Spooked - Spooked LIVE: Jen Kober x Glynn Washington

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

The hallowed halls of an Airbnb house a spirit that can only be seen through sprinkles, spritzes, and sparkles… of air freshener. Queen of Comedy, Jen Kober, shares a story only she could tell. Plus, hear about Glynn's close personal witch. LIVE! The episode contains strong language, sensitive listeners please be advised. Thanks, Jen, for sharing your story with us! For all things Jen -- and to see her live on tour -- check out her website.These stories were told at Spooked LIVE! We have a West Coast tour this year in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle! Join us in September and October! Get your tix. Cross over.Original music performed live by Doug Stuart and Brijean Murphy. Mixed by Miles Lassi. Artwork by Teo Ducot. Special thanks to Ryan Davis, Sarah Rose Leonard, Jon Cohn, Rebecca Stumme, Kristen Payne, and the LA Orpheum Team. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that the shadow has an odd sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find her laughing. You're listening to Spooked? Okay, so backstage at the hallowed halls of L.A.'s haunted Orphean Theater, over 2,000 spooksters have gathered waiting on the other side of that curtain. Preparing to summon the shadow for Spooked live, they think. They're going to get one thing, but friends, y'all about to get something else entirely. I am so excited, a woman who is royalty to this Snap Judgment Enterprise, rolled out the red carpet,

she's about to step on the spook stage. No, I will never be able to predict the next word out of her mouth, but I promise, I guarantee, you can love the ride. And dear friend of mine, Snap fam, Jim, I just have to say I didn't know who was on this show. And when you show up to a gig, and there's a CNN correspondent there, has already spooked. Can't be good. In a dressing room in the bowels of this building.

Listening to music, la la la la la la. I don't like to be scared. Even as a kid, I didn't ever like scary movies. I'm not really nightmare on Elm Street. I'm more Ghostbusters, though I do watch a lot of Dateline. Yeah. Like those slasher kind of movies, that blood and guts, I can't take that. Fictionalized horror terrifies me.

But actual people dying. I fall asleep to that shit. That's... Never liked scary movies. I remember at a slumber party when I was eight years old. Betsy Rodriguez got us all into a circle. And she started all that light as a feather, stiff as a board, Bloody Mary, Ouija, voodoo, schmoodle.

I don't care for that. It scares me. Uh-uh. Anytime that would start, I would just go to sleep. I would often wake up with my hands and bowls of warm water. If you know, you know, if not, we'll move on. I never understood it, though. Like, fine, make me pee.

It's your sheath. It was hard to handle those scary movies. I just couldn't do it. Side note, I don't like scary movies so much that are when the movie I know what you did. last summer was popular. I was doing a one-woman show at that time that I wanted to title, I know what you ate last summer. I thought it would be funny. And then I was going to parody some scene from the movie. So I sat down to watch the movie. Five minutes in, I shut that shit off and

changed the name of my one-woman show to Indiana Jen and the Temple of Food. I love Indiana Jones. it's the ringtone on myself. So I didn't know what to do, y'all. How am I going to tell a spooky story when I don't like to be spooked? So I called Glenn. I was like, dude, I don't know what to do. Glenn says, Jen, it doesn't have to be blood and guts kind of scary.

Haven't you ever just been spooked? I was like, ooh, dude. You mean like the time my dog, who was really my grandmother reincarnated. sat at the end of my bed telling me about the presence of extraterrestrials in the greater Los Angeles area. All night long, she just kept being like, I'm telling you, Jennifer, there are space aliens on Wilshire. Glenn was like, that's not quite it. I said, ooh, what about the time we held a seance for a dead squirrel in Paducah, Kentucky with a voodoo priestess?

Closer. What about the time me and my buddy Jeff D cleared a haunted Airbnb of a ghost that looked like ZZ Top? Glenn said jackpot. Here's what you got to know about my buddy Jeff D. Jeff D looks like the brother I never had. But he's more like the sister I never wanted. He looks just like me and he is very, very, very gay. He loves Rock Hudson and Judy Garland and Leslie Jordan.

