August 31, 2016

HBM062: The Near Death of Sir Deja Doog

August 31, 2016/ Bethany Denton

Before Doog could walk, his family gave him a guitar to hold and encouraged him to play music. By the time he was twelve, he'd started writing songs as a way to make sense of the confusing world around him. Back then he was just Eric Alexander, the friendly weird kid who dressed like a punky cowboy. In college a fellow musician asked Eric what his middle name was. "Douglas," Eric replied. "Douglas? Doug, Doug... Doog... I'm going to call you Doog." The name stuck, and eventually Eric created his raspy, crass musical persona: Sir Deja Doog.

Note: Explicit Content

In his early twenties, Doog started hearing voices, seeing and feeling things that weren't there. He worried that he was losing his mind and avoided telling his friends what was happening. For years he was in and out of the emergency room and psych ward. He sought treatment and was medicated on and off for depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

But his problems persisted. In 2012, Doog became homeless and started hitchhiking up and down the West Coast. All the while he experienced terrifying hallucinations and suicidal thoughts. Throughout this period he continued to make music. With little more than a broken iPhone and an old guitar, Doog recorded hours of harsh, distorted music. Later he edited these recordings into a video he called Bad Dharma. (below).

Doog's symptoms worsened. By 2013 he started having partial seizures. One night he had a vision that he was being abducted by ancient aliens, so old he could see through their papery skin. One of the aliens poked Doog behind his left ear.

A few weeks later Doog was in the hospital again, feeling suicidal. This time the doctors gave Doog an MRI. When they scanned his brain, they found a small, calcified tumor called a glioma. The tumor was in the left hemisphere of his brain -- just inches from where the alien poked him in his vision. Doctors told Doog that he needed brain surgery immediately or he would soon die.

Faced with the prospect of an early death, he ignored the doctors’ orders fearing the surgery would affect his musical creativity. Instead, Doog decided to focus his energy on creating his masterpiece: Sir Deja Doog's Love Coffin.

For months, Doog obsessed over Love Coffin. He wrote and recorded day and night through partial and full seizures and debilitating headaches. It was only once his album was finished and his symptoms became unbearable that he agreed to surgery. Doctors removed the tumor and some surrounding parts of his brain.

Today, Doog continues to recover, and he's slowly re-learning how to be independent as his brain heals. Seventeen months after surgery Doog was in remission, but soon after that doctors found gliosis in his brain—scar tissue that forms after severe brain trauma. Doctors continue to monitor him for additional cancers. It is possible that Doog will need chemotherapy.

Doog performed for the first time after his cancer diagnosis on Halloween of 2015 (picture above). Since then, he's released an EP called The Return of Sir Deja Doog.

This episode was produced by Colleen Leahy and Christopher Mosson, and was edited by Bethany Denton. Additional editing help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White.

Music: Sir Deja Doog

Doog pre-sugery

Doog post-surgery

Doog returns to performing

August 17, 2016

HBM061: The Natural State of Hitchhiking

August 17, 2016/ Jeff Emtman

Jeff Emtman left home in the summer of 2011 to hitchhike the United States, to see if strangers would chop him up and put him in their trunks, if he gave them the option to. He was 22 years old with straight teeth, a trimmed beard and a strong fear of strangers.

Note: Explicit Content.

This episode picks up just after Jeff came a little too close to true violence, in the form of a fatal shooting at a restaurant in rural Mississippi. He turns around, decides to head back to the land of dry beds and predictability, Washington State, his home.

It was a summer of thunderclaps and heavy rain. Jeff learned to judge the weight of clouds, learned to determine when they might fall from the sky from holding too much rain (see photos below).

It was also a summer of uncertain interactions with strangers, including a lead-footed grandmother, a chain gang, a child who could nearly levitate, and a car mechanic who whispered into Jeff’s ear a strange blessing.

This episode takes place roughly in between two previous episodes of Here Be Monsters about Jeff’s hitchhiking. The two previous episodes are How I Learned to Love Rejection, parts 1 and 2. Jeff’s full photo/audio diaries from the trip live here.

This piece was written and produced by Jeff Emtman, with editing help from David Weinberg, Nick White, Bethany Denton and Rebecca Brunn.

