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Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast

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Speaker 1: that is mourning the temporary loss of its producer. Today,

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Speaker 1: Sophie got into a little bit of a kerfuffle with

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Speaker 1: the the ftc some shots were exchanged. Anyway, she's on

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Speaker 1: the run now, but we're we're expecting her to report

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Speaker 1: back in from her mountain hide away any day. But

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Speaker 1: until she gets back, Samantha McVeigh is with me, uh

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Speaker 1: today this week, Samantha, how are you doing good?

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Speaker 2: You know, I was just saying, I feel like Sophie

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Speaker 2: is our adult that supervises, so.

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Speaker 3: I'm a little nervous that she's not here.

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Speaker 2: But it's okay because I also did another show with

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Speaker 2: Margaret and Sophie wasn't there either, So maybe she is

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Speaker 2: she mad at me.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: No, it's she's just running.

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Speaker 1: It's it's just she's on the run from from the law. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's fine. Once she once she gets

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Speaker 1: to our hidden mountain fastness, uh in an undisclosed location

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Speaker 1: in the Rockies, she'll she'll be back on the calls.

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Speaker 1: Everything will be fine. Yeah, it gets We're going to

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Speaker 1: be doing the podcast via Morse code. Yeah, that is

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Speaker 1: going to be the only way to communicate. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: going to get some code talkers, but with like maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe Klingon based. I don't think the Feds can crack

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Speaker 1: that one yet. Uh not anymore. They got all those

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Speaker 1: feds out. Those are the first people the Trump folks fired.

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Speaker 1: Samantha stuff your mom never told you? Is your podcast?

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Speaker 1: You got anything else you want to plug up at

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Speaker 1: the top here before we get into our subject for

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Speaker 1: the week.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so. Yeah, I'm on a podcast. It

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Speaker 3: has a book. It's been around for a.

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Speaker 1: Bit, it has it. Yeah, an OG. And speaking of ogs,

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Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about one of the OG's

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Speaker 1: of being an abusive Christian cult leader in the United States,

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Speaker 1: the worst preacher of all time, a guy that Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles residents might be are going to be aware of

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Speaker 1: as well as most of our Alabama listeners. Tony Alamo,

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Speaker 1: what have you heard of this guy? Do you know? Total?

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Speaker 3: I don't.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, which is what I'm kind of surprised

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Speaker 2: by because I was really.

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Speaker 3: Deep into the Christian world. So, oh, yeah, I know

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Speaker 3: this one.

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Speaker 1: He is, Well, he's one of the weirder ones and

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Speaker 1: he's one of like the worst people wherever he This guy,

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Speaker 1: oh man, he does all of the evil cult leader things,

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Speaker 1: child trafficking, slave labor, you know, all all all the

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Speaker 1: good stuff, abusive, a corpse. It's great. We got a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun stuff today.

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Speaker 3: Some modern day Christianity.

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Speaker 1: Let's go yeah, yeah, yeah, So again, his last name

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Speaker 1: is Alamo, but it's spelled Alamo, but that's not how

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Speaker 1: it's pronounced because the State of Texas would have come

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Speaker 1: after him then he would have had the rangers on

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Speaker 1: him long before the FBI finally took him down if

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Speaker 1: he'd been weakening Texas' brand. But yeah, Tony Alamo. And

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Speaker 1: this is this is kind of a weird one in

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Speaker 1: that he is not the initial leader of his cult.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of his wife. So it starts out as

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Speaker 1: him being almost like you used by this cult that

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Speaker 1: he later winds up running like he's always one of

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Speaker 1: the people running it, but like his wife is definitely

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Speaker 1: much more like the driving force of the cult when

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Speaker 1: they get started, which is interesting. You don't see that

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Speaker 1: a lot, you know, you know, So this is a

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about a feminist icon in the

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Speaker 1: world of establishing a cult that chat traffics children across

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Speaker 1: state lifes.

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Speaker 3: And icon Well, that's exciting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. Girls can do everything the boys can do,

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Speaker 1: including trafficking.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Obviously, we're always saying that equal opportunity. I

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Speaker 3: love it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So one of my favorite things about this is that

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Speaker 1: these guys the people were talking about today were very

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Speaker 1: good friends of one of our friends of the pod

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Speaker 1: who had a run in of his own with law

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Speaker 1: enforcement in a town called Waco. But I'm getting ahead

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Speaker 1: of myself.

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Speaker 2: Here, Okay.

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Speaker 3: I was wondering, I'm not gonna lie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit of where there's some way to

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Speaker 1: go that comes in here. Yeah, ali O, Waco.

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Speaker 3: All seemed too convenient.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Now. Tony was not just the leader of

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Speaker 1: the cult, you know again, he was basically its first

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Speaker 1: member or maybe co leader, with the woman who became

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Speaker 1: his wife, who we're going to talk about before we

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Speaker 1: talk about Tony, because she is fascinating too, Edith opel Horn,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, and she's she's got that serial

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Speaker 1: killer name starting I know, Opal there's something sinister about that.

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Speaker 2: It's a middle name is sinister, and it's also bless

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Speaker 2: your heart, like she's going to poison you, but it's

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Speaker 2: going to be a really great pie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yes, And she is she is, This

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Speaker 1: is a she is a down home girl. Now, if

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Speaker 1: you if your first thought when I said Tony Alamo

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Speaker 1: was that like, oh, well, that's way too good a

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Speaker 1: name of a cult leader to be a real cult

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Speaker 1: leader's name, you are correct. And Tony was not born

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Speaker 1: Tony Alamo. He was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman on September twentieth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, in Joplin, Missouri. So again, this is

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Speaker 1: kind of rare for evangelical Christian cult leaders, but he

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Speaker 1: was born into a Jewish family. His parents were immigrants

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Speaker 1: from Romania, and while this may seem like an unlikely

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Speaker 1: background again for an Evangelical Christian cult leader, Bernie's family

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Speaker 1: was never religious, and as a boy, his parents identity

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Speaker 1: like it told him, hey, you should tell people that

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Speaker 1: you're Romanian, not Jewish, because if you tell him you're Jewish,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get beaten up. Right Like we're in We're

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Speaker 1: in Joplin, Missouri in the forties and fifties. You know,

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Speaker 1: you know, you really don't, you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: Dropping that too much now. Edith was also born into

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Speaker 1: a Jewish family on April twenty fifth, nineteen twenty for

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Speaker 1: in Alma, Arkansas, a small town about the same size

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Speaker 1: as Dire, Kansas, where the family moved shortly after her birth.

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Speaker 1: Her father was a convert or, her family was mixed religion.

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Speaker 1: It's a little unclear to me because she told her

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Speaker 1: daughter later that she first encountered the Bible reciting passages

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Speaker 1: from it at her father's sick bed. He'd been sent

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Speaker 1: home from the military early due to contracting tuberculosis, and

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Speaker 1: over the course of several years he wasted away and

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Speaker 1: tried to stay outside to avoid spreading the illness to

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Speaker 1: his family. So he's like camping out to try to

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Speaker 1: stop from getting his family sick, which is yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean that's some real like thirties.

