Saddle up your ponies, put your feet in the syrups for these thrilling tales East Ghost vs. West Ghost in the battle for the town.
Danno: Clare Sera. Our audience tonight is composed mostly of Cowboys and cow women. Cal people. And that’s your naturally. And since you specialize in ghost towns of the old west, I thought we could probe your area of expertise.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls saddle up your ponies, put your feet in the syrup’s because our guest today is Claire. Sarah, a world renowned expert in ghost towns of the old west Clare Sera. Welcome to the expert tests podcast.
That’s exactly what I was hoping for was a little bit of that flavor, from the old times of the old west now, obviously the old west is a time that’s far beyond any of us living today. What got you interested in such an unusual egg I’m like Hively.
Clare: Oh, that’s actually, that could be a little bit of a possession Danno, when, when I was, but it’ll, it’ll come out, it’ll come out. That’s probably old Gabe Mackenzie,
Danno: Gabe McKinsey, the famous devil of desert Gulch.
Clare: desert Gulch.
And That’s what he likes to create a gulping sound because.
Danno: what I felt in my throat was it felt like a Gulch.
Clare: yes. You had a Gulch in your throat. That’s Gabes specialty. He’s a prankster he’s a funny prankster, but he has killed a few people.
Danno: you’re telling me that the, a ghost of an old cowboy or a friendly prospect or something has actually literally in modern times taken the life of human people.
Clare: Well, you know, that’s The funny thing that I have discovered in researching America’s ghost hands. And we’re talking about America’s ghost towns, ghost towns of the old west where
the,
Danno: of America,
Clare: the old west of America on the Western part of America,
you
know,
Danno: Western part of the old west,
Clare: of the Wolf’s westerly west ness
Danno: my understanding is the further west. You go, the more ghostly the ghost towns get.
Clare: Well, you have to be careful. If you go too far west, you end up east and the east coast towns. you don’t want to have anything to do with those who
Danno: you got to stay on the right side of the gun.
Clare: Yeah. On the left to the right of the westerly Gulch towns, that’s where you find your ghosts, Gerald cowboy, ghosts, Gerald, brothel, ladies, your snappy gold dig in Westie types that inhabit the ghost towns now to become a ghost.
You’ve got to have unfinished business in this
Danno: sure. So many people went out prospecting for. And failed. Does that count as unfinished business?
Clare: that is some of it, but I’m talking about business actual like business dealings, contracts, um, bank loans,
Danno: see mortgages.
Clare: buildings and loan
Danno: Okay.
These are surprisingly less terrifying ghost. And honestly, I was hoping for, what does it take for a ghost to be able to just sign a name one last time on a contract?
Clare: First of all, they have to find ink
Danno: Do they need to sign a physical contract in our realm with physical liquid ink? Okay. So finding ink doesn’t sound like that. Big of a.
Clare: Well, where would you find Inc. Danno?
You’re
not going to find Inc in a ghost town.
Danno: Oh, I didn’t think about
that. Even the office supply stores of a ghost town are closed And ghostly,
Clare: so a lot of ghosts will spend their time trying to repurpose, ancient molecules of ink from the early days, which of course is still floating around. Do you know that everything is always floating around and all pieces of dead people, dead animals, everything from the past
Danno: That’s why I don’t cut my fingernails anymore.
Clare: So they’re not floating around.
Danno: nobody’s doing the voodoo on me. Clear. Nobody is doing the voodoo on
Clare: Well, Danno, I think gave Mackenzie gave you a good
Gulshan earlier.
Danno: Yeah. Point taken. So I do want to find out about the signature business, but you.
Happened again.
Clare: You’ve
been Gulch. That’s just a promo for, uh, I’m doing a TV show about ghosts of the old west. I’m trying to get a little bit of money so I can get ink to these ghost towns and let some of these ghosts have their final rest.
Look, if people are interested or really interested in finding out what the ghosts of these old Western towns, what their personalities are like, um, what it would take to give them a little bit of eternal peace and rest, they can watch my television show. You’ve been Gulch, any Friday night, it’s on a YouTube channel, Now, do you have a link to that? Can you have a
Danno: Yeah, we can put a link to Gulch me now.
