Vincent Morales and Renee Marchol

[00:05] RENEE MARSHALL: Hello. My name is Renee Marshall. I'm 44 years old. Today's date is Saturday, September 24, 2022. We're here at storycorps of Atlanta. I'm here with Vincent Morales, and he's my friend.

[00:22] VINCENT MORALES: Hi, I'm Vincent Morales, and I'm 28. Today is Saturday, the 24 September, 2022, and we are here at Story corpse Atlanta, here with my friend Renee

[00:40] RENEE MARSHALL: So, Vincent, it's been exactly one year since we've seen each other. You come from Canada to visit me here in Atlanta. I thought maybe we would split up this conversation into, first, nonfiction, and then we could do some fiction improv, just like how we met each other.

[01:01] VINCENT MORALES: That sounds great.

[01:03] RENEE MARSHALL: Would you like to start with what brings you here to the south?

[01:08] VINCENT MORALES: Yes, that's a good way to start. I work in renewable energy as part of an organization that organizes three conferences a year, and they happen to do a conference in September in Nashville, Tennessee. And the first time I was planning to attend that conference, I realized that Nashville wasn't that far away from Atlanta. And knowing that you're based in Atlanta, I thought that would be great to visit my friend Renee and meet her in person. So after my work trip, I managed to make my way to Atlanta and be here today with you.

[01:57] RENEE MARSHALL: I'm so glad you came to visit me again. I'm so glad. We met each other during the pandemic, virtually. We were both taking classes at bad Dog theater with our teacher Ryan Chibi, eating on Zoom on Sundays.

[02:16] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. So at that time, we were all both taking a beginner's class, and we did level one, level two, level three. Do you remember why you decided to take improv lessons at that time? What was your primary motivation?

[02:38] RENEE MARSHALL: I love that you asked that. I have to think back why I chose that. I was taking. I had just moved to Atlanta from California, and it was right in the middle of the pandemic. I got here on April Fool's day. April 1.

[02:57] VINCENT MORALES: Okay. 2020.

[02:59] RENEE MARSHALL: Yes, that's correct. And I was thinking, how will I make friends knowing that we have to stay indoors, away from everyone? This kind of interrupts my plans. So one of the first things I did, I try to see what's available virtually. So I looked up just online, what are some playwriting classes that are available through local Atlanta teachers? So I did that. I already had a playwriting community online. And then I looked for a way to perform storytelling. Not my plays, but just real life stories. And I was able to connect with a canadian. Canadian who is hosting a virtual show every month. And she remembered seeing me in person on stage in Seattle. And because of that, she said, yeah, I'd like you to be part of the lineup. So I was in part of the lineup with a comedian, a canadian, canadian, canadian comedian named Dawn Zanklin. And after performing with her, I. On stage, on the virtual stage, I asked her, you know, I would really enjoy taking some comedy. What would you recommend? And she said, bad dog theater. And I got a scholarship. That school gave me a diversity scholarship, and that's how I ended up having, like, spent 16 weeks with you. That was so awesome.

[04:30] VINCENT MORALES: Yay.

[04:31] RENEE MARSHALL: And how about you? What's your story? How did you get there?

[04:34] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. First discovered improv seven years ago, I was doing an academic exchange. So I was studying in France, in the north of France, engineering. And as part of that degree, I had the opportunity to do an academic exchange in Sherbrooke, in Quebec, at the University of Sherbrooke there, and a friend of mine there, Josiah Warden, showed us, me and my group of friends, what improv could look like there. They called that improv matches, or improv games, where it's essentially two teams of actors all wearing hockey jerseys. So you would have, let's say, the blue team against the green team, and you would have a referee wearing a hockey referee jersey, a stripe, black and white stripes. And it would go with, like, in different sessions, I suppose, where the referee would first introduce what the next act is going to look like. He would say something like, oh, okay. The next act is going to be a compared play, and the theme will be Gone with the wind. You have 30 seconds. And then they would take those 30 seconds to, like, brainstorm, and then you would have the two teams playing on stage, either together or separately, once after the other. And then the public would vote for which team they prefer the most for each act. And at the end, you count the points, and there's, like, a winner winning team. And so since then, I kept a very good memory of that, and I had always been interested in trying improv. One day, and with the pandemic, I thought, I just got reminded that this was an activity that exists. And then I thought, okay, yeah, that's a good time to do it, and let's try online. And because everything is online, I don't have to restrict myself to just what's going on in one particular city or time zone. So that's how I ended up coming across via Google search, bat dog theater company.

