's interviewed everyone from insomniacs to bearmulling victims to people convicted of murder.
Scott started the show in July oftwenty eighteen and now has over one hundred
episodes. On listen Notes, theshow is listed in the top point five
(00:32):
percent of all podcasts worldwide. Inthe episode we featured in our feed,
a man named Eric came face toface with a home intruder. In out
of self defense, Eric stabbed theman, who later died from these wounds.
Scott, thank you so much forjoining us today. Thanks Jezy,
I'm delighted to be here. Beforewe talk about your show, could you
(00:55):
tell us a little bit about yourselfwhere you grew up, maybe a little
about your childhood. Sure. Yeah, it was kind of interesting the way
my parents met. My dad wasGerman and he lived in Berlin and was
working as a professional snake handler,and my mom was a She was a
US citizen, but she traveled toBerlin just by chance for the This was
(01:19):
in nineteen fifty six for the nineteenfifty six International Trombone Championships and incidentally,
she was the reigning trombone queen fortwo years in a row. So they
met and they got married and movedback to the US, and I was
born shortly after that, and Igrew up in sort of a community living
facility with a few dozen other familieswhere we all kind of slept in one
(01:44):
big bed and bathed in the nearbyriver. And one disclaimer, none of
that's true, but it's got togrill on the snake candle. It just
sounds more interesting. Then. Yeah, I grew up with my parents and
my two younger brothers in central Ohio. But that's kind of boring, you
(02:06):
know. Do you like snakes?Well, actually we actually, quite a
while ago we had a pet snake. It was actually my son's. But
yeah, I'm okay with snakes.I mean, you know, they don't
they don't really bother me. Ihad a snake in college. I love
snakes. Pretty cool, all right. So you started the show in July
(02:30):
twenty eighteen? Is that right today? That is correct, the fourth of
July twenty eighteen. Oh nice.So your first episode was about a woman
who was involved in a fatal trafficaccident. In fact, I think she
caused the accident. Yes, backback then, did you think the show
would be as successful as it istoday? I had an idea. You
(02:53):
know, obviously, everyone when theystart a podcast thinks, oh man,
this is gonna be a great show. People are gonna love this, and
then unfortunately that that's just not howit works out for a lot of them.
But of course, yeah, Ihad an idea because really just based
on the idea that people love hearingstories and that's just such a fundamental basic
(03:19):
thing in humans. At least itis for me, and I know it
is for a lot of people.And that's what this whole show is about,
is, you know, really interestingand bizarre stories. And it's even
better because they're all true. Iverify all of them. Growing up,
did you have an interest in Idon't know if you call it storytelling or
(03:42):
that kind of medium kind of butI would say, like going through high
school and thinking about, you know, what I wanted to do, I
was pretty fascinated with radio and likebroadcast radio and being on the air and
things like that. A matter offact, at age sixteen, I got
(04:06):
my ham radio license, so Iwould be set up in my bedroom at
home with my radio equipment and communicatingwith other amateur radio operators operators throughout the
world. And yeah, girls lovethat. They really dig that stuff.
(04:26):
Well, you got a voice madefor radio. Man, it's a really
good voice, thank you. Inever thought that before before. People have
told me that since I've started podcasting, but I that's that was That's probably
one of the biggest surprises that I'veever had, is people say, Wow,
your voice is really good for podcasting. But you know, even when
(04:46):
everybody starts a podcast, nobody likesto hear the sound of their own voice,
right, that's just universal. Ihad the same thing. You know,
I don't. I don't hear ittoo often, but I people say
they do like the sound of myvoice. It always was a surprise.
Yeah, it's very good. Yoursjust a good release too. So the
first episode that you did with thetraffic accident, it has some similarities to
(05:12):
the episode we featured with both peopledealing with some level of guilts involved in
the death of another person. Hasthat theme come up often? Well,
it's come up a few times.I really my fundamental thing is and I
what I find makes a good episodeis when the guest is really as they're
(05:40):
telling the story, they're okay withbeing vulnerable, and and they just get
to that sort of a raw emotionas they relive that story. And you
know, I mean a lot ofyeah, a lot of my episodes involve
death, um and some kind ofmaybe some kind of other kind of tragedy
(06:04):
or loss, or in some casesit's happiness, you know. But what
I what I really enjoy is reallygetting down to the the deep emotional telling
of a story. And you know, in some cases that involves death.
(06:25):
And I'm okay with a how'd youcome up for the name of the show?
I mean, it's very straightforward,but was there something that inspired that
name? Well, it's really it'smy own curiosity is what drives the show.