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Speaker 3: Just quarantine you out there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, dad lives in the yard because otherwise they'll get

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Speaker 1: us all killed. Edith would later claim to have refused

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Speaker 1: to listen to what he said and like because she

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Speaker 1: was convinced that she could heal him by reciting Bible passages,

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Speaker 1: so she insisted on sitting next to his cot or

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Speaker 1: whatever night. This may have been later myth making after

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Speaker 1: she converted, Because our only source on her childhood is

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Speaker 1: her either way, what we can confirm is that from

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Speaker 1: an early age, Edith dreamed of being a star in

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Speaker 1: the newly forming film industry, which had just come to

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Speaker 1: be centered in Hollywood, California. But her dreams were interrupted

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Speaker 1: by the northern normal patterns of life in a small

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Speaker 1: southern town. By which I mean she got pregnant extremely young, obviously, right,

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Speaker 1: Like she's a dire like our kidsaw in the fucking

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Speaker 1: thirties and forties.

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Speaker 3: What else is there to do?

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Speaker 1: Well? I mean literally, there is nothing else that you

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Speaker 1: can do aside from get pregnant early and have your

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Speaker 1: brother's and husband die of various coal related diseases or

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Speaker 1: farming related accidents. You know. Yeah, yeah, obviously, like people,

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Speaker 1: there have numerous different things that they can do with

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Speaker 1: their lives, all of which involved dying young.

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Speaker 3: Dying young.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So.

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Speaker 1: Debbie Scrivener describes what happened next in the book Whispering

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Speaker 1: in the Daylight, which is about the Alamos quote. She

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Speaker 1: married at fourteen, had a baby at fifteen, and divorced

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Speaker 1: at sixteen. It was then that Edith ople decided to

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Speaker 1: take charge of her own journey to stardom and headed

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Speaker 1: to California. When she reached Hollywood, Edith Ople changed her

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Speaker 1: name to Susan Fleetwood. After failed attempts at a singing

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Speaker 1: an acting career, she married and then divorced Saul Lippowitz

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Speaker 1: and converted from her Jewish roots to Evangelical Christianity. She

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Speaker 1: began to preach and teach informally. And she just straight

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Speaker 1: up abandons her son right now. This is her son

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Speaker 1: that she has at fifteen. But yeah, she just kind

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Speaker 1: of bounces on the family she's got over there, moves

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Speaker 1: to Hollywood and starts trying to make it. And the

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Speaker 1: one daughter that she has with Saul Lippowitz is named

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Speaker 1: Christhion like christ Hiao n KOI I'm guessing Koy was.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't actually know where Koy comes from here.

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Speaker 1: That must be her married name. That's what she writes

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Speaker 1: under as an adult. I have never heard of the

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Speaker 1: name Christhian before. This may be a misspelling of the

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Speaker 1: name Christaan, like like christ o in, which is a

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Speaker 1: Latin girl's name that means follower of Christ. But I

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Speaker 1: don't know. Chris theon doesn't appear to be anything right.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like as an amalgamation of saying Christ and

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Speaker 2: then like Thessalonians, one of the chapters like.

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Speaker 1: That maybe yeah, yeah, somebody's flipping through a Bible on

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Speaker 1: an epidural and is like, I got a name.

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Speaker 3: I'll take these two things, buy them together. Beautiful, yeah, perfect,

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Speaker 3: no problems here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, according to Chris, we're going to call her

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Speaker 1: Chris because I'm not going to try to pronounce that

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Speaker 1: name the whole time, and that's generally what she seems

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Speaker 1: to go by. Edith, her mom makes a living during

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Speaker 1: this period, primarily as a con woman because she's trying

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Speaker 1: to find work. In the movie, she does some acting gigs,

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Speaker 1: but they do not her career doesn't take off right.

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Speaker 1: Her daughter will credit this to the fact that she

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Speaker 1: just does not have the look that hally Wood's going for.

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Speaker 1: In this period. She was, per her daughter quote, beautiful

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Speaker 1: in the weirdest way, not like you would look at

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Speaker 1: her and go wow, a striking beauty. But when she

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Speaker 1: walked in a room, she had so much command that

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Speaker 1: people stopped talking. So she's not the kind of she

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Speaker 1: doesn't have the right look to get the big Hollywood gigs.

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Speaker 1: But she does have the right look to make people

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Speaker 1: pay attention to her and kind of gravitates naturally to

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Speaker 1: conning them as a result.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's all tracks to where she goes.

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Speaker 1: It feels like it's very perfectly natural. Yes, I'm seeing

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Speaker 1: the a to be here very easily, very quickly. When

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Speaker 1: she managed to get work or successfully work at con

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Speaker 1: the family would have money, and so during Chris's childhood

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Speaker 1: they swung wildly between mild solvency and absolute poverty with

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Speaker 1: such regularity that it made Chris's childhood kind of dizzying.

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Speaker 1: Also dizzying was the violence that Edith employed on a

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Speaker 1: near daily basis. And I'm not going to read a

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Speaker 1: lot of detailed stories of physical abuse here. Chris has

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Speaker 1: a book that she's going to write later about her childhood,

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Speaker 1: and her book, Mama Said, has some of the worst

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Speaker 1: and most descriptions of like the beating and psychological abuse

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Speaker 1: of a little kid that I've ever read. Edith is

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Speaker 1: a very bad mother, Like I cannot overemphasize how abuse

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Speaker 1: of this woman is to her daughter, or at least

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Speaker 1: that's how Chris relates it. I don't know why she

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Speaker 1: would lie about the specific things that she's lying about,

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Speaker 1: given that they comport entirely with the life that Edith

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Speaker 1: is going to live from this point forward. Right, So, Edith,

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Speaker 1: now living as Susan and her daughter, spent years on

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Speaker 1: the margins. Once Chris is thirteen, Edith is like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you got to start earning your keep, right, You're basically

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Speaker 1: an adult woman. It's time for you to start going

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Speaker 1: out for parts and recording demo tapes as a singer.

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Speaker 1: And you know, you kind of get the feeling that

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Speaker 1: part of what she's doing is like, Hey, you know

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Speaker 1: you're you're the age that a lot of creeps in

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Speaker 1: Hollywood are interested in. If you can make that work

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Speaker 1: for us, go do it. It's a it's a bad

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Speaker 1: again childhood. The two live in a one room apartment

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Speaker 1: with a pull down Murphy bed and survived primarily off

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Speaker 1: of what Chris describes as mystery cans, which are canned

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Speaker 1: foods with the labels removed that sold for cheaper than

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Speaker 1: regular food. Quote, you would open these cans and whatever

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Speaker 1: you opened, you ate.

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Speaker 3: It's like a surprise.

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Speaker 1: It's like a surprise. Yeah, exactly. You're keeping your life interesting,

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Speaker 1: probably just pounding a lot of pure fucking coconut oil

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Speaker 1: or whatever, like right, imagining, Yeah, yeah, pie, if you're lucky,

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Speaker 1: pie me. Yeah, a lot of inspired suits. Suits. Oh

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Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, that's like that. That's such a perfect

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Speaker 1: like absolute poverty, uh story right there. Yeah, just just

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Speaker 1: eating mystery cans with my mom as she tries to

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Speaker 1: pip me out to the music industry to go, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: get pregnant or drop and eat pea, right, like, those

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Speaker 1: are your options. So by this point, by the times

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Speaker 1: Chris is thirteen, Edith has aged out of most of

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Speaker 1: the roles that interested her. Right. She is, again, particularly

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Speaker 1: for this period of Hollywood, too old to become a

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Speaker 1: leading lady, right, and the bulk of her earnings now

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Speaker 1: come from con artistry. And here is how Debbie Scrivener

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Speaker 1: describes her most successful and repeated con. She developed her

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Speaker 1: evangelical skills by scamming churches under the pretense of being

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Speaker 1: a missionary seeking funds. She would say to Chris put

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Speaker 1: on address, We're going to do a church. They would go,

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Speaker 1: and during the service, Susan would stand and say, I

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Speaker 1: have a message from the Lord and I need to speak.

