Mixtape: Help?
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Just get more Radiolab at youtube.com slash radiolabpod. Wait, you're listening? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC. WNYC. Yep. A good way to begin is to say, all I want you to do is focus on the sensations in your body right now.

your shoulders, your neck, wherever there might be tension, just notice. But I don't want you to release the tension just yet. I want you to just notice. It's nice to notice from time to time. So take your time. These changes are slowly beginning. And feel free to rejoin me right now.

Well, it strikes me that the tools of a hypnotist are not so different from the tools of a broadcaster. I'm Simon Adler. This is Mixtape. And we're starting off today with Lloyd. Yeah, Lloyd Glauberman. I'm a psychologist in Manhattan. I practiced on West 86th Street for...

A long time. Lloyd's a skinny guy, oft times sports a blazer and jeans. And as you heard there, he is a hypnotist. Hypnosis is always interesting to me. So I went to graduate school, took some workshops. And back in 1986, he built himself practice. And several years in, he started to wonder, like, would it be possible to hypnotize someone from afar?

Now, not in the super villain hypno-ray sense, but rather, like, just with his voice on a cassette tape. That's correct. Right. Okay. So, I tried to create a recorded hypnotic audio experience. Now, I've listened to a lot of cassettes over the last year, and what he made is definitely one of the stranger things I've come across. ♪

When you press play, the first thing you hear is this relaxing ambient music. So set the stage. You listen to this. Automatically, you start relaxing. And then... The dream group met was similar in the large to one man. Two simultaneously told magical fairy tales start up. One in each ear. Okay. As you wish, follow me.

Now, if you're a little confused, good. Because you're not actually supposed to follow these two stories. The whole idea is, I want your conscious mind to drift away.

Because, Lloyd thought, if he managed to get you into some altered state, you'd then be susceptible to what he calls the trick of these recordings. Okay, I'm going to tell you the trick, how the trick is done right now. I'm going to expose the contents of this idea. Basically, Lloyd was hoping that if your conscious mind drifted away a little...

Then, instead of trying to follow each story on its own, you might be able to unconsciously hear what's being said between the two stories. So, for example, if in the right ear the story says... The word feel. In the left ear, what followed was... The word better. Okay. So the listener, at that moment in time, the only thing that's actually available for that split two seconds is feel better. Feel better.

As if I were giving you a direct suggestion to feel better. Castle, stay relaxed. Thinking positive. Now, over the course of the 80s and 90s, Lloyd made a bunch of these tapes. And I gotta say, I think they're both beautiful and a little bit crazy. But mostly beautiful. But either way, they were part of this larger trend.

When the cassette tape hit its stride, self-help really took off. And not just hypnosis tapes, but instructional tapes.

Like this one for Windows 95. Or this one. Teaching you how to fly an airplane. I mean, there were... fitness and workout tapes. Sales, marketing, and business tapes.

The goal of this tape is a transformation of your thinking. And tons and tons of New Age spirituality and self-improvement tapes. And while, yes, these instructional tapes can be dry, and the self-helpy ones can be a bit hokey, you can be and have all that you want in life. I believe in you.

I have to admit, they're actually what got me hooked on cassette tapes in the first place. Because if you stop listening to what they're saying and instead listen for how they're saying it, when they deploy repetition, where they use I and you, what you then hear is people experimenting with this new medium, how this new technology, so hi-fi and personalized and on-demand,

completely changed what was possible in terms of impacting and transforming the person who was listening. There was something about a cassette that provides connection, right? It is a connecting device from this bit of tape to your brain. And so suddenly there was intimacy there.

And that changed everything. This is the final episode in this mixtape miniseries. And I'm going to wrap it up with two stories of tapes made to help. First up...

I'd like to personally welcome everyone. This is a memory program. If you do what we say in this program, your memory will become virtually like a superpower computer. Memory tapes.

So, you're up in Syracuse. Yes, I'm currently a professor of anthropology at Syracuse University. And if I can ask, how the hell did you get to Syracuse, New York? Ask me again. Exactly. This is Jacques Medou-Jacques. So, the in-laws. The in-laws. The in-laws, indeed. And back in South Sudan, where he grew up, he was known for having egotism.

a crazy good memory. I had almost instant capacity to record a two-hour song in my mind. Oh, really? Absolutely. Which gave him sort of a special place in his community. I mean, folks with this talent actually had a title. Yeah, it's called Ping. Ping. Yeah. I think literally it means the hearer. But, uh,

A ping is sort of the human recorder because in South Sudan, literacy came there quite late. And even as literacy comes, it's only touched...

