Explore every episode of the podcast Gauge Illumination - Horror, folklore, and strange signals from the road.

Some ghosts haunt houses, some haunt people, but are there ghosts that haunt the places where America was built?

Outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Vander Light is said to be the lantern of Archer Matthews, a railroad worker who was decapitated by a passing train and continues walking the tracks in search of his missing head. But what if the railroad is more than a place for a ghost to linger? What if it's a passageway between the America that was, the America that is, and the America still to come?

Our guest, Sal Ciano, co-author of "In the Shadow of the Eldritch and Other Lovecraftian Tales," joins us to talk about a ghostly train story of his own as we follow the Vander Light into strange territory where folklore, history, and the American landscape collide. Along the way, we consider the railroad as a delivery system for the past, carrying its ghosts into the present, and find an unexpected connection to our movie of the week, "Unstoppable," starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. Perhaps these two railroad men are Archer Matthews returned, given another chance to face the machine that killed him. This time, though, the ghost might just save us all.

The trains keep moving. The tracks remember. And sometimes, something comes back the other way.

Keep your Gauge Illuminations on the right track.

Here's something you shouldn't do: go looking for the 13 Steps to Hell.

Naturally, that's exactly where Gauge Illuminations is going.

Maltby's 13 Steps to Hell is one of those roadside folklore tales that begins with a real place and ends with it becoming something more than the sum of its parts. Just outside Snohomish in Washington State, according to the legend, there's a staircase beneath an old cemetery. If you find it after midnight, you're supposed to walk down the thirteen steps, counting as you go. And when you reach the bottom, you're supposed to turn around.

That's when things get interesting.

Jimmy Mac follows the legend down into the dark, then connects Maltby's ritual of descent with H.P. Lovecraft's The Statement of Randolph Carter, another story about a nighttime journey, a descent into forbidden territory, and instructions coming back from somewhere they probably shouldn't.

Along the way, there's another road into the story: David Lynch's The Straight Story, which understands that sometimes the journey itself is the story, even when the destination is nowhere near Hell.

Jimmy is joined by writer and podcaster Jon Grilz of Creepy, whose love of horror and creepypasta led him to Small Town Horror and eventually to one of the most enduring corners of the scary-story universe. His story of telling creepy stories becomes a story about finding your tribe.

Because that's the strange bargain at the heart of these stories. They tell us not to go there, and then they give us detailed instructions on how to go there. And when you go, you often find others who want to go there with you.

And that can be the beginning of a beautiful creepy friendship.

Maltby gives us thirteen steps. Lovecraft gives us a telephone line into the dark. Lynch gives us a lawnmower.

And somehow we're still talking about the road.

Don't turn around. Gauge Illuminations is already downstairs. Your community awaits.

Episode 7: The Shaman’s Portal of Oklahoma (Some Places Demand a Legend): What this place needs is an urban legend.

Beaver Dunes Park near Beaver, Oklahoma, really contains roughly 300 acres of sand hills inside a 520-acre park. The green lightning, vanished conquistadors, missing homesteader, Colorado tourists, and Professor Mark Thatcher are the legend-making layer. Jimmy Mac separates place from story and explains landscape extension—using negative space, disruption, and a sense of ruin to turn a landscape into a canvas.

Author, SiriusXM producer, and rock historian Scott Shea joins Jimmy to explore rock-and-roll’s strange places: Joshua Tree, Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Altamont, the Beach Boys’ contact with Charles Manson, eerie songs, and Shea’s forthcoming Waylon Jennings biography. The Idiot’s Guide covers legend tripping, apophenia, and cognitive dissonance; John Carpenter supplies examples of uncanny stillness; This Week in Science Fiction celebrates Neptune’s discovery by mathematics; and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia faces the five-rule road-movie test.

Here's something you shouldn't do: go looking for the 13 Steps to Hell.

Naturally, that's exactly where Gauge Illuminations is going.

Maltby's 13 Steps to Hell is one of those roadside folklore tales that begins with a real place and ends with it becoming something more than the sum of its parts. Just outside Snohomish in Washington State, according to the legend, there's a staircase beneath an old cemetery. If you find it after midnight, you're supposed to walk down the thirteen steps, counting as you go. And when you reach the bottom, you're supposed to turn around.