Like, you know, if Iwas if I would just happen to
be out somewhere or you know,at a dinner party or something, and
(06:46):
and I happened to be seated nextto someone and that person happened to say,
yeah, one time I was skydivingand I crashed. Well, I'm
going to be full of question forthat person because I want to know,
you know, how did that happen? What you know, was it an
accident, did you were you jumpingand you were it was too early for
(07:09):
you to solo jump, or youknow, all kinds of act of questions
that I'd want to ask that person. And that's really the fundamental question in
all of that is what was thatlike? You know, you went through
something that most people have never gonethrough, and so the question what was
that like? Just that's just whatcame to my mind. And from a
(07:30):
practical standpoint, the domain name whatwas that like? Dot com was available,
so that kind of sealed the deal. What are some of the biggest
challenges you've faced in creating the show. Well, initially, I would say
probably the biggest challenge was finding gueststhat I would that would have a story
that I would want to come onthe podcast. I really got lucky with
(07:56):
the first episode and Jennifer and because, I mean, at that point,
I had nothing to show her.I had no past episodes for her to
know how I would handle her story. I mean, I could tell her
I'm not you know, I'm nottelling the story. I don't want you
to tell the story just for theshock value of it. I want to
I want people to hear or tofeel empathy for her, And so she
(08:20):
was just trusting me that it wasgoing to be something that she would be
happy to be okay with after itgoes live. But other than that,
I, you know, finding guestswas kind of difficult in the beginning.
I made a list when I started. I made a list of people who
I wanted to talk to, likesomebody who got struck by lightning and somebody
(08:41):
who was maybe rescued from a burninghouse or you know, just really odd
situations like that, And then Iwent looking for news stories that matched those
those topics. And these days,you know, a lot of the stories
come to me. But one ofthe other challenges is it's so awkward or
when I have to reject somebody's storythat they're pitching to me, because I
(09:05):
mean, they're talking about something thatwas a traumatic thing in their life.
But yet if it's not unusual enough, I have a really high standard on
you know, what I accept forstories, and even if something is super
traumatic, and you know, it'slike that's one reason I don't do stories
that are primarily medical. I don'twant to minimize that how terrible it was
(09:31):
for them to go through that.But yet there's stories like that are so
common that I just don't you dothat kind of story on the show.
Do you get like a lot ofemails with people wanting to tell their story
or messages or stuff? Yeah,yeah, I do. There's a form
on my website that where you cansubmit your story, and I put some
(09:52):
disclaimers on there about the stories thatI don't do, so so people don't
submit those. But yeah, Iget I get a lot of them.
A lot of the stories that Ihave now do come from the audience,
because you know, after four years, the audience is a lot bigger now
and there's more people, and people, you know, are more likely to
say, hey, wait a minute, I've got a story. It might
(10:13):
work, so so they send itin. And of course I don't want
to stop anybody from sending a storyeither, you know, I'd rather hear
the story and then decide if it'sgoing to work or not, as opposed
to somebody on their own saying yeah, that's not going to work, and
then it may may have been agood one. You never know. How
many um submissions do you think youget in a week or a month?
(10:35):
Oh boy, I would say ifyou thought about over a month's time,
probably dozens. Wow. So thathas to be hard. Do you respond
every email or do you yeah,eventually have to just wow, Yeah,
I do. I talk to anotherhost who also does a podcast where he
(11:00):
submissions from listeners, and he said, oh, yeah, if they if
they're not a if that's not agood story. I just deleted. I
don't even bother responding, but Idon't know. That just doesn't seem right.
My listeners are are really important tome, and I don't want to
alienate anyone. I'd still rather respond, even if it's to say sorry,
not a good fit, as opposedto just ignoring them. Maybe you know,
(11:22):
if I'm getting ten thousand emails aday, then maybe I won't be
able to do that, But fornow I still try to respond everyone.
Have you had any weird emails orfeedback from episodes you've put out? I
probably have, but nothing really comesto mind immediately. I actually didn't put
(11:48):
this in the questions I sent you, but I had I wanted to add
it in. I thought of ittoday. I had a really weird email
when we did the promo swap fromthe Bear Malling episode. Yeah, so
what was the email that you got? Okay, let me read it to
you. It's not it's not thatlong. I'm wanting to read the whole
(12:09):
thing. It's from a guy,Peter Bodine, but I think it's just
a throwaway account. He said,Oh my god, I listened to the
episode about the bear malling. Themiracle of this story is how much BS
can be packed into a single story. The disaster is that a person works
with such great effort to create astory presented as nonfiction. Is fiction?
(12:33):
Whoever the writer are, I worryfor the depth of depravity to which you
are seeking find a noose. Cheers. Okay, that's yeah, that's wow.
Wow. Yeah. Um. NowI do have um, I do
have some episodes that are they're bizarreenough that people have trouble believing that it
(12:58):
actually happened, And obviously that's whatthat person thought with it's I mean,
it's kind of hard to deny that. Yeah, I mean I personally spoke
with Dan. I mean it wasonline, but we could see each other
as at the same time we heardeach other, and he is indeed blind,
(13:24):
and I mean he wrote a wholebook about it. So but that's
you know, honestly, that doesn'tbother me. I had another another episode
that I put out early on,and there was big controversy about it in
the Facebook group, saying, Okay, there's no way this guy's making a
story up. But like I said, I verify this stuff. I saw
(13:46):
the police report, I saw youknow, I've just I've seen pictures of
the house where it happened, andI've checked it all out. And I'm
not asking when I when I verifystory worries, I don't ask for absolute
proof that every single detail of thestory happened, but just that the basics
(14:09):
of it actually happened. And sothat's and I have to do that.
