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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noah.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 3: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff

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Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Friends, neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists.

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Speaker 3: It is no secret that modern society is diplomatically put complicated.

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Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't too long ago that it seemed

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Speaker 3: almost everyone was getting quote unquote canceled for all manner

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Speaker 3: of things, these concerns, competing interest moving at a rapid pace.

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Speaker 3: What can or cannot be said, what can or cannot

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Speaker 3: be asked? And of course what's up with all those

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Speaker 3: lizard people.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, we're also in a time where conspiracy theories

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Speaker 2: are far more mainstream than they have ever been. And

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Speaker 2: you put those things together and you just you got

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Speaker 2: a wacky reality. We're all hanging out in right now.

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Speaker 4: Right well, when the White House Press briefing room is

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Speaker 4: full of quote unquote influencers who are often peddling the

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Speaker 4: very conspiracy theories that we talk about on this show.

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Speaker 4: It really does sort of put a very bizarre and

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Speaker 4: Orwellian twist on quote unquote the.

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Speaker 3: News bizarre Orwellian. Also, we still have not received a

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Speaker 3: response from the White House in our addition to join

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Speaker 3: their press room briefly, but hope springs a turtle and

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Speaker 3: we have something very special for you today, fellow listeners.

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Speaker 3: We are diving deep into these questions and more with

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Speaker 3: none other than the award winning creator, the actor, the writer, director, producer,

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Speaker 3: I'll say it, the philosopher create Yes, creator of the

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Speaker 3: hit podcast Cancelation Island, please join us and welcoming none

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Speaker 3: other than the legendary John Cameron Mitchell. John, thank you

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Speaker 3: for joining us today.

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Speaker 5: Well, thank you. I don't know if I can measure

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Speaker 5: up to you.

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Speaker 3: Must you must.

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Speaker 5: Go on.

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Speaker 2: Can I get something out of the way, guys that

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Speaker 2: is not related to our interview, you must as well.

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Speaker 2: John Cameron Mitchell, I just have to say, Uh, one

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Speaker 2: of my favorite characters on screen in a long time

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Speaker 2: is Gabe Parrish. I freaking love Shrill and Gabe Parish,

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Speaker 2: thank you for making that happen.

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Speaker 5: You're welcome. That's what happens when an old punk rocker

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Speaker 5: kurdles into a book magazine editor.

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Speaker 6: It's beautiful, right.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know you directed several episodes of that show,

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Speaker 2: so I did, you didn't. IMDb is just wrong.

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Speaker 7: That's conspiracy.

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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean I have a feeling I might

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Speaker 5: have if it had continued. I wish it well.

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Speaker 4: Speaking of the Internet being wrong, you and I hung

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Speaker 4: out not too long ago when you were coming through

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Speaker 4: it in Atlanta doing some incredible talks on a kind

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Speaker 4: of a lecture circuit here at Emory, and someone asked

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Speaker 4: you about your pronouns because of what Wikipedia said, I

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Speaker 4: believe it has couched you as being non binary. And

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Speaker 4: you were like, no, that's not true, and I have

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Speaker 4: no control over Wikipedia. I just thought that was a

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Speaker 4: very interesting.

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Speaker 5: It isn't untrue that I'm non binary. I just don't

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Speaker 5: like the term.

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Speaker 4: Of course, but to be categorized by that in that way,

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Speaker 4: I just thought it was interesting, right, No, nothing to

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Speaker 4: do with me.

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Speaker 7: Well, it's interesting.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 5: Identity is being an actor, being a writer. Identity, which

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Speaker 5: always had good intentions of calling awareness to systems that

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Speaker 5: are unfair. But identity. You know, we Americans love to

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Speaker 5: monetize things, We love to commercialize things, and identity just

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Speaker 5: became felt like another kind of group to sell to,

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Speaker 5: you know, in a way bar code. You know, we're

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Speaker 5: almost selling our own identity to ourselves and all the

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Speaker 5: accessories that go with it, you know, like philosophy and

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Speaker 5: fashion and other things. And to me, it's the opposite

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Speaker 5: of what an artist should be doing, which is just

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Speaker 5: you know, trying on different identities. I you know, imagining

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Speaker 5: yourself as someone you are not. That is the point

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Speaker 5: of fiction, is putting your feet in the shoes of

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Speaker 5: someone you're not and going, wow, I actually have something

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Speaker 5: in common, which is the opposite of identities story, which

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Speaker 5: is stay in your lane, don't tell a story that's

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Speaker 5: not your own. And then you end up going, what

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Speaker 5: is my story? Who am I? You know, are these

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Speaker 5: artificial categories that were being rammed into Well.

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Speaker 3: I think it's interest. I think that's the show.

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Speaker 6: Oh no, for sure.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's also interesting to see that that's almost an

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Speaker 4: issue that you see on both sides of the whether

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Speaker 4: it be politically speaking, left or right. You have people

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Speaker 4: on the left maybe guilty of what you're describing. And

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Speaker 4: then folks on the right this mega pushed towards identity

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Speaker 4: politics and just like you know, ideology overall, but they

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Speaker 4: somehow have a lot in common.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and deep censorship. You know, the farther you go

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Speaker 5: to the so called right or left, you end up

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Speaker 5: in the middle. And you know, my there was I

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Speaker 5: had a line in my first podcast series, which was

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Speaker 5: a musical called anthem Homunculus, which is out there now

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Speaker 5: is someone says, you know, the the both the arch

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Speaker 5: conservative and the arch liberal both got shut on by

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Speaker 5: their dad. The only difference was the conservative thought they

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Speaker 5: deserved it.

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Speaker 3: I like that. I like that.

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Speaker 6: Unpack.

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Speaker 3: Wow, there's an our Boro set play for sure.

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Speaker 5: Yea yeah.

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Speaker 3: And with this, uh, with this, John, hopefully we're conveying

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Speaker 3: that we are all tremendous fans of your work and

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Speaker 3: we wanted to maybe open up our conversation. Now, speaking

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Speaker 3: a little bit about your podcast, your newest podcast, Cancelation Island.

