WEBVTT - Interview - Toby Ball/Rip Current 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:14.680 of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.200 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. I got to talk to 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.400 Toby Ball recently. That's the creator and host of the 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:26.200 podcast Rip Current. Rip Current explores the story of the 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:31.000 two assassination attempts that were carried out against President Gerald Ford. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.120 Those took place less than three weeks apart in nineteen 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.360 seventy five. The first assassination attempt was carried out by 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.240 Lynette from also known as Squeaky, who was already infamous 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.840 because of her involvement with the Manson family. The other 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.920 was by Sarah Jane Moore, who had become an FBI 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.200 informant and is most known today for this assassination attempt. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.360 Our interview talks a bit about these two women and 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.800 some parallels in what led each of them to try 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.399 to assassinate Gerald Ford. But it's also really about what 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.039 goes into creating a podcast like this, which incorporates a 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.119 lot of things like interviews and archival footage. So we'll 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.800 get to it. Hi, Toby, Welcome to the show. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:17.400 Thanks for having me. 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.200 Can you just start off telling me a little bit 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:21.800 about your background. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.120 Sure, so I've sort of been a jack of all trades, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.440 master of none. I started off working out a magazine. 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.920 I worked at a couple of universities. I've taught high school. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.360 I worked at our state Humanities Council. And then I 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.080 started getting into podcasting. About ten years ago, I'm on 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.800 a panel discussion that's still going on, sort of reviews 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:52.800 true crime podcast and television. And then about you know, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.800 five or six years ago, I you know, I had 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.760 been reviewing so many podcasts that I thought maybe I 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.680 should actually and make one and see what that was 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.600 all about and sort of the decisions you have to 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.320 make and the issues run into And so I did, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.680 and that ended up being the first season of Strange Arrivals, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.400 which is a sort of a skeptical look at belief 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.600 in UFOs. I did three seasons of that, and that's 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.800 an iHeart podcast. And about two years ago started working 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.680 on the podcast I'm here to talk about called Rip Current, 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.000 which was sort of more kind of up my alley 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.119 and in my area of interest. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.120 Okay, so I'd like our listeners to have sort of 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.040 a sense of the show that we're talking about so 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.600 we are going to play the trailer for it right here. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.799 This summer, A lone gunman on a rooftop reminded us 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.840 that American presidents have long been the targets of assassins. 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.440 Nearly fifty years ago, President Gerald Ford faced two attempts 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.320 on his life in less than three weeks. September fifth, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:09.640 nineteen seventy five, Sacramento, California, in a crowd outside the 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.239 Capitol Building, a woman pulls a gun on President Ford. 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.000 President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:18.480 victim of an assassin. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.440 Today, a woman dressed in a long red skirt pointed 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.720 a forty five caliber pistol at the President. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.480 And I saw a woman start to go down and 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:28.080 her arm go back, and I saw the gun. 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.880 September twenty second, San Francisco, on the steps of the 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.920 Saint Francis Hotel, another woman tries to kill the President. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.280 A woman fired a shot at President Ford in San 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:42.680 Francisco this afternoon. 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.840 She was right at the front of the robe and 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:45.720 forty feet away. 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.880 When he walked out, President waved to the crowds and 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:50.800 they had cheered him, and that's when it happened. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.480 I yelled the she's got a gun. 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.200 In two hundred and fifty years of US history, these 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.880 are the only two times we know of that a 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.720 woman has tried to assassinate a sitting president. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.400 The two events were separated by seventeen days, in less 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.840 than ninety miles, and the two assassins had never met. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.240 One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.720 She is twenty six year old Lynette Alice from nickname Squeaky. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.320 I always felt like Glynnette was kind of his right 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:25.880 hand woman, a. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:33.039 Good curtain, a very good person. The other a middle 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.560 aged housewife, an aspiring radical, rookie undercover for the FBI 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.360 in the Violent Revolutionary. 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:44.160 Underground, identified by police Sarah Jane Moore in her forties. 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.440 Because she didn't look like a radical, she could enter 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.239 into these areas that other people couldn't. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:50.919 A spy. 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.919 Basically, I was the person in the intent was exactly 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.760 as I stated in court, to wealthily and know any assassinator. 