I often refer to him as the ghost of homosexuals past. We've known each other since college and he opens for me all over the country. So we traveled together. So one weekend, what had happened was. We found ourselves playing at the Stardome Comedy Club in Hoover, Alabama, right outside of Birmingham. I don't mean to brag, but they have two Walmarts. One of them has a brand new Arby's inside of it.

We had our shows on the weekend, so we had gotten there on Tuesday. We were going to spend a few days in an Airbnb there in Alabama and get our laundry done and catch up on our TV shows. This is Road Life Glamour. So we get an Airbnb. The homeowner meets us at the address. It's a little bit outside of the city limits. But it's a big old house.

We get there and the owner meets us. Her name is Celeste. And I can't tell if Celeste is a hick or a hippie. She's wearing a tie-dye t-shirt. hippie but with overalls hick she has long gray hair but it's in willie nelson braids she's got her dog with her it's a golden doodle named bailey it's like he-ha meets woodstock or for you millennials miley cyrus i can't tell what's going on with this woman but she and the dog starts

showing us around the place. She shows us the washer and the dryer. She's got some environmentally friendly detergent there for us to use. Thank you, Celeste. Then she shows us the bedrooms, and the dog keeps sniffing around a door. She says, oh, that's the equipment closet. Equipment? Ors, ars, rackets, that sort of thing. for sports. I don't know what about looking at Jeff and I would have made her think to show us the sporting equipment, but I figured it was just part of the tour. And then she says, oh, and be careful, there's spirits in the house, but they're mostly friendly, and she laughs, gets into her Subaru

Forrester and drives away as Jolene blairs in the distance. So there I am left with my laundry. Jeff goes to his room. He says he's going to watch a movie. I'm going to get my first load started. I'm separating things there. And Celeste has installed one of those air freshener. And it's on top of the refrigerator,

which I thought was precarious. placement for air freshener, but, you know, maybe Celeste likes her smell good at eye level. I don't know. I'm not trying to judge anybody, but... And the first couple times it's scared. It just comes out of nowhere. So I keep separating my laundry, and then I remember, y'all, I had put a yoo-hoo in the fridge when we first got there.

but I can't find the light. She had shown me the light switches. The lights were on dimmers, right? Finally, the lights come up. I get the lights to come up. And y'all, there's crystals all over this room. And there's a crystal ball in the middle of the room. And at first I'm like, let's play Pee Wee's Big Adventure in us.

In the basement. So I'm getting distracted. I have laundry to do. So I dim the lights back down and I go to the refrigerator to get my U-hoo out. And when I open the fridge and the light of the refrigerator comes on as I grab it and it closes the puss happens, and I see the outline of a fella, a tall white fella. So I do want to, I mean, I don't know any, but I have moved. Though to be honest, just doing that, I'm a little out of breath. I start thinking to myself, this is ridiculous sending me a male ghost.

This is bullshit. I am a short-haired woman. If you want to scare me, son, you best bring you A-game. You know what I'm saying? I've been chased by murderers on the purge. I had bloodthirsty demons trying to eat me on American Horror Story. Deroids! Shooting at me on the Mandalorian!

You think you gonna come in here, you tall-skinned his Z-Z-top and just scared the hell out of me? Damn straight he did. I was scared shitless. I didn't... I just did my... I just did the Southern thing and acted like it didn't happen and, uh... Kept folding my laundry. And I see him again. And I felt something near my shoulder. Like his beard. Like just... Y'all, I freaked out. I go running. into Jeff D's room and I tap him on the shoulder and he screams.

Right? He loses it. I was like, oh my God, what were you watching? He was like, steal magnolias. What are you? Shelby was just drinking her juice when you came in. So I explained to him, I said, dude, every time the thing on top of the refrigerator goes, I see a ghost that looks like zizi top.