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Speaker 3: You and your co writer Michael You leverage humor, empathy,

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Speaker 3: and philosophy to take just a genuine, non lectury, non

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Speaker 3: condescending approach to some pretty serious concerns that you've alluded

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Speaker 3: to just a few moments ago. Could you describe Cancelation

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Speaker 3: Island for our audience and maybe give us a bit

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Speaker 3: of a detail about what inspired you to create this show.

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Speaker 5: So, I had a lot of friends who had been

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Speaker 5: canceled ten or or so years ago when this was

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Speaker 5: coming up as a as a you know, worldwide issue

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Speaker 5: of like you know, in purity being the possibility of

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Speaker 5: shut down, you know, sutting down career lives, livelihood, ways

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Speaker 5: of making money, social presence. And it affected a lot

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Speaker 5: of my friends in a negative way. Of course, it

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Speaker 5: was coming from good intentions, trying to call account to

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Speaker 5: people who hadn't been the legal system failing in some ways,

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Speaker 5: but then in other ways it was not able to

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Speaker 5: see the full spectrum of a person, you know, seeing

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Speaker 5: their face while they're saying it informs the words, you know,

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Speaker 5: it sometimes oftens and mitigates the words. And when we

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Speaker 5: see just the words on a tweet, it's like, you know,

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Speaker 5: the CBD to the full spectrum cannabis. You know, it's

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Speaker 5: just a part of it, and you can't react fully

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Speaker 5: or you overreact because you're not seeing the whole image

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Speaker 5: of a person in front of you. Digital culture has

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Speaker 5: amplify paranoia, misunderstanding, conspiracy theories for sure, and there would

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Speaker 5: be no Trump. Without digital culture, there would be no polarization.

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Speaker 5: We would no longer be in the state of mind

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Speaker 5: that I describe in cancellation as when all news is

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Speaker 5: fake all stories are true.

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Speaker 3: Wow, yes, you.

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Speaker 5: Know, when facts are in fact suspect and degraded by

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Speaker 5: the powers that be. You know, of course Trump is saying,

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Speaker 5: you know, if there are no facts, science doesn't really

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Speaker 5: mean anything. It's just what he wants things to believe

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Speaker 5: that those are the facts. But in that situation where

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Speaker 5: we fact a suspect, in effect, all news is fake

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Speaker 5: and all stories are true, and that can mean conspiracy theories,

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Speaker 5: but it can also mean beautifully nuanced fiction in which

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Speaker 5: we can find ourselves in other people's shoes and characters'

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Speaker 5: shoes and suddenly identifying with their emotions people we hadn't

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Speaker 5: seem to have nothing in common with. So it's an opportunity.

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Speaker 5: It's a strange situation when facts are disrespected, but maybe

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Speaker 5: the only tool we have left our stories.

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Speaker 3: That's brilliant, brilliantly put John. We also, you know, we

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Speaker 3: see we see the weaponization, right of the concept of

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Speaker 3: fake news, this cavalcade of always on culture, everybody being

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Speaker 3: required to have a statement yeah, sometimes to their detriment. Right,

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Speaker 3: would you do us the favor of defining the concept

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Speaker 3: of cancelation and therefore cancel culture as it's understood in

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Speaker 3: the modern West today.

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Speaker 5: Well, you know, it's a funny term that just seemed

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Speaker 5: to kind of come up maybe ten or you know,

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Speaker 5: twelve years ago, as the you know me too was

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Speaker 5: coming up, as you know, understandings about racism and police brutality. Obviously,

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Speaker 5: I come from AIDS activism and queer rights where we

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Speaker 5: cancelation wasn't really our goal, because it was more like survival.

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Speaker 5: We would make fun of corporations trying to make money

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Speaker 5: on our backs and on our deaths, but we didn't

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Speaker 5: try to get rid of anybody. You know, we wouldn't

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Speaker 5: have mind had getting rid of Bush and Reagan, who

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Speaker 5: kind of left us to die. But it was more

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Speaker 5: about who can we work with? Right during AIDS activism,

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Speaker 5: we worked every angle, we negotiated with big pharma and saying,

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Speaker 5: even if you don't care about us, you could make

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Speaker 5: billions if you save our lives. As well as a

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Speaker 5: two It was a two track thing going on. We

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Speaker 5: were also in the streets making fun of homophobes and

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Speaker 5: hateful capital It's like people put a giant condom on

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Speaker 5: the house of anti gay Senator Jesse Helms, and it

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Speaker 5: was a you know, don't mess with the gays because

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Speaker 5: they will. You know, they know, they know how to

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Speaker 5: take you down with flair and you know, with nuanced.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think nuance there is the key, because

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Speaker 4: it seems to me that the kind of black and

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Speaker 4: white sort of I guess division that's created by cancelation

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Speaker 4: isn't particularly helpful or useful towards a larger discourse or

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Speaker 4: towards the idea of individuals being able to have redemption

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Speaker 4: arcs or even I don't know. It makes everybody scared

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Speaker 4: to speak their minds for fear they may be, you know,

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Speaker 4: have that target focused on them, right.

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Speaker 5: And it comes from again good intentions. We're going to

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Speaker 5: take out the bad guy. But we as outsiders, as oddballs,

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Speaker 5: understand that there is nuance in the world. We understand

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Speaker 5: that when people judge you from how you look or

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Speaker 5: say you have to hide a secret about yourself, like

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Speaker 5: your sexuality, or inner gender. Then you understand there's a

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Speaker 5: surface and then there's a deeper, nuanced truth underneath it.

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Speaker 5: When everything goes your way, when you're part of the

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Speaker 5: ruling class, you get very literal right. Things are what

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Speaker 5: they look like. And when she hits the fan, as

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Speaker 5: it does in life, who has the skills to deal

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Speaker 5: with complexity? But the outsiders, you know, they're the ones

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Speaker 5: who know. Being an outsider can kill you if you

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Speaker 5: don't feel like you belong, but it can also make

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Speaker 5: you an innovator and a hero and a freedom fighter.

