Episode 15: Susan Otten & Forrest Malnar

Susan Otten: We sat on the side of the stage and he walks up and he's about to go on and he takes his bottle of, was it Jack Daniels that he drinks? I don't know, and tilts it back, downs the entire fucking bottle, just the whole thing, glug, glug, glug. And then he goes on stage and they play and I'm just like, God, what did I just see?

Josh Caldwell: Welcome to Atypical Daydream, a podcast about life on the road. I'm Josh, your host, and thanks for stopping by. My first guest is Susan Otten. She's a singer, songwriter, and a musician. Over her 25 years touring as a backup singer with Maria McKee, Susan has seen much of what the road has to offer and has the stories to prove it.

Susan Otten: I learned how to harmonize singing at funerals when I was a kid, which is a very strange way to learn how to sing, but that's how I learned. And I never wanted to be a front person. I always liked singing the background vocals the best. Since I grew up in a Catholic girls' school, they would make us sing at funerals and then walk up to the casket. These are people we didn't even know, which was really creepy for a 10 year old girl. I guess that's where it all started really.

Susan Otten: Life on the road back then was really different because I'm talking about 25 years ago. That's when record labels footed the bill. There was always the need to recoup your costs, but they gave you per diems and they flew us everywhere on Geffen. We stayed in nice hotels and our tour bus was always really nice.

A lot of things happen on the road that you can't control. It's hard to be in a bus with somebody for three months straight and not get on each other's nerves. And I'm a little attention deficit. I'm all over the place. So if I hear a squeak or a rattling on the bus, I'll stay up all night looking for it to stop it, which will drive people crazy. When we did an American tour, we rented John Denver's old bus, which had a nautical theme and was a really old piece of shit. The shock absorbers were completely worn. So you can imagine with my issues with noise, how I could never sleep. There were all these VHS tapes of the Scorpions that somebody had left, so we just watched Scorpions videos through the whole trip.

Susan Otten: I remember touring a lot in Europe and I think the things that I remember the most are the festivals and how the audience was so appreciative and sometimes reverent. It didn't matter who you were playing on the stage unless you really sucked. They never booed you off the stage. They were always in the audience waving their hands and flags.

The first really big show I ever played was memorable to me because of the size of the crowd. I'd never been on a stage that big before. You're kind of separated from your bandmates. It's not a small intimate stage so they seem like they're a million miles away.

The odd thing that I remember about playing, and I think it was Sweden, was that we were opening for Motorhead, which was so mismatched. It was Blur, Elastica, Motorhead, and us. And I thought, god, they're going to hate us. But that wasn't the case. The audience was awesome. But after we played, we got to sit on the side of the stage.

Everybody has a Lemmy story, by the way. It's like we're not the only ones. We sat on the side of the stage and he walks up and he's about to go on and he takes his bottle of, was it Jack Daniels that he drinks? I don't know, and tilts it back, downs the entire fucking bottle, just the whole thing, glug, glug, glug. And then he goes on stage and they play and I'm just like, God, what did I just see? I was very impressed with that.

One time we were playing a little show in Europe and it was the night we decided we were going to switch off instruments just for fun, which is a huge mistake because if somebody's in the audience and they just want to see the band as is, they're going to be hugely disappointed. I think I was on bass and Maria decided she wanted to play drums and neither of us are drummers or bass players. We were doing a song very badly.

Susan Otten: And I look out in the audience and Adam Clayton is sitting there from U2, the bass player from U2. I'm on bass and I suck. And so afterwards, of course he comes backstage. I'm like, shit. And I said hello and he said hello and that was it. It was not gonna be anything else in that conversation. Like, you sounded great. That wasn't gonna happen. But I thought it was funny.

It was just more like, oh God, here we are. I didn't really care. I thought it was hilarious. I love touring because I saw so many things that I would never otherwise get to experience. It was like a paid vacation. I know a lot of artists say that, especially artists who are retiring. They say, I'm going to retire, I'm never going back on the road, I'm sick of it. But I've never met one that meant it. They always miss it.

When you come back, it's strange because I always got completely bored after a while. I couldn't wait to go back out. People say that life on the road is not real, but it felt real to me. It was the life at home that didn't feel real. If that makes any sense, I don't know why that is.

Josh Caldwell: Hey, Josh here. I love making this podcast and I'd love to make it my full-time gig. Besides telling the stories, I'm basically a one-man band and that takes time. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider becoming a patron. You'll have access to loads of great bonus stories and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting a truly independent podcast. Find the Patreon link in the show notes. And thanks.

This next story comes from Forrest Malnar. He's a Navy veteran and spent many years out at sea. Forrest's twisted tale takes us aboard a Navy ship where anyone could be your roommate and reminds us that sometimes life is stranger than fiction. And a warning, if you don't like toilet humor, this story is not for you.

Forrest Malnar: This is about a health and comfort inspection. I don't know if that's a thing outside of the military. It's an inspection where if somebody is, for the most part from what I've seen, maybe not the cleanliest individual, male or female, and it'll get to the point where this person is disrupting everybody else's day to day lives with their filth, for lack of a better word. You will have your master at arms, which is kind of like the police on the ship, they will come and escort you down there and they will open up your lockers. Look at all your clothes, all your toiletries and everything. This is out of hand.