A few people. So majority of the people are oral. And so the history of one's family, it was not written down. Okay. So the way Dinka and Noor people used to record their history was in songs.

And this was done on an individual level. So over the course of your life, you'd write or have written for you sort of an album of songs.

each capturing a phase in your life. And so there are singers, people like Deng Bin Chok. Okay. And when you are about to, when you are sort of eligible to get married, what you do, you go to Deng Bin Chok with your story, with your history. You tell them about yourself, important events in your life.

But then also you'd sing for him or tell him portions of your parents' songs, portions of their parents' songs. So what Deng Benshuk does is he takes a few days to mull it over. You see him murmuring to himself, walking in slow steps. And then one day he can wake you up in the middle of the night and say, I have your song.

In the middle of the night. Yeah. And one of Jacques' uncles, he actually had Deng write one of these songs for him. I mean, it's long. It will go on for an hour, two hours. But just to give you a flavor of how the song goes. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man.

This two-hour song, I imagine almost like a family photograph, with Jacques' uncle sitting in the center, surrounded by his parents and relatives on all sides. And in that way, this song all at once documented his past, situated him inside of it, and provided sort of a roadmap for his future.

for his future. This song plays a role in all this as a frame of reference, something that you can use to help you cover the life in general. This is John Thonmajoke. Director of Grants Management at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Lots more from him in a minute. But first...

Here's the thing. Because this song is so long, and perhaps because by the time Deng finishes singing it, he doesn't remember the beginning of it.

Deng only sings this masterpiece for you once. So you better be ready to record. Which brings us back to those human recorders, like Jacques, those pings. If you are not very good at doing this, the trick is for you to come with a ping who can capture the song in their minds. Because then on your way back home with that person, the person will repeat it for you. And then you will have learned the whole thing.

After you've learned your song, you sing it for others. They start singing it, sampling pieces of it into their own future songs. And it's handed down, and the fact that I can sing it some 50 years later, even more actually, because it was sung before I was born. Right, it works. It works. It works, yeah. Unfortunately though, this ancient form of remembering and meaning-making the Dinka had developed collided with a genocide that

bent on erasing them. In 1983, the North indiscriminately attacked. It was a reign of terror. And this genocide, this reign of terror, it would require a whole new way of remembering. I mean, across the entirety of the South,

These horrible reports and rumors began circulating. Accounts of murder at the hands of the Sudanese army, accounts of people being thrown in wells and mass graves.

people being dragged out of their homes. Daytime was not served. This is Mekethbul Mubar. I was born in southern Sudan in a small town called Wangkule. And he said he remembers hiding for days as the war closed in on his village. You hear people in the army, soldiers, coming to survey the area to see if there are people in that location. So you cannot get water, you cannot get food. He was only seven at the time, so he wasn't really aware of what was going on.

But he now knows that the soldiers were looking for him. Yeah, young people were the target because they were the potential army. And so my mom and my dad made that choice that let's move the kid away from this. So they just sat us down and said, guys, I know it's not an easy decision, but we think it will be the safe decision for you to go.

And so that night... And as they hurried through the night, they began running into other kids. 20, 70, 200.

It was like people in a crowd. Again, John Thon Majoke. Parents all across the South, including John Thon's, had made the same gut-wrenching decision and sent their children fleeing down dirt roads and along hidden paths in the dead of night. As I later learned, there were

16,000 to 20,000 kids, the parents, were not with us. Many people thought the war and having to hide would only last for like a week. But it would take years to see them again. I talked to my mom when I was 19 years old. Wait, that was the... Because we... It took 12 years. Yeah, that was the first time to talk to her.

Now, if you know any part of this story, it's probably this park. Thousands started walking across East Africa alone. Most were from the Dinka or newer tribes. Network coverage dominated the news as journalists attempted to shed light on the widening lore in this city. These boys, like John Thawne and Meketh Bull,

became sort of a media sensation. Streams of boys became rivers. Hundreds became thousands. An exodus of biblical proportions was underway. They were even given this name, the so-called Lost Boys. Sudan's Lost Boys. Lost Boys of the Sudan. Lost Boys. The Lost Boys. The Lost Boys. Young boys who were forced to flee their homes or die. The young boys walked thousands of miles fighting starvation and wild animals as they fled the wild. You just walk there, even if it's huge, you can't...

Put them on, and later on, of course, because it was a long journey, all the shoes worn out, and you have to walk barefoot. What John Thon, MacKeth Bull, and the thousands of others like them had to do, and managed to do, is unimaginable. And I mean, what came next wasn't much easier.