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Speaker 5: So cancelation almost goes against what we know as complexity,

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Speaker 5: as nuance, as the possibility of change, of redemption. Like

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Speaker 5: you're saying, I grew up very Catholic, so I still

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Speaker 5: believe that people. Maybe you know, I'm misinformant, but I

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Speaker 5: see people changing, you know, I see people wanting to

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Speaker 5: xpiate their sins and move on, and I want to

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Speaker 5: help that. So cancelation is like black or white, you're in,

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Speaker 5: you're out, And it risks us imitating ro pressors. You know,

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Speaker 5: who are who are more black and white. So cancelation

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Speaker 5: became a weapon when the legal system failed, and it

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Speaker 5: was an imperfect one. It was an blunt instrument and

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Speaker 5: it would beat down people who were just slightly off,

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Speaker 5: you know, message, and it couldn't handle nuance and complexity,

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Speaker 5: and certainly the Internet has problems with that. Headwig, in fact,

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Speaker 5: got canceled during COVID at the height of let's say,

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Speaker 5: political correctness in the Western world or the let's say,

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Speaker 5: the industrial world. And it happened because there was a production,

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Speaker 5: a big production happening with a queer actor who was

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Speaker 5: a big star, and some young people who identified as

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Speaker 5: non binary trans said, well, as a trans role, only

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Speaker 5: trans people can play it, and it destroyed the production.

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Speaker 5: The actor got into DM fights, drunken DM fights with

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Speaker 5: those people who are really just young actors who wanted

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Speaker 5: the role. You know, They're not enough gender non conforming roles,

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Speaker 5: that's for sure, and I always try to write them,

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Speaker 5: but I don't limit who can play things. You know,

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Speaker 5: like Headveig is about drag and rock and roll. It's

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Speaker 5: not about trans. The character is forced into an operation

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Speaker 5: that is not a trans story. That's a story of

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Speaker 5: mutilation by the patriarchy telling us what is male and

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Speaker 5: what is female, and a female is a man without

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Speaker 5: a penis you know it's bullsh and all my trans

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Speaker 5: friends understand that. But when you're nineteen in trans and

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Speaker 5: you're weaned on political correctness, you're like, well, that's roles

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Speaker 5: being stolen from me. And the actor they canceled ended

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Speaker 5: up trying to kill himself twice, you know, and I

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Speaker 5: think one of the accusers has apologized since. But it's like,

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Speaker 5: is Headtig really the enemy here?

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Speaker 3: You know?

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Speaker 4: It seems like a waste of time, a lot of

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Speaker 4: let's focus on Yes, let's focus on bigger.

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Speaker 5: Steve Bonnet's work for him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, We're We're that's a great point. We're also we're

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Speaker 3: also looking at a situation where, you know, on this show, John,

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Speaker 3: we often say that life is one non consensual game

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Speaker 3: of long form improv and everybody has to everybody has

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Speaker 3: to understand there are more commonalities, right, and differences are beautiful.

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Speaker 3: They should be celebrated, not weaponized, not leveraged to other

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Speaker 3: u This this is something a thread we could argue

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Speaker 3: that runs through Cancelation Island, because they're is without spoiling

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Speaker 3: too much, there is a fantastic dollop of the conspiratorial

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Speaker 3: thought to which you earlier allude. We're gonna pause for

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Speaker 3: a word from our sponsor and then we'll be back

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Speaker 3: with more from John and we're back. Personally, really enjoy

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Speaker 3: episode four, where things kick off and we get this, uh,

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Speaker 3: we get this download of one of our show's favorite

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Speaker 3: conspiracy theories of all time, which speaks in brilliant metaphor

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Speaker 3: to these questions of identity, the idea that a secret

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Speaker 3: faction of the world's most powerful people are in fact

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Speaker 3: not people at all, but.

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Speaker 6: Like extra dimensional yeah reptiz. Yeah, Oh sorry, I'm.

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Speaker 4: Just gonna say, Ben, I was reading up on some

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Speaker 4: of the metaphor of that that you mentioned, and I

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Speaker 4: love I'm really excited to get into this because it

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Speaker 4: becomes when you start to look at it like a metaphor,

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Speaker 4: a way of describing just sort of unseen forces rather

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Speaker 4: than a literal, you know, exterior, you know, interloper from

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Speaker 4: another dimension, and it can often have that effect of

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Speaker 4: what we call or we didn't make this up, but

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Speaker 4: the thought terminating cliche where there's some truth to something

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Speaker 4: or it represents a truth, but by going to all

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Speaker 4: in with the weird thing, you kind of throw the

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Speaker 4: baby out with the bath order for a lot of people,

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Speaker 4: so Here's here's the.

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Speaker 3: Question, John, When you and Michael are writing this and

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Speaker 3: you chose this long running conspiratorial thought process, right, be

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Speaker 3: it a cliche or not? What drew you to this?

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Speaker 3: What fascinates you about the reptilian concept?

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Speaker 5: Well, to me, conspiracy theories have always been somewhat interesting.

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Speaker 5: Though part of me goes, where are the conspiracy theories

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Speaker 5: of people secretly trying to help us? You know, we

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Speaker 5: know they're not everyone is evil, and we also know

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Speaker 5: that secret things happen in different ways, and some people

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Speaker 5: actually are. You know, there's a term paranoid, which means

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Speaker 5: the irrational beliefs some is trying to hurt you. But

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Speaker 5: another term, which I've used in an anthem, which is pronoid,

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Speaker 5: which is the irrational belief that someone's trying to help you.

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Speaker 7: Why are aliens?

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Speaker 5: I know, why are aliens and lizards always bent on

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Speaker 5: doing evil? You know, who aren't some humans good or

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Speaker 5: seeking good? And why wouldn't you know aliens and lizards

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Speaker 5: follow suit with their complexity. Actually, that's what our second

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Speaker 5: season is all about, is aliens canceling aliens.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, John, there is a really interesting movement

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Speaker 2: happening in kind of that UFO UAP space where there

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Speaker 2: is a there's a growing belief that whatever the extraterrestrials

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Speaker 2: are that are being seen, you know in the skies,

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Speaker 2: are here to help humanity at some point, like save

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Speaker 2: ourselves essentially from ourselves. So there is there is some

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Speaker 2: thread of that kind of rolling through right now, but

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Speaker 2: it's certainly not as prominent as you know.