That's when things get interesting.

Jimmy Mac follows the legend down into the dark, then connects Maltby's ritual of descent with H.P. Lovecraft's The Statement of Randolph Carter, another story about a nighttime journey, a descent into forbidden territory, and instructions coming back from somewhere they probably shouldn't.

Along the way, there's another road into the story: David Lynch's The Straight Story, which understands that sometimes the journey itself is the story, even when the destination is nowhere near Hell.

Jimmy is joined by writer and podcaster Jon Grilz of Creepy, whose love of horror and creepypasta led him to Small Town Horror and eventually to one of the most enduring corners of the scary-story universe. His story of telling creepy stories becomes a story about finding your tribe.

Because that's the strange bargain at the heart of these stories. They tell us not to go there, and then they give us detailed instructions on how to go there. And when you go, you often find others who want to go there with you.

And that can be the beginning of a beautiful creepy friendship.

Maltby gives us thirteen steps. Lovecraft gives us a telephone line into the dark. Lynch gives us a lawnmower.

And somehow we're still talking about the road.

Don't turn around. Gauge Illuminations is already downstairs. Your community awaits.

Jon Grilz is a writer and podcast living in Minnesota. His love of horror and creepypastas led to a simple question, "Where are all the creepypasta podcasts?" Having started his horror podcasting with Small Town Horror, delving into the world of some of the best scary stories felt like a natural transition. He can often be found quietly muttering to himself. These words, rarely heard, are best left unknown.

https://www.creepypod.com/

https://twitter.com/creepypod

http://creepypod.tumblr.com/

https://www.instagram.com/creepypod

https://www.facebook.com/creepypod/

https://www.youtube.com/creepypod

Thom Bray has spent most of his life around trucks, highways, emergencies, and the assorted poor decisions people make while traveling between one place and another.

Before retiring from J. J. Keller & Associates in 2025, Thom spent more than 20 years there as a transportation safety and regulatory expert. Before that came another couple of decades in trucking as a driver, driver trainer, safety supervisor, instructor, claims manager, training director, and safety director.

He has driven throughout the United States and Canada, which means that when the rest of us begin discussing lonely highways, strange things beside the road, and places where perhaps you ought not stop after dark, Thom has actually been there.

As if that weren’t enough, he is also a firefighter, advanced EMT, and Deputy Chief of the Amherst Fire District in Wisconsin.

So Jeremy can tell us why the legend works.

Thom can tell us why stopping the truck to investigate it is a terrible idea.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-bray-a1a3921b

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thom.bray1/

Amherst Fire District: https://www.amherstfd.org/

Megan Kate Nelson is a historian, writer, and Pulitzer Prize finalist whose work examines the American West, the Civil War, environmental history, and national mythology. Her books include The Three-Cornered War, Saving Yellowstone, Ruin Nation, Trembling Earth, and The Westerners.

Official website: https://megankatenelson.com/

About: https://megankatenelson.com/about/

Lyle Blackburn is an author, musician, podcaster, and cryptid researcher whose lifelong fascination with strange creatures has made him one of the essential chroniclers of the Fouke Monster. His books include The Beast of Boggy Creek, Boggy Creek Casebook, Beyond Boggy Creek, Texas Bigfoot, Sinister Swamps, and enough other monsters to make walking home after dark considerably less appealing. His research has also contributed to documentaries by Small Town Monsters, and he has appeared on Expedition X, The UnXplained, Finding Bigfoot, and plenty of other places where sensible people go looking for unreasonable things.

And because researching monsters apparently wasn’t enough, Lyle is also the frontman of the Texas hellbilly band Ghoultown. Which makes him perfect for this episode: he understands that cryptids aren’t merely things people claim to see. They become movies, songs, festivals, hometown legends, and eventually part of the way a community recognizes itself.

