S-Town is a new podcast from Serial and This American Life,
hosted by Brian Reed, about a man named John who despises his Alabama town and
decides to do something about it. He asks Brian to investigate the son of a
wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But
then someone else ends up dead, and the search for the truth leads to a nasty
feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one
man’s life.
Brian, a longtime This American Life producer, started
reporting this story more than three years ago, when he got an email from John
with the subject line “John B McLemore lives in Shit town Alabama.”
I was recommended to this podcast by a friend and then on a
lazy day in office I hit the play button which takes me into the world of John where everything he sees is decaying and
rotting and ultimately making his town "Woodstock" a shit town.
At first we are only given a short overview of what is going
on as a middle aged man sends mail to a radio show about making a story on his
concern regarding a murder that was maybe covered up.
Brian goes to find out about the thing once he decides to be
involved in this and hence starts the story of mysterious events and a
discovery that the cover up over which john was concerned was actually just a
rumor and nobody actually got killed the way it was being spread.
Apparently Brian gets friendly with John and he keep on
fascinating him and us with his extent of living his life.
at a certain point I was so intimated by the way story takes
turn because it was so hard to believe because it wasn’t something that happens
in our day life. Rather I have never heard anything so dramatic yet so real.
John shows Brian his hedge maze with 64 possible
combinations of solving and one null set and Brian remains stunned with the same amount stunned
we feel when we actually see john's maze.
It actually made me feel sad when I find out that the same
maze and his property will be demolished by the same person on which john had
suspect of a cover up. He just shrugs his shoulders and says "Well nah. I
am not going to spend money on that hedge maze"
John talks of climate change as if its an apocalypse coming
onto humans in upcoming years and he exclaims that why people shouldn’t bring
any more kids in this world because they will suffer in this up sided down
world which is ending slowly and that remind me of the same feeling I had at a
certain point whether world is that good enough to bring my children into.
John talks of time as if its something we ignore and he
understands. He is a horologist which is term for people who are interested in
clocks and fixing old clocks and basically the time perspective of it and it
reminds me how fascinating I myself find the time which just goes on. I look at
the florescent lights shining in my office, watch million of dust particles
spreading in the air and see so many people just moving and talking and doing
stuffs that don’t really matter maybe.
John says that in all we only get a quarter of our life to
do something worthwhile and it reminds me how many times this fact disappoints
me that how less time we have left on the face of earth yet we spend doing
things like procrastinating to avoid tasks that actually we should do or want
to do.
John talks about his intimate relationships and it reminds
me how much it all is universal the way we find relationships and intimacy and
the whole aspect of companionship so similar. It reminds me of my own wish for
being in a loving relationship despite of the fact that I know sometimes my
situation actually contradicts what I want in my life. I find his cravings for
someone to be around to talk of random stuff and complain about stuff that he
cares about so familiar.
The story takes in climax turn while it digs into the hidden
treasure John might be having because he was unbanked and earns loads from his
clock repairing business. And we are expecting him to be a genius who had
complex plans like his hedge maze to lead to his treasure so that it will not
fall into wrong people. But then it disappoints us because no mention of
further any treasure is made.
Ultimately I would repeat the things which surprised me the
most and they were his wish to make a change in his life and ways to live it in
a better way despite of his depression.
His enthusiasm towards something which is so dangerous that
ultimately costs him his life but he keeps doing the fire gilding, I truly
believe that John knew the level of danger he was playing with because the way
his intellect is revealed slowly to us. But I think he still did it because it
was something only he did without fear of its consequences.
When I was finished then I had a kind of feeling like
loosing something so dearly but also there was a vague sense that even though
John lived so many miles away from me and even though his house was hard to
find despite of having exact location on map and even though he was nothing
like someone I usually admire, I found him fascinating. I was angry on him for
disrespecting women, for yelling curses on people and for ending his life so
abruptly. I was also in the awe with the way he lived his life, the way he made
a Sundial for his professor in the shape of sunflower. I was surprised to see
the maze he built and the way he would be so interested in the issues like
global warming and be genuinely disturbed about the way earth is getting
exploited.
In his suicide note he wrote something addressing to the
people who uses those quarter of life years to make their life worthwhile. And
I could actually see the time going by us without reminding us but yet killing
each last minute and killing our chance of re using it.
John said that is how the first clock he saw made him so
attracted towards the clocks as even the each moment that was passing reminded
him of his own life. That he will be only one homosexual, alone, intelligent, clock
repairing person living in the
shit-town/ Woodstock , where he has spent his entire life taking care of his
mama, and stray dogs and extraordinary hedge maze and his clock repairing shop.
I guess it’s the same with all of us. We are all different
pieces like the pieces of clock which are required so it ticks on perfectly,
measuring something which exists beyond our control. We are all important here
and we all deserve to make our each moment worthwhile. Its not only our duty but it should be our
mission to make that one person’s life worthwhile despite of the fact that we
have very less time to do so and so much to explore and take care of.