Clare: you you’ve been
Gulch.
Danno: I’m sorry. I’ve linked to the wrong website.
So that sounds a little bit like one of those fun, practical jokes. Programs,
Clare: they have a lot of time for pranks and fund, you know, in between while they’re waiting for their,
ink to
Undray.
Danno: are they going to do to pass
Clare: Right. So they’ve, they have rigged up. Some of these towns are rigged with elaborate police systems where the front facades of those towns.
Danno: is there some fun loving Jeffery that goes on with the ghosts and the old dangerous buildings and unsuspecting passers by
Clare: you know, it that’s exactly what’s happened because even though these girls have unfinished business, Maybe you’ve seen the Buster Keaton film where he’s just standing there and a whole building falls down over top of him and he, he stands through the window. The window just falls around him.
Danno: so are you saying a tourist can come have a building fall over them?
Clare: Yeah, I though the goals are not very good with measurements. We’ve
had.
Danno: How could they be.
Clare: That’s been what some of the killings have come from
Danno: Yeah, but th then you get some fresh young ghosts and that’s the sort of thing that really keeps a town
like that alive,
Clare: And most of these young ghosts have unfinished business with like student loan debt
Danno: or just revenge against the other ghosts that killed them.
Clare: bright revenge business is really big in the Eastern ghost towns.
Danno: So this east coast versus west coast, this constant battle how do you think that’s going to play out?
Clare: Well, you could watch on my YouTube channel east coast versus west coast gulging, championships
on
Friday. Oh, Gabe.
You know what a lot of people don’t know when they’re coming to visit a ghost town, say a family visit, oh, we’re going to drive
Danno: Yeah,
Clare: street of, uh, and they, they think they’re going to be having some safe, practical japes be done.
Danno: but supernatural.
Clare: supernatural.
Danno: So you’re yeah, they don’t, they’re kind of looking forward to that. Probably
Clare: Oh, absolutely.
I mean, sometimes the kids are crying, but,
Danno: Cause kids are sensitive to evil aren’t
Clare: They feel it, they.
do feel the evil and definitely some, some of the ghost pranks do move beyond, fun.
Danno: to me that does not feel like a real inviting tourist attraction and really kind of a hard thing to promote on. Um, Ghulja television show.
Clare: you’ve been
Gulch. is a two-pronged, purpose. And one is the sheer entertainment value and,
Danno: Yeah. Watching people get terrified and watching other people just die when the house
falls on them.
Clare: Americans love it. Um, and then the other of course is to raise funds because really my true calling I feel is to help a lot of these ghosts find their peace and eternal
Danno:
Yeah. So let’s talk about that, Claire. I feel like that’s The deeper work that you’re trying to do, and probably more likely to get a lot of sympathy from our listeners. I know you’re trying to raise money for your charitable work with the ghosts. how does the money help? What does, apart from Inc, I guess, what is the money by that you raised through your
Clare: Well, it does, buy my groceries and pay my rent,
which
Danno: got to stay alive, obviously.
Clare: to finish my business or we’re just all going to be in the same problem. and if I die, you know, I will only die in a Western ghost town that I’ve made myself a promise, a promise of that.
Danno: now, will you achieve that? Let’s say you’re, you’re visiting friends in Ohio and you get sick. Oh, the Gulch, the Gulch. got it to
Clare: Um,
Danno: hang on.
Clare: yep. Oh, Gabe, Gabe, come on out. Gabe. Gabe gave out there. There we go. Good. Good. It’s getting might take a little while.
Danno: I will contribute to your charity.
Clare: Thank you. Thank you So much. Good work, Gabe. Um, yeah, so I, have arranged, with the great American railroad company that if at any time my blood pressure dips below 50, over that I will get pre passage to a ghost town,
Danno: that is foresight.
Clare: and you did men, my sister who lives in, Ohio, which is not quite Western enough.
Um, she has a
large troubleshoot
Danno: uh, uh, catapult, I think we
call
Clare: yes, that’s right. And I was an old west one, so we call it the true. Boshea
Danno: Uh, you’re participating in one of the fun games that we do with podcast guests, which is, um, the guest comes on and tries to stump me the host with the archaic jargon.