[07:04] RENEE MARSHALL: I'm so glad you did. I love that description of, like, hockey, hockey uniforms and having a referee. I've actually not done any of improv in person. Have you done any comedy in person?

[07:20] VINCENT MORALES: I did a few times in a park when it was a summer, 2020, when we were all wearing masks and 2 meters apart, 6ft apart. And yeah, it was fun because we would do like seal things and there could still be pedestrians nearby walking around the park and they were probably looking at us and thinking, who are those people pretending they are birds?

[07:54] RENEE MARSHALL: You do quite a wonderful bird impression. I know this is hard on audio, but earlier we were talking about a bird called the american dipper that you saw while you're on an outing with your sister. Vincent, would you like to describe what you saw?

[08:13] VINCENT MORALES: That bird was nearby a creek on a rock and was looking around, as I think you described it, as in shrugging, then right, then left, then right, then left, and then suddenly dives backwards into the creek as if it committed suicide, although it was just like fishing, probably. And yeah, that's one of my favorite birds I've ever encountered.

[08:47] RENEE MARSHALL: I love your impression over the bird. I know that the hearers can't see, but it is shrugging and shrugging to the right, shrugging to the left, as it's sort of deciding what to do with one's fate and then taking a dive backwards.

[09:03] VINCENT MORALES: Without any warning.

[09:04] RENEE MARSHALL: Yeah, without any warning at all. Lately I've been doing a lot of bird watching. I have a lot of freedom since my line of work is marketing and usually I'm working remotely, which means my hours are super flexible and by the time my work day ends, there's still daylight. So one of the things I really enjoy doing here in Atlanta is bird watching, where I take my phone and then my binoculars, and on my phone I have an app, a birdwatching app called Merlin, and where I can almost have it as an electronic ear. And this electronic ear helps me name the birds that are in their environment. So when you mentioned the american dipper, probably only in Canada, but now I'm very curious about that one here. Nearby, about 20 minutes from here, is a boardwalk pathway, and there's tons of trees like the tulip poplar that only grows out here in the eastern United, eastern and southeastern United States. Poplar trees. And the birds that I hear and I see are the red bellied wookpecker. And there's also one called the gray cat bird. And it makes a very irritating but very interesting sound. A gray cat bird. And I'm using this in conjunction with my binoculars, so I usually have my device, hear it, and then I look for it with my binoculars. So that's what I've been doing. But I. We've had earlier conversation that you have, like, a rotation of hobbies. Would you like to talk about one of them?

[11:00] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. I think these days, one of the hobbies that I like to explore more is singing. I've always liked singing but never took lessons. I never tried to push further in deepening that skill in a way. And since the pandemic, I've been listening to more music, more the radio. This summer, I've been attending quite a few concerts, actually, until, let's say, June 1, 2022, I had only seen three concerts in my whole life. And since then, I guess after this summer, now I've seen, like, a dozen concerts in just, like, a few weeks. So, yeah, and, yeah, so I like the idea of exploring the voice because what I learned, I guess, one perspective is that our voice is our own instruments, and we just need to learn how to use it. And so I just find it really neat that we can use that instrument anywhere. And, like, it's easy to pack when you're traveling because it's just there and requires just a little bit of warm up and. Yeah, but curious to hear about you. So you mentioned already bird watching, which is one of your hobbies these days. Is there any other thing that you really like to do?

[12:49] RENEE MARSHALL: Good question. I love how you describe the voice of something that's easy to pack, easy to warm up. And I realize how delighted I am when it comes to sound. I think that's another aspect of why I enjoy bird watching. It's mainly bird listening at present, and this may change in 50 years that I cannot imitate any of the bird sounds right now. I really want to and also want to learn to imitate its movements like you can, where the american differ, because that is so funny. And also it helps me observe the world around me and see how many amusing things there are out there. So one of the hobbies that I've been working on this season is working on voice, working on dialogue. For example, my voice, my default voice is this that you heard, hi, Vincent. How are you? Or this is a different voice. Hi, how are you? There's a difference in that. And so I've been enjoying writing three minute comedy monologues through a different teacher. The teacher is part of YouTube's character's welcome, and also there is some affiliation with New York's squirrel comedy theater. So I've been taking classes online, and essentially, you got three minutes to create a monologue where it's very much like our comedy improv class, where we find a way in a scene to heighten and explore an obsession. To heighten and explore an obsession. And even though the scene partner is unseen, you could pretend that somebody who is off screen is either aiding you, helping you along. For example, let's just say that you're making a bonfire. Someone who's helping you would find more twigs and such to throw in. Or you could pretend someone's vexing you and saying, just finding a way to splash cold water on the fire or smother in some way, essentially an extended three minute rant with an unseen person either aiding you or thwarting you. And I really enjoyed that because, like you were saying, like, the human voice is such an incredible instrument. And I realize with changing my voice a little bit, going a little bit slower, going a little bit lower, it also invites a whole different opportunity to interact with people. And it doesn't have to be as heavy handed as I've made it grumpy or nervous and fluty. So that's what I've been up to.