I think everybody in the military at some point has a moment where they maybe feel like they made a mistake. You weren't expecting something like this to happen. And when it does, it's like, whoa, like this is my life for the next four to six years.

This is the only one that I've ever seen firsthand personally. I was TDY, temporary duty, out in San Diego. I was 19. Tijuana was just down the road. The West Coast Navy is pretty killer in general. It's a big difference, West Coast and East Coast. West Coast is a lot more laid back. As long as you do your job, nobody's going to give you a hard time. Your free time is your free time. At that point I was thinking, man, I could do this for a career. I could do 20 years out here. This is great.

At first you're kind of the new guy, starstruck a little bit, everything's kind of shiny and new. And then that kind of wears off and you start to see things you weren't seeing before. I noticed there was a guy in the birthing who was just, there was this stench coming from his birthing area. If I could just explain the birthing a little bit, you have racks that are three high, they're metal. Three high on one side of the island, three high on the other. Between those two sets of racks you have maybe three feet. You're pretty intimate. So say you've got six guys in what we call a cube. That's the two sets of racks. And you've got one guy who is just

Forrest Malnar: not doing their part. And I would notice it every time I would walk by. Oh my God, what is that smell? Is this how ships are? Because I was on an older ship and I just didn't know if something was wrong with a pipe or issues with the toilet. I mean, it was that bad and that distinct. I'd never smelled anything so bad before.

I wasn't going to be the new guy complaining about my birthing. I was just going to do my time and get out of there and not cause any waves. Other people in our fire control division were kind of complaining about it. I could tell it had been a thing for a while and it was coming to a head. I just remember them saying, we'll just say Smith for now, hey Smith, he's going to get his health and comfort inspection. It's going to happen.

The day comes where the master at arms pulls him out of his shop, up by his gear. Come on, we're going to birthing and we're going to search your rack. You're getting health and comfort. I don't think they have to give you any warning. You're kind of at their mercy.

Some of this is what I saw and some of this is what I got hearsay from other people who talked to the master at arms afterwards. Immediately there's no soap, no shampoo, no toothbrush. This guy had been on board for about nine months. They went through all of his clothes and I don't think anything was clean. He was just wearing the same stuff over and over and stuffing it back in there.

The part I came down for, I was just casually walking past going to my rack. They had already searched his foot locker and the coffin locker underneath the bed and anything on top of the racks like boots and stuff. And then they decided they were going to look under his mattress. You could tell they were just visibly upset by the process so far.

Forrest Malnar: And oddly enough, this gentleman was not. This guy had no shame whatsoever. So I'm walking by and one of the master at arms is trying to get the mattress up, but it's not coming up, which is odd because it should just normally be sheets and your blanket wrapped around a mattress on top of metal. That's it. This one's not coming up easy. Almost like a mild adhesive is underneath this thing.

And then when he finally breaks it free, which didn't take a lot of effort, but more than it should have, it makes a sound like if you pulled a couple pieces of paper apart with Elmer's glue in between after they almost dried. Kind of like a slight tear but it also has that wet, soggy sound to it. He lifts it up and there are anywhere between 100 to 200 used prophylactics underneath this gentleman's mattress.

This was a completely male crew. I don't think there was any male to male relations going on there. This gentleman was just using them for what we would call a Ricky sock, which is normally somebody would just use a sock. This guy was using, I don't know, like name brand rubbers and then just throwing them under his rack for probably the entire time he'd been on the ship. I don't know what his end game was there. Somebody else is going to pick it up eventually, which is what happened.

They escorted him off the ship that day and we never saw him again. He could not have cared less. On the way out he was just like, I'll see you fuckers later. See you fuckers later. I'm out of here. He was so proud of himself. So maybe he did it on purpose. Maybe that was his goal. I don't know though. That is very extreme to smell and be that filthy for that long with no end in sight. He didn't know when that was going to transpire.

Forrest Malnar: Until I got in the military, I didn't know they made people like that. There are some walks of life that you see. And this is a volunteer system too. I always like to reiterate that to people because you hear some people sometimes say, everybody should join the military and everybody should get a taste of it. And I'm always like, no, like you couldn't imagine the type of people you'd be getting if you had everybody doing it. That was where it was kind of like, my God. Did I make a mistake? What am I doing here? This is not what I had in my mind for the Navy.

When I was in school, one thing the instructors always tell you, it's kind of a lighthearted threat, but it's always like, you think this is hard, wait till you get to the fleet, it's gonna be real difficult out there. That was always running through my head afterwards. Wait till you get to the fleet. And I'm like, yeah, I ran into rubber guy and this is what you were talking about.

Josh Caldwell: I want to thank Susan and Forrest for sharing their experiences. Make sure to keep an eye out for Susan's forthcoming album and animated series. You can find her on Instagram at splurgefinnage. This podcast was created and produced by me, Josh Caldwell. Music by Visual Aid, my side music project. General support and copywriting by Miranda Caldwell. If you like the show, please follow, subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to financially support the show, check out my Patreon page. You'll have access to loads of great bonus stories. You can find the link in the show notes. Thank you for listening, and I hope you come back next week.