And actually I've been unable to dosome stories because you know, it was
a while ago. We can verifystuff through a variety of ways, either
the nine one one, audio,a police report, an online story that
includes the person's name, or otherdocumentation, and if people aren't able to
(14:35):
provide any of that and it's justunverifiable at all, then I just don't
do the episode. So so yeah, if somebody says, come on,
that's not true, I don't reallycare. I know it's true, and
we're fine with that. Yeah,that's what I thought about the Paramolling one,
and it had me thinking, Iwas like, is there any chance
(14:58):
that's not real? And I looked, I mean, there's no question in
my mind that that's you know,like, like you said, you can't
verify every single little detail, butthe major events of the story you don't
seem to be in question whatsoever.I had a similar email of well,
(15:20):
not not similar to this, buta woman who wanted to tell her story
about being abducted by a serial killerin the seventies, and it just there
was no she couldn't provide anything thatwould be verification. And did he attack
her in like a public park Itmight have been I think I heard from
(15:46):
her as well. Yeah, yeah, she might have been making the rounds.
And one of the things she askedright away was how big my audience
was and how many people she couldreach. And it seemed like it was
just hard to if there had beenany like you're saying, a newspaper clip
being a police report something, butwithout any evidence, it's hard to give
(16:07):
that person a time, you know. Yeah, yeah, I've had some
guests, like there was one ladywho had just moved into an apartment and
a murder happened right out in frontof you know, practically on the sidewalk
of where she just moved into.And she actually went to the library and
got went to the micro fish machineand got the newspaper article from that day
(16:33):
that that proved you know, thatthat that's that it was true. So
she went all to the trouble,all that to that trouble Tom to demonstrate
that, yeah, it really happened. And you know when people do that,
obviously it's uh, you know,it's legitimate. Yeah. Could I
ask before we go on, couldI ask what that story was that caused
(16:55):
the little bit of controversy in theFacebook? Yeah, it was the title
of the episode was Tyson was abductedand this is about Have you heard that
one? I haven't? No,Okay, Yeah, this was Tyson was
working in an electronic store and heleft one night, left work and was
(17:15):
walking through the dark parking lot toget to his car, and he before
he got to his car, hewas approached by a couple of guys in
a land rover and they grabbed him, threw him in the land rover and
took him. They tied him upand took him to this house and he
(17:36):
was beaten, tortured all kinds ofreally bad stuff, and other people came
and did stuff at this house,and there were other people that were held
there as hostage as well. Hewas held there for a year and a
half before he was able to escape. And so yeah, it's a crazy
(17:59):
story. But wow, what wasthat just sadism or was there any motive
like for money or there wasn't.Well, the guy that was kind of
in charge kind of saw himself assort of some kind of a cult leader
or something. There was there wassome mental illness involved there, I think,
But yeah, yeah, it's ait's a weird one. Okay,
(18:25):
So this relates to a little bitabout the turning down stories. But if
you had to estimate for every storythat you publish, how many do you
think you have to turn down?I don't know about specific numbers, but
I would say probably it's a ninetypercent rejection, right, And well,
(18:47):
I don't know if this is agood question, but I'll ask it anyways,
if you had to pick one storyyou turned down, not saying you
are going to make an episode outof one story you turned down, but
if you had to pick one,is there one you would choose? Yeah?
There was one that um, Iwas gonna. I was gonna make
it. I was going to dothe episode, and eventually just decided,
(19:07):
Nope, not going to do it. This was a man whose wife had
accused him of pedophilia and uh andformally accused him of sexually attacking their own
four young children. We'll be rightback after this commercial break, formally accused
(19:33):
him of sexually attacking their own fouryoung children, and he was and he
was he was innocent of all ofthese charges. It came out later in
proving proving his innocence in multiple ways, but at the time, he ended
(19:55):
up being convicted and he spent aboutfour years in prison, but then he
was he was exonerated later. Andthere was just too many things that went
wrong with this particular episode. Hehad all kinds of computer problems. He
couldn't he couldn't get the microphone towork right, and his computer was kind
(20:18):
of all messed up. And thenwe got all that figured out, and
then we set a time to recordand he didn't show up, and so
I said, Okay, I've gottwo or three hours invested in this.
I can't keep going. I wouldhave loved to do with a story,
but it just it's one of thosethings it didn't work out, and I'm
in a very fortunate position now thatI've got I'm kind of overloaded with guests
(20:42):
and prospective stories that I don't reallyI don't really mind saying, Okay,
I'm cutting my losses and onto thenext one. But it would have been
a good story though. Well thatleads into are there any stories you're actively
looking for? Oh? Definitely,yeah, I've got I've got an ongoing
(21:03):
list that uh yeah, I gotit right up here on my computer.