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Speaker 1: Susan would speak, Chris would sing, church members would pass

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Speaker 1: a love offering and mother and daughter would leave with money.

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Speaker 1: And so, at age thirty four, Edith Opelhorn gave birth

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Speaker 1: to a new persona Susan Lippowitz, with business acumen, powers

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Speaker 1: of persuasion, and gritty determination. Well in place. There's some

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Speaker 1: disagreement in my sources of her when she's got that's

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Speaker 1: going by Susan, but it appears to be something she

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Speaker 1: takes on as part of this, like I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be scamming churches. And I think it's interesting again that

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Speaker 1: she comes from like a background that is very much

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Speaker 1: not evangelical Christianity, which may be why she knows how

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Speaker 1: to manipulate these people so well, maybe it's just the

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Speaker 1: simple fact that none of this is sacred to her

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Speaker 1: and the way it is to these people. So she's

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Speaker 1: able to kind of look in from the outside and like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I know how to fuck with these I know how

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Speaker 1: to get their money, right, Yeah, I know what they

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Speaker 1: want to hear. They want to see my daughter singing. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if she truly was trying to heal her father,

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Speaker 2: realize it doesn't work and this is bs, I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: just take their money.

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Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna take their fucking money. They're they lied

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Speaker 1: to me when my dad was sitting. Yeah, maybe there's

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Speaker 1: something there too, just like if I'm green lighting the

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Speaker 1: HBO mini series, that's at least how I try to gain. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's how we're going to start.

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Speaker 3: Give her a little that's her villain origin.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, So Susan nursed clear ambitions of turning her

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Speaker 1: daughter into a money ticket, and and Chris's initial ambition

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Speaker 1: was music. But Susan was the kind of mom who

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Speaker 1: was more than capable of acting on opportunity. One day

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four or sixty five, when Chris was

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Speaker 1: in eighth grade, she rode home on a city bus.

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Speaker 1: Now this was during a time again we're talking sixty

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Speaker 1: four or sixty five, this is a time of a

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Speaker 1: heightened racial tension, particularly in Los Angeles. The way Chris

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Speaker 1: describes it decades later, and again, Chris is not being

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Speaker 1: raised what we would call racially open minded. Right, Her

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Speaker 1: mom grows up in the South in the twenties and thirties.

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Speaker 1: She is raised believing some very racist things. So she

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Speaker 1: sees Chris sees this group of black girls on the

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Speaker 1: bus and quote, I may have given them a look.

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Speaker 1: They didn't like I'm not sure. One of the girls

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Speaker 1: responds by sticking out her foot, and Chris trips and falls,

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Speaker 1: and then the girls laugh at her, and other people

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Speaker 1: on the bus start laughing too, and so Chris runs

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Speaker 1: for the exit and then trips herself on her way

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Speaker 1: out right, and so she winds up with like scraped up,

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Speaker 1: bloody knees and everything. And that's, as Chris says it,

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Speaker 1: that's all that happened, right, Like, you know, she's probably

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Speaker 1: this girl who's raised very racist, gives a mean look

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Speaker 1: to a black girl who trips her, and the encounter

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Speaker 1: ends right in the grand scheme of things, not a

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Speaker 1: huge deal. But when Chris gets home, Susan sees that

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Speaker 1: she has bloody hands and knees, mostly from the second

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Speaker 1: time that she fell on her own. And Susan's like,

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Speaker 1: what happened? And Chris told her, right, I got tripped

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Speaker 1: on the bus by this black girl. And Susan responds,

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Speaker 1: you let a bunch of and then she drops several

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Speaker 1: slurs in a row. Run you off a public bus.

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Speaker 1: Chris tries to explain, I couldn't do anything, but Susan

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Speaker 1: is drunk, so she beats her daughter mercilessly breaking her

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Speaker 1: nose badly enough that she has to go to the

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Speaker 1: hospital because there's blood coming out of her ears. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're talking like very serious abuse here. So when

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Speaker 1: they get to the hospital, they can't Susan, Like, Susan

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Speaker 1: doesn't want her daughter saying, well, I got tripped on

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Speaker 1: the bus and scraped up my knees and then my

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Speaker 1: mom beat me so bad I have a concussion, right,

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Speaker 1: because then Mom's going to get arrested. Right.

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Speaker 3: That's not great.

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Speaker 1: That's not great. Yeah, that's like even even in this

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Speaker 1: period of time, in the mid sixties, that's child abuse. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So because her injuries require an explanation, Susan on the

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Speaker 1: way over to the hospital is coaching her daughter, who

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Speaker 1: has a head injury, like, hey, you got to you

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Speaker 1: gotta say it was those girls on the bus. You

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Speaker 1: gotta say it was like a race thing that they

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Speaker 1: beat you up because you're white. And then her book,

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Speaker 1: Mama said, Chris writes quote those six black girl and

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Speaker 1: this is her talking about like how she what she

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Speaker 1: tells the hospital, those six black girls beat me up

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Speaker 1: on the bus. I told them I got on the

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Speaker 1: bus and that girl tripped me, uttered racial slurs, knocked

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Speaker 1: me down and kicked me. Mom chimed in to add

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Speaker 1: another fantastic detail. Every time I retold the story, you

347
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Speaker 1: know what they said to her. They were screaming at her, screaming,

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Speaker 1: We're going to take over America, you white bitch. They

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Speaker 1: told her this is their city. The nurses, all white,

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Speaker 1: would gasp and cluck, and then even more racist things

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Speaker 1: get said. I think you get the idea right. Like

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Speaker 1: she is, Susan is very much leaning into the racial

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Speaker 1: animus of the time in order to try and make

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Speaker 1: this a story that she can sell not just to

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Speaker 1: these like white hospital workers, but to the media, which

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Speaker 1: is where she's going to go next, because when she

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Speaker 1: calls the cops, the cops are like, we don't really

358
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Speaker 1: care about some kids getting into a fight on a bus.

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Speaker 1: This is where the lapd and this is the sixties.

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Speaker 1: There's so much else going on right now and where

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Speaker 1: the LAPD, So we don't really care about much anyway.

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Speaker 1: So she starts reaching out to every newspaper in town

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Speaker 1: to tell them increasingly elaborate lies about the hate crime

364
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Speaker 1: her daughter had suffered. The only reporter who shows up

365
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Speaker 1: is a guy from the Harold Examiner, and the next

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Speaker 1: day Chris is on the front page of the paper.

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Speaker 1: Now this ignites a response from the local community, and

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Speaker 1: that's what brings the cops out. A whole bunch of

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Speaker 1: particularly the most racist people in LA start sending bouquets

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Speaker 1: of flowers to Chris, often with very racist messages in them. Susan,

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Speaker 1: because again this is all about money for Sue, she

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Speaker 1: tries to sue the bus company and eventually gets her

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Speaker 1: daughter on local TV, which turns her into, in Chris's words,

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Speaker 1: a martyr for the cause. The John Birch Society gets

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Speaker 1: interested and Susan and Chris are enrolled in the organization. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this is she This is like the kind of

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Speaker 1: the first big con. Susan realizes she can play with

378
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Speaker 1: her daughter, is like, I'm going to try and make

379
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Speaker 1: her like the face of the anti integration movement, right

380
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Speaker 1: and it You know, this works for a little while.