Website: https://www.lyleblackburn.com/

Fouke Monster: https://www.foukemonster.net/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyleblackburn/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyleblackburn.official

YouTube — Monstro Bizarro: https://www.youtube.com/@MonstroBizarro

Monstro Bizarro Podcast: https://www.lyleblackburn.com/podcast.htm

Ghoultown: https://www.ghoultown.com/

Mothman expert Steve Ward provides deep historical lore and investigation into the sightings around the TNT area.

Website: https://www.mothmanmuseum.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve.ward.5/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mothmanfestival/

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author, editor, and paranormal historian. She is a six-time Bram Stoker Award winner, a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the author of four novels and more than 200 short stories. Her nonfiction explores Halloween, ghosts, spiritualism, horror cinema, and the history of the supernatural.

Official website: https://lisamorton.com/

Substack — The Whole Haunted World: https://lisamorton.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisamortoninla/

Facebook — Official page: https://www.facebook.com/HalloweenLisa/

Facebook — Personal profile: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.morton.165/

X / Twitter: https://x.com/cinriter

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn45T3zhdFCP7j62g-h_6PQ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/345026.Lisa_Morton

The Ghost Report with Lisa Morton: https://theghostreportwithlisamorton.podbean.com/

Scott G. Shea is the author of All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart. He is a longtime radio producer who has produced Seize the Day with Gus Lloyd on SiriusXM’s Catholic Channel since 2012, as well as five nationally aired audio documentaries. A lifelong student and collector of popular music, Shea writes about rock history and has completed a biography focused on the first fifteen years of Waylon Jennings’s career.

Official website: https://scottsheaauthor.com/

Bio: https://scottsheaauthor.com/bio/

Books: https://scottsheaauthor.com/books/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottsheaauthor/

Chad Fifer is a writer, actor, and musician who co-hosts Strange Studies of Strange Stories with Chris Lackey. The pair began podcasting in 2009 with The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and later expanded the show to classic science fiction, fantasy, horror, and weird fiction. Fifer has written short fiction, adapted H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound” for The Lovecraft Anthology: Volume II, composed music for audio productions and bands including Pitch Black Manor and Draculater, and co-designed Strange Stories: The Roleplaying Game.

Website: https://www.strangestudies.com/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chadfifer.bsky.social

Other Links: Bandcamp: https://chadfifer.bandcamp.com/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/witchhousemedia

H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast archive: https://hppodcraft.com/

Pitch Black Manor: https://pitchblackmanor.com/

In July of 1973 in Defiance, Ohio, railyard worker Ted Davis came face to face with a giant entity, over seven feet tall, covered in hair with sharp fangs and claws. Man, everybody's got a werewolf.

Episode 6 explores Skinned Tom, the gruesome lovers’ lane ghost said to haunt the Tennessee–Kentucky border. Jimmy Mac traces the legend through the upheavals of the Roaring Twenties—the aftermath of war and pandemic, Prohibition, the rise of the automobile, changing courtship, and the moral panic that followed. Chad Fifer joins the show to talk horror tropes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, isolation, hospitality, and Strange Stories: The Roleplaying Game. Also: the Uncanny Lull, Collect Rocks Day, Defy Superstition Day, The Outer Limits, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and whether Smokey and the Bandit is really a road movie.

We begin in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It is November of 1966. Two couples driving through the McClintic Wildlife Sanctuary spotted a pair of glowing red eyes in the darkness and accidentally gave America one of its most enduring legends. Known locally as the “TNT Area,” the sanctuary is an eerie combination of open West Virginia countryside, abandoned man-made lakes, and camouflaged ammunition-storage igloos—a strange landscape that provided just enough mystery to turn a frightening encounter into a full-blown paranormal phenomenon.

And one that tragically culminates with the collapse of The Silver Bridge just over a year later.

Jimmy introduces us to Mary Hyre and John Keel, the local reporter and legendary Fortean whose friendship and investigation of the Mothman sightings in the months before the bridge collapse became a template for paranormal journalism—and an inspiration for everything from Kolchak to The X-Files.