I'll read it to you. Here'swho I'm looking for. I'm looking for
someone, and this has been fora long time. This person someone who's
survived falling off a cruise ship whileit was under way, and unfortunately,
you know, when that happens,they usually don't survive. So that's why,
probably why I haven't found that personyet. Looking for someone who had
(21:26):
a small child kidnapped by a nonfamily member, someone who was in a
pass was a passenger on a trainthat went over a cliff. Someone who
forgot a baby in their car liketheir own child. You know that happens
here in Florida. Sometimes it's it'sreally hot, and you know, the
(21:48):
parent is just thinking about other thingsand they get out and go in the
house and don't realize that the baby'sstill in the car, and that usually
has pretty tragic consequences, someone whoover their own child or grandchild. And
I was actually just made contact withsomeone in the last couple of days that
that happened. Someone who was apassenger in a car when it was hit
(22:12):
by a train. Let's see,someone who was not an air an airplane
pilot, but was on a flightwhere the pilot had a problem and they
had to land the plane. Andthat just happened recently, like just a
few weeks ago. So I'm workingon contacting a person that that happened to.
(22:34):
Someone who was trapped in rubble fora day or two after an earthquake
and then got rescued. Looking fora prison employee who was in charge of
executions, a non firefighter who raninto a burning building and rescued someone,
someone who was left at the altar, and one who inherited an island or
(23:03):
castle from an unknown relative. Ithink that would be an interesting story.
Oh, that's great. How doyou just kind of whenever you think of
something that you think would be interesting, you drop it down or how did
you come up with the list?Yeah, that's exactly right. That's just
an ongoing list that every once ina while I'll think of something that's like,
wow, yeah, that would beinteresting, let's put that on the
list. Well, that's cool.It's like your bucket, your podcast bucket
(23:27):
list. Yeah. So I wantto get into the episode we featured called
Eric Killed an Intruder, And beforewe get into talking about it, I
want to urge anybody who's listening tothe interview right now, if you haven't
heard that episode, go back andlisten to it. Probably be some spoilers
(23:48):
in here for it, spoilers kindof in the title, but it should
be the one right before this onein your feed. So pause the show,
go listen. So, Scott,how did you hear about Eric's story?
Was this one you sought out ordid he come to you with it?
Well, it's kind of interesting.I didn't remember how I heard about
(24:10):
Eric's story, so I had togo and look it up in my records,
and I initially found this story onReddit, which is where I've gotten
a few stories. Sometimes people onReddit will do an ama. Are you
familiar with that? Yeah? Yeah, ask me anything, and they come
on and say, Hey, thisweird thing happened to me. Ask me
anything, and people come on andask him questions. Well, I don't
(24:33):
know if Eric did an AMA.He may have commented on some other post
or something, but he had mentionedabout this thing happening, and so that's
how I initially contacted him. Butby coincidence, he lives and this story
happened nearby where I live, youknow, probably twenty thirty minutes away from
(24:55):
from my house. Oh well,did you get to interview him in person?
I have never done any interview inperson. All of my interviews are
online using a service called Squadcast,and I've done it that way ever since
from the beginning. And I knowhow to control, I know how to
I know how it works, Iknow how to handle the audio quality and
(25:19):
the recording aspect, and I probablyat some point I'll probably eventually do an
in person interview. But it's justeverything's different. You know, You've got
to have each person has to havetheir own mic, and I've got to
have something to record with, andwhen you do it online, it just
everything is so much smoother. Soyou did a lot of research for that
(25:42):
episode, and at one part youwere you were telling Eric a little bit
about the well I wrote down victim, but he was kind of they were
kind of too. He was moreof the perpetrator. He was how how
long do you generally spend preparing foreach interview and in that one specifically,
(26:04):
how long did you spend researching that? I couldn't tell you an exact number
on that particular one, but Ido a lot of research. It's like,
uh, you know, when theysay for an attorney when you're in
court, don't ask a question thatyou don't already know the answer to.
And that's kind of the way itis when I'm talking to somebody on the
(26:26):
show. I already know what happened, and for the most part, I
try to just let them tell thestory. But you know, I sometimes
I have to ask leading questions andyou know, to kind of direct the
conversation. So if someone has writtena book about their experience, like there
(26:48):
was like Bill Mitchell, he's arecent guest who's his daughter was murdered by
her boyfriend and he's written a bookabout this because his his cause now,
his mission is to bring awareness todating violence. And so I before I
would even get on the interview withhim, I read his book because that
(27:12):
has so many details in it,and it would it helps me kind of
shape the conversation and you know,guide the direction of the conversation and figure
out, you know, which thingsI want to talk about, which things
I want the guests to talk about. And so, yeah, I do
a lot of research, and yeah, it takes a lot of time,
(27:33):
but I think it really it reallypays off. In Eric's episode, he
talks about stabbing this intruder and itwas one of those moments in the interview
where kind of how you're saying beforeyou really want to get the vulnerability or
(27:55):
that kind of like it was veryraw and very honest when he was in
that moment, describing that when youwhen you reach that moment, is that
something that you have kind of crafted, like you're saying with the questions leading
up to it, And do youfind yourself often having to adapt in the
(28:15):
moment with new questions or just couldyou speak a little bit about that.
Yeah, I'm always open to adaptingto the story. That's one of the
problems with interview podcasts is that thethe host will have a list of questions
(28:37):
and they just have to go downthat list and that's all they know,
and they just have to go bythat script. I definitely don't want to
do that. If if something,if the guests is telling the story and
they mentioned something that really piques mycuriosity, one thing I can be sure
(29:00):
of is that the listeners are alsocurious about what was just said, and
they have questions like I have questions, and so, you know, forget
the list, forget the list ofquestions I have in front of me.