So Jeff gets up out of his bed, goes to the kitchen, grabs the thing off the refrigerator and smashes it to the floor. Problem. problem, you moron, you just took... Jeff says this is just like poltergeist, girl. We're going to have to confront this ghost

and usher it out of a portal. Like a door, are you saying we got to get it out the door? Because earlier I had seen it run out the door, but it didn't run out the door. He ran through... He says, come on, you can do it.

And then he starts dancing. I said, what the hell are you doing? He said, I'm So the only thing we can do is arm ourselves with things from the sporting equipment closet. I'm not confronting a ghost in majammies. And gay people love costumes. We love costumes. So we're each wearing a bright orange life vest and a batting helmet. it. Jeff's has the little holders for beer cans and straws hanging off of it. He has an ore in one hand and a bat in the other. I'm holding what I later came to find out was a pickleball racket and my cell phone. And Jeff bravely says, I'll go outside and check the perimeter of the house. And I'm like,

We're in Alabama. The hell does perimeter mean. He says, I'm going to check the outside. I said, what if we lose power or something? He says, don't worry. Even if we lose power, your cell phone will still work. If you see anything, call me. So I realize I need something if I'm going to see the ghost to spray at it.

And the only thing I have with me is a can of bacon-flavored spray cheese. I had meant to buy the American cheese flavor, but somehow bought a bacon flavored can, so I was not as attached to it as I would normally be, so I was willing to spray some at the ghost in order to see its outline. So there I am. Pickleball racket in one hand, bacon spray cheese in the other, and I see it. I see the shadow of Zizi Top. And I call out to him. You have no place here. Free cheese!

And I start to spray the cheese at where I think he is over and over. And I can see the form lunge towards me, which makes me back the hell up. I'm not, so I back up, but there's spray cheese on the floor. And just then, my cell phone rings. It's Jeff, and he says, I don't see dead people. I was like, I got him right here. I'm spraying the cheese. I'm going to usher him to the door.

Spray more cheese. I lunge again, and now I'm headed towards him. When all of a sudden the spray cheese gets the best of me, I flip. I go up six feet in the air. I come down the crystal ball follows me I take down the curtains

with me the ground and I wake up inside the TV I'm kidding look at this guy he's like is she serious right now I don't know I don't know what happened once I hit my head

but I hit my head and I woke up the next day to Celeste opening the door to the scene that lay before her curtains down crystal ball shattered spray cheese everywhere

Jeff and I are still wearing life vests I am still gripping a pickle ball racket for dear life and the dog is licking spray cheese off of everything. And Celeste just looks at me and says, what happened?

I said, girl, we seen Zizi Top. He was here. I think he had a message for us. And that's when the dog said, did he mention the aliens on Wilshire? Right now, a special story.

Spook Live from yours truly. He's a kid. I love going to my grandmother's church. There's singing, there's dancing. If you're lucky, somebody's going to kiss the Holy Ghost. It's fabulous. My parents' church, not a lot of music, no dancing, no Holy Ghost. I don't dig it as much.

and my granny's church, my grandmother, she wins the unofficial old lady church contest each and every week with the biggest, most outrageous hat on her head that you ever did see. If you sit behind my grandmother, you ain't going to see Jack. Nothing. And you better not say nothing, neither. She gives you one of these here. After church, we go back to my grandmother's place. And usually there's already a line. Because my grandmother's special. People come from miles around to seek her advice.

Because I am her second favorite grandchild. I'm special, too. After Granny gets her relax on, actually has a glass of lemonade, after she gives me that look, I have a job. My job as a little kid is to go out to the sidewalk and escort a grown person up the porch in the living room through the kitchen. Back out to the stoop. My grandmother waits. See, if the doctors run out of options, if your preachers got no answers,

if you have nowhere else left to turn, the last place people go is my grandmother. And on this day, the woman, she says, Mrs. Mrs. They always call her either Mrs. or man. Mrs. My man doesn't let me. I know your man.