Actor Justin Welborn joins Gauge Illuminations to talk about his and Jimmy Mac’s trip to NecronomiCon Providence 2026, where they encountered Cthulhu, Lizzie Borden, corporate horror, abandoned malls, and the strange energies of a convention devoted to weird fiction. We also welcome researcher and Mothman expert Steve Ward, who has spent nearly 50 years investigating the phenomenon and joins us to talk about Mothman Days, the Point Pleasant festival celebrating the creature, and why a monster with glowing red eyes has become so important to the lifeblood of the town.

He’s also got a great fresh take on 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies.

Supply chain expert Dean Croke joins us from the cab of his truck for two trips down the Strange News of the Road rabbit hole, examining the nationwide crackdown on CDL trainers and substandard trainees before moving on to “fish and chips” on a California highway, a mad emu on an Australian road, a Florida woman biting off part of her husband’s ear on I-95, and a Tokyo lizard smuggler.

Remo Davis gets behind the wheel for a very different kind of road story in Pitch Black Vinyl, where a 1960s session guitarist named Bran Crimshaw has just over an hour and a half to make his flight out of Elkins, West Virginia—and something seems determined to keep the Jack Daniel’s-drinking rocker from reaching the airfield.

September gives us plenty of excuses to celebrate, from National Pet Rock Day and the history of TV dinners to Mothman festivals and the continuing celebration of Star Trek. Jimmy takes a look at the Mothman-like Star Trek episode “Operation: Annihilate!” before turning toward the 33rd anniversary of The X-Files, a show whose mythology owes more than a little to the same strange territory Mothman occupies.

And if you’ve ever wondered why human beings are so good at turning coincidence into conspiracy, the Idiot’s Guide has a word for you: apophenia—the brain’s irresistible tendency to connect random dots and discover a pattern, whether one is actually there or not.

Then there’s our road movie. Jeff Nichols’ The Midnight Special is a terrific, underseen combination of science fiction, family drama, government paranoia, and supernatural mystery, with a little Carpenter and Spielberg in the tank and the unmistakable feeling of a movie that somehow wandered in from the late Seventies.

Gauge Illuminations discovers the point isn’t whether Mothman is real. It isn’t even whether the eyewitnesses were mistaken, whether apophenia filled in the blanks, or whether something genuinely inexplicable happened in the TNT Area. The point is what happens afterward: a frightening story becomes an investigation, an investigation becomes a legend, and a legend becomes a community.

The Mothman brings people together. It gives a place a story to tell about itself. It inspires music, movies, books, festivals, friendships, and an entire industry of people who are perfectly happy to keep looking into the darkness.

Point Pleasant is the point.

Jimmy grew up south of Boggy Creek, which means he was closer to Louisiana's Honey Island Swamp Monster. But he couldn’t escape the commercials for Charles Pierce’s archetypal horror documentary The Legend of Boggy Creek, which used actual citizens to tell the tale of the upright entity terrorizing Fouke, Arkansas. Everybody’s got a Fouke monster: Bigfoot wanders the Pacific Northwest, The Yucca Man haunts The Mojave, and New Hampshire’s got The Woods Devil. It seems almost every region or state has got something to brag about when they stop screaming. We’ve discovered these Missing Links define communities and join them together in civic pride. 

Kym Trailz of The Tomb of Nick Cage joins us to talk about how cryptozoology conferences helped her find her people and how music is her favorite way of expressing her fears. She’s not too different from celebrated Boggy Creek author and expert Lyle Blackburn, who also serves as frontman for the “Hellbilly” rockin’ band Ghoultown. Along with expressing the love of cryptids, both marvel how many of their fans crossover from one world to the other. We welcome supply chain expert Dean Croke with Lovecraftian trucking accidents in Rhode Island and Australian tales of camels on the highway as Weird News of The Road takes an Eldritch turn.  

As the weather (hopefully) gets cooler, September has so much to celebrate. Not only are there cryptid festivals coming your way, but there is also great anticipation for 60 years of Star Trek, which has a surprising connection to the infamous Pattterson/Gimlin Sasquatch footage. It’s a month to enjoy coffee flavored ice cream, wonder on The Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles, and dig into a particular kind of earth that makes it easier to garden. And Steven Spielberg’s Duel has enough suspense for us to tell you straight up that it is a road movie. 