This episode marks the beginning of our 5th season of Here Be Monsters. That means that we’re bringing you another 20 wonderful, beautiful and troubling stories over the next 9-ish months. We’re currently working on stories about posession, brain tumors, and flesh eating beetles. Keep an eye out on your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

March 02, 2016

HBM058: Kelly Is Cold

March 02, 2016/ Jeff Emtman

It was early in the morning of New Years Day and Kelly had just bought a purse-load of psychedelic mushrooms from Laramie Wyoming's local "druggist." Kelly handed them out to the assembled company and took some himself. He felt a bit apathetic about the world. He was wearing thin shoes,, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. But when he went outside to look at the stars, he realized what he wanted more than anything else in the world...a book on combinatorics.

Suddenly, Kelly found himself elsewhere, in a wavy and confusing reality, holding a large rock and looking through the windows of Coe Library. He was thinking about the math books that lived there on the third floor. He was very cold and had a decision to make.

Kelly lives in Seattle today. He cares about math, people and bikes. His favorite book on combinatorics is Herbert S. Wilf's generatingfunctionology, which is available for free.

Music: The Black Spot, Flowers

Our first ever season wrap party is happening in Seattle in April! Please RSVP to us on Facebook if you'd like to come.

"Kissing Spheres" are an application of combinatorics that are useful in constructing 20 sided polyhedrons. Courtesy of Robert Bradshaw of Wikimedia Commons.

Calculation of Pascal's Triangle. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

It is possible to cut a rectangular cake into 15 equal sized pieces with just 4 cuts. These are called "cake numbers." Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

February 17, 2016

HBM057: Impostor in a Pink Pinstripe Suit

February 17, 2016/ Bethany Denton

Bethany Denton participating in high school speech and debate.

Growing up in small-town Montana, Bethany Denton's parents and teachers told her what she knew already: she was brilliant. Bethany couldn't help but feel destined for something big, even though she often skipped her school readings and phoned it in. Why try hard when you already know everything?

Content Note: Explicit Content

Bethany in her pink pinstripe suit at her final tournament. Photo by Katy Allen-Schmidt.

In high school, Bethany joined the speech and debate team and started winning medals in an event called Serious Oral Interpretation. One afternoon Bethany went to the bookstore and stumbled across a monologue by American author Joyce Carol Oates entitled Nuclear Holocaust, from her play I Stand Before You Naked. It's a first-hand account of a religiously devout and mentally unstable Southerner who eagerly awaits the world's destruction. It was the perfect kind of material for a Serious Oral Interpretation monologue, so Bethany bought the book. Her dramatic performance of this piece soon won her a trip to Las Vegas to compete against teenagers from across the country.

Bethany spent the next couple months slacking off, per usual. Later that summer in Las Vegas, Bethany steps in front of a room full of strangers and realizes that she's made a huge mistake.

Bethany Denton wrote and produced this story, with editing help from Jeff Emtman and Nick White from KCRW. Track image by Angie Foreman.

Music: The Black Spot, Flower Petal Downpour

November 25, 2015

HBM051: Sister Bethany, Proxy for the Dead

November 25, 2015/ Bethany Denton

Bethany Denton was about five years old when she learned that she was a Mormon. When she was eight, she learned that she was an eternal spirit destined for an eternal afterlife. The idea of eternity terrified her, and made her afraid to stargaze into the boundless universe.

When she got older, Bethany was allowed to enter the Mormon temple in Billings, Montana to act as the proxy in baptisms for the dead.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded in 1830, and has practiced baptisms for the dead (or "baptism by proxy") since 1840. This practice intends to give dead people the opportunity to join the church in the afterlife from Spirit Prison, where all souls wind up. Mormon teenagers are eligible to serve as a proxy when they turn twelve years old. Over the course of her adolescence, Bethany was the proxy for about 30 dead people.

When Bethany was seventeen, the late prophet Gordon B. Hinckley tasked the youth of the LDS church to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. Bethany took him up on his challenge, and started noticing inconsistencies that made her question (and ultimately lose) her faith. She doesn't go to church anymore and hasn't for almost ten years, but she's still a member of the church, and always will be...unless she sends a formal letter of resignation.

Today, Bethany Denton is the Managing Editor of Here Be Monsters and loves to marvel at outer space. She co-produced this piece with Jeff Emtman, along with help from Nick White, our editor at KCRW. Track image by Kyle Keenan.

Music: The Black Spot.