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.039 On Off four, the Persson of in United States. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.039 This season, on the podcast Rip Current, we ask why 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.280 these women? She was a gentle client. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:13.839 I thought he's loving girl. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.240 Why did they want to kill President Ford, being the 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.320 appointee of President Nixon, it's understandable to me that in 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.920 their minds he should also be the object of their hatred. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.599 And why this time, this place. 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.600 One does not have to condone everything in hate Ashbury 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:31.440 to know that it exists. 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.799 Back then, there were lots of communes, There were lots 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:36.720 of guru varieties. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.159 Manson told his followers that this would be a blood 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.840 bath in the streets of every American city. What starts 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:47.120 as a hippie love called transmographied into a violent criminal enterprise. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.600 Five persons, including actress Sharon Tape, were found dead. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.560 We realize that we're dealing with very violent underground groups. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.159 Or corporate enemies of the people. Will be shut on 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.360 at any time and any play. 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.120 The goals were anarchy, a lot of anarchy. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.960 The revolutionary groups would get their power. 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.679 The bloodiest and most massive gun battle in the history 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:10.680 of Los Angeles. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.280 Random violence, political violence. There was just no let up. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.800 Yes to the fact that insect the praise to find 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:18.719 the life of the people. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.000 These people aren't just a bunch of nuts. They're perfectly 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.599 willing to die for what they're doing. Someplace else that 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.919 would have been like a big deal, but not in California. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.279 The story of one strange and violent Summer this season 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:36.520 on Rip Current. 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:42.560 So tell me what drew you to this particular story. 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.080 So I was doing some research. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:51.000 I wanted to do something about, you know, radicalism. I 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.480 was looking at the nineteen seventies. I was doing a 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.280 lot of research, and I ran across the story of 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.880 Sarah Jane Moore, who I'm sure we're about to talk 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:05.160 more about. She's just a very interesting story. And then 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.479 doing that research, found out that she was actually the 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:15.120 second person to try and assassinate Gerald Ford in September 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.560 of nineteen seventy five, and the first person was a 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:24.160 woman named Lynette From, better known as Squeaky From, who 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.560 is one of Charles Manson's followers. And in fact, those 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.960 are the only two women who have ever tried to 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.040 assassinate a sitting US president as far as we know. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.160 So starting with that seemed like a quirk of history. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.600 So started doing some more research into them and trying 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.480 to find out are there commonalities between their two stories, 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.280 like why in two hundred and fifty years of US 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.240 history are there only two times that a woman has 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.720 tried to assassinate a president and why was it seventeen 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.800 days apart in September of nineteen seventy So I had 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.680 sort of these questions. I wasn't sure if there was 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.800 going to be sort of a satisfactory answer, right. It 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.760 could just be a complete quirk, or one could have 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.400 been inspired by the other. But the more I kind 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.880 of dug into it, the more sort of pattern sort 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.480 of emerged in things commonalities you could find. Even though 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.920 it wasn't they didn't follow exactly the same path, there 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.200 was enough that was common in their situations, and then 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.000 also some other people who are sort of tangentially involved 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:33.679 in the story. 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.640 So one of the things that really has stood out 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.920 to me in the episodes that I've listened to, which 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.160 are the ones that are publicly available as of when 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.840 we are recording this, is that you have really gone 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.680 deep into the background on both of them. So the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.760 first several episodes we've got a lot of context setting 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.640 about the Manson family to give all the detail of 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.480 sort of how Lynette from got to where she was. 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.599 Same thing with the episodes that get into the background 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:11.320 involving things like the Symbonese Liberation Army and the SLA 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.960 kidnapping of Patty Hurst, kind of telling the story of 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.880 how Sarah Jane Moore got to where she was. How 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.280 did you decide how much background you wanted to include 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:28.960 on these two women and the other organizations and other 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:30.640 movements that they were connected to. 