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

KYM TRAILZ

Musician, Cryptid Enthusiast & Frontwoman of The Tomb of Nick Cage

Kym Trailz is a New Orleans musician and frontwoman of The Tomb of Nick Cage, a paranormal horror-rock band steeped in cryptids, monsters, conspiracy theories, and other perfectly reasonable things to sing about after midnight.

For Gauge Illuminations, Kym talks about how cryptozoology conferences helped her find her people—and how loving strange things can turn a collection of monsters into a community.

Website: https://thetombofnickcage.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/tombofnickcage/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetombofnickcage
Bandcamp: https://thetombofnickcage.bandcamp.com/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3XpTRCgwhMFYX44byz1jKz

Author, Cryptid Researcher & Frontman of Ghoultown

Lyle Blackburn is an author, musician, and cryptid researcher whose work has made him one of the leading chroniclers of the Fouke Monster and the strange creatures that populate American folklore.

He’s also frontman of the Texas hellbilly band Ghoultown, which makes him particularly useful here. Lyle understands that monsters don’t just haunt towns. Eventually they become books, movies, songs, festivals—and part of the town itself.

Website: https://www.lyleblackburn.com/
Fouke Monster: https://www.foukemonster.net/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyleblackburn/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyleblackburn.official
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MonstroBizarro
Ghoultown: https://www.ghoultown.com/

Freight Analyst, Two-Million-Mile Trucker & Owner of The Grumpy Pete

Dean Croke is a freight analyst with decades of experience in trucking, logistics, and supply chains—and more than two million miles behind the wheel as an owner-operator.

On Gauge Illuminations, we put that considerable expertise toward less respectable purposes: strange wrecks, wandering camels, impossible road stories, and whatever else turns up when freight news takes an Eldritch turn.

DAT Freight & Analytics: https://www.dat.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deancroke
The Grumpy Pete: https://linktr.ee/thegrumpypete

Jimmy begins with the strangely enduring story of David Lang, the Tennessee farmer who supposedly disappeared in front of his family and witnesses in 1880—and the even stranger fact that the story was repeated by reputable outlets, including the Cincinnati Enquirer.

From there, Gauge Illuminations leaves the world of urban legends behind and goes looking for people who really did vanish: D. B. Cooper, who stepped out of an airplane with a parachute and a fortune and was never seen again, and Polly Melton, who disappeared into the North Carolina wilderness leaving a mystery that has never been satisfactorily resolved. The terror—and the peculiar delight—of these stories is that they don't require ghosts, monsters, UFOs, or anything supernatural at all. Everything is fine.

Sometimes everything is perfect.

And then, suddenly, it isn't.

With celebrated authors Peter Stark and Megan Kate Nelson, Jimmy considers what it means to become lost in the Great Wide Open, whether surviving a wilderness or escaping the person you were before you entered it.

Peter explains how easily a person can disappear without supernatural intervention when the wilderness itself is indifferent to whether you are found.

Megan Kate takes us into the American West, where vast landscapes don't merely make people disappear—they provide the opportunity to reinvent yourself, abandon an old identity, and become someone else entirely.

Sometimes getting lost means losing your way. Sometimes it means losing yourself.

And sometimes, perhaps most frighteningly, it means nobody knows which one happened.

Our movie is The Vanishing Point, a journey into the strange American landscape where speed, solitude, and disappearance become almost indistinguishable.

In News of the Weird, Jimmy examines the increasingly uncanny tribulations of Waymo's driverless cars, proving once again that the future can arrive without quite knowing where it is going.

This Week in Science Fiction turns to F. W. Murnau's vanished masterpiece The Head of Janus, a lost film whose very disappearance has become part of its mythology.

Along the way, we find reasons to complain about the weather, celebrate the demotion of Pluto, and honor the invention of the banana split—because when ice cream vanishes, it's a mystery easily solved.

Don't wander off. Don't assume you'll be missed. And if you see someone wandering alongside the road, they might be the only one who knows where they are. Keep on driving. Keep on listening. Gauge Illuminations and its trusted mechanic Jean Guidry will show you the way to safety.

Peter Stark is an award-winning author and adventure writer whose books explore wilderness, survival, and the people who keep going after the map gets vague.