I want to know about, Wow, what you just said? What you
know? And I really want todig into that deeper. And so,
(29:22):
yeah, the guidelines that I havein front of me when I'm talking to
someone is they're just that guidelines.It's not something that I always have to
stick to, and I kind oflet the guests go on and tell the
story. You know, some peopletend to kind of ramble and they get
off on tangents and stuff like that, and that's fine. I let them
(29:45):
do that because I know if Ineed to later on, I can edit
out some of that if it's notreally directly pertaining to the story. But
I don't want to interrupt them andsay, okay, wait, a minute.
Stop, You're you're going off ona tangent that's not really what we
want to talk about. And becausenow they're gonna they're gonna feel self conscious,
(30:06):
like, oh okay, I messedup. And because the people I
talk to don't normally get interviewed.They're only on my podcast because this one
weird thing happened to them and sothey're not used to being interviewed or or
some of them don't do public speaking. This isn't what they're used to.
So they're already outside their comfort zone. And so I want to keep them
(30:30):
feeling as comfortable as possible. Andso yeah, I let them. I
let them do do what they want. And I mean I try to kind
of keep it, not not togo completely off the rails. But um,
I guess that does that answer thequestion I kind of got off with
that answer that format. Is thatsomething that's evolved or have you pretty much
(30:56):
kept the same kind of format fromthe from the start. I kind of
had that idea from the start.But you know, it's funny. I
did an episode with I don't rememberthe guest's name, but it was someone
who fell through the ice and hewas alone and there was a person in
(31:19):
a house just you know, thiswas over in Finland. I think that
this happened, and this guy wasby himself. He fell through some ice
out in the middle of a bigbody of water and he was not going
to make it. But this personthat was in a house a long ways
away happened to be looking and seesomeone go down through the ice, and
(31:41):
so they told their son or somebodyto get on the snowmobile go out and
check on this person. And that'show this person, that's how my guest
survived. And after that episode,I got and I think it was an
email maybe in a Facebook message froma listener who was offering some advice,
(32:05):
and it was really good advice.The advice was just let the listener tell
the story. Don't interrupt is notthe right word, because I don't really
I don't want to. I nevertried to interrupt people while they're telling it.
But the idea was fewer questions fromthe host, more story the from
(32:30):
the guest. And that was reallygood advice. And I've taken that and
kind of expanded on it, andnow I get a lot of comments or
a lot of feedback saying, wow, it's so great. The way you
just let the guests tell the storyand you don't interrupt with questions all the
(32:52):
time. Well that's what people hear. But sometimes I do interrupt with questions.
But when I'm editing that audio later, if the guest has answered that
question in a way that makes itpossible, what I'll do is just edit
(33:13):
out my question. So it justsounds like the guest is continuing to tell
the story because you know, Icould ask them something and then they're answering
the question and continuing to tell thestory. My question isn't really necessary.
People can still hear the whole storywithout hearing me ask that particular question.
(33:34):
It doesn't always work that way withevery question, but when I'm editing a
show, now, whenever it's possible, I edit myself out because people didn't
come to the show, they don'tsubscribe to the show to hear me.
They want to hear the story fromthe guest, and so that's what I
really try to focus on. Yeah, that's interesting. How much how long
(34:00):
do you think you spend on editingeach episode till a long time? Yeah,
that's that's the longest process. BecauseI do what I call a surgical
edit. So if a guest,like I said, most of these people
don't get interviewed, and so theyhave crutch words like they maybe they'll say,
(34:21):
you know, or um or inbetween each sentence it's end um and
then they go on. I tryto edit out a lot of that so
that it's not distracting from the story. Not all of it, but I
try to get that out and sothat that takes a long time, but
(34:42):
to me, it's time well spent. I think it's worth it because it
makes them sound much better than theymay have you know, when they were
actually telling the story. You doa really good job. Because I listening,
I think editing is one of thosethings that if it's done well,
you don't notice it. And yeah, that's true. Listening to your episodes,
(35:08):
I've thought at times, Wow,he just takes this audio and it's
just like, what a lucky guy. He just gets these people who tell
these stories perfectly. And so it'sit's kind of reassuring, at least from
a creator fellow creator standpoint that Okay, you're you're spending some time polishing this
(35:28):
up so that uh, and itsounds great. It doesn't sound like it
did is heavily edited, Well,I try. You got to leave some
of that stuff in just to makeit sound natural. You know, it's
like taking out breath noises. Somesome podcast hosts do that. But then
if it's if you don't hear peoplebreathe, it sounds it just doesn't sound
(35:52):
natural, right, And so Iwanted to sound very natural, but yet
you know without you know, thefunny thing is when people, if people
that have a lot of crutch hoords, like if somebody says, you know,
every other sentence. When I'm talkingto him and actually doing the interview,
I don't hear any of that.I don't even notice it. But
(36:13):
when I'm editing, I'm thinking,man, this person really said that a
lot. How did I not hearthat when I was talking to them?