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.679 That's actually the stuff that I found most interesting when 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.800 I was doing the research. I sort of feel like 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.720 my sort of modus opera anddi is you know what 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.080 am I finding really interesting? And can I sort of 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.720 maximize that as I'm telling the story? And in fact, 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.760 the actual assassination attempts themselves are interesting, and especially Sarah 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.840 Jane moorees is sort of suspenseful, but that's just a 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.559 very small part of the story. The the real story 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.800 to me is how did they get to this point? 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:03.720 Right? 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.120 And then by going through the research, I sort of 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.720 developed this theory is probably too strong a word, but 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.360 sort of recognized sort of this pattern that was occurring 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.920 with them, and I wanted to kind of demonstrate how, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.160 despite the fact that their lives were quite different in 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.240 a lot of ways, and especially the details they sort 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:30.360 of unfolded in a sort of generally similar way, and 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.320 that that might in some way have led them to 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:41.640 taking this sort of very strong, probably irrational action, which 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.600 is trying to kill the president. So as far as 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.120 Lynette from goes, you know, her story is really about 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.240 being with Charles Manson, and then when Charles Manson goes 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:58.320 to prison, she still remains sort of very devoted to him, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.680 and so she tries to help help him while she's 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.400 outside and he's inside prison, and she's in this very 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.080 strange situation where she's famous. You know, people know who 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.160 she is, but that doesn't really help her in a way. 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.280 It actually hinders her, Like nobody's going to hire her 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.120 to work. She really lives on the fringes up until 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.960 the time that she takes a shot at Ford. 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:27.360 With Sara Jane Moore. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.560 You know, the sort of the crux of her story 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.040 in my mind is this is a woman who's lived 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.760 this this fairly. You know, from a distance, looks very 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:44.959 conventional life of she She was married and divorced several times, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.559 but you know, she was married to a couple of 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.840 military men, she was married to a Hollywood sound designer, 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.840 she was married to a doctor. 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.199 So this was kind of her life beforehand. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:03.080 And then she goes through a series of events having 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.959 to do with Patty Hursts kidnapping. She becomes an underground 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:11.840 informant for the FBI in the radical scene in the 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.160 Bay Area in nineteen seventy four. In nineteen seventy five, 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:20.920 so she goes from this very well off, conventional lifestyle 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.760 to suddenly being in the midst of really the furthest 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:31.520 reaches of you know, violent radical groups. And so that 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.040 was why sort of diving into the Simbonese Liberation Army, 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:41.800 we probably haven't gotten to Tribal Thumb yet, no, or 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.440 some of these other smaller groups that she interacts with, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.559 and her story is really one of feeling increasing pressure 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.280 on her, feeling increasingly in danger as the months go 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:55.800 on and. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.160 She gets further and further sort of ensconced in this 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:00.680 app misphere. 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.320 So some of it's set up to sort of tell 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.160 these stories, but it's also I just found it really 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:13.880 interesting in and of itself, especially Bay Area middle seventies. 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:19.280 It's sort of the last vestiges of sixties radicalism, and 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:23.360 you have these very small groups with these very big 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:28.439 plans about overthrowing the government, but without really. 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:31.480 Much of a plan to do it. 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.440 I mean, I don't know how you overthrow the government 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:38.280 with twelve or fifteen you know people. So anyway, that 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.280 was kind of what I thought was really interesting and 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.280 might have some parallels to stuff that's going on now. 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:48.840 Yeah, and you also talk a lot about like the 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.080 idea of Middle America and how Middle America was responding 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.320 to what was happening with all the radicals in the 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.320 Bay Area and the climate, like the political climate of 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.440 the day, which that's the year that I was born, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.840 So I have no memory of it personally, but there 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.680 are definitely elements of it that I'm like, this feels 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.560 very comparable to things that happen now regarding sort of 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.120 what you think of as the mainstream reacting to what 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.920 the mainstream considers to be a fringe element, with some 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.280 of those fringe elements later becoming like more of a 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.880 mainstream thought. Like some of the things that were that 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.680 you talked about in terms of Squeaky From's activism were 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.160 about climate and what was happening to the planet. And 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.080 I think the perception of people who are looking at 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.840 the climate in nineteen seventy five versus today, Like there 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.120 are some parallels and some dissimilarities, and so I thought 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.440 those were all really interesting things. To talk about in 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:50.880 your show. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:58.520 Also, Yeah, So it's funny because when Lynette from and 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.520 her sort of best friend, this woman Sandra Good, who 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:07.040 is also a Manson follower, moved to Sacramento, they catch 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.600 this sort of environmentalism bug. But the way, the way, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:16.040 you know, two former Manson girls approach environmentalism is to 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:23.080 send threatening letters to CEOs of companies and government officials 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:28.600 who oversee the maintenance of you know, wilderness areas, particularly 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:34.680 in California. So so, yeah, so they become very concerned. 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.640 They're they're both sort of interacting with the local press. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.680 Instead of giving them press releases, they send these threatening letters. 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:48.320 At the time, Lynette and Sandra are sort of dressing 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.200 in these weird outfits, which are sort of these long 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.880 gowns with these I don't know how to describe them 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.400 other than as sort of like deflated witches hats, where 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.640 they would be like tall coned hats, except there's nothing 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.960 holding the cone up, so it just kind of flops 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:06.880 over to the side. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.160 And Lynette would wear red and Sandra. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.800 Would wear blue, and they, you know, even in nineteen 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:20.320 seventy four, nineteen seventy five, they look very distinct They 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.600 don't look like anybody else, And at one point they 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.040 go to San Francisco and they go to Berkeley and 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.240 they go to the offices of CEOs and try and 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.600 get meetings with them dressed like this. I mean, it's 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:39.120 very it's very strange, and I think, you know, people 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.480 didn't know really what to make of it and whether 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:48.040 to take them seriously. After Lynette gets tries to shoot 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:52.800 forward and gets arrested, Sandra Good ends up being interviewed 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.960 quite a bit, and she's talking about how they're part 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:02.200 of this organization which is completely faittional, called the International 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.879 People's Court of Retribution, that was going to carry out, 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.400 you know, hundreds of assassinations around the world to save 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:15.160 the environment. So it's really it's pretty it's pretty strange, 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:16.280 crazy stuff. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:22.600 Yeah, listening to the like audio from interviews where she 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.960 is being asked one question and the answers are not 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.800 answers to that question. They are answers about the environment 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.400 and what's happening to the planet. And the whole time 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.040 I was I was like, this is this is wild, 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.840 Like it goes much farther than hearing somebody spin an 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.760 answer into the direction. It's just answering a totally different question. 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.320 It just very aggressively. Yeah, right, she's just very antagonistic. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.960 In one of the episodes, we play sort of sort 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.800 of an extended bit of an interview that Sandra does 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.399 just a few days after the assassination attempts with the 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.760 Canadian Broadcasting Company with this very sort of nice professional 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:10.320 reporter and Sandra just, you know, she's just clearly so 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.119 angry and she just wants to sort of take a 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.880 bite out of this woman who's trying to get sort 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.359 of the information that you'd expect a reporter to get, 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.440 and Sandra just doesn't have any time for it. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:37.800 Yeah, So your podcast, rip Current is radically different from 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.400 Stuffy miss In history class, we have a show. It's 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.560 Holly and me most of the time. Sometimes we have 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.600 a guest, but like it's each of us. We're talking 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.560 into the microphone and we are usually telling a pretty 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.400 linear story that has a beginning, in a middle, an 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.879 end in most cases, and rip Current is very different. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.600 You've got all of these interviews and clips of audio 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.639 or you know, the audio from video footage from the time, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.560 and in some cases reenactments tell me more about the 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.040 process of what it takes to go through all of 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.600 that and put it together into an episode of a podcast. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.560 That's an interesting question the way it worked. I guess 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.720 it's worked with all the sort of podcasts like this 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.119 I've done limited series. It's really I do a lot 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.199 of research before I even start working on scripts and 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.320 things like that, and so it's some of it's sort 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.040 of what you would consider I think, more traditional research. 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:41.760 I go through newspapers, you know, that were current at 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:46.160 the time, books that have been written about the subjects, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.600 court documents, things like that, and then I try and 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:57.399 identify people who would have some insight or some firsthand knowledge. 