You should thank your lucky stars. No, Mrs. Sometimes he just runs with the wrong crowd. He is the wrong crowd. Mrs. I need him back home. I need him back in the back with me. Well, you bring a picture

like I told you. Yes. She takes this picture out of her billfold. My grandmother snatches it up. She takes a match and lights it on fire. She collects the ash in this square of aluminum foil. And then she adds a dash of high John the conqueror oil and a pinch of Queen Elizabeth root. Boy, what I do that for?

The oil for the power, the root for the heart. That's my baby grandboy right now. She ties it off with twine and hands it back to the woman. Got under his pillow. He'd be back in three days. But don't blame me for what happened after that. Thank you, Mrs.

Thank you, Mrs. I go back out. And this time, I get this big fella, he's in this work suit, he's got boots on. I take him back. Man, man, my partner's stealing, stealing money out the till. Did you bring a dollar from the register? Yes. He hands it over.

And she sets it down in front of her. Boy, go get me some of those sweet potatoes off the stove. I put it on the fine china. I bring it out to her and she sets it on top of the dollar. She pours whiskey on top of that. And she pushes it like she's having company for dinner. She closes her eyes.

Listen. Listen. Your partner. Your partner is going on a long trip. he won't be bad man he misses I'll go back out and I see this

skinny man tall and he's got this blue suit on he goes to shake my hand I don't want to shake his hand I lead him back through the house and he's looking all around

take him back to my grandmother and I know I have to watch him to watch him close around my granny. Instead of sitting down, he's looking everywhere, standing up really, really close next to my grandmother. And then finally, he bends down and he whispers in her ear. She looks up at him. I'm sorry, I can't help you today. It looks like he's just been barely holding it together. And when she says that, he can't do it anymore.

He goes, I'm sorry, please, what are they being for you? I take him and he's pale. He's eyes blank. I take this grown man outside of our house. When I close the door, he said, let me just go talk to her one more time. Let me just explain something to her. Granny says she can't help you. Granny says she can't help you.

He walks to the sidewalk, turns around. They often use that word, the one she can't help, and the one she can. She sets me to work later on with a feather duster, dust in that place, and she has these candles that I've seen since I was tiny, tiny, the apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each of them, their faces turned upwards towards glory. And I'm dusting them. And I noticed for the first time that there's some other candles behind these ones.

And they've got faces I've never seen before. And instead of looking up, they're looking straight ahead. Some of them holding weapons. Others are holding herbs. They've got color on their face. Granny, granny, who is? Jesus is love. What you know? Jesus works for free.

Jesus gives you everything you won't, but Jesus takes a sweet time. These here, they come quick in a hurry. But baby, you got to pay. Later, I'm at church. the parents' church next to Pops and the preacher is building up a head of steam.

Brethren, brothers, some of y'all think we're playing games here. Some of y'all think you're going to have it both ways. You think you're going to have your Ouija boards and your tarot cards. And you're going to come into God's church and sit down

like you ain't done nothing with the devil. Well, I got some news for you. I got some news for you right now. Lord don't appreciate it. The Lord sees, the Lord knows, and you say, preacher, preacher, ain't you going too far? Ain't you saying things that aren't so? Well, brethren, I speak for the Lord.

I speak for the Lord because I know the Lord's book and I want you to know it too. Turn, if you will. To Exist 2218, Pops was quick on the draw. He knows his Bible. I want to read real slow so you can hear it in the back. Shall not suffer. A witch to live. You hear me? Pops looks at me like, I told you so. I can barely breathe. When I next see my grandmother, I just ask her.

Granny, are you a witch? She looks at. It's been a long time. Ain't no such things as witches. Well, your mom and daddy say a lot of things. But you got to understand something. Boy, you are far too young to have secrets, but you got to keep some secrets.

You see, you can't tell everybody, everything you see. You can't tell everybody, everything you know. You understand me? Boy, you understand me? When I go to sleep, Folks don't know I hear him. I argue my auntie

because he's my boy. That's why. I know what they're arguing about. Husking corn with my at Granny's. I got me some more questions. Granny. Granny,

granny, why don't you help that man? Boy, you saw it plain as I do. You know good. Well, I didn't help that man. Tell me what you saw. I didn't say, tell me what you saw.