381
00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: Spurred to action by media attention, the LAPD takes to

382
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Speaker 1: the field with the usual degree of competence you would expect.

383
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Speaker 1: This is from Chris's book. Six black girls were arrested,

384
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Speaker 1: thrown in jail, charged, and dragged into a courtroom to

385
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Speaker 1: answer for my mother's crime. Mama told me I'd have

386
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Speaker 1: to testify on the witness stand. The thought made me

387
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 1: want to die. Mama caught me trying to overdose on

388
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Speaker 1: pills before the court date. She poured salt water down

389
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Speaker 1: my throat until I threw everything up. She didn't beat

390
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,000
Speaker 1: me this time, though. She couldn't have me showing up

391
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Speaker 1: to court with fresh wounds. So pretty bad, pretty bad story. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she didn't beat that's but she didn't beat her. She

393
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Speaker 1: just nearly drowned her with salt water.

394
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Speaker 2: It's fine, fine, it's fine, A sailing solutions, everything's great.

395
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Speaker 2: You know, I'm actually surprised that the police didn't jump

396
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Speaker 2: in and be like, oh, racial stuff, let's go beat

397
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Speaker 2: some people like that seems like something they would want

398
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Speaker 2: to do because they don't actually want to work.

399
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that's that's that's my expectation.

400
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:42,320
Speaker 1: But also you have to you have to note that

401
00:20:42,359 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: a big motivator for them is always not doing anything.

402
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:47,879
Speaker 1: So when they first get the phone call, they're going

403
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Speaker 1: to be like, well, I don't care like what he

404
00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:54,959
Speaker 1: tried to get me to do this? Okay, yeah, anyway,

405
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:59,600
Speaker 1: uh so that's that's what's happened so far? Pretty fun

406
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Speaker 1: story of outrageous child abuse.

407
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Speaker 3: What a beautiful fairy tale?

408
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:06,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a beautiful fairy tale. This this has is

409
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 1: a little bit there's a little bit of a fairy

410
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:11,640
Speaker 1: tale feel, except for instead of like Chris getting rich

411
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: and powerful, her evil and abusive mother does right after

412
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Speaker 1: this point. But before we hit that, let's do some

413
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Speaker 1: ads and we're back. How are you holding up their?

414
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Speaker 3: Sam, I'm just thinking about this. It seems like have

415
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,240
Speaker 3: you ever heard the story of Gypsy Rose, Yes, the

416
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:34,399
Speaker 3: child star them.

417
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Speaker 2: This sounds like the redneck version of that, except church,

418
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Speaker 2: which makes sense if you want to be like real honest,

419
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Speaker 2: and I'm not gonna lie. I'm sorry to those who

420
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Speaker 2: live in Arkansas.

421
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Speaker 3: I know it's not your fault, but.

422
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Speaker 2: Arkansas is one of the top four states that I'm

423
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:52,880
Speaker 2: terrified to go through as a person of color, Like, yeah,

424
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Speaker 2: if I can, I'll never go through there.

425
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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's and again we're talking like seventy

426
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 1: years ago in that area. So even now Susan grows

427
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: up knowing like, yeah, it's like a whole different level

428
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Speaker 1: of racism. So yeah, Chris thinks that these girls who

429
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Speaker 1: get arrested based on her mom's lives get acquitted again.

430
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Speaker 1: She's like in her early teens at this point in time.

431
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Speaker 1: In her book, she speaks of feeling deep shame for

432
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Speaker 1: the incident, particularly the damage it may have done to

433
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: those girls. She claims it opened her eyes to the

434
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: kind of systemic bias that black people face, and I

435
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 1: have no reason to disbeliever her. In her autobiography she

436
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:38,200
Speaker 1: expresses pretty honest guilt and sorrow over this, And given

437
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 1: that she is an eighth grader when this happens, I

438
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:41,919
Speaker 1: hope we can agree none of this is her fault.

439
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 2: Like, so they found the right girls. They didn't just

440
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,840
Speaker 2: pick random black girls that they are like, yeah, the suits,

441
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 2: I think surprising.

442
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 1: She describes it as them finding the girls, but I

443
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: don't actually know that that's the case. Again, her memory

444
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 1: is not going to be perfect if anything happening right anyway,

445
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: that's Susan's background. This is the woman who becomes Susan Alamo.

446
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 1: What a delight, And she's not going to be our

447
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:09,919
Speaker 1: primary character. So the fact that again she's going to

448
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: be kind of running the cult for its early years,

449
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: but she'll be out of the picture after a while,

450
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 1: and I just need to prep you with her story

451
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: because Tony's is so much worse. And this gets us.

452
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: And part of why we're doing this is because I

453
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: have a lot more detail on her early life and

454
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 1: young adulthood than I do the early life of Bernie Hoffman,

455
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: who becomes the future toorney Tony Alamo. He's about this

456
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: is interesting as a male cult leader who has a

457
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: lot of sex crimes. Later, he's about ten years younger

458
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: than Susan, so hey, there you go. You know, he's

459
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,680
Speaker 1: not going to be consistent about that sort of thing

460
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. But in this case, Susan

461
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: is in more of a position to take advantage of

462
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 1: him than he is of her. Right sure, I think

463
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: she's also just much smarter and savvy. Bernie also moves

464
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles as a young adult, I think in

465
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,880
Speaker 1: his late teens, with a dream of striking and famous.

466
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: He seems to have always wanted a career in entertainment.

467
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 1: He was a good dancer and became an instructor for

468
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: Rudolph Valentino as a young man. While still a teenager,

469
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: he moves to La to break into the music industry.

470
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: He records several songs at the height of the British

471
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: invasion in like sixty three sixty four where he's like

472
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 1: trying to sing like a British person, but he doesn't

473
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: really know how to. It's an odd it's an odd

474
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: set of choices that he's making. Yeah, but he is

475
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: working with some actual people. Like the one of the

476
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: songs he records, Little Yankee Girl, had been written by

477
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,119
Speaker 1: Bobby Jamison, who is a prominent songwriter for hire in

478
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: the area, and was produced by Kim Fowley, who co

479
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 1: wrote and produced songs for Kiss, Chris Christofferson, Alice Cooper,

480
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: and others. So he is working with some people who

481
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: are real music industry folks. In conversations at parties and bars, Bernie,

482
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: who by this point had started going by the name

483
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 1: Tony Alamo, would claim to have ushered the Beatles into

484
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: fame and worked with the Rolling Stones as well as

485
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: Sonny and Chaer. The only musician that we can prove

486
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 1: that he promoted was Pete Best, a former member of

487
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: The Beatles, but he promotes Best after Best leaves the band.

488
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: And primarily what he seems to be doing is like

489
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: conning people who want to be musicians out of their

490
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: money by showing them this letter from Pete Best and

491
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: being like, see, I helped get the Beatles started, even

492
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: though the letter he's got from Best is after Best

493
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: left the Beatles.

494
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 3: So he's trying to let everybody know I have connections.

495
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 3: I did this.