Clare: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Danno: so far I’m undefeated. You want to try me on any others?
Clare: Not at the moment.
Danno: Right? I know what that means. It means not right now
Clare: you certainly do have vision as a CWA about your vocabulary.
Danno: that I don’t, I don’t
know what that
one.
Clare: Okay. So I would, I would just want to entreat your listeners if I’m hearing about the stories of old Gabe Mackenzie or, black-eyed, Wally,
Danno: what’s the one also called Bolide Blackie.
Clare: Yeah, well, I Blackie black-eyed Wally wall black bye-bye
but a lot of people, they sort of, they look back on those days, incorrect, incorrectly, and which is how it was pronounced by.
Danno: yes, was the incorrect way of pronouncing it.
Clare: That’s right.
And,
um,
Danno: haven’t stumped me with your archaic
Clare: we are very good. You’re you’re like an expert on archaic Jingo.
Danno: I did have a few more questions.
Clare: Yes, certainly.
What can we the living do now to help these unfortunate souls?
Clare: there’s a lot of unfinished business we have to do in these ghost towns. You know, you drive through there and you think, oh, there’s nothing going on here. Just a dead old town with dry dustiness floating around.
That’s not dry dustiness. That’s Gabe Mackenzie.
Danno: clear. Let me throw out a suggestion.
Clare: Yeah.
Danno: Urban redevelopment. What if you brought in some money, some builders, some people and just plowed down those old saloons started putting up some apartments, some fast food restaurants, a doctor’s office, a dentist office. what good is 150 year old saloon doing us. Let’s build it up. Let’s give those ghosts some pride of community.
Clare: You know, I understand why you might think that that would work, but these ghosts are tied to the place where they left their unfinished business. That, that little brothel, that little saloon, that bank, you know, with the safe in the back,
Danno: But all I’m saying is that saloon with the safe in the back is not keeping anyone safe now. Let’s let them occupy the same volume of space, but replace the physicality of that space with something useful to the living, perhaps by being surrounded by the living those ghostly cultures with
Clare: oh, oh, Gabe, Gabe, out, out.
Danno: All right. Point taken point taken
I feel like that’s good advice for
us to. Finish your business
Clare: finish
your business. And I’ll tell you than one ghost died in an outhouse. Because he couldn’t.
Danno: finish
Clare: No. Yeah.
no,
Danno: biz.
Clare: no. no.
Much love and many thanks to announcer Moira Quirk.
Clare Sera, our audience tonight is composed mostly of cowboys and cow women, cow people. And that's your... Expertise! Spelled wrong? Naturally. And since you specialize in ghost towns of the Old West, I thought we could probe your area... Pardon? ...of expertise. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong, the podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan bring their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, saddle up your ponies, put your feet in the syrups, because our guest today is Clare Sera, a world-renowned expert in ghost towns of the Old West.
Clare Sera, welcome to the Expertise podcast. Oh, thank you. Yeehaw! Giddy up! That's exactly what I was hoping for, was a little bit of that flavor from the old times of the Old West. Now, obviously, the Old West is a time that's far beyond any of us living today. What got you interested in such an unusual... Heimlich! Heimlich! Heimlich! Heimlich! That's actually... That could be a little bit of a possession, Danno. When I was... Okay. It'll come out. It'll come out. That's probably old Gabe McKenzie. Gabe McKenzie, the famous devil of desert gulch? Desert gulch.
And that's what he likes to create, a gulping sound, because... That's what I felt in my throat. It felt like a gulch. Yes. You had a gulch in your throat. That's Gabe's specialty. He's a prankster. He's a funny prankster, but he has killed a few people. You're telling me that a ghost of an old cowboy or a friendly prospector or something has actually, literally, in modern times, taken the life of human people? Well, you know, that's the funny thing that I have discovered. In researching America's ghost towns... And we're talking about America's ghost towns.