[15:49] VINCENT MORALES: What you mentioned about voice just made me realize I have a friend who listens to a lot of true crime podcasts. I do usually, I guess I had never tried, was just didn't really understand that thing. And she recommended a couple to me, and then I listened to it. And indeed, like, the storyteller must probably be doing a lot of work on his voice to, like. And this was the day when Lizzie Borden decided it was enough. Like, different pitch, different speed. Yeah. And it's. It's true that it makes. It makes the difference. It makes the story entertaining.

[16:41] RENEE MARSHALL: It does make the story entertaining. I was wondering if you'd like to take a turn in our current chat and switch it into an improv podcast. Going fiction. How's that sound?

[16:55] VINCENT MORALES: That sounds great.

[17:06] RENEE MARSHALL: The bird was found in the backpack holding a half eaten pretzel.

[17:16] VINCENT MORALES: That half eaten pretzel, multigrain pretzel. That was the new trend in 2019, had some color pigments in the parts that was beaten, eaten. Sorry. Not like the recipe for losers. That's a different. That's the beaten cake. I'm digressing. Yes. There were pigments of colored pigments, purple, green, blue, which indicated that the pretzel had been tempered with.

[18:03] RENEE MARSHALL: Yes. You mentioned purple and green.

[18:07] VINCENT MORALES: Purple and green.

[18:08] RENEE MARSHALL: Purple and green, indeed. Well, when this backpack with the bird with a pretzel with purple and green was found, it was stuffed underneath the oven of the historic swan house, right under that very purposeful recipe that said beaten biscuits. But you, you're very astute. Know that it's only a recipe for those who don't win.

[18:48] VINCENT MORALES: Those who don't win, indeed. Also named losers. Loser comes from. Loser comes from the greek loose, which also means that it's related to the fact that some people interpret rules in a too loose way, and then that leads to their defeat and their relationship with the beaten biscuits and that pretzel is that all those elements can be found at that location. You just mentioned the swan house.

[19:36] RENEE MARSHALL: That one swan house. Hmm. It's true that all those ingredients found, but it does seem very festive for it to be purple and green. And you mentioned something about someone playing loose the rules. In your estimation, do you think what killed that american dipper?

[20:00] VINCENT MORALES: Yes.

[20:01] RENEE MARSHALL: Was that he was playing loose with the rules.

[20:06] VINCENT MORALES: Exactly. So as its name indicates. So there's a. I think the biggest clue here, and that's how eventually that case was solved, was that this is the swan house, and that means that only swans are allowed in, and we're talking about an american dipper there. So that bird was really not playing by the rules for sure. But now a question. The next question is, did that bird intentionally get inside that house, or did another individual wanted that bird harm, wanted to cause harm to that bird and then brought that to that house?

[21:03] RENEE MARSHALL: Did the bird act alone? Did the bird act alone? Considering the size of the backpack that was found, it seems extra heavy. It's made out of canvas, brown canvas with 1237 zippers, one with. One with not just a camelback, which is a tube that feeds to a water source, but also with a holster for specifically an orange water bottle. Orange bottle. So considering how heavy that backpack is, that should suggest a human accomplice to perhaps sneak that contraband bird into a swan only house. Perhaps. What do you think of that?

[22:00] VINCENT MORALES: It reminds me of that other case where there would be that I think it was a couple that for every day, for I think it was the month of December, that couple would just gather random objects, and every day they would keep building on that pile of objects. Like, there would be, I think, would.

[22:32] RENEE MARSHALL: It be five things at once?

[22:35] VINCENT MORALES: Five things? Yeah, there could be five things. It could be two turtle doves, three french hens. There would be five golden rings. And are we at four, three here, three. There would be eleven bottles of sanitizer and eventually a partridge in a pear tree. Yes.

[23:11] RENEE MARSHALL: That progression.