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Speaker 5: As we know, conspiracy theories, like conceptions of God, exist

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Speaker 5: to explain things we don't like, you know, about our lives,

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Speaker 5: like death. That's why God was invented to explain death, conspiracy.

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Speaker 5: And when God becomes less popular and religion becomes less popular,

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Speaker 5: conspiracy theories and other belief systems come to the fore.

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Speaker 5: And we as Americans are very innovative about all kinds

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Speaker 5: of things, including our conspiracy theories and even our religions.

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Speaker 5: You could say that Latter day Saints and you know,

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Speaker 5: other homemade scientology, you know, homemade religious American religions do

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Speaker 5: the same thing, but they have a you know, explaining

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Speaker 5: why we're unhappy, but also creates very lovely capitalist goals.

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Speaker 5: Mormonism and scientist might the American because they're making money

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Speaker 5: is almost close, you know, you're closer to God when

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Speaker 5: you make money.

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Speaker 4: We always talk about just how money is a religion

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Speaker 4: and of itself.

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Speaker 6: Often that something that comes up here.

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Speaker 5: Catholicism is very close to that prosperity Catholic Catholicism and

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Speaker 5: very far from former Pope, you know, Francis is more

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Speaker 5: let's say.

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Speaker 6: Socialism benevolent, yes, yeah, yeah, because.

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Speaker 5: You know, there's nothing more socialist than early Christianity. So

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Speaker 5: in other words, I find all of this really fascinating,

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Speaker 5: and you know, I might just jump back to a

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Speaker 5: very early conspiracy theory in effect in the early Christian Church.

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Speaker 5: You know, in Hedwig Headig in the Angry inch My musical,

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Speaker 5: there's a character named Tommy nosis Gnosa.

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Speaker 6: The Gnostic Gospels, right.

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Speaker 5: And he is inspired by the Gnostic Christian Gospels, which

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Speaker 5: were Christian texts that were considered heretical and not allowed

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Speaker 5: to be in the Bible, that had a really interesting

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Speaker 5: non authoritarian view of Christianity and more less sexist and

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Speaker 5: more Buddhist in the way, you know, so we can

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Speaker 5: all be God. And even Aleister Crowley and his spirituality

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Speaker 5: sprang from Gnosticism. You know. I live in a house that.

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Speaker 7: Used to be a chapter of Aleister Crowley's Church.

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Speaker 5: What Oto What Oriental Templars, which was an ancient Freemason

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Speaker 5: group that Alistair took over and remade in his image

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Speaker 5: and used Thelma, you know, his philosophy, which the golden

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Speaker 5: rule was do what thou wilt, which was.

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Speaker 4: Then co opted by Satanism or the Church of States, right.

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Speaker 3: And they got weaponized by outsiders, right, creating a moral

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Speaker 3: panic rather than a curiosity toward how people were like,

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Speaker 3: toward the motive of why someone would seek to understand

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Speaker 3: the universe through this specific lens. And that's something you know,

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Speaker 3: that's something that we returned to time and time again

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Speaker 3: on the show. You Know you Can, and you returned

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Speaker 3: to it. I would argue time and time again in

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Speaker 3: your work it is devilishly convenient to lack nuance right

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Speaker 3: to make that black and white binary decision. But your work,

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Speaker 3: not just in Cancelation Island, but overall, I would posit

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Speaker 3: your work challenges the audience to exercise empathy and curiosity.

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Speaker 3: And that's why that's why we find it so fascinating

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Speaker 3: that you included one of the one of the primary

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Speaker 3: weaponized conspiracy theories used to other people, right, like, I

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Speaker 3: don't like this guy. Therefore lizards.

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Speaker 7: Well, to get back to the lizard people.

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Speaker 5: Which you know, the most complex or let's say, uh,

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Speaker 5: thorough investigation of is by Ike what's his name.

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Speaker 6: David, You know him, We spoke to him on the show.

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Speaker 5: He's legendary and he has an Alistair Crowley like aura

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Speaker 5: about him.

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Speaker 7: But he posits this.

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Speaker 5: There's been versions of this kind of conspiracy theory throughout

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Speaker 5: the ages, which is hidden people among us, right, hiding

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Speaker 5: their true identities in positions of power, the most popular

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Speaker 5: one of course, being the anti Semitic version of that. Right, right,

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Speaker 5: the diaspora of people who don't at that time have

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Speaker 5: their own land filtering through the world and taking over, Right,

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Speaker 5: that's a big conspiracy thing. It's like they are trying

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Speaker 5: to take over.

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Speaker 4: Take our land, take our jobs, take our women, whatever

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Speaker 4: it might be, convert our youth exactly.

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Speaker 5: And that's you know, people have identified, you know, had

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Speaker 5: pushed that to trans people in the recent years, you know,

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Speaker 5: probably the least powerful group we could puzzibly think of.

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Speaker 5: And you know, billionaires like JK. Rowling and Dave Chappelle

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Speaker 5: spending all of their capital on punching down to this

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Speaker 5: group of new group, group of lizard people among us

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Speaker 5: called trans people. Originally it was whoever you didn't like, right,

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Speaker 5: it was foreigners, it was Jews, it was black people,

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Speaker 5: it was versions of queer people. Women, you know, were

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Speaker 5: always considered subhuman and somewhat dangerous. Immigrants going to shadowy

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Speaker 5: immigrant coming to take over, to infiltrate right our purity

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Speaker 5: and the protocols of Zion of course, you know, pushing

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Speaker 5: the alternate reality of invasion, secret invasion. And to me,

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Speaker 5: the lizard people one is such a perfect uh, you know,

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Speaker 5: it seems to also come a little bit from scientology, right,

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Speaker 5: the sort of right, the uh, the perfect undetectable conspiracy

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Speaker 5: theory where because you know, when I was a kid

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Speaker 5: that you know, Donald Sutherland in what was that movie

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Speaker 5: where body auditernactures was the perfect you know, early version

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Speaker 5: of that, right, and sixties and seventies was really the

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Speaker 5: heyday of conspiracy theory in our panic about authority. It

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Speaker 5: tended to come a little bit more from the left

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Speaker 5: at that time, right, because Nixon was ascendant in the

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Speaker 5: Vietnam War, and now it's you know, from all sides politically,

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Speaker 5: you know, conspiracy theories meet in the middle, like past

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Speaker 5: l QAnon, you know, the wellness meeting, meeting, the anti

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Speaker 5: vaxxers meeting, the you know Robert F. Kenady Junior who

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Speaker 5: actually came to head Big weirdly and came backstage. Isn't

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Speaker 5: that strange?