496
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the guy who fumbled the bag bigger

497
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: than anyone has ever fumbled a bag. I worked with

498
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: that guy.

499
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, the person you have to google because you're not

500
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 2: sure why you've heard of him.

501
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:54,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, then you figure it out.

502
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, a guy who fucked up being in the Beatles.

503
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: Sorry Pete. So. Tony's usual spiel involved bragging about traveling

504
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: on the road with the Beetles and the Stones. Here's

505
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: an excerpt from one such recitation of his speech. The

506
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: bodyguard would open the door, throw down a big velvet pillow,

507
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,719
Speaker 1: and we would step into the velvet pillow. The barber

508
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: would comb our hair, the nurse would take our pulse.

509
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: One of the fellows would spray us with cologne, and

510
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: other strew flowers in our path, and the cops would

511
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 1: stand at attention, and like, there'd be some video of

512
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: this if anything like this ever happened to you, Tony,

513
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: Like I know people were crazy for the Beatles, but

514
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: this wasn't how they did it.

515
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,880
Speaker 2: I Like, I can't imagine, because it's just the thought

516
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 2: that I was, like, I would have made immediately trip

517
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 2: Like that does not sound.

518
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,959
Speaker 1: Like why are they taking your pulse?

519
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 3: Like what is wrong with you?

520
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: Is the pulse thing?

521
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 3: I don't get it. I don't get this.

522
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this was not particularly believable to anyone with

523
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: real experience in the music industry. But those people aren't

524
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: Tony's target. He is trying to get the attention of dumb,

525
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: inexp sperienced young wannabes who have some cash in their

526
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,679
Speaker 1: pocket and who he can convince like, oh, hey, you

527
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 1: got like if you've got a couple of grands, that's

528
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: all it's going to take for me to get this

529
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 1: demo tape into the hands of a DJ who's going

530
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: to put it on the air or something like that. Right,

531
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 1: Like the these are the kind of cons that he

532
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: is carrying out right, And he makes a living doing this,

533
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: not a good one. He is not super successful. He

534
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: is just kind of on the edge of not starving

535
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 1: to death all the time as a result of his

536
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: income from this. Now, later in life he would claim

537
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: that this year nineteen sixty four, during a business meeting,

538
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: God struck him death and gave him an order start

539
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: preaching the gospel or he'd be killed then and there.

540
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: This is what he's going to claim later. Absolutely not

541
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: what happens. And we know that because Susan's daughter, Chris,

542
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: is there when Tony meets her mother for the first time,

543
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: and the account she gives is a lot more believable.

544
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: One day, in I think nineteen sixty six, that the

545
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: timeline's a little fluid, Tony steps into a bar that

546
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: and her mom are drinking at right now. At this point,

547
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: Chris is kind of making some money as a recording artist.

548
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: She's not huge, but she's doing like backup vocals and stuff.

549
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: So she understands a little bit about the industry, and

550
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: she knows people in the industry, and she's been warned

551
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: about Tony and that she'd tell you something in nineteen

552
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: sixty six. If you're a sixteen year old girl in

553
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: the music industry, people warn you about Tony Alamo and like,

554
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: you have to be really bad to cross that line.

555
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, right, yeah.

556
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if you know enough people or

557
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: the right people, you'll get good information.

558
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and she does. She gets warned about this guy,

559
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: and so she warns her mom because he starts walk

560
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: up to their table, and she's like, I've heard about

561
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: this guy. Do not talk to him. He's a fucking creep.

562
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: But Tony walks right up to their table. And my

563
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: read on what happened is that, weirdly enough, Tony and

564
00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: Susan are kind of made for each other. They're both artists.

565
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: I think initially they both identify each other as a

566
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: good mark, right, because Chris claims they immediately both start

567
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: lying to each other, right, trying to get money out

568
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: of the other.

569
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 5: You know.

570
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: Tony starts talking about the stars that he was promoting,

571
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: and Susan is like, I'm an actress. You know, my

572
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: daughter's a singer. We've got connections. When she says that,

573
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: Tony's like, oh, I can make your daughter a star.

574
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: And Chris would later recall I'm watching them and it's

575
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: like a tennis match of horse crap. They both think

576
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,239
Speaker 1: the other's got money. He gets to up to go

577
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, and I turned to my mother and

578
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: I said, listen to me. This guy is an absolute bum,

579
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: he's living with that little pregnant girl. She puts her

580
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: finger in my face, which she often did, and said,

581
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: you mind your fucking business. When he gets back. You

582
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: wait a few minutes and politely excuse yourself from the

583
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: table and don't come home tonight. So again, year Mama, the.

584
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 2: Year Mama had a plan. At least she to'll look

585
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: it out of the house, I guess. I mean, yeah,

586
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 2: I could have gone really arrived very quickly.

587
00:29:56,280 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: So it's going to go awry not much longer than this, unfortunately,

588
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: of course, But yeah, I mean you are right, Mama

589
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: had a plan, right, Like, Tony is not going to

590
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: wind up taking advantage of Susan, like she is going

591
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: to wind up kind of looping him into her thing.

592
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: So he comes back and he sits down at the

593
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: table and Chris looks at him or and sorry, and

594
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: Susan looks at him and says, Tony, I've got to

595
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: ask you a question. Did you know that Jesus Christ

596
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: is coming back to Earth again? And Tony looks deep

597
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:29,959
Speaker 1: into horizon and says, of course I know that, Susan,

598
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: but how did you know? And she's like, let's go

599
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: to my apartment to talk about it, which is the

600
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: like evangelical con man and con woman flirting is I've

601
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: never really heard that story before.

602
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 3: Oh amazing?

603
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, we need to advertise that as the

604
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 2: perfect pickup line for other Christians.

605
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: Crime date Yeah, come on, yeah, are you looking to

606
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: like rob a bunch of maga people? Like this is

607
00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: the dating site where you can find your person? Oh? Man,

608
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: So to make a show, how did you know that?

609
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: They just it's it's almost supernatural, right, They can feel

610
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: the vibrations of each other, like, oh, this is a

611
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:13,719
Speaker 1: man who you know, uh is there's just nothing inside

612
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: of him, but is a desire to fleece people for

613
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: their money. And that's all I've got inside me. It's beautiful.

614
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: I love it when people find each other.

615
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 4: You know.

616
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 3: It's better than a soul.

617
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, No, a soul is just going to

618
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: weigh you down right, true. Yeah, if you're just completely

619
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: hollow inside, you float like a witch in the fucking

620
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds or whenever. So, to make a short story

621
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: even shorter, the two hit it off and got married

622
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: three separate times over the course of forty eight hours. Now,

623
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: what did I say? Why did they get married? Three

624
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: times in two days. Yeah, it does, it does They

625
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: They first go to Mexico where they get hitched, but

626
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: then like right when they're about to have sex, Susan's like, actually,

627
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: I worry that Mexic marriage isn't legal, and I'm not

628
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: going to sleep with you until we're legally married. And

629
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: Tony is apparently hard up enough that he drives them

630
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: from Mexico to Vegas without sleeping and purchases two marriage

631
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: licenses and pasting two different marriage ceremonies just.

632
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 3: In case she backs out another one. Really is the

633
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 3: real one.

634
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: This is the real one. And eventually Susan's like, all right,

635
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: I guess we're married enough. I think this might make

636
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: him the only person I've ever read about who is

637
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: bigamously married to his one wife. He is going to

638
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: do he does so much bigamy in the future, but

639
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: he kind of does start by getting bigamously married to

640
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: a single woman.