[23:16] VINCENT MORALES: That's the progression, yes. So I think. I'm wondering if the human involved here wanted to recreate the partridge in a perturb scene. But instead of using pears, that person was allergic to fruits, probably would make cakes and then didn't have a partridge or maybe just didn't know what a partridge looked like.

[23:43] RENEE MARSHALL: And yes, that makes sense, especially with the golden rings, the escalation to a partridge and a pear tree. There must be that frustration of not knowing what a parch looks like and then found a way to co opt. Entice an american dipper. Right? To entice an american dipper to go into the forbidden swan house and into a place where there are these baked pretzels that look very festive. They look like they're for some sort of holiday party since they're so sparkly with purple and green. Perhaps the Mardi Gras party. And the final. The final taste of that, that Mardi Gras pretzel perhaps was. Was fatal. Could you talk to me about the typical habits of the american dipper? What does it tend to do?

[24:45] VINCENT MORALES: Yes, I think one way to describe that would be to recreate that scene. Yeah. If you'd like to join me.

[24:57] RENEE MARSHALL: Shall I. Shall I unzip that backpack?

[25:00] VINCENT MORALES: Yes.

[25:01] RENEE MARSHALL: Oh, certainly. I notice a bottle, that bottle of antihistamine, perhaps? Because, as you said, we suspect the person involved is allergic to fruit. Antihistamine. All right, open it wider. Okay.

[25:15] VINCENT MORALES: Mm hmm. And then so, and then there would be the american trooper. Oh, that's. That's big. Oh, no, but I wasn't planning to stick around here. Oh, okay. So let's see. Turning right. Turning left. Turning right. Turning left. So I'm feeling very hungry now. Is this a pretzel in there?

[25:44] RENEE MARSHALL: Yes, it's a very. It's a very fragrant pretzel with all these delicious seeds.

[25:51] VINCENT MORALES: Ah, preheated seeds. All right, well, I'm not supposed to be here, so why. Why should. But that pretzel looks good. What?

[26:09] RENEE MARSHALL: It's multigrain.

[26:10] VINCENT MORALES: It's multigrain.

[26:11] RENEE MARSHALL: It's multigrain.

[26:12] VINCENT MORALES: Okay, I'm in.

[26:15] RENEE MARSHALL: And then zip, zip, zip, crunch, crunch.

[26:23] VINCENT MORALES: Didn't even hear. No, it was just silence. That's. Hmm.

[26:33] RENEE MARSHALL: I think with this recreation, this reenactment, that's exactly how it happened.

[26:38] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. I think in the following days, obviously. So it. That american dipper was, I suppose their family was interest. I guess they did try to look for that american dipper, but nobody could really find the origin of what all happened until decades later.

[27:15] RENEE MARSHALL: It would have been a cold case. It would have been a cold case if we had not investigated further.

[27:26] VINCENT MORALES: Hmm.

[27:29] RENEE MARSHALL: What are we looking into for next week's true crime podcast?

[27:34] VINCENT MORALES: Next week's true crime podcast will be the story of Billy the Clown. Billy B. Johnson. The clown was born in 1980 and was a big fan of well bound books, had a collection of such books, and started to paint them in different colors, following a pattern that would eventually look like a.

[28:15] RENEE MARSHALL: The shape that you're making with your hands. I'm going to assume that your fingers perhaps could be petals in the shape of sunflowers, perhaps.

[28:25] VINCENT MORALES: Yes, indeed.

[28:26] RENEE MARSHALL: I. So, Billy the clown, Vera, into the bound books and. Did you say paintings?

[28:33] VINCENT MORALES: Paintings.

[28:34] RENEE MARSHALL: Paintings.

[28:35] VINCENT MORALES: And Billy was found, I suppose.

[28:44] RENEE MARSHALL: I know it's hard to talk about.

[28:47] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. Not alive anymore in his library. And so we'll dive into the mysteries. Why don't we jump to our other program? And I was thinking that this would be a good segue to introduce our sponsor for this.

[29:16] RENEE MARSHALL: Yes. We are here with Smiley O's never digestible oat cereal. It makes you feel full, not just for today, but for the rest of the year.

[29:30] VINCENT MORALES: Thank you, Renee That was a wonderful one.

[29:36] RENEE MARSHALL: So thank you for having smiley o's as the sponsor.

[29:41] VINCENT MORALES: As the sponsor.

[29:42] RENEE MARSHALL: We do have a financial problem, though, since you only need to eat it once for the year. We didn't really think through our business plan because people tend to only buy a product once a year.

