Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast

Episode 28: Booing Ghosts: My Personal Take on the Paranormal

I’m a guy who digs the ghostly. I love the macabre. I obsessively search out spooky sites and objects like my afterlife depends on it. That means I always find myself in paranormal circles, be they crop, spellcasting, or fairy. I’m constantly absorbing other people’s takes on the paranormal. And I have a take on it, too. Actually, let’s get specific. Ghosts. I have a take on ghosts.

• Here's the essay version of this topic.
• My Cursed Objects book is out now!
• My next book, The Smashed Man of Dread End, is on NetGalley!
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other spooky books.

Episode 27: A Haunted Tower, An Abandoned Base

We head to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to find neighboring, but very different oddities: A nineteenth century tower in a forest that is haunted by a famous opera singer who fights the local witch and an abandoned air force base with connections to a UFO abduction. Yeah, this one has it all. Even pirates.

• Photos from my visit to the Jenny Lind Tower.
• Photos from my visit to the abandoned North Truro Air Force Station.
• Address of North Truro Air Force Station: Old Dewline Road, Truro, MA.
• GPS coordinates of the Jenny Lind Tower: 42.034664, -70.055276.
• My Cursed Objects book is out now!
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other spooky books.

Episode 26: A Reading from "A Season with the Witch"

A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts is my account of living in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, during the entire month of October, getting to the heart of this weird city during its weirdest season. In this episode, I read from that book. I'm also releasing this episode through my YouTube channel, so you can either watch me read or listen to me read. Unfortunately, I come with both versions.

• Watch this reading on YouTube.
• Buy A Season with the Witch.
• My Cursed Objects book is out now!
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 25 (On Location): Yea, Though I Walk Through an Abandoned Bible Theme Park

For this episode, we're going on location to an abandoned Bible theme park (and murder scene) looming over the town of Waterbury, Connecticut. It's oddities like these that this site and that podcast and, well, I (me?) are made for.

• Photos from my visit to Holy Land USA.
• Address of Holy Land USA: 60 Slocum Street, Waterbury CT.
• Website for Holy Land USA.
• My Cursed Objects book is out now!
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 24: Running [to] the Asylum

My obsession with Danvers State Hospital (aka Danvers Insane Asylum) started with the horror movie Session 9 back in 2001, which was filmed inside the then 120-year-old abandoned asylum. Over the next two decades, I visited the site, found the asylum cemetery, watched Session 9 on the site where it was filmed, and, just a few months ago, returned to find the second asylum cemetery. This is the whole story.

• Photos from my first visit to Danvers State Hospital.
• Photos from my second visit to Danvers State Hospital (to watch Session 9).
• Photos from my visit to the second Danvers Asylum cemetery.
• Address for Danvers State Hospital site: 1101 Kirkbride Dr., Danvers, MA
• Address for second Danvers Asylum cemetery: Gregory St. and Middleton Rd., Middleton, MA
• My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder.
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 23: I Have a Favorite Cemetery

I take you back to where my love for cemeteries first started...Highgate Cemetery in London. I met her in 1999, returned to her in 2017. We go to both West and East Cemeteries, finding the graves of Douglas Adams and Karl Marx and the guy who wrote The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, to the parts that inspired Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and The Abominable Dr. Phibes with Vincent Price, into crypts and through plots of stones invisible under creepers. I hope you fall in love with it, too.

• Highgate Cemetery website.
• My photos of the west section of Highgate Cemetery.
• My photos of the east section of Highgate Cemetery.
• My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder.
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 22: The New York Town That Talks to Ghosts

Lily Dale is an quaint little town in western New York that you'd probably like a lot…if you can stomach all the ghosts. But the residents like it that way. After all, they’re all mediums. In this episode, I tell you about my visit to this strange place and about my own personal session (my very first!) with a medium.

• Photos from my trip to Lily Dale.
• The transcript of my session with a medium and some dead people.
• Photos from my trips to Fox Sisters sites.
• Buy The New York Grimpendium.
• My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder.
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 21: A Tale of Two Torture Museums

Torture museums: Are they ghastly tourist traps with acute deficiencies of taste or family-friendly opportunities for history lessons? I have no clue! But I've been to two of them, one in Wisconsin and one in Florida, and they couldn't have been more different experiences from each other. Let's visit them together now, and learn the shameful secret of all medieval torture museums. With bonus serial killer severed head and alien implant asides.

• Photos from the Museum of Historic Torture Devices in the Wisconsin Dells.
• Address for the Museum of Historic Torture Devices: 305 Broadway, Wisconsin Dells, WI
• Photos from the Medieval Torture Museum in St. Augustine, Florida
• Address for the Medieval Torture Museum: 100 St George St, St. Augustine, FL
• My visit to the severed head of the Dusseldorf Vampire.
• My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder.
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Episode 20: The Two Most Bonkers Museums in the Country

I don't use the term bonkers lightly, but in this episode, I'm going to tell you about two of the most bonkers museums I've ever been to. And that image you have in your head when I say "museum"? Throw it out. Doesn't apply. Oddly enough, both of these museums have very boring names, despite being places of breathless bizarrerie and overwhelming wonderment: The City Museum in Missouri and the House on the Rock in Wisconsin.

• Photos from the City Museum.
• Address for the City Museum: 750 N 16th St, St. Louis, MO 
• Photos from the House on the Rock.
• Address for the House on the Rock: 5754 WI-23, Spring Green, WI
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

 

Episode 19: JAWS in a Chicken Wing Joint

We're headed to Staten Island. to a chicken wing joint. That has a 13-foot-long artificial great white shark hanging from its ceiling whose name is JAWS. But not thee one from the movie, the one from the ride. This one's a weird one, so strap on your life jacket, grab a harpoon gun, and make sure your boat is of adequate size.

• Photos from my visit.
• Address for 494 Chicken: 3785 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, New York.
• Universal Studios Hollywood tram tour video.
• Universal Studios Orlando original JAWS ride video.
• Universal Studios Orlando revamped JAWS ride video.
• Photos of JAWS decaying in a yard in Maryland.
• The history of JAWS the ride.
• Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.
• I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.