They ended up in Kenya in this refugee camp called Kakuma. 12,000 people here today are lining up to get their monthly food rations. Now, those monthly rations consist of a corn and soya blend. The camp was big, like a big city. Different from their villages in every way. It was crammed with people housed in row after row after row of these people.

basically barracks made out of canvas or sheet metal or cement. Who are from 21 countries around the world. This food is not enough to sustain them for the next month. And it was tough. We realized we are no longer around the cattle. We are no longer around our parents. So at night time, at the evening time when we come together,

There were a couple songs that we used to know when we used to live in the village. And so... Somebody will sing a song. So those things become a sort of our comfort.

Things went on like this for years. The boys grew into men. Some of their family members and elders relocated to live with them in Kakuma.

And then one day... Nothing drew a crowd like the list. This list showed up. Once a week, the Lost Boys saw their destiny on a bulletin board, the Staples of Life. It was a list of names of those who were being resettled. On this day, 90 learned they'd be going to America.

I was running, jumping up and down. MacKethbool saw his name on that list. And I was told that I was coming to Chicago. And while this is what he'd wanted... You were praying. You were giving your energy, your thought, anything. Because this is like a...

America was like a gateway for your life. He and others were suddenly worried as well. Again, we were going far away. John Thon's name was on that list too.

And we knew now we would not be sitting around the fire and listening to our elders telling us this story. We would not be in the cattle camp anymore. So things can get lost. I mean, in America, there wasn't going to be anyone to teach them their family's songs, their history, their history.

And no one knew when or if they'd ever return. Just a few years prior, what had arrived in Kakuma but these cassette recorders? No writing was required.

And these tapes could travel just in your pocket, collapsing space and time. You can hear the voice of a singer that you have not seen ever. And so guys like John Thawne became sort of amateur historians, recording the songs of their family members and clan members that had moved and were living with them in Kakuma.

Can you stop there for a minute? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is William. Yeah, yeah. William Manioc Malouil. Today he lives in Boston, but back then he was in Kakuma as well. And so you've recorded this?

this. I recorded that, yeah. It was the wedding engagement party. So there were many people from my clan and they walk in a line

Like in a circle. And I was actually standing in the middle, holding the chip player like this. He had to hoist the recorder up into the air because he only had the built-in microphone. And then people would go singing, and they would just go around me. And what were they saying? What were they singing? So in that first part, the guy who sang the song, he said, all these beautiful colored bulls will not be just given to any girl.

They will be given to... How do I say? Can you rewind it again? For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, here we go at the top again. Actually, it said that they will be given to a girl that have a good heart.

And then, you know, when we have St. Patrick's Parade? Yes. With so many people going to South Boston. Yes. Yeah, you're at the heart of the Irish. Yeah, so that's when we're getting married. The marching will be like that, exactly what happened in South Boston. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah.

It's amazing. It's like, it's very rich in words, but I don't know how to explain it really.

I mean, think about this. Thanks to this cassette tape, this spinning magnetic miracle,

For really the first time, the Dinka were able to record their history outside of someone's head. Before that moment, it was not done. Again, jok medu jok. It was not possible to be done because people were focused on survival and access to technology was limited. So cassette tapes helped to conserve and preserve that which is the

essence of people's existence, which include celebrating who they are. And I mean, these recordings weren't just happening or staying in Kakuma. There were a lot of others doing it. It became like a fashion. I mean, that is how South Sudan was able to remain in contact with each other. As the diaspora spread, so did the tapes. One tape will make it out of South Sudan, and it will go to Calgary, Canada, and then

The people of Calgary have relatives in London, so they send it to London the next time somebody's going, right? To South Dakota, to Nairobi, Kampala. And it will take years to make rounds. Thousands and thousands of tapes moved this way. And while in Kakuma, the Lost Boys had been recording tapes for a year or so when their resettlement was announced, there was still so much to capture.

And suddenly so little time to do it. They say that you have seven days to say goodbye to your people. You only had seven days? Yes. After seven days, you are told to leave the camp. And so with the fullness of their history and the wisdom it contained sort of out of their grasp—

They decided that what would be best was for each of them, each of the boys, to make one final tape. Or really have one final tape made for each of them. One, two, three. One, two, three. Before they left, most of these guys had a sort of going-away party. Yes. And mine was under the tree. I had my family there, and then my age mates were there. Women were there. One mother, a young woman.