[29:56] VINCENT MORALES: Yes. Hopefully we'll hold on to that one for as long as they are around. Yeah. My suggestion for the final topic of the day was to revisit that. That. What's the name again? Elfic outbreak. That.

[30:28] RENEE MARSHALL: The outbreak. Could you repeat? What type of outbreak?

[30:32] VINCENT MORALES: Of elves.

[30:33] RENEE MARSHALL: Sorry, that elf outbreak.

[30:35] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah, all invasion, should I say? Like, this is. They're just everywhere these days. Like, people can't just park this traffic all the time. Those traffic jams are caused for a reason, and I think that's due to the elf.

[30:49] RENEE MARSHALL: That elf outbreak. Well, it really started when one child, you know those elves on the shelf that usually appear around Christmas time in the red outfit, the black belt, the smiling, mischievous face. In the morning, usually the parent finds the elf on a toothbrush, or the elf is now in the toaster. But the child, one child. All it took was one child to take that elf and continue that into January. And as you know, elves reproduce asexually.

[31:33] VINCENT MORALES: And there's no natural predator in this environment, which can lead to catastrophic ecological disasters.

[31:48] RENEE MARSHALL: Yes, exactly. So I was thinking there are many scientists working on a solution. Since it has no natural predator, perhaps there can be some sort of enticement we already know these l's are nearly indestructible. They cannot be killed in a toaster. They cannot be frozen and subdued. They cannot be turned into powder. I can't think of the other two ways that we've tried killing them. Can you see?

[32:20] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah. Yeah. They cannot be frozen in Jell O and they cannot be spinned infinitely fast. In a Stalin spinner. Yes, in a salad spinner. Where? That is salad spinners that are designed for rockets. Oh, sorry. Arugula salad. Specifically because it's the spicy one, the one that makes people cough. Yeah. And. Oh, that's something that elves don't cough. So I wonder if there's something there. But anyway, yeah, no natural predators, absolute mayhem.

[33:09] RENEE MARSHALL: I feel something crawling up my back. Can you tell me what it is?

[33:14] VINCENT MORALES: Well. Well, there's. Okay, there's a green hat that's like suddenly appearing behind your head. Oh, hello sir. Could you tell us your name? Well, Mister Jones. Okay, well, we're in the middle of a program here. Would you please maybe tell us what? Or tell us why are you here? What are you looking for? On this planet, we want every holiday.

[33:50] RENEE MARSHALL: We would like Valentine's Day, we would like Halloween. We would like pancake day. We would like all the holidays.

[34:00] VINCENT MORALES: What if we created a new day for you? What if we added magic non unicorn only day?

[34:17] RENEE MARSHALL: That sounds enticing, intriguing, but if you throw in a grandfather clock, we're good. Let me consult my 13 children. Yes, a grandfather clock would make everything good.

[34:28] VINCENT MORALES: A grandfather clock, we can arrange that. Do you want a magic one with an odd old man inside the clock that announces the time by drawing the arms of the clock every minute? Or do you want a regular clock that just rings every hour?

[34:48] RENEE MARSHALL: I'm not a regular type of elf. Definitely something that's extra creepy.

[34:53] VINCENT MORALES: We'll take. We'll try to find a magic clock. We'll definitely get you one. So. All right, that's the deal. We have breaking news. Breaking news. The elves have suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth.

[35:15] RENEE MARSHALL: Bong, bong. The grandfather clock.

[35:19] VINCENT MORALES: The grandfather clock is indeed. This is celebrating magic non unicorn only day. The day that will be remembered for the end of the invasion of the elves.

[35:37] RENEE MARSHALL: I am very proud that we were able to find an amicable, non lethal solution.

[35:46] VINCENT MORALES: It's how you get durable peace. But those were dark days. Those when you had to deal with magic on a consistent basis. It's true.

[36:03] RENEE MARSHALL: Elves on the ceiling, elves in one's shoes, elves on the greyhound.

[36:11] VINCENT MORALES: Yeah, elves on a trampoline. Jumping even higher than regular humans. Just ridiculous them.

[36:23] RENEE MARSHALL: And with that, I would like to say thank you so much, Vincent, for talking to me about many different podcasts, cast and sponsors, and how we solve the elf invasion in Atlanta in 2022.

[36:44] VINCENT MORALES: Thank you, Renee for joining me in this interesting roller coaster.

[37:02] RENEE MARSHALL: That was so much fun. Thank you.

[37:04] VINCENT MORALES: Thank you. I loved it.