He understands something useful about vanishing: you don’t need the supernatural. Just bad weather, bad judgment, an indifferent landscape, and enough confidence to think you’ll figure it out. The wilderness doesn’t have to be haunted to be terrifying.

Website: https://www.peterstarkauthor.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peterstark_adventure_historian/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterStarkAuthor/

X (Twitter): https://x.com/StarkAdventurer 

Megan Kate Nelson is a celebrated historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist whose work explores the American West, the Civil War, and the people caught in the enormous upheavals of nineteenth-century America. Her newest book, The Westerners, looks at how the West became both a real place and an American invention.

That makes her particularly useful when talking about vanishing. Because out West, disappearing didn’t always mean getting lost. Sometimes it meant leaving an old life behind, crossing enough distance, and becoming somebody else.

Website: https://megankatenelson.com

Bluesky:

Instagram:

LinkedIn:

And check out her exciting new project reviewing and engaging with historical writing at https://www.draftingthepast.com/

The Bunnyman of Colchester Bridge—There’s a Killer on the Highway: Welcoming celebrated author Jeremy Dauber and Wisconsin trucking legend/deputy fire chief Thom Bray, Jimmy uses Virginia’s Bunnyman of Colchester Bridge to examine our fascination with haunted bridges, killers in costume, and local legends built around the dare. Not a hitchhiker among them, these monstrous trolls-under-the-bridge wait for unsuspecting drivers on slow roads, breakdowns, and lovers’ lanes.But more than just a road movie, The Legend of the Bunnyman is an inflection point that gives us not only The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, but leads directly into ground zero of the Eighties slasher with Halloween and Friday the 13th. Along the way, we learn that some urban legends have more than a patina of truth—and still manage to grow far beyond the boundaries of their already horrifying facts. Part game of telephone and part internet sensation, the Bunnyman might be the best example of everyone getting in on the grisly fun.Jimmy celebrates an important Star Wars 50th anniversary that occurred before the film’s release, and in News of the Weird, explains a recent phenomenon that, much like the Bunnyman, the internet continues to expand, distort, and make stranger.Don’t slow down. Don’t pull over. Gauge Illuminations and its trusted mechanic Jean Guidry will show you the way to safety.

The thumb goes up; the car goes by.

Forget about UFOs and Bigfoot, there might not be a more American urban legend than that of the mysterious hitchhiker. His (or in this case her) presence has haunted roadsides across America, and perhaps, most famously, in the form of Chicago’s Resurrection Mary. Jimmy Mac manages to tie the spectral vision from Illinois to the adventures of John Waters, the writings of Jack Kerouac, and an awful favorite of Christopher Nolan: The Hitcher. Along the way, 6 time Bram Stoker Award Winner author Lisa Morton and spoken word warrior John Lacambiere join the show to talk about their upcoming work and belief in the spirit world. And as if that weren’t enough, Gauge Illuminations has got secret messages for the Zodiac sign Leo and a terrifying origin story for Red Sovine’s Phantom 309.

https://www.instagram.com/gauge_illuminations/

https://www.youtube.com/@gaugeilluminations

https://x.com/gaugelight

https://www.facebook.com/gaugeilluminations

https://www.tiktok.com/@gaugeilluminations

John Lacarbiere III is a New Orleans poet, spoken-word artist, author, publisher, photographer, and multidisciplinary storyteller whose work moves between the page, the stage, and the city and landscape around him.

John Lacarbiere III:

Instagram — @johnlacarbiere

https://www.instagram.com/johnlacarbiere/

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/johnlacarbiere

A Studio in the Woods artist profile

https://astudiointhewoods.org/artist/john-lacarbiere-iii/

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author, editor, and paranormal historian. She is a six-time Bram Stoker Award winner, a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the author of four novels and more than 200 short stories. Her nonfiction explores Halloween, ghosts, spiritualism, horror cinema, and the history of the supernatural.