I wasn't supposed to see what I saw. You better tell me And I want her to tell me no You're wrong That's not what you saw Said she nods But then why couldn't you help him For the first time ever

She looks small Tired Trunkin That man did Or who he did it too Baby But some things You can't fix

It's a Beautiful summer morning. And my parents tell me packing up. I'm going to move away to the deep country 200 miles away. And it makes me sad. You make me sad. And I tell them, I say, you know, I love you.

And I'm going to miss you. boy, you coming with us. And I think, that don't make no kind of sense. I don't think, I don't think Granny going to want to move to the country, $200,000. Granny ain't coming. You is. And I do.

I move to the middle of nowhere in Michigan. And don't get to see Granny much. Don't get to How the songs Don't get to hear the stories One night I go to bed And then right

At the foot of my bed I see my granny sitting there Boy How you doing? I'm good You talk to the plants like I told you You asked them Talk to the plants

Ask them They do for you Mm-hmm She tells me stories about the coyote, about the fox, about the moon. She tells me that certain things skip a generation. She tells me that sometimes you got to look deep, deep inside to find out what's out there. Uh-huh. I said, well, so I got to go now.

Where are you going? Got a couple more stops to me. All right. Okay, then. Morning, I sit on the side of the bed. Father comes in in the dark, and he tells me that you got a call for my auntie. In the middle of the night,

my grandmother, 200 miles away, he passed away. Horror, when I say it, I know I've made a big mistake. She told me a million times. Never tell what you know. what you understand. And I know what he's thinking.

He's thinking Exodus 2218 been asked for this kid who talks to things that couldn't be there. Jason is after bumps in the night. There's only one person. One person I could speak to. One person I could tell the truth.

You could tell that sometimes I see monsters. He's backing away. Torres is the door. I know he's going to walk out, but instead he stops. He pulls himself up. He walks over to me,

bends down, eye level, know the stuff you talk to your granny about. And this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. But I appreciate it. I appreciate it because feels like he's bending a little bit.

Like to say, have to walk this way. I have to walk my path, but I understand, I understand a little bit that you're going to have to walk yours. The LAS team for welcoming Spooked, John Cohn, Rebecca Stume, Kristen Payne, the Orphium team. What a beautiful theater. Ryan Davis and Sarah Rose Leonard at KQED. And thank you, Jen Cober. Jen Cooper, she's always doing some awesome comedy, TV, you name it. Jen Tours.

Find the link to all things, Jen. And in our show notes, the original live score for this story was by Doug Stewart and for Gene Murphy. The recording was mixed by Miles Lassie. Did you go on a cruise ship and have a life-changing supernatural experience? Of course you didn't. That would be absurd. If it happens anywhere else, I would sure love to know about it. Spooked at snapjudgment.org.

Because there's nothing better. and a spook story from a spooked listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. The spooked emerges in the dark of night from the underground crypts at K2ED Studios. Don't seek to find the way in. That's the way in. Seeks to find you.

Spook is brought to you with a team that uses the Ghostbuster movies as instructional videos except of course from Mark Ristich. You can scream at them till your horse. He's still trying to cross stream. There's Davey Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Yannes, Elliot Lightfoot, Marissa Dodge, Teo Decott, Miles Lassie, and Doug Stewart. We've got the special incantation from Spook Legal.

It reads that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. Take that! The team spooked, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers. are members of the National Associated Broadcast, Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL, CIL, Local 51. The spook theme song is by Pat Massoudi Miller. My name is from Washington. And they say the shadow lands are scary.

I'm going to guess that's true. I'm going to guess as well that the lands of shadow are other things. That they are beautiful, curious, compelling, horrifying, even funny. Really? You might ask me, bold claim, based on what? I'll tell you what it's based on. It's based on the idea that it is us and us is it. Wherever we go, there we are.

Run as far as you want. Cross as many planes of existence as you wish. Wherever we are, it is as well. And as a reminder of this fundamental tenet, One thing I like to tell the kids is to never, ever, never, never, ever, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never.