Created and produced by Mike Martinez and Tyler Wray, Everything is Stories is an ongoing survey of personal histories. Each episode is a first person narrative from someone who has lived through consequential changes to their notion of self and the world.
Harry Crews said it best: “Nothing is allowed to die in a society of story telling people. It is all–the good and the bad–carted up and brought along from one generation to the next. And everything that is brought along is colored and shaped by those who bring it.
These voices have told their greatest moments where peace is far and death is close. Sometimes these stories explore the philosophy of outsiders. But most importantly, these stories examine what it is to be human.
We don’t record to defend or demonstrate an idea. Rather, we create a document of what was seen and felt during their transformative experiences. Take a listen. Start anywhere. You may find a new definition of reality’s highs and lows.
Know of a story or storyteller? Send us your tales of genuine characters and unfamiliar places for consideration to: HQ@everythingisstories.com. No story too troubled, no atmosphere too strange, no realm too foreign.
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19 Nov 2024
The Disorientation of Survival - Part 3
*This episode contains strong descriptions of sexual situations and abuse, listener discretion is advised.
As a closeted gay teenager, lying was familiar to Mark Olmsted. Concealing parts of his identity was just part of the deal–and he was good at it. But when the AIDS crisis threatened his life and left him with little to lose, the lying would turn so grandiose that no one who knew him could quite believe it.
In our previous two episodes Mark Olmsted spoke on his upbringing and the complicated history with his brother–and how an unexpected transformation in their relationship would eventually lead to a life of debauchery, all culminating in a dramatic encounter with law enforcement.
For our third and final part of the story, Mark describes the chaotic months he would spend being shuffled throughout the California detention system. As a gay inmate concerned for his safety, lying would initially become a means for survival as he struggled to gain footing in a tense environment. Eventually finding common ground as an outsider with a small group of inmates, Mark would slowly begin to re-examine his life–ironically reclaiming his sanity in a place most would consider insane. With the burden of lying lifted after his release and a certain memory about his mother re-surfacing, would the need to live a life of deception remain? Or will reckoning with a shocking childhood secret and his closeted childhood open the door for contemplation and a new way of life?
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Produced by Mike Martinez, Tyler Wray, and Grace Heerman. Music by Mike Etten. Sound design by George Drake, Jr. Photos by Clarke Tolton.
For more about Mark, you can purchase his book Ink From The Pen: A Prison Memoir.
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22 Oct 2024
The Disorientation of Survival - Part 2
*This episode contains descriptions of sexual situations, listener discretion is advised.
As a closeted gay teenager, lying was familiar to Mark Olmsted. Concealing parts of his identity was just part of the deal–and he was good at it. But when the AIDS crisis threatened his life and left him with little to lose, the lying would turn so grandiose that no one who knew him could quite believe it.
In part two, Mark discusses his increased trajectory of deception in the immediate years after a death in the family. With his health hanging in the balance and hopes dashed after a dream screenplay project falls through, casual drug use and debauchery would eventually give rise to dealing methamphetamine in the Los Angeles gay scene–a desperate scenario that would lead to a dramatic encounter with law enforcement. With things escalating beyond his control, Mark would devise a plan to carry out the biggest act of fraud deception yet, but would it be enough to finally turn his life around for good?
For more about Mark, you can purchase his book Ink From The Pen: A Prison Memoir HERE.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Apple Podcasts (US)
4.8 / 5
587 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
46 ratings
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