641
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 3: He's a practice round.

642
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is his practice round of big maybe Yeah, yeah,

643
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: he's the chosen one of bigamy. He's the fucking loop

644
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: Skywalker of bigamy.

645
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 2: He's gonna do it right, and he's gotta practice it

646
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 2: and get it through and then like, you know, it

647
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: perflects everything that's right.

648
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: That's right. You can't just start, you know, and assume

649
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: you're going to be good at it, like I don't know,

650
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: surgery or something easy. So the two change their names

651
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: to Tony and Susan Alamo, and they start preaching the word.

652
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 1: Now in the beginning, this is just an iteration of

653
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: Susan's extant con work at churches. Right, the new couple

654
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: would trawl the streets of Los Angeles for starving hippie kids,

655
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: generally kids who were like coming down from bad trips

656
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: or who were living on the street because they had

657
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: too many bad trips. And since these kids were broke,

658
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: preaching to them wasn't there's no like money from these kids, right,

659
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: So they get a bunch of followers, but those followers

660
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: are just kind of eating them out of house and home.

661
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: So the Alamos tell them, hey, go get jobs and

662
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: mail us the money. We've got to move to Las

663
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: Vegas for unclear reasons. And so they do that and Chris,

664
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: Susan just kind of leaves her daughter behind in La

665
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: which is I would say maybe the best thing for

666
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: Chris at this point in time.

667
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 3: Keep your mom where she was okay.

668
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: From the yeah okay, Yeah, Susan's not super committed to

669
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:20,240
Speaker 1: being a mother. So Susan and Tony are in Las Vegas.

670
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: Chris eventually travels there because she misses her mom, and

671
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 1: as soon as she shows up, she claims Tony rapes her. Right,

672
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: she would have been fifteen or sixteen at this point,

673
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: Susan walks in as it's happening, calls her a whore,

674
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 1: accuses her of trying to steal Tony, and sends her

675
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 1: back to Los Angeles. And then a couple of months later,

676
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: Tony and Susan returned to LA because they've found another

677
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: wannabe celebrity to promote. This guy's name was Rovaugh. He

678
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: was a motorcycle riding, opera singer and yeah, very multi talented, right.

679
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: I don't think his career takes off, but there's enough

680
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: there that Tony's able to get a lot of backer money.

681
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: He's able to convince people, hey, this guy's going to

682
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: be huge, give me some money to get his career started.

683
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: And then he buys jewels, furs, leather jackets with that.

684
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: But this business is not doing well. And so even

685
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: though their first stab at becoming cult leaders hadn't really

686
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: made them a lot of money. They returned to that

687
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: grift as soon as they get back to Los Angeles,

688
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: so they start expanding their recruitment from just some down

689
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 1: and out hippie kids to prostitutes, to other homeless people,

690
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: to failing actors, to musicians and stuff who are kind

691
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: of on the margins and like government housing and the like.

692
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,439
Speaker 1: Some of their first marks are because they burst back

693
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: into Susan's life and they take all of her friends

694
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: and roommates and put them into a cult, basically convert

695
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: them by being like, hey, you'll get regular meals, which

696
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: they provide via diving and dumpsters for expired food. So

697
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: they get all of these kids to start working, you know,

698
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: just kind of bullshit jobs and funnelly that money, donating

699
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: their salaries to an entity that the Alamo's established in

700
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation. So

701
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: fascinating grifts so far, you're just kind of I mean,

702
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: all they're ever doing is abusing poor people, right, like

703
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: that that's the Alamo con particularly her daughter's boyfriend.

704
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 2: Right.

705
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 3: This is interesting.

706
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty bleak and a big part of what

707
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: they're doing is they're they're finding poor Jewish kids who

708
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 1: are living on the streets, some of them who had

709
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: converted to Christianity and others who they converted. Tony particularly

710
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: was really good at converting these like down and out

711
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,959
Speaker 1: former hippie kids. And the more people they bring in,

712
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: the more money starts to come in. Some of it's

713
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: coming from members handing over salaries or like inheritances and

714
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: savings accounts, but the real money comes in when Susan

715
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: figures out what is their first really brilliant con So

716
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 1: then like today, southern California has a massive homelessness problem

717
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,720
Speaker 1: right and specifically the kind of people who are filling

718
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: the streets are the kind of people that the Alamos

719
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: make their business preaching to and converting. And then as

720
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: now affluent, midass and middle class people are disgusted by

721
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 1: homelessness and eager to support anyone who promised to take

722
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: these people off the street. So once they get followers

723
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: and they're pulling these people off the street and they're

724
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: putting them up in like rented spaces and stuff, they're

725
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: warehousing them. Basically, they'll pile their followers into vans on

726
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: the weekends and drive to megachurches in rich areas, and

727
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: then Susan will line up with they'll clean these hippie

728
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: kids up and Susan will line up with them and

729
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: she'll start preaching the word, and she'll go down the

730
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: line and have them all give like a version of

731
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: like I was on the street, you know, doing heroin

732
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then I got found by the Alamos. Right,

733
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: and then Susan would conclude by being like, hey, does

734
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: this church support work like this, right, getting these indigent

735
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: kids off the streets and back to God. Right. Well,

736
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: if you want to see me continue to do this,

737
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: give some money to the Susan Antonio Lamo Foundation, right.

738
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: And that's the grift. Right, We're getting these homeless kids

739
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: off the street, and the actual money is coming in

740
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: from churches where they don't have followers, right, but they

741
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: do have a lot of people who hate seeing homeless people.

742
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: That's how they get their money.

743
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean a little respect. They really did pull

744
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 3: people off those streets.

745
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: They are off the streets. They are accurately describing to

746
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: an extent what they're doing. They're not giving these kids

747
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: a better life or a safer life. Really not on

748
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 1: the streets. Well, and it's it's such a fascinating like

749
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: through line of Okay, I can see why that works, right,

750
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 1: because you're able to say, hey, you know what, what

751
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: what are kind of like conservative conservative Christians more scared

752
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 1: about than anything in the early seventies the hippie movement, right,

753
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,879
Speaker 1: sixty nine was not that long ago. We're cleaning up

754
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: after the Hippie movement, right, like that.

755
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 3: Hippie movement exactly, anybody of different colors race.

756
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,839
Speaker 1: Right, and we're taking these people and putting them where

757
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 1: you don't have to see them, right, Yeah. And they

758
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: start making a lot of money doing this. Soon the

759
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: Alamos have enough cash to make the dream that every

760
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: cult leader has real, buying land and starting a compound.

761
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, they purchase acreage in Saugus, California,

762
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: and an old restaurant that they convert to a church.

763
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: Their followers are made to live in chicken coops. Married

764
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: couples get to live in shacks, and once it was

765
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: known that the Alamos are doing the good work of

766
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: cleaning up the shrapnel of the Hippie movement off the streets,

767
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: more money and followers start to flow in. This is

768
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: part of a broader trend in evangelicalism as counter swing

769
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: to the Summer of Love and this sort of leftward

770
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 1: tilt of culture at the end of the sixties. I

771
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: think we're all familiar with the way in which this

772
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: kind of stuff kind of yins and yang's out right,

773
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: like you have your big sort of leftward shift and

774
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: then this huge reactionary shift. Well, the Alamos grift hits

775
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 1: right at the peak of that reactionary shift.