But it's just it's weird. Idon't I'm so focused on the story itself
and the content that I don't notice, you know, the speech problems.
So but yeah, I just Iwant to make them sound as good as
(36:37):
possible, and that means they're morelikely to share that episode if they sound
really good. It's one of thosethings, you know. Public speaking is
not something that people are comfortable doing. And I feel really fortunate that the
guests on my show have come onnot only to speak, but to really
(36:58):
talk about a really, a reallytraumatic thing that they've gone through. And
I don't take that privilege lightly.I totally understand what you're saying too.
And in editing these interviews that likethe one we're doing right now, I
am listening a lot back to myown voice, and I never realize how
many times I said um and yeahin the actual interview like you're saying.
(37:22):
I don't notice it at all.And then you know, my own show
is scripted, so there's not toomuch of that when I'm recording my show.
So in these interviews, it's beena a eye opener to realize how
many Crutch were to like and mare definitely mine. Yep, it's very
(37:44):
common. Speaking of inspirations, itseems like you would be a fan of
documentaries, and if you are,do you have favorites? I do.
I like watching documentaries. The onethat I watched not too long ago,
well, I guess I spent afew months ago, now was there was
one called My Octopus Teacher. Haveyou seen that? I haven't. It
(38:08):
sounds interesting. It's on Netflix.And I heard a lot of good things
about it people on Facebook stuff likethat. They're they're saying, man,
you gotta watch this, and Ididn't. Really, I don't really,
I don't watch any TV. Theonly time I watch anything like on Netflix
is when I go to bed.I have like an hour that you know,
(38:28):
I go to bed, I've gotmy iPad, my dogs are in
bed with me, and I watchedlike an hour. I'll probably watch like
Shark Tank or like the I justfinished the most recent season of Alone and
I didn't. I don't that thattime is so limited. I don't want
to waste it on something I'm notgonna like. And this documentary called My
(38:52):
Octopus Teacher. It just sounded likeit was going to be kind of silly,
but man, it was amazing.I would watch it again probably,
But yeah, that's as far asa documentary, that's one that I would
highly recommend. And I like watchinganything that's on space exploration. I just
(39:13):
I'm just totally fascinated with the vastexpanse of space. You know, the
new pictures that just came out fromthe James Webb Telescope. Yes, just
unbelievable. What a tiny, littledot we are, and so yeah,
I love watching stuff like that.Yeah, I love Space documentaries as well,
(39:34):
and pretty much any documentary, butI enjoy the fly on the wall
kind of style, which is whyI think I like your podcast because it's
very similar to that let the lettingthe story tell itself rather than try and
force it. Yeah, so wedidn't really get into Eric's episode too much.
(39:58):
I should ask if there's maybe anybehind the scenes. I know you
said that he lived, or theincident happened just thirty minutes from where you
live. Is there anything that didn'tcome up in the actual episode that you
think would be interesting to mention?Ah Man, that episode was from a
(40:24):
couple of years ago, at least, I think. I don't know exactly.
I'd have to look up and seewhen it initially went live, But
and it was long enough ago that, knowing that I would be talking with
you about it today, I listenedto it again and I just love that
(40:45):
episode because for a variety of factors. One is that Eric is a really
good storyteller. He got into thedetails and yet he kept moving. It
was he really know how to crafta story, and I was able to
get the nine one one audio.You know, the intruder that came into
(41:07):
his house had already tried to getinto two other houses, and each of
those people had called nine one one, and I got the audio for each
of those people, so I wasable to insert that nine one one audio
in the story as Eric was tellingit like it went when he went to
(41:30):
the first house, then he wentto the second house, and then so
so it just worked out perfectly froma timeline standpoint. And and the other
thing is nobody else has has everhad Eric tell this story. I found
him on Reddit and I approached himabout coming on the podcast, and he
(41:52):
agreed to do it. But thisis a story that no other podcast has
ever done. You know, there'slots of true crime pod casts, and
if you listen to a lot ofthem, you'll hear the same stories over
and over all, the you know, the the nationally known ones that you
know, Ted Bundy, and youknow other stories that were with names that
(42:13):
everyone would recognize. But Eric toldthe story on my podcast, and he
doesn't want to talk about it anymore. So my show is the only place
where you can hear that story.And that's that's pretty special. Yeah,
that's really that's really cool. That'ssomething that I I wish more podcasts would
(42:37):
do, is especially in true crime, because there's literally probably about one hundred
crimes every day that are really interestingto happen, and yet we tell the
same maybe two dozen stories over andover. Right, Yeah, you hear
the same ones on the different podcasts, and you know, each host has
(42:58):
their own commentary. And not todowngrade those shows. I mean people people
love those shows. They have alot of listeners, but yeah, I
like hearing the ones that nobody's heardbefore. So the nine one one calls
getting access to those, how didyou did you have to get in touch
with the county clark for those nineone one calls? Yeah, that's kind
(43:21):
of tricky because it's different for everylocal city or county. In some places
like here in my here in mylocal county, if you have a nine
one one audio and it includes anykind of medical information, like for example,
(43:46):
if someone says, yes, theperson is bleeding, well, they're
not going to release that nine oneone audio because of hippah regulations. Now
in other places doesn't matter. Anynine one one audio is public information.