And the cassette recorder was on the top of a small table in the middle. And one by one, folks went up to the recorder and gave one final piece of advice. Mine actually started with prayers from one of my great-uncle. This is William again, and in fact, the tape you're hearing is from his goodbye ceremony.

When the prayer was finished, William's oldest uncle went up to the microphone. I am your uncle.

The words being spoken to you here today, on the occasion of your leaving, are being said in times of ruin. But the idea that you are leaving a bad place is a false one. We are saying go to America and study so you can become an important person.

We, who you are leaving behind, cannot achieve all these things. We can't bring the people together because we can't read or write. So, son of Malwil, go and do something good. And what you hear from different speakers and on different tapes from different going-away parties...

Is advice doing what these Dinka songs had done so well? My name is Ju Malena Jok. The family started with Garang Jok a long time ago, and he produced us all, who are so numerous now. Always remember where you came from.

Remember that you are not going just for your sake, but for all of our sakes. It's not about you alone. It's about all of us who were born together. One by one, these speakers are reminding these boys of their past, situating them inside of it, and advising them on how to move forward.

Again, Mekatbul Mubar. Don't mess it up and remember whoever you left behind. MUSIC PLAYS

The sense of pride in all of that can be quite incredibly touching, you know. Once more, jok medu jok. When the whole world thinks that these are

God forsaken people, because look what they have gone through, look what is going on in their land, look how far they have fled. And yet here you find somebody not only reconstructing their history and not only lamenting the miseries thrusted upon them, but talking about the need to rise up and rise above all that, because that is the major of a human. Because

Life happens. What are you going to do about it? You may be living in a nice life in some cozy suburb in the United States, but then you get cancer or you get afflicted by some terribly ungodly disease. You're just as much suffering there as if you were in a war zone. What difference does it make? And whatever calamity and whatever journey that you go through with all the suffering

thrown in your path, what is required is for each one of us to be conscious and cognizant of where we come from. For you will not know where you are going and how you're going to chart the path forward if you have no clue where you've come from. We've got one final story for you right after a quick break. This is End Side 1 of Cassette 5.

Please turn the cassette over and start side two at the same point.

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All right, we are back. I've got one final story for you.

This one's about tapes made to help you move on. There's the man of the hour, Mr. David Gable, holding the door for me. So several months back,

I traveled into Manhattan and up to Midtown to visit a dear friend and colleague. Who are you? I am David Gable. I work at Radiolab. I do the paperwork stuff. Well, I was telling Eli I was coming up here, and we realized you make appearances on the show more than some producers. Quite often. David does a whole hell of a lot more than just the paperwork. He's sort of the beating heart of the show here. Oh, heck.

And somehow, the guys managed to live like a dozen different lives. He lived in Japan for a while, Hawaii, sang Broadway tunes on cruise ships, acted in television shows, worked on Wall Street. And each of these lives, and this is actually the reason I went up to visit him, was sort of preserved under his bed in a box full of cassette tapes. And so what we have here is a plastic big Tupperware thing with

I don't know. How many cassettes are in here? There are quite a few. It's a bunch of... Oh, look at that. There's more. There are like 40... Well, they're not all mixtapes, but they are all things that I... Okay, I got rid of most of my cassettes, which is all I had my music on at one point in my life. But I had to keep a couple because they were the homemade ones and they had meaning. Meaning someone created them for me. These mixtapes really ran the gamut given to him by all sorts of folks for all sorts of reasons. Here's one called Gable Trauma Treatment.

And it was just for when I was feeling bad. David's Musical Theater. Is this you singing? No, I think this is from my partner long ago strongly suggesting songs I ought to do. Well, and we've got some nice artwork here. We've got a naked ass. Like a tight muscle ass where he wrote Tokyo 1989. This one is named so inappropriately.

that I can't even say it on the air. But the ones that still resonate the loudest with him, maybe unsurprisingly, were from lovers. Vince, who was my boyfriend in Tokyo. He was a terrible boyfriend, but he really could be great when he wanted to be. Tree Felling and Wonderment in Japan. It's a good title. Tree Felling, which makes me suspect that is the early stage of I'm Falling for You. And then Wonderment is When We're Together. It was a great affair.

And so we've got a little Panasonic or Radio Shack cassette player there as well. I used to use this for rehearsals in my showbiz days. You can tell by the sound. This is romance. This is emotion. Don't make me cry that early in the interview.

I happen to be a crier, you know? Not everybody is, but I am. Uh, I just am. Let's see what's next. So next should be what? Chuck and Patty, High Romance. Oh. Oh, and the feeling was mutual. Oh man.