776
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 3: Perfect timing.

777
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Unfortunately, the worst people always have pretty good timing.

778
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: Speaking of Samantha, let's listen to the incredible timing of

779
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:40,760
Speaker 1: some of our advertisers. We're back, oh Man, good stuff.

780
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 1: So in her book, Betty Shriver cites an article The

781
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: Great Guru Hunt by columnist Art Kunkin, who documented at

782
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: the time this kind of reactionary shift occurring and the

783
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: space that it was making for cult leaders like the Alamos.

784
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: There is very definitely something in the air, and it

785
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: is not, as I originally thought last year, just the

786
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: cycle of individualism and personal mystical search that could have

787
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: been expected to fill the vacuum left by the failures

788
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 1: of mass political activism in the nineteen sixties, a certain

789
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: cat is being let out of the bag accidentally or

790
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: by design, which will either result in the creation of

791
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: many socially motivated individuals of great personal energy who can

792
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 1: stop mankind from destroying itself, or the widespread dispersal of

793
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: these same energies utilized by egoistic persons who will accelerate

794
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: the crises. Which one of those? Would you say, we got.

795
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 3: All?

796
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 1: I mean, I find that so familiar to what we

797
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: saw happened after twenty twenty. Right, you have all of

798
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: these energies that get mobilized and then dispersed into these

799
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: different sort of like cultic movements and disinformation streams. You

800
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: know that the Internet and social media has really enabled yeah,

801
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: by egoistic persons who accelerate the christ that the mobilization

802
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 1: had existed initially to fight.

803
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they're the only ones profiting off right.

804
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, like we can. Oh boy, I mean it's sad,

805
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: it's good. I go back and forth between, like, I

806
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: guess it's comforting that this happened back then too, Like.

807
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, is it?

808
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 2: Or is it just frustrating that this cyclical thing has

809
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 2: to continue to happen and we just have to never learn,

810
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 2: like we never fucking learned, or the people that have

811
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 2: learned really well, and so they bring it back so

812
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 2: they can make that profit.

813
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw this computer, keep it.

814
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that that's yeah fair. As

815
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: the money flowed in, the Alamos constructed a new facility,

816
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: Music Square Church in Hollywood and started filling it with

817
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: street kids. Susan handled much of the foundations outward facing

818
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: communications to what we might call normies, the big donors

819
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: and leaders of other churches, while Tony handled converting new

820
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: followers and took point on actually creating a belief system

821
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: for their teeming legions to follow from a book by

822
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: Greta p Allendorf quote, The Alamo ministry preached a wide

823
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 1: range of ideas in times paranoia, UFOs as divine messengers,

824
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: and Vatican conspiracy theories. Tony hated the Catholic Church and

825
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened, including Nazism.

826
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: One Alamo tracked entitled the Pope's Secrets Read the Vatican

827
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: is posing as snow white, but the Bible says that

828
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: she is a prostitute, and I I mean he's not

829
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: one hundred percent wrong about the Catholic Church being particularly

830
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: fucked up in this period of time, given what we're

831
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: going to find out in the late nineties and early

832
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: two thousands. But it's also like not more responsible for

833
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: that kind of thing than his own church is going

834
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: to be, right, Like Tony's also you know, a prostitute

835
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: of people's souls, you know, like he's a pimp of

836
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: people's souls. I should say that's how he makes his money. Right. So,

837
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: in her book, Betty does a pretty good job of

838
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: explaining how the conversion process worked for new inductees. After

839
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: they were picked up generally hungry on the streets of Hollywood,

840
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: they'd be promised a meal and taken by bus to Saugus.

841
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: Quote from the moment Brenda and Daniel arrived at the

842
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: corner of Hollywood and Highland to catch a bus. The

843
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters separated them. A woman known as Sister

844
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: Cynthia ushered Brenda to a seat For the next forty

845
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: five minutes. Cynthia fervently explained that all the signs of

846
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: the end times written in the Bible were currently happening.

847
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: She pointed out the vapors of smoke covering Los Angeles.

848
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,280
Speaker 1: She mentioned earthquakes and wars. Cynthia told her that God

849
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: was looking for dedicated laborers to preach and save souls

850
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: before Jesus returns. The bus pulled off on Sierra Highway

851
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 1: and Saugus, the heart of Canyon Country. Hundreds of people

852
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,959
Speaker 1: were milling about, greeting the buses and leading people about

853
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 1: the grounds. Brenda, Daniel, and the others were ushered into

854
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 1: a large hall where they sat on benches and waited expectantly.

855
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 1: The room was packed with people standing room only. Brenda

856
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: was a bit uneasy, but Cynthia assured her that she

857
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 1: was in for a treat. A man who called himself

858
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: Brother Michael, stepped up to the podium and gave a

859
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 1: hearty welcome to the gathering. You're as welcome as the

860
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: flowers of May and the noonday sun. Praise the Lord. Amen.

861
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: He continued with a few rules that included no talking

862
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: during services and a ban on literature from other places.

863
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 1: Brothers walked through the rose to collect foreign forbidden materials.

864
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: Brothers and sisters called over seers, monitored the physical needs

865
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: and functions of the community, such as water supply, electricity usage,

866
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: and even the distribution of toilet paper, often pages torn

867
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: from telephone books. They had to seek permission from Tony

868
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 1: and Susan for every aspect of their existence. One evening,

869
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: after dinner, sister Cynthia sharply reprimanded Brenda for overstepping the

870
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 1: authority of an overseer, which he turned on the lights

871
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: in a building. Brenda said, but I thought I should

872
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: turn on the lights since I was the first to arrive.

873
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: Cynthia retorted, there you go, thinking again, Oh fuck, that's

874
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 1: some good classic cult banter. Yeah, I got.

875
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: You know, this is the thing about cults, I think,

876
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 2: and this is kind of one of the big problems,

877
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 2: especially a cult like this. If you know, you want

878
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 2: to sit back and say the man they were, but

879
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 2: those rules apply for so many of the churches, like

880
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 2: literally the type that I.

881
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 3: Grew up in.

882
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 2: They wouldn't say necessarily you couldn't turn on the lights,

883
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 2: But the idea don't bring in literature, don't learn things

884
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 2: on your own, was very much like place and told

885
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 2: us like things like seminary and the being, any of

886
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 2: those places were against God and not having faith. So

887
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 2: like Unfortunately that because this cult is so crazy, it

888
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 2: makes the other things look normal and it's not.

889
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay though, No, yeah, you're not very okay with

890
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: all that.

891
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 3: I'm okay though.

892
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 4: So.

893
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: Physical punishments were common, as is sexual violence from Tony,

894
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 1: who really seems to prefer young teenagers to adult women,

895
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: including his wife. What keeps people from leaving? You're not

896
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: going to be surprised to hear this. It's a fear

897
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 1: of hell, which is implicated daily from sermons by the

898
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 1: Alamos and their followers. Every day they would tell new

899
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: inductees and their old followers stories about people who had

900
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 1: joined the church, left and immediately died. Right, if you

901
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: leave the church, basically you are instantly going to be dead, right,

902
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: and then you go to hell. You go straight to hell. Right.

903
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: You know it's not new, but it serves right. You know,

904
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: this is a functional, functional cult thing to be doing.