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Speaker 6: What did he bring? Eryl?

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Speaker 5: It was back in the you know, the late nineties. No,

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Speaker 5: he was blank faced and lizard like.

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Speaker 3: All right.

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Speaker 5: I didn't know, He's like, what are you doing here?

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Speaker 5: Didn't crack is mind, didn't seem to like it. Maybe

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Speaker 5: he was. He was probably dating some model back then.

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Speaker 5: It's like, let's goy, come on this guy.

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Speaker 6: That was that was that in his drugs period?

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Speaker 5: Perhaps eight okay, maybe a little past.

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Speaker 3: I also love how this model is Australia.

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Speaker 5: For some reason, I just become Australian and I'm John.

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Speaker 4: Can I do rail for a second and just point

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Speaker 4: out that you were the voice of the dunker use Kangaroo.

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Speaker 7: How do you do your old dog?

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Speaker 2: I cannot believe that is true.

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Speaker 3: It is true.

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Speaker 6: It was an and you're acting your gig days.

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Speaker 4: I mean like not you know you girl, always an actor,

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Speaker 4: but incredible, incredible.

434
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 6: Just had to I had to bring that up, and

435
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 6: I'm mad that they've changed the design.

436
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 3: They're just little d coins now.

437
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 5: Now and it's the you know, it was the animated

438
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 5: kangaroos among us.

439
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 3: Amazing a lizard could never.

440
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 7: This particular you know.

441
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 5: In Cancelation Island. Just to set it up a bit more,

442
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 5: we have a Holly Hunter creates or founds a kind

443
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 5: of pilot project called Renewal, and it's about taking a

444
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 5: curated group of canceled people, bringing them to a desert

445
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 5: island which only has a decommissioned CIA Black site on it,

446
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 5: which they have remodeled with the help of Michael Core's

447
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 5: into a lovely resort. And they've curated a group of

448
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 5: gen Z therapists because what they lack in life experience,

449
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 5: they make up for uncertainty. And they are going to

450
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 5: treat these curated group of canceled people that goes from

451
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 5: a slightly windsteining character to someone who just slip of

452
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 5: a tongue and really does not belong in limbo in

453
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 5: the doghouse. And quickly after a couple episodes, all of

454
00:28:55,760 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 5: our satire about cancel culture is stripped away when mortality,

455
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 5: uh you know appears, which means, oh my God, there's

456
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 5: a giant, life threatening hurricane, Hurricane Swift.

457
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 7: What do they call it?

458
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 5: Hurricane Taylor? Because it is Swift, they rename it hur

459
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 5: Beyonce in the spirit of impending diversity. Then someone else says,

460
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 5: Beyonce doesn't really write her own songs. This is for real,

461
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 5: let's call it Hurricane Solange. They keep changing the name

462
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 5: of But in that madness, people start disappearing from the

463
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 5: rehab and we start to realize there is someone still

464
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 5: there from the CIA Black Site living in the bunker beneath,

465
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 5: and that is a rogue conspiracy adult CI, a linguist

466
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 5: you know, who sees himself as a bit of a

467
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 5: you know, born identity figure. Now, who is the jont

468
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 5: Listen not Jones like the John the Baptist too, K

469
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 5: of Kanon, which we've invented as our version of the

470
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 5: secret Lizard people conspiracy among us? And K like Q

471
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 5: is an unidentified figure who seems to have knowledge and

472
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 5: power but is incognito. And Uh Casper All the characters'

473
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 5: names begin with K, which makes him suspicious.

474
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 7: Casper with the K.

475
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 5: Is the ghost like rogues CIA agent living beneath monitoring

476
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 5: this subsurd rehab above and starting to kidnap members of

477
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 5: the rehab because he thinks they might be k and

478
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 5: you know, he needs to reconnect their brain so they

479
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 5: become Because it's a very complex, as all conspiracy theories

480
00:30:53,560 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 5: are situation, and our case though the uh, the lizards

481
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 5: seem to become real. Any woman is impregnated by one

482
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 5: of the lizards and gives birth and then they arrive

483
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 5: and they're really nice. Okay, you guys are also upset

484
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 5: and canceling and this and that. It's like, how can

485
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 5: we help?

486
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 3: Right? Right, we come in peace.

487
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 7: As opposed to pieces.

488
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a quick break here, here a word

489
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: from our sponsor, will be right.

490
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 6: Back, and we're back.

491
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 3: This is something that again I hesitate to overuse the

492
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 3: word residence, but this exploration of dare we say truth

493
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 3: through fiction? I think it challenges our audience to explore

494
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 3: not just metaphor, but to apply that metaphor to lived

495
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 3: experience right on an individual level. So I'm with you, John,

496
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that there are lizard people. I would love

497
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 3: it if one of the many alleged reptilians came out

498
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 3: and finally had the press conference and said Hey, you

499
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:32,719
Speaker 3: know what, Yes, yeah, it's all true. We're worried about you.

500
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 5: Guys.

501
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 3: You should call your mom. You know what I mean.

502
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 5: Some of our brethren, you know, really I don't want

503
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 5: you around anymore. We can't be responsible for all of them.

504
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 5: We're as complex as you, Donald Trump. One of our

505
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 5: brethren has different plans.

506
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 7: We're sorry about.

507
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 2: Right, right, this guy.

508
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 7: They come out, sorry.

509
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 3: Peez, that's how it happens. There's a public apology. They're like, look,

510
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 3: hashtag not all lizards.

511
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys, I want to go down the lizard path more.

512
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:16,959
Speaker 2: But I have to sidebar on something that came up

513
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 2: a little while ago, just because I cannot stop thinking

514
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 2: about it. John, Can you please tell us more about

515
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 2: your house, Like, has anything weird happened in there? Any

516
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 2: strange spots in the house that have different energy.