Official website: ⁠https://lisamorton.com/⁠

Substack — The Whole Haunted World: ⁠https://lisamorton.substack.com/⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/lisamortoninla/⁠

Official Facebook page: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/HalloweenLisa/⁠

Personal Facebook profile: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/lisa.morton.165/⁠

X / Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/cinriter⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn45T3zhdFCP7j62g-h_6PQ⁠

Goodreads: ⁠https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/345026.Lisa_Morton⁠

The Ghost Report with Lisa Morton: ⁠https://theghostreportwithlisamorton.podbean.com/⁠

Lisa’s books and current work: ⁠https://lisamorton.com/⁠

Follow Lisa Morton

John Lacarbiere III joins us in the first episode of Gauge Illuminations.

In this clip, John talks about watching the way his father loved his mother, how difficult it could be to recognize that love when he was younger, and how those observations helped shape the kind of man—and partner—he wanted to become.

Then the conversation takes a very John turn: books, Lego blocks, girls, nature, and eventually “the books, the Legos, and the legs.”

John Lacarbiere III is a New Orleans poet, spoken-word artist, author, publisher, photographer, and multidisciplinary storyteller whose work moves between the page, the stage, and the city and landscape around him.

And if you want to see him live, John is performing tonight, Friday, August 7, at Full Voice: A Curated Spoken Word Showcase at Cafe Istanbul in New Orleans. The event runs 8:00–11:00 PM at 2372 St. Claude Avenue. Full Voice is a curated closed-mic evening built around poetry, craft, emotional honesty, and presence. ([Eventnoire][1])

Tonight’s show / tickets:

Full Voice: A Curated Spoken Word Showcase(https://events.eventnoire.com/e/full-voice-a-curated-spoken-word-showcase-2

John Lacarbiere III:

Instagram — @johnlacarbiere

https://www.instagram.com/johnlacarbiere/

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/johnlacarbiere

A Studio in the Woods artist profile

https://astudiointhewoods.org/artist/john-lacarbiere-iii/

Can a person be possessed without knowing it?

Award-winning horror writer, paranormal historian, and Halloween authority Lisa Morton joins Gauge Illuminations for a discussion of demonic possession, mass exorcisms, ancient accounts of spirits taking control of the body, and the details that make supernatural stories feel authentic.

Lisa explains the traditional definition of possession as the surrender—or disappearance—of a person’s will beneath another personality.

The conversation moves from classical accounts involving the Greek healer Apollonius to enormous modern exorcism gatherings where individual demons such as Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Belial, and Lilith are called out by name.

The discussion then turns toward urban legends, including Resurrection Mary, and why precise locations, recognizable landmarks, and accumulated details can make even the strangest story sound credible.

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author, editor, and paranormal historian.

She is a six-time Bram Stoker Award winner, a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the author of four novels and more than 200 short stories.

Her nonfiction explores Halloween, ghosts, spiritualism, horror cinema, and the history of the supernatural.

Follow Lisa Morton

Official website:https://lisamorton.com/

Substack — The Whole Haunted World:https://lisamorton.substack.com/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/lisamortoninla/

Official Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/HalloweenLisa/

Personal Facebook profile:https://www.facebook.com/lisa.morton.165/X /

Twitter:https://x.com/cinriter

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn45T3zhdFCP7j62g-h_6PQ

Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/345026.Lisa_Morton

The Ghost Report with Lisa Morton:https://theghostreportwithlisamorton.podbean.com/

Lisa’s books and current work:https://lisamorton.com/

Or is it all just a myth

https://gaugeilluminations.substack.com/

The hitchhiker myth lives at the center of the American imagination of the road. It is ground zero for our tradition of urban legends.

Not everything that claims to be road movies is in fact a road movie. Fury Road! Not a road movie. Take a deep dive into the subject on our substack page. https://gaugeilluminations.substack.com/p/the-rules-of-the-road-movie

Jimmy Mac Storyteller, playwright, and performer Jimmy Mac spent a decade getting up far too early to talk to truckers on SiriusXM 146 Road Dog Trucking's legendary Dave Nemo Show. What he really wanted was to keep overnight drivers company. As it turns out, he should've been more careful what he wished for. He's held just about every job imaginable, visited all 50 states, and somehow found time to earn a PhD from a perfectly respectable university along the way.