Ghost towns of the Old West. The Old West of America. The Old West of America on the western part of America. The western part of the Old West. Of the most westerly westness. My understanding is the further west you go, the more ghostly the ghost towns get. Well, you have to be careful. If you go too far west, you end up east. And the east ghost towns, you don't want to have anything to do with those. Yeah, you got to stay on the right side of the gulch. Yeah, on the left to the right of the westerly gulch towns, that's where you find your ghosts, your old cowboy ghosts, your old brothel ladies, your snappy, gold-digging, westy types that inhabit the ghost towns.
Now, to become a ghost, you've got to have unfinished business in this world. Sure. So many people went out prospecting for gold and failed. Does that count as unfinished business? That is some of it. But I'm talking about business. Actual, like, business dealings. Contracts. Bank loans. I see. Mortgages. Mortgages. Buildings and loan business. Okay. These are surprisingly less terrifying ghosts than, honestly, I was hoping for. What does it take for a ghost to be able to just sign a name one last time on a contract? First of all, they have to find ink. Do they need to sign a physical contract in our realm with physical liquid ink?
Yes. Yes. Okay. So finding ink doesn't sound like that big of a deal. Well, where would you find ink, Dano? You're not going to find ink in a ghost town. Oh, I didn't think about that. Even the office supply stores of a ghost town are closed and ghostly. So a lot of ghosts will spend their time trying to repurpose ancient molecules of ink from the early days, which, of course, is still floating around. You know that everything is always floating around. There's all pieces of dead people, dead animals, everything from the past. That's why I don't cut my fingernails anymore.
So they're not floating around. Nobody's doing the voodoo on me, Claire. Nobody is doing the voodoo on me. Well, Dano, I think Gabe McKenzie gave you a good gulching earlier. Yeah. Point taken. Yeah. So I do want to find out about the signature business, but you... Oh. Happened again. You've been gulched. That's just a promo for... I'm doing a TV show about ghosts of the Old West. I'm trying to get a little bit of money so I can get ink to these ghost towns and let some of these ghosts have their final rest. Look, if people are interested, are really interested in finding out what the ghosts of these Old Western towns, what their personalities are like, what it would take to give them a little bit of eternal peace and rest, they can watch my television show, You've Been Gulched, any Friday night.
It's on a YouTube channel now. Do you have a link to that? Can you have a link? Yeah, we can put a link to Gulch Me Now. You've Been Gulched. I'm sorry. I've linked to the wrong website. So that sounds a little bit like one of those fun practical joke programs. They have a lot of time for pranks and fun, you know, in between while they're waiting for their ink to untry. What are they going to do to pass eternity? Right? So they have rigged up... Some of these towns are rigged with elaborate pulley systems where the front facades of those towns... Is there some fun-loving japery that goes on with the ghosts and the old dangerous buildings and unsuspecting passersby?
You know it. That's exactly what's happened. Because even though these ghosts have unfinished business... Maybe you've seen the Buster Keaton film where he's just standing there and a whole building falls down over top of him and he stands through the window. The window just falls around him. That's... So are you saying a tourist can come have a building fall over them? Yeah. Though the ghosts are not very good with measurements and we've had... Sure. How could they be? That's been what some of the killings have come from. Yeah, but then you get some fresh young ghosts.
That's right. That's the thing that really keeps a town like that alive. And most of these young ghosts have unfinished business with like student loan debt... Or just revenge against the other ghosts that killed them probably. Right. Revenge business is really big in the eastern ghost towns. So this east ghost versus west ghost... Mm-hmm. This constant battle... How do you think that's gonna play out? Well, you could watch on my YouTube channel East Ghost versus West Ghost Gulching Championships on... Every time you say that I get it. Oh, Gabe. Yeah. You know what?
A lot of people don't know when they're coming to visit a ghost town. Say a family visit. Oh, we're gonna drive through the main street. Yeah. I know. It does sound fun. And they think they're gonna be having some safe practical japes be done. But supernatural. Supernatural. Absolutely. Ghostly. So you're... Yeah. They're kind of looking forward to that probably. Oh, absolutely. I mean, sometimes the kids are crying, but... Because kids are sensitive to evil, aren't they? They feel it. They do feel the evil. Mm-hmm. And definitely some of the ghost pranks do move beyond fun.
