Chatting with the Flipside via telephone and Audrey Hepburn, Monte Hellman and Laurie Bird

Chatting with Audrey Hepburn, Monte Hellman and Laurie Bird.

Audrey in her job with UNICEF

I didn't ask for Audrey to come and chat with us; but I did have a discussion about her two days earlier, commenting that I always thought I had seen "My Fair Lady" but I had not. 

With her pal Oscar

And her performance was amazing, also considering her background fighting Nazis as a partisan. So Jennifer mentioned that conversation, and then Audrey proceeded to talk to us about Earth Day and her love for animals and the earth.

Monte Hellman

At some point I realized we only had a few minutes left, and asked if Luana Ander's old friend Monte Hellman had stopped by. Luana is our class moderator on the flipside. She knew Monte well. She knew everyone in Monte's films well.

So we had a lively chat with Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, Monte had messages for Jack Nicholson, Robert Towne and Fred Roos.  All the details he talked about were accurate - but the most unusual part was my asking if "Laurie" was there to greet him.

Monte Hellman

Jennifer could not know who Laurie was, or what I meant. But I knew Monte would. And he said he saw his old girlfriend waiting for him - someone he spent four years with back in the 70's, and who left him to be with Art Garfunkel. Laurie ended her own life (as her mother had) at the age of 26. Jennifer correctly reported that Laurie had taken her own life - but then had a message for Art Garfunkel.

Laurie Bird

What makes this unusual, is that when I met Art, I mentioned that I was a friend of Luana's.  He said "I used to date Luana." Startled, because I knew that Paul and she were an item at one point, I said "Did Paul know that you dated Luana?" Art said "No, I didn't bother to mention it."

Laurie in Monte Hellman's "Two Lane Blacktop"
with Dennis and James

What makes this even more mind bending, is after Luana passed in 1996, I got a letter from her old roommate back in her teen years, who said that "Luana used to have a photo of Paul and Art next to a candle, and she would tell her roommates "I'm going to know both of them."  The roommate didn't stay in touch with her, had no idea that Luana and Paul were an item, or that Art and Luana were an item.

Laurie and Art

And here we were chatting with Laurie Bird, an actress who starred in two of Monte's films, who used an image of the "poster of Hair" to identify who she was dating after Monte.  And that image made me laugh, because Art had a giant afro in those days.

When she said "I'm seeing a poster from
the play "Hair" I thought of this photo. Funny.

Mind blown.

Here's a link:

A phone call from the Flipside:

I answer questions on Quora in a forum called "Hacking the Afterlife."  This exchange happened recently, and I'm sharing it.

"A very very dear friend of almost 30 years recently passed of Covid on January 19. They removed life support at 4 pm. At this time I had no idea he had been sick (Since Dec 19th and put on a vent at that time.) We had been romantically involved years past and it just faded into a beautiful friendship; almost brother/sister. He used to call me all the time while on a detail (he was a police officer) and there was always noise in the background. 

Our calls were a little infrequent during the holidays; he had moved in with his girlfriend so. I understood. I finally received a call January 19 it was at dusk.

"I said where the hell have you been???" We laughed and laughed. The conversation went in for about 2 hours. I actually had to pull off the road I was laughing so hard. And I was almost home. And didn’t want our conversation to end. Funny thing was, he never called at that hour. His work shifts were always around noon, but it was quiet in the background; no noise. 

He was so happy like elated !!!! 

I said, "Omg I have to go now" as I pulled into my driveway. He always said. "Ok -  adios" and we hung up. The next day I told my friend. “ I talked to Dennis for 2 hours last night. I remember because it was her birthday. 

But then I didn’t hear from him after that. I went to call to tell him my daughter had a baby, and his phone was disconnected.  I knew something was wrong. I called his son and he told me (he had died). I said "Omg I just talked to him. In January."

He said, "There is no way you could have he was on a ventilator from Dec. 19th and died January 19."

Richard. What was that phone call !!!!!? I mentioned this call to numerous people. Because it as so wonderful. As all our calls were. Thank you for reading this.

My reply:

Thanks for sharing. It’s one thing to say “I’ve read about something like this” or “I interviewed someone who had that experience” and then to share the experience. When things occur we have to be a little bit like Sherlock Holmes and “eliminate all the other possibilities” to get to the truth.

I’ve heard of people “recovering” just prior to passing (Mentioned in Dr. Greyson’s YouTube talk “Is consciousness produced by the brain”), and there are people who get “cellphone calls” from people not on the planet. Sometimes it’s a word or two - Dr. Elisa Medhus got a call from her son who had ended his life early, and she was startled to hear him say “Mom I’m okay.”

My brother recalled having a long conversation with a good pal the night before he passed - and for two hours they spoke of how influential each other was in their lives, and how much love there was for one another. The next day he died from a sudden heart attack. At the funeral his widow went up to my brother and said “I overheard your conversation, and I’d never heard my husband talk like that to anyone so deeply about love and your relationship.” As if he knew he wouldn’t be much longer on the planet somewhere on the flipside.

The good news is this; everyone is accessible. I’ve been filming people chatting with loved ones for over a decade. Through hypnotherapy, meditation or mediumship. Each avenue yields results. What I frequently record is people saying “He’s telling me “I’m still alive. I’m still here. Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not with you.” So there is a methodology to reaching out to your pal and asking the question “What was up with that phone call?” and to get an answer. Tell him we said hello."

Her reply: 

"After some research. The phone call came on 1/19/21 at dusk. He was taken off life support on 1/19/21 at 4 p.m. I had no idea that he had passed until the second week of Feb when I tried calling him to tell him about my new grandson. That’s when I found out. 

The phone call was light and he was so happy. And I don’t remember what we talked about except I said “Hey, we’ve been taking for over two hours. I’ve got to get in the house." He said, "Ok, Adios."

RIP Dennis

My reply:

"Very cool; again, thanks for sharing.  It’s the kind of experience where it’s done casually and no one thinks twice about it - until they realize the person they were speaking to for over two hours on the telephone was no longer on the planet.

When I first started this research - and the more I think about it, the further the date backwards goes - I remember my aunt, a very religious person saying that her husband had appeared at the end of her bed and woke her up. When she saw him, she saw he was younger, healthier, happy. Just “stopped by to say I love you.”

And the phone rang, awakening her out of her “sleep” to tell her that he passed away.  Her family didn’t believe this story when I told them - literally their own mother’s story.  When we start to share stories, we find that people have had experiences across the board for a long time - if we look into literature or libraries, we find that people have reported these kinds of stories since people took pen to paper.

Oddly enough, he’s giving you this tool to “prove that life goes on.”  By digging up the time stamp on your phone record (you can get them online easily enough) you can demonstrate that he clearly was in no shape to have a two hour phone call - off of life support (!)

I mentioned it to someone just now, and she said “I’d like to know if there was a record, it’s something I’d think is worth finding out.” I said “Well, people who are convinced life doesn’t go on, that consciousness ends cannot be convinced no matter what evidence they see.”  

But maybe you can take a screen short of the time stamp.  That would be fun.

Dr. Medhus said she didn’t believe in the afterlife until after he son passed, and called her on her cell. She told me there was “no number” but when she answered it, it was clearly her son’s voice saying “Mom, I’m okay.” Since then she’s spent years chatting with him via various mediums, but that initial phone call was pretty dramatic.

Now if we could just figure out what phone service Dennis was using, and create an app for that… we could all retire!"

Photo by Russ Titelman

And that as I'm fond of saying, is my two cents.