You just have to know how torequest it, and they sometimes they charge
(44:07):
for it, like, you know, just to do the research and send
you the Sometimes they'll send it ona CD by mail. Sometimes they send
it by email as an attached file. So I've kind of you have to
be adaptable because every like, like, there was one incident in Tennessee that
I wanted to get the nine oneone audio, and yet this person in
(44:30):
this particular jurisdiction said, oh,you have to be a resident of Tennessee
in order to get that audio.So I had to contact one of my
friends in Tennessee to get that audioand send it to me. But yet
in others, no problem, we'llsend it to you, and in other
places, no, that's we don'trelease that audio at all. So it
(44:52):
just kind of depends on where ithappened and what local m agency that you're
dealing with. I got really lucky, i'll tell you, with the very
first episode with Jennifer, who shepulled into an intersection and motorcycle came up
that she didn't realize was coming andhe ran into her car and he ended
(45:15):
up dying. And I got thenine one one audio from her at the
scene as she's there in the streetwith this motorcycle writer who ended up dying.
And when I first contacted the jurisdictionthere in Texas, that's where it
happened. The person that I contactedsaid, Okay, I'll check and see
(45:38):
if we have that, but ifthere's any personal information, like somebody gave
their phone number or somebody said theirname or something like that, then we
can't release it. And a fewdays later, or maybe a week later,
I got that CD in the mail, and what had happened is,
(45:58):
yes, there was on that recordingthere were people who made calls who gave
their phone number or they said theirname, but the person in that office
that sent that CD had redacted thatinformation. Rather than saying, hey,
I can't send you this. Weyou know, we just can't do it,
they had gone to the trouble ofbleeping that information out and then sending
(46:24):
me the redacted version. So Igot really lucky on that, and so
I sent that person a Starbucks giftcard just for how to gratitude. So,
especially for my first episode, thatwas a really good thing to have
happened. For Eric's episode, specifically, it was that when a challenge or
(46:45):
did they did you get a CDby mail for that one it wasn't at
all. I don't remember how theysent it, either by email or by
physical mail, but no, itwasn't. I just requested all of the
nine one one calls that were pretendingto that particular incident, and and they
just send it to me. Sosome more general questions about podcasts. If
(47:08):
and I want to kind of focusthis a little bit towards maybe other aspiring
podcasters or people who already have theirown show, what advice would you give?
Do you have any general advice forsomebody who wants to make a true
crime I know you're not a truecrime show, but maybe storytelling something similar
(47:30):
documentary style. Sure, Yeah,I would love to give encouragement to people
who are starting a podcast now.It's I think we're still in the infancy
of podcasting and there's a lot ofa lot of big shows, shows that
will be really big, that haven'teven started yet. But what I would
(47:54):
tell people just starting out now isto manage your expectation. Don't don't think
you can start a podcast and thensix months later quite your job. It's
not. It doesn't happen that way. You need to deliver quality content and
(48:14):
be consistent about it, like frommy show, it's every other Friday,
every two weeks, and for fouryears, I've never missed a Friday when
I'm supposed to deliver an episode andallow three years to get traction, to
get a substantial audience. So,if you're going to go three years talking
(48:37):
about some kind of topic or whateveryour podcast is about, whether it's true
crime or the local sports team,or movie reviews or whatever it is,
whatever you're talking about, you've gotto be passionate about it enough that you're
going to talk about it for threeyears and not have any kind of substantial
(49:01):
audience. But once you've done thatconsistently, if it's good content and it's
and it's something that people are interestedin, people will find that show.
Of course, you've got to promoteit too. I spend a lot of
time promoting, and I've done alot of even non traditional type of promotions,
(49:23):
and you got to do that too. It's a lot of work.
You know, what's the most nontraditional type of promo you've done? Most
people? When you if you livein a city or even like a small
town or something, there's a localcity commission and the city commission meetings here
(49:44):
in my town which is Safety Harbor, Florida, their public anyone can go
and speak if you're a resident ofthe city. I mean, they'll have
their agenda to talk about, likecertain code enforcements and building permits and whatever
else they want talk about. Butthere's a certain a segment of each City
(50:05):
Commission meeting monthly where they'll say,Okay, who wants to who's gonna who's
gonna come up and speak? Theygive you three minutes. You say your
name, your address, that youlive in the city, and then you
got three minutes to talk about it. And you know what, I talk
about my podcast. I've only donethat once. But the thing is a
(50:28):
lot of people, a lot ofpodcasts think or hosts. I think I
need to find that big thing,that big thing that's going to give me
a big break. I'm going tobe written up in the New York Times
and that's what I'm going to getthousands of new listeners all at once.
But that's not the way it works. The way you build a big audience,
it always happens a few listeners ata time. So when I'm talking
(50:53):
about my podcast in front of theCity Commission here in Safety Harbor, Florida,
which is a population of about seventeenthousand people. Not many people are
gonna well, first of all,not many people even listen to podcasts.