517
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 5: Well, my house is one hundred and eighty years old

518
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 5: in the middle of the Bywater part of New Orleans,

519
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 5: and we bought it, as I said, from a chapter

520
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 5: of the Oto the Oortist Templar Orientis, which Crowley did

521
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 5: run for many years worldwide. He didn't live in this house,

522
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 5: but he spent time in New Orleans and it was

523
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 5: his favorite town in the US, and as it's mine.

524
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 5: And I came upon it at the time when everyone

525
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 5: was buying and it was the one house that was

526
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 5: not selling, and I was like, what's wrong? As a curse,

527
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 5: you know, what's going on? And I walked in and

528
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 5: there's this fifty foot ballroom with a stage. The walls

529
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:19,800
Speaker 5: were decorated with kind of you know, planet signs, and

530
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 5: there was elements of the Jupiter Square, which is it

531
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 5: has to do with Jupiter's xenios aspect, which has to

532
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,439
Speaker 5: do with hospitality, where you see a square of numbers numerology,

533
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 5: every line adds up to thirty four or something, and

534
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 5: it had to do with hospitality. And so there's all

535
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,479
Speaker 5: this imagery here and a cool you know Moroccan arch

536
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 5: in my kitchen. And I made friends with the original

537
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 5: owner and she sent me some photographs.

538
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 6: It was a.

539
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 5: Funeral home for fifty years, you know. And the brand

540
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 5: of arch Druidess of Louisiana will I mean a warden

541
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 5: of course, alliteration. And I kept finding out more than

542
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 5: it was five different churches after that, the Catholic meeting hall.

543
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 5: There was a baptisma font in our floor. There was

544
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 5: a pentagram up in our route and our attic.

545
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 6: Thank god they didn't overhaul it, you know. I mean,

546
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 6: that's incredible, you know.

547
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 5: And we poured a lot of money into it at

548
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 5: the time, and now I can't afford it.

549
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 3: But well, this, John, if of me, this reminds me

550
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 3: of uh, what I call a sleeper line. Like the

551
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:46,959
Speaker 3: language here in Cancelation Island is we're inherently humorous. We're

552
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 3: not again talking down to people. Nobody ever, nobody ever

553
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 3: really established rapport via condescension, right, And so one of

554
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 3: the sleeper lines that I, uh, that I clung to

555
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 3: and listen back in often is the line you can

556
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 3: see the spirits in everything. And this sort of reminds

557
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 3: me of of Matt's question earlier regarding the Oto house

558
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 3: in which you now reside. And it also it reminds

559
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,760
Speaker 3: me of oh, what's that thing in Japanese folklore where

560
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 3: if an inanimate object is or a place is well

561
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,479
Speaker 3: cared for for a century plus, it acquires its own

562
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 3: sort of animism. I'm sorry, this is wait wait.

563
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 2: Wait, was any have you experienced anything in the house?

564
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:37,800
Speaker 5: John, Well, I haven't.

565
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 3: You know.

566
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 5: It's interesting because I I came in it felt good.

567
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 5: It felt like a personality, you know. It wasn't like

568
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 5: an abode it was it felt like a presence that

569
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 5: was control and interested and curious. And a Hurricane Ida

570
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 5: hit right after, and there was a lot of trouble

571
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 5: and you know, trying to get the house together. We

572
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 5: had a house sitter probably was on math and the

573
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 5: energy was in the room in the house. And after

574
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 5: we extracted him with I had to bribe him to

575
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 5: get out and he stole.

576
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 3: Oh.

577
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 5: I didn't prosecute because usually those type of people, their

578
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 5: life is their actual sentence. I think he was arrested later.

579
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 5: But what I brought in a voodoo priestess, because you know, yes,

580
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 5: and in New Orleans you work with bo's here and

581
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 5: there's a lot of cultures and you're like, whatever works right.

582
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 5: And the voodoo person wanted said I need the house

583
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 5: for ninety minutes. I need a pail of water and

584
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 5: a single egg.

585
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: Whoa.

586
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 3: And this is before eggs were financial flats.

587
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 5: And it was actually a not you know, a my

588
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 5: friend's chicken egg. Actually, this is so New Orleans. She's

589
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 5: our witchy real estate agent who sold me the house.

590
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 5: She has her own chickens, you know, this is how

591
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 5: we're you. And so Sally, the priestess, came in. We

592
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 5: don't know what happened to the egg. I'm sure no

593
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 5: one ate it. But she said, you know, the house

594
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 5: feels very good. You don't clear the house of spirits,

595
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 5: you work with them, right, and I love you feel it.

596
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 5: And she said the only negative energy I had was

597
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 5: in this one room, which turned out to be the

598
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 5: meth heads room. Wow, interestingly right, and there's a weird

599
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 5: crawl space above that, which.

600
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was.

601
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 5: Actually there was a lot of lighting instruments up there

602
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 5: for the ballroom, which is interesting. But you know, I

603
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 5: was a little scared, but she really cleared it. It

604
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 5: felt good people who come in here, So I haven't

605
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 5: had any negative I've known when the house is unhappy.

606
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 3: I e.

607
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 5: We haven't been taken care of it. You know, it

608
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 5: loves people. It loves events, you know, artistic events. It's

609
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 5: becoming a bit of an artist's residency. I'm trying to

610
00:38:58,400 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 5: raise money to.

611
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 7: Keep it local.

612
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 5: People can use it for whatever it can charge.

613
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, John, if I if I could interject there, and Matt,

614
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 3: sorry if I stepped on you when I was setting

615
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 3: up the question I wanted to get to you, so John,

616
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 3: at least we can confirm at least some people there

617
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 3: have felt there is a you know, far be it

618
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 3: to call it animism, but felt a presence.

619
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 5: They feel, yes, they feel the presidence of the house.

620
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 5: But also, here's my favorite thing that happened. I new

621
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 5: Orleans is a place you talk to strangers, You talk

622
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,839
Speaker 5: to people in the street, you invite them over spontaneously.

623
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 5: It's like, that's why I'm here. But I invited this

624
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 5: guitarist over and his pregnant wife, and we sat in

625
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 5: our ballroom and she's very calm, and.

626
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 7: She said, was this a mortuary?