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.360 So in the case of rip Current, especially about Lynette 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.160 from there's been a bunch of books written about her 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.960 and and and you know, Charles Manson that whole thing. So, 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.440 you know, identifying authors who I could talk to either 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.440 generally about what was happening in her life or sort 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.760 of about specific little bits. And so there's a there's 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.400 a there's a bunch of author interviews, and then as 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.440 far as sourcing sort of archival audio, you know, it's 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.200 it's just a lot of web searching. To be honest 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.120 with you, it's you know, it's finding what's what's available 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.119 out there. As I kind of went through the process, 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:41.119 I got a little bit better about finding where things 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.840 might be. You know, there are universities that have, you know, 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.560 collections of local news broadcasts at times. San Francisco State 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.359 University is a place that I got a lot of 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:59.440 stuff from some state history museums. Archive dot org, which, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.880 as we're recording, has has been taken down. 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:03.280 Upset about a little bit. 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.720 Yeah, No, we just talked about it in our behind 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.760 the scenes that I oh you did. Yeah, I think 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.840 it will. It will have come out before this episode 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:11.960 comes out because of that. Archive dot organ is a 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:13.080 major part of our research. 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.880 Also, Yeah, hopefully that comes back up. I think there's 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.160 a lot of podcasts who are sweating it out. 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:19.440 Yeah. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:20.440 Yeah. 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:22.800 So you know, I've spent I spent a lot of 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:27.840 time listening to three hours of a pacifica radio broadcast 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:33.400 from nineteen seventy five to try and find little clips 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.480 that are contemporaneous about the events that I'm covering, or 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.480 about some of the people, or or sort of explaining 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.680 how things were thought of at the time that we're 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.560 talking about. So I guess that's kind of the process 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.080 and then I end up I do. I'm kind of 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.920 old school in the way. I mean, people aren't gonna 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:55.359 be able to see it, but I'm holding out. I 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.000 use these, uh, I use index cards, and I take 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.200 notes on index cards and then sort them into piles 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.960 about which notes go with which episode. And then it's 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:10.800 I take from transcripts of interviews, transcripts from audio notes 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.080 I've taken from written sources, and kind of sort of 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.000 placement in order that seems to make sense in a script, 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.520 and then write narrative to kind of tie everything together 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.960 and explain the things I want to explain and set 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:29.040 things up. So that's that's kind of the process. I've 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.720 never really tried to explain it before, actually, but I 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:33.080 think that's kind of what I go through. 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:38.160 Index cards sorted into piles was my way of structuring 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:44.120 writing for a long time before before like word processing 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.480 software really got to the point that you could just 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.200 move things around with the mouse, which has become how 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.640 I do that kind of a thing now. So, yeah, 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:54.520 that's a blast of nostalgia. 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:59.680 Yes, I've got colored note cards too. Yeah, there's green 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.600 for one thing, pink for another, orange for another. Na 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:06.560 it's definitely sort of seventh grade stuff. 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.360 So like, how many people does it take to then 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.119 craft that into an episode of the podcast? Because I 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:14.920 know there are three producers from iHeart that are credited 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:16.639 on the podcast, but I don't have a sense of 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:18.520 like what each of them do on the show. 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:24.800 Sure, So so I read all the scripts, I record 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.840 voiceover and send it to them, and then there's an 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:34.120 executive producer and then three other producers, and so there's 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.280 a couple of rounds of putting things together. That's what 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.520 they call the dry pass or the dry cut, which 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:44.080 is without any sort of sound design behind it. It's 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:49.240 just each piece of spoken or archival audio, you know, 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.600 place in the right places, and you kind of listen 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.440 and you say, you know, separate these a little bit. 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:58.720 This looked great on paper, doesn't sound so good when 0:23:58.760 --> 0:23:59.600 you're listening. 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:01.320 To it on tape. 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.639 And then the second past is where they take the 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:07.119 musical score or if you're going to add sort of 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:10.520 you know, sound effects, which we don't really do very much, 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:13.399 and you add that in to sort of create the 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:16.000 tone and feel of the program. 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:17.880 You know, add you know. 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:21.920 Suspenseful music where it should be, propulsive music where it 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:24.960 should be things like that, and that's each of the 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.240 three producers would kind of take there's gonna be twelve 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:33.959 episodes and then seven, I guess bonus episodes. So they 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:37.320