They're not even gonna know what I'mtalking about. And then some people aren't
(51:13):
going to be listening or interested inwhat my topic is. But you know,
some people are going to watch thatmeeting and think, wow, I
listen to podcasts. Wow, he'stalking about somebody that got shot in a
mass shooting and they're telling that storyfirsthand. Okay, yeah, I would
think I'd like to listen to that. And you just get a few at
(51:36):
a time, A few new listenersat a time is is all that it
takes. And you just have tokeep doing that consistently over time. And
if you can do that and you'vegot content that people want to hear,
then you're going to have a successfulshow. If you could go back,
(51:57):
specifically to yourself and give yourself adviceback in twenty eighteen, before you made
your first episode, what is thereanything you would choose to tell yourself.
I had the advantage when I startedthis podcast. I had already done two
podcasts prior to this, so Iwas starting with some experience, and so
(52:25):
that kind of gave me the abilityto I know how to make a podcast.
But one thing I would start withfrom the beginning, and I should
have known this already, is tostart an email list from the very beginning
of when you start your podcast,because you know, you can have I've
(52:46):
got a Facebook group, but youknow, Facebook, I don't own that.
Facebook could shut down that group endtime. But if I've got an
email list of listeners, I canI own that. I can always email
those people and let them know,Hey, I got a new episode coming
out, you know, I gotthis going on or whatever. And so
(53:07):
I've done that. Now I've onlygot a you know, three or four
hundred people on that list now,but that's something that I will continue to
grow, and I wish I wouldhave started that at the beginning. Just
from a technical side, do youwhat do you use for your email lists,
like mail champ or something like that. Now, I use a service
(53:30):
called a webber, which is veryyou know, it's very well known.
I've in the beginning my first podcastwas for my business, which is a
computer services business, and so I'veused a webber for that email list for
a long time, probably ten fifteenyears, and so I just naturally use
(53:52):
them for my podcast email list aswell. Last question, what is the
weirdest story you've covered? I don'teven have to think about that one.
It's one that's the title of theepisode. Is Shiny ate his own foot?
(54:12):
Have you heard that one? Ihaven't heard it, but I've seen
It's caught my eye. It's onthe list. Yeah, you got you
gotta go do that one. Thisis Shiny is obviously a fake name.
He didn't want to use his realname, but yet I still verified everything,
just like I do with every episode. He has a group of friends
(54:34):
and for a long time they wouldjust talk, you know, like friends
do. And one of the questionsthat would come up sometimes is if you
had the opportunity to taste human fleshand it was legal and ethical and even
(54:57):
healthy, would you do it?And he and his friends would often say,
yeah, sure, I'd try that, why not, knowing obviously it's
never gonna happen. Well, lateron, Shiny had a motorcycle accident.
He was put in the hospital andhe had to have his foot amputated,
(55:22):
and as he was leaving the hospital, he said, hey, can I
have my foot back and they hadkept it like in a refrigerator or something,
and they had paperwork for him tosign, you know, disclaimers and
stuff like that, but they gavehim his foot back. And so he
(55:44):
got back home and he started makingphone calls to his friends saying, hey,
remember that conversation we had about tastinghuman flesh and that kind of stuff.
And he asked him and they said, yeah, let's do it.
So they arranged a brunch and theycalled it foot tacos. And one of
(56:10):
his friends is a chef, sohe cooked it all up and it wasn't
like a full meal, but theyeach had, you know, a little
square of Shinese foot and they allhad some. And you know, it's
funny because some of my listeners tellme, I've listened to all your back
(56:32):
episodes, but that's the only one. I just can't listen to that one
because they think it's going to begory or gross or you know, but
it's it's really not. Shiny himselfis a very well spoken person. He's
an educated person. I got theimpression that he's probably a white collar professional.
And it all it's all presented ina very it makes it makes logical
(57:00):
sense, not that I would tryit or you would try it, but
he has. He has a groupof interesting friends and they tried it and
it was made for a very interestingstory. I need a group of friends
like that. That's pretty close friends. Wow. Uh well, yeah,
(57:22):
I think that that about does it. Thank you so much Scott for coming
on the show. And I wantto urge everybody go subscribe to What Was
That Like? And you can alsogo to Scott's website What Was That Like?
Dot Com? Is there anything elseyou want to plug while you're here
(57:43):
with us? I don't have anythingelse to plug. I haven't written a
book. You know. What Iwould encourage people to do is join the
Facebook group. We've got about notquite three thousand people in our Facebook group
and so we uh you know,and these are all the Nurse of course,
so we talk about the most recentepisodes, but we talk about all
kinds of other stuff too, interestingquestions and you know, topics of the
(58:07):
day and that kind of thing.And we never talk politics. So it's
a it's a great place to comein and talk to other people about all
kinds of stuff. And that's atWhat Was That Like? Dot Com slash
Facebook. So go listen to whatwas that like? Subscribe to Scotch Show,
make sure you catch his episode inour feed or just go listen to
(58:30):
it on his feed. And nextepisode we have coming up for you guys
is one from an Australian across thePond Apple for the Teacher, So stick
around for that one next week andwe will see you guys next time
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