627
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,760
Speaker 5: And it hasn't been a mortuary since in nineteen thirty

628
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 5: and there's no I just had found out like the

629
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 5: week before that it had been a merched mort and

630
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,240
Speaker 5: I said, well, yes, how did you know? And she said,

631
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 5: I grew up in a mortuary.

632
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 7: And this feels about right.

633
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, my other friends said people died in

634
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 5: your house. I was like, nobody dies in a mortuary.

635
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 6: We're at Disney World, that's true.

636
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 2: Room they just hang out here for a while, y'all.

637
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 6: Can I just say it's super creepy that.

638
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 4: I was just looking something up on the Internet and

639
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 4: I got served an ad for Orgone Energy Pyramids. I

640
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 4: think that the computer is listening, and I think I

641
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 4: will It's only fifty five.

642
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:42,839
Speaker 3: All right for this whole accounting sixty four?

643
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:47,359
Speaker 4: Maybe Okay, there's a company Orgone Pyramids Incorporated.

644
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,240
Speaker 2: Don't you have to create Orgon Energy unclear?

645
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 6: Don't ask questions, don't.

646
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 5: As we all know, I love the Orgon box for sure.

647
00:40:59,120 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 3: Yeah.

648
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 5: I always said scary, but you know, fascinating, queer familiar

649
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 5: for me. And I lived his house in Kansas as

650
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 5: a kid, but I never part of your story there

651
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 5: in Anthem, Yes so Anthem. My composer Brian Weller, and

652
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 5: I actually drove around Kansas where it took place and

653
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 5: where I lived, and I knocked on William Burrow's door, thinking,

654
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 5: what the hell you know in Lawrence, Kansas, where he

655
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,919
Speaker 5: used to live, and the caretaker came out and said,

656
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 5: what as if they'd experienced this before, And I said,

657
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 5: I'm writing a musical that might actually take place on

658
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 5: this porch. You know, I saw the characters living in

659
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 5: William Burrow's old house. And he's like, all right, I

660
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 5: haven't heard that one, come on in, you say, some

661
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 5: Japanese hipster, you know, And I this tiny house with

662
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 5: a huge garden, bullet holes in the ceiling that Bill

663
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 5: had shot, and I ended up we ended up writing

664
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 5: our first draft at Burrow's house house so cool. Anthemunculus,

665
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 5: which has a character based on Bill played by Ben

666
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 5: Foster who played them in the film Kill Your Darlings,

667
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 5: And so Burrows, you know, Heroin inspired occultism, which was

668
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 5: mixed with science, you know, in his particular inimitable way,

669
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 5: and you know, perhaps junk sides of the Oregon box.

670
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 5: But again whatever works right right, it inspired us as well.

671
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 5: And if you think about it, we're all sort of

672
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 5: in William Burrow's absurd world now. I mean Trump is

673
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 5: a Burrows type character, oh for sure.

674
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 3: Ooh ooh.

675
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the Lavender Scare, like way back

676
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 2: in the day when when the you know, the executive

677
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 2: branch decided, oh, we have to be afraid, just like

678
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 2: with the quote red scare, we have to be afraid

679
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,879
Speaker 2: of anyone who is quote you're talking about now I'm

680
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 2: talking about now. It feels like it feels like we're

681
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 2: time traveling a bit or just re experiencing something.

682
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 3: History is always closer than it looks in the rear

683
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 3: view mirror.

684
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 5: Oh yes, And as we know back then, gay people

685
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 5: and now translated more to trans people are the lizard

686
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 5: people among us for the maga type rights. You know

687
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 5: that everyone needs a scapegoat, and they're very convenient because

688
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 5: in their view they are trans people are alien and

689
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:39,479
Speaker 5: unnatural and subverting, you know, God's will or whatever God

690
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 5: they feel they I don't know what kind.

691
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 3: Of God that is, but the convenient God for the.

692
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 7: Day exactly which we all do.

693
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 5: As the subject of my new play, Claude Cahun said

694
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 5: she was an anti Nazi artist.

695
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 7: We get the God we deserve.

696
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 4: Well, with that in mind, do you mind if we

697
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 4: backtrack a little bit you brought up and I'm sorry

698
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 4: I had to step away for just a second, so

699
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 4: I hopefully I didn't miss this, But you were talking

700
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 4: about the Gnostic Gospels and these kind of parts of

701
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 4: the Bible that are inconvenient perhaps that were not included

702
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 4: for folks that maybe have weaponized that religion, that particular religion,

703
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 4: and many others, of course, but inconvenient for them. There's

704
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 4: another aspect of that in the book of Enoch, and

705
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 4: that is also a great kind of analog I suppose

706
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 4: for this idea of lizard people and potentially even where

707
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 4: they came from the idea. And I know, Ben, this

708
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 4: is a big wheelhouse for you, the nephelum and the

709
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 4: idea that these angels bred with humans and created you know,

710
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 4: these this other race of you know, human angel hybrids

711
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 4: that can be seen as a stand in for this

712
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 4: idea of lizard people. But there's also some very interesting

713
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 4: kind of queer culture wrapped up in that the idea

714
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 4: that Sodom and Gomorrah was actually home to some of

715
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 4: these you know, angel human hybrids, and that a lot

716
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 4: of that is maybe potentially where some of the anti

717
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 4: queer rhetoric comes from. Because the Bible doesn't actually refer to,

718
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 4: you know, specifically by name the act of being engaged.

719
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 4: I think it's the idea of seeking something about unusual

720
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 4: flesh or there's a term that I'm maybe misconstruing, but

721
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 4: there's this sense that or there's this theory that perhaps

722
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 4: that is referencing these nephelem but it's not actually contained

723
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 4: within the Bible because that book was cut out, so

724
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe a bit broad and I'm bringing

725
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 4: up maybe multiple points, but maybe something we could touch

726
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 4: on real quick. Well.

727
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 5: One of the things about the Gnostics that I mean,

728
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 5: having grown up extremely Catholic beyond and you know, as

729
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 5: a kid taught by Benedictine monks in Scotland and at

730
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 5: that time a little queer boy, I actually considering, you know,

731
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 5: monk hood. My mom later was like, you're gay.