Somebody sends you this. I mean, it's great. It was really good to be loved. Yeah, I mean, Simon, if you get something like this, it's a big audio love letter. And I would put this on and miss him and drink Jack Daniels and feel sorry for myself and be very smitten. I mean, think about how much work this is.

It's a lot of work. And it's a gift of great affection. So it just brings the emotion back. I sound like such a wuss. No, you don't. And while this is sort of what I was expecting, you know, listening to old mixtapes is sort of like going on a nostalgia bender.

What I wasn't prepared for was how these tapes, some 30 years old and listened to an untold number of times, how they were still evolving in their message and meaning for David. That playing them wasn't like staring at some static artifact, but instead more like resuming an ongoing conversation between this present moment.

And that passed. Okay, what is this one? This is Your Life, David Gable. Subtitled, It's Been a Pretty Good Ride. This is from Stephen G. Holtz, who was my big love of my life. And we met in college and he was a native New Yorker. And I was a squeaky clean Milwaukee kid. Oh my gosh, I'm afraid to put this in. And he put the date it was made. Six, oh, that's my birthday.

6-17-19... 6-17-86. 6-17-86! Wow! I'm gonna think about that. If he died in '88, this is two years before he died, because the truth is we broke up before he died. So, you know, to say the big love of my life died of AIDS, there's a caveat to that, because we were not a couple at the time. But we talked every single day. And it was hard for both of us.

Because the affection was so deep. Up to, you know, the day he died, there was no doubt of our love for each other. This might have been a we-know-it-needs-to-end and maybe I'd moved off on my own and this is sort of a summary of my life with him. She said to me What did she say? Your loon just made a pass at me I might enjoy a cottage by the sea

I love this song. What is this? This is the opening. This is Moving Out by Bette Midler. It's so funny. Yeah, I... Oh, gosh. I think he's... This is us breaking up. Yeah. Because it begins with You're Moving Out, which is a great song.

And then the honeymoon is over. Need I say more? That's what it's about. And it's funny. This, but where do we end up? Oh, what's the last track? Not when I'm around from Sweeney Todd, which I know it's from Sweeney Todd, but it's, well, he's going to look after me. He's going to keep an eye on me. Nothing's going to harm you. Not when I, but shit, I can't talk about this. Maybe he already knew he was sick. I don't know.

Well, I was going off on my own. Because we had an apartment and the deal was whoever can find their own place first does it. So we were living together when we were broken up, something I don't advise. But it's New York, you hang on to real estate. And this is Nothing's Gonna Harm You Not When I'm Around. It's probably from the show. I mean, it's probably from the cast album. Do you know your musical theater song? No, and I don't. It's a really good song. Nothing's gonna harm

It's more the context of it for me than the song. That's him saying, no matter what, I'll keep an eye out for you. It just meant we were always going to be in touch. Which is why I'll never throw it out. Human beings use or abuse the courage

Mixtape was reported, produced, scored, and sound designed by me, Simon Adler, with music throughout by me. Unending reporting and production assistance was provided by Eli Cohen. I want to give a special thank you to Shad Helmstetter, Vic Conant, Glenna Salisbury, Jerry Rosen, Richard Petty, Sharon Arkin, William Mulwill for sharing his cassettes with me, and to the British Library for sharing some of their recordings from their South Sudan collection, which is housed at the British Library Sound Archive.

This is the final episode in this mixtape miniseries. And I'd like to once again thank everyone who was a part of this little adventure. Everyone who generously hopped on the phone with me to chat. Everyone here at Radiolab and WNYC who helped bring this project to life. Especially Eli Cohen, Annie McKeown, Soren Wheeler, Sissy Lechtenberg, Jad Abbermerod, and Dylan Keefe. And maybe more than anyone, I'd like to thank my wife.

Not only for putting up with me and my cassette obsession over the past year here, but for being an amazing thought partner through this entire project, giving notes on drafts and just support every step of the way. Thank you, darling. All right, that's it. I'm Simon Adler. This has been Mixtape, and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Radiolab programming next week.

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Susie Lechtenberg is our executive producer and Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachel Cusick, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable,

Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Niyanasambandham, Matt Kilty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah Khare, Ariane Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. With help from Tanya Chawla, Shima Oliyai, and Sarah Sonbach. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Adam Shabill.

This is Ronia from Ypsilanti, Michigan. Mixtape, a special series from Radiolab, is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative, the Shanahan Family Charitable Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.