So to me, that does not feel like a real inviting tourist attraction and really kind of a hard thing to promote on Gulcha, your television show. You've Been Gulched is a two-pronged purpose. Okay. And one is the sheer entertainment value and... Sure. Yeah. Watching people get terrified and... Yeah. So... Watching other people just die when a house falls on them. Americans love it. And then the other, of course, is to raise funds because really my true calling, I feel, is to help a lot of these ghosts find their peace and eternal rest. Yeah. So let's talk about that, Claire.
I feel like that's the deeper work that you're trying to do. Yeah. And probably more likely to get a lot of sympathy from our listeners. I know you're trying to raise money for your charitable work with the ghosts. Yes. Yeah. How does the money help? What does... Apart from ink, I guess, what does the money buy that you raise through your charity? Well, it does buy my groceries and pay my rent, which... You've got to stay alive, obviously. I have to finish my business. Right. We're just all going to be in the same problem. And if I die, I will only die in a Western ghost town.
I've made myself a promise of that. Now, how will you achieve that? Let's say you're visiting friends in Ohio and you get sick. Oh, Gabe. The gulch. The gulch. I got it too. That's... Oh, Gabe. Gabe, come on. Out, Gabe. Out, Gabe. Gabe out. There we go. It worked! It worked! Good. It might take a little while. I will contribute to your charity. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good work, Gabe. Yeah, so I have arranged with the Great American Railroad Company that if at any time my blood pressure dips below 50 over 25, that I will get prepassage to a ghost town. That is foresight.
And, uh... Uh, I don't know. You don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to. I don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to. I don't have to. I don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to. And you did mention... My sister lives in Ohio, which is not quite Western enough. Yeah, that's Midwest. She has a large trebuchet. A catapult, I think we call that. Yes, that's right. It's an old West one, so we call it the trebuchet. You're participating in one of the fun games that we do with podcast guests, which is the guest comes on and tries to stump me, the host, with archaic jargon.
Oh yeah. Yeah. And so far, I'm undefeated. You want to try me on any others? Not at the moment. Oh, I know what that means. It means not right now. You certainly do have a je ne sais quoi about your vocabulary. I don't know what that one means. So I would just want to entreat your listeners if I'm hearing about the stories of old Gabe McKenzie or Black-Eyed Wally. Was there one also called Wall-Eyed Blackie? Yeah, Wall-Eyed Blackie, Black-Eyed Wally, Wall-Black Bye-Bye. But a lot of people, they look back on those days incorrectly, which is how it was pronounced back then.
Yes. That was the incorrect way of pronouncing incorrect. That's right. And... Again, you haven't stumped me with your archaic terminology. You are very good. You're like an expert on archaic jingo. I did have a few more questions. Okay. Yes, certainly. What can we, the living, do now to help these unfortunate souls? There's a lot of unfinished business we have to do in these ghost towns. You drive through there and you think, oh, there's nothing going on here. Just a dead old town with dry dustiness floating around. That's not dry dustiness. That's Gabe McKenzie.
Claire, let me throw out a suggestion. Yeah. Urban redevelopment. What if you brought in some money, some builders, some people, and just plowed down those old saloons? Started putting up some apartments, some fast food restaurants, a doctor's office, a dentist's office. What is a 150-year-old saloon doing us? Let's build it up. Let's give those ghosts some pride of community. I understand why you might think that that would work, but these ghosts are tied to the place where they left their unfinished business. That little brothel, that little saloon, that bank with the safe in the back.
But all I'm saying is that saloon with the safe in the back is not keeping anyone safe now. Let's let them occupy the same volume of space, but replace the physicality of that space with something useful to the living. Perhaps by being surrounded by the living, those ghostly gulchers would... Oh, Gabe, Gabe, Gabe, out, out. All right. Point taken. Point taken. You've been gulched. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free, and like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.
I feel like that's good advice for us, the living, finish your business. Finish your business. Actually, more than one ghost died in an outhouse because he couldn't... Finish... It's... No. Yeah. No. No. No. No. No. No.