732
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 7: That's the that's the place for you.

733
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 5: And I'm like, oh god, Mom, there's problems with that.

734
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 7: She's like, that's just.

735
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 5: Anti Catholic propaganda. There was no abuse. I'm like, okay,

736
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 5: I've dodged it by the skin of my teeth and

737
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 5: the schools. But what was what I did love about

738
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 5: it is of course the Catholic the queerness of it,

739
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 5: you know, not not the gayness, but the weird iconography,

740
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 5: the cosmology, you know, the Lord of the ringsness of

741
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,439
Speaker 5: it that, you know, the Jesus on the Cross, which

742
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 5: is so gay. And then Mary, who's you know, almost

743
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 5: as important as Jesus in many cultures the only way

744
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 5: into Christianity for women for centuries.

745
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 3: The religious syncretism.

746
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 5: Of taking gods and making them into saints and making

747
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 5: them into Mary. It's a very smart thing to do

748
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 5: when you're trying to missionize.

749
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 4: Don't forget the costumes for sure. But also this back

750
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 4: back to the nephil and thing. Ben, maybe you can

751
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 4: speak on this the giants aspect of it, or I

752
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 4: believe their offspring were giants, and this was this notion

753
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 4: the giants were kind of gods among men, gods on earth.

754
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 4: And that's also inconvenient for the Bible property.

755
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 5: That's right, like how do you fit that? As well

756
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 5: as slavery if forget that one. But you know, what

757
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 5: the Gnostics talked about was the creator God as the villain,

758
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 5: you know.

759
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, the imperfect god of the lesser universe.

760
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 5: Yes, that's right. And the mother of that god was

761
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 5: named Sophia, was in effect a non binary entity, you know,

762
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 5: like in the film like the Angels, right, there's really

763
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 5: gender there. It was sort of all genders in a way.

764
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 5: And Sophia, which means wisdom, came from the Pleroma, which

765
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 5: was the higher heavens to give birth in our world,

766
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 5: our universe, so to speak, almost illicitly, because you were

767
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 5: supposed to give birth with a partner in a way.

768
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 5: And she was like, I'm going to do it myself,

769
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 5: parthenogenetic reproduction in effect, and in their some Gnostic stories,

770
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 5: she was so horrified at what she produced that she

771
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:31,760
Speaker 5: wrapped God's face in a cloud and tiptoed away, leaving

772
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:35,280
Speaker 5: him to think he was the only thing in existence.

773
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 5: So I talk about this in my show The Origin

774
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 5: of Love, which talks about how Hedvig came about. And

775
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 5: I say, well, kids, to the Gnostics, God was a

776
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 5: dumpster baby and his flawedness and it was a male

777
00:48:53,400 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 5: identified thing begat our flawedness. And Adam and Eve, let's say,

778
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 5: Adam at first was lifeless, and it took the spark

779
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 5: of Sophia, you know, the divine spark coming to give

780
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 5: it life. And Eve was a manifestation of Sophia. So

781
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 5: in Headgig, Tommy compares Headwig to Eve, the woman who

782
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 5: wanted to know shit, the first saint, and even Jesus

783
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 5: was a kind of manifestation of Eve to the Gnostics

784
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 5: as someone who brought up love, which was not a

785
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 5: word used in terms of divinity in the Old Testament.

786
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 5: And so this was fascinating to me because even as

787
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 5: a kid, I'm like, what is the problem with eating

788
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 5: the apple? From the tree of knowledge. She just is

789
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 5: a scientist. She wants to know things. The guy was

790
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 5: incurious in his man cave watching football while he was

791
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 5: trying to make things happen, And I'm like, what is

792
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,439
Speaker 5: wrong with that? Even as a child, I'm like, this

793
00:49:56,719 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 5: story is being interpreted incorrectly. So when I read the

794
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 5: gnost six, I'm like, bingo, this is another way to

795
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:09,760
Speaker 5: look at Christianity. Same stories of Christianity. And it talked

796
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 5: about the inner spark within all of us, Sophia within

797
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 5: all of us, which is where you get that idea

798
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 5: of we have our own divinity, which was very threatening

799
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:21,800
Speaker 5: to an authoritarian church.

800
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 3: Oh oh, no, kidding, Yeah, and hold the phone, folks,

801
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 3: friends and neighbors. We're going deep in this conversation, so

802
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 3: much so that we're going to make this interview segment

803
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 3: a two parter. Now we're not sure where we're ending

804
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 3: it just yet. Full disclosure, So we don't know what

805
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 3: we've Singer. We left you right right, but we don't

806
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 3: want to leave you again without a dope spell to

807
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 3: spit too, So spit too, Spit two. So please joined

808
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 3: us in a few days where we'll follow up with

809
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 3: part two of our conversation with John Cameron Mitchell and

810
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,879
Speaker 3: Cancelation Island. In the meantime, you can find us online.

811
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,720
Speaker 3: You can call us on a telephone. You can always

812
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:09,720
Speaker 3: reach us at our good old fashioned email address.

813
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 4: Online. We existed the handle Conspiracy Stuff on all the

814
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 4: social media platforms of note, including YouTube or video conhugalor

815
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 4: exists for your perusing enjoyment Facebook, where you can join

816
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 4: our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy at x FKA, Twitter,

817
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 4: on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.

818
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 2: Don't let the concept of pronoid escape any of us.

819
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 2: I think that is one of the coolest ideas that

820
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 2: I've heard in a while. It's not something I was

821
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 2: aware of. You can call us right now and tell

822
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 2: us what you think about that, or for anything else

823
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 2: we've been talking about so far. Our number is one

824
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 2: eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, give

825
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 2: yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we

826
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 2: can use your name and message on the air. If

827
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 2: you don't like using your voice to communicate, why not

828
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 2: send us an email. We are the entities that.

829
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 3: Read each piece of correspondence we receive. Now, of course,

830
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 3: you don't have to just choose one thing you can email,

831
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 3: even if you do like being on the phone. We

832
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 3: accept all covers here, joined us out here in the dark.

833
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,959
Speaker 3: Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the void writes back,

834
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 3: how do you know for sure? It's one way to

835
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 3: find out conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

836
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production

837
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

838
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.