Episode #946
Date August 27, 2018
Run Time 1:05:38
Byron Bowers, Susan Kent and Marlene Nichols tell stories about psychedelic tripping, an interracial friendship in the South, and a gift for an ailing brother.
Song: RISK! Theme by Wormburner and John Sondericker
Song: Out of Joe’s Bag by Hank Mobley
Live Story: Trippy by Byron Bowers
Interstitial: Jizz in My Pants by The Lonely Island
Radio Story: Love Song by Susan Kent
Song: After You by Chastity Brown
Live Story: Brother of Mine by Marlene Nichols
Song: Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson
Song: RISK! Theme by Wormburner and John Sondericker
Song: Out of Joe’s Bag by Hank Mobley
Live Story: Trippy by Byron Bowers
Interstitial: Jizz in My Pants by The Lonely Island
Radio Story: Love Song by Susan Kent
Song: After You by Chastity Brown
Live Story: Brother of Mine by Marlene Nichols
Song: Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson
Something so very similar happened in 1987 with me and my black friend – I grew up in Virginia. Just WOW, I’ve spent so much time regretting not being braver than I was. I hope I’m a better person now…
Wooot, Chastity Brown!!! Minneapolis represent!!! We love you, Chastity! 🙂
Susan’s story had me on the edge of my seat, I really thought the story would end in a lynching or beating. I was so pissed after the song dedication portion. The fact that she said to her friend, that a cross could be burned in her yard. I immediately thought, WHAT ABOUT HIM?! I guess at 17 you are only thinking about yourself, but this was a story that had me sick to my stomach. She basically used him to make the city mad, not realizing that the hatred could lead to his death. He was risking death or harm for the love of someone who didn’t feel he was worth the risk at that time… But they live happily ever after I guess
I’m always a little bewildered when someone writes in that a storyteller is not guiltless… when the storyteller clearly crafted the story for the purpose of showing that they weren’t guiltless.
I dunno, “admin”. I get what happened when she was seventeen. But in the end, after we learn that she never contacted him after ten, fifteen, twenty years, we are to understand that she still never thought that maybe he was in love with her, and how perhaps pivotal the way it ended was for him?
And the fact that she was finally prompted to contact him only because she was worried that he might hear the story she was telling… Clever self-implication and storycraft it may be, but in the end, the sin that she implicates herself in is still happening. She still tells her story on the radio, Walt still just gets into his truck and goes home.
Maybe there’s nothing for it, but it does seem somewhat weightless on her.
Guiltless is not the issue with the story. I am a full two or three generations removed from this story’s time frame and I can eco the sentiments of the otherside of this story entirely. Her regret is pure and noteable but the otherside of this story has its own words and feelings. The way the story was presented was kinda callous for her experience of time as if time does in fact heal all wounds, and it does not. He had things to say and she didn’t get them from him but that does not give her the right to his voice. The telling is fine if he approves but I think the untold portion has a lot of relevance in today’s climate. There is nothing new under the sun so this story is a broken record but this one skipped a few beats is all I’m saying.
Susan’s story really struck a chord with me as it did Confabulist and Corey G. As I was listening I heard the story of a girl who wanted some attention by exploiting the obvious affection of Walt for shock value-gain in a small town to be seen as “different” or unique… but not to the point of taking a true stand. The same story is being told by SJW’s all around the mid-Atlantic region in 2018 and I couldn’t agree more that the only story here was Walt’s, and we never get to hear it. If Susan expects the listener to feel any sort of empathy towards a “tough position she was in” she’s completely disillusioned. The tingle she felt was her own remorse compounded with the prospect of notoriety for this event in her life. The question: “Why did you try to come to my white prom, Walt?” really tells all: that she never actually considered his feelings for a minute back then, and she’s at best exploiting him now.