905
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 3: This method is proven, is sound. Let's keep going with it.

906
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly why. It's like driving evolvo, you know,

907
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: why fuck with what works? Occasionally, So, the only reason

908
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: normal believers would need to leave the property was to work,

909
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: and more and more of them worked for businesses owned

910
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: and operated by the Alamos. They also had to travel

911
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: to churches and civic centers to deliver what the Alamos

912
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: called popcorn testimony. These are the little speeches by former

913
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 1: hippies and homeless people that opened up donor pocketbooks, right

914
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: you know where they're saying like, hey, if I hadn't

915
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 1: if the Alamos hadn't found me, I'd be dead or

916
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: in jail or in a mental institution. You know, these

917
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: are the popcorn speeches. By the mid nineteen seventies, the

918
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: Alamos are wealthy, they're outwardly respectable. They're operating several successful

919
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: businesses that we're keeping according you know, in the eyes

920
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 1: of a lot of Angelino's, the riff raff off the streets,

921
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: and you know where they belong, locked up somewhere away

922
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 1: from the people with expensive houses. Susan Tony then got

923
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: to live the life of high rolling multi millionaires. On

924
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: one famous occasion, Susan showed up for an interview wearing

925
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 1: a Lynx jacket and a floor length address, telling the

926
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: interview where God wants his children to go first class

927
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: and I guess to have links links for jackets.

928
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,280
Speaker 2: I mean, you got to show off when you're blessed.

929
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 2: That's right here with hashtag blessed that's right.

930
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: If you don't do that, people might not really believe

931
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: that God has blessed you, and that endangers their souls.

932
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 3: That's the point. Yeah, you're not going to be blessed.

933
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: I'm glad you understand it. Right, You're really doing this

934
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: for their souls, right.

935
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not going to show you my jacket

936
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 3: right now. I'm just saying.

937
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: No, no, but you have a lot of links. Uh,

938
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: you're you're heavy, heavy end the lynxes, which who isn't Yeah, exactly,

939
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: That's all I wear is lynxes. This is one hundred

940
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 1: percent lengths hoodie. It's really hot though, it's incredibly warm. Yes,

941
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: not at all comfortable, especially when I've got the heat on.

942
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy five, we finally get some good news,

943
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: which is that Susan gets diagnosed with cancer. Now, as

944
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,720
Speaker 1: a little girl, she had claimed to have been struck.

945
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: Sometimes she would claim that she caught tuberculosis from her father,

946
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: right and that she had been healed by God after praying.

947
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: And as a result, when she gets sick, she prescribes

948
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 1: herself and as well as prescribing Tony and most of

949
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: their followers that they're going to pitch up stakes and

950
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: move back to Arkansas where they'll be healed. Right, They

951
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: still keep the Saugust compound open. They still have their

952
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: followers there like recruiting people off the streets of la

953
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: and raising money working some businesses, but kind of the

954
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: core of their best followers. And they take most of

955
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: their money to a place called Dire, Arkansas, which is

956
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: where she'd grown up, and they buy a compound. So

957
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 1: this is a little town population less than five hundred,

958
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: and they make, you know, people notice when they suddenly

959
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: drive in because they only have black Cadillacts. That's the

960
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: only car his followers drive. So he has, like suddenly

961
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: this huge fleet of new black Cadillacts and dozens of

962
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: converted hippies move into this very small town. Their combat

963
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: is centered around the home that had been Susan's home

964
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 1: when she was a little girl. They expanded it and

965
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: updated it with all of the least classy adornments their

966
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: new riches could buy. Greta Allendorff writes the couple was

967
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 1: fond of red carpeting, chandeliers, and velvet wall coverings and

968
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: installed them in every space they occupied. Just the most

969
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:44,839
Speaker 1: hideous place you could imagine.

970
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 3: I needed to be shaggy carpeting.

971
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh my god, some like.

972
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, bear skin rugs, that's right, I need all of them.

973
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 2: And then golden candles, yes.

974
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: Golden candles. Every wall is pure velvet, like I mean,

975
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: the instant you drop a cigarette in this place, it

976
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 1: goes up right. Just beautiful stuff. So at this time

977
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 1: they also begin construction on a sprawling Victorian home on

978
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: the mountain, complete with dormitories for their followers in a

979
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 1: heart shaped pool for Susan. A grand church hall is

980
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 1: constructed for their evangelical TV show where Tony sang loves

981
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 1: songs for Susan such as my personal favorite, I love

982
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: you so much it hurts Me. Now. One of the

983
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: things that interesting is that, like a lot less of

984
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: his songs than you'd expect given who he is, are

985
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: like actual religious songs, Like again, this is just him

986
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: talking about how much he loves his wife, his horrible,

987
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: evil wife. But I do feel like I'm legally bound

988
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: to show you a video of the Alamos playing this song. Now,

989
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: this should tell you something about like the level of

990
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 1: because I'm talking about these people, they are a cult.

991
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 1: They're very abusive. That's not how they're treated. They are

992
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,840
Speaker 1: as like megachurch pastors who are widely beloved.

993
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 2: Uh.

994
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: The clip that I'm about to play is from a

995
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 1: performance that they make at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee,

996
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,320
Speaker 1: which is a very real, very major venue for country

997
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: Western musicians. Right, this is not like a fringe thing.

998
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: If you're at the grand Ole Opry, like you have

999
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: a degree of legitimacy within the music within at least

1000
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: like the country Western chunks of the music industry.

1001
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:26,439
Speaker 2: At the time.

1002
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 3: Or did they just pay a lot of money.

1003
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:30,439
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that may be what they did,

1004
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: but in terms of people looking out from the from

1005
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: the outside end, or just say like, well they're on

1006
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 1: the grand Ole Opry, so they must be legit.

1007
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,720
Speaker 3: Right, legitimate. Yeah, it's a Dolly Parton right there, right.

1008
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: Well, Dolly Parton will show up in this story unfortunately. No.

1009
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's it's not all that bad in terms

1010
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: of her involvement. But she's not completely uninvolved with the

1011
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 1: Alamos either. Great stuff. So I'm going to oh, yeah,

1012
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 1: look at them, why do they off?

1013
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 3: They're an off break? And like Johnny Cash.

1014
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,279
Speaker 1: He is so tony Alamo. If you're not able to

1015
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 1: look at the video of this, you should. I would

1016
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 1: recommend checking some of them out on YouTube. They're all

1017
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 1: over YouTube. Tony looks like off brand Johnny Cash if

1018
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 1: he like if he put on about forty pounds of

1019
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: just water weight and.

1020
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 2: A week shipped from Timu, Yeah, ship from He's because he.

1021
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 1: Got a little melted in the shipping container. And then

1022
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: I don't know, like honestly, Susan and I like she

1023
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 1: she's wearing like a fucking opallescent white out like pure white,

1024
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,319
Speaker 1: but it's like a shiny opalescent.

1025
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,320
Speaker 3: White, so uncomfortable.

1026
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,279
Speaker 1: It looks horribly uncomfortable. She is dying of cancer at

1027
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 1: this point, but legitimately yeah, yeah, yes, yes, she's sick

1028
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:51,280
Speaker 1: by this point. It's going to take her a while

1029
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: to actually fucking die, like years, but she is sick

1030
00:53:55,560 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 1: at this point. She her head, the shape of it.

1031
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:05,040
Speaker 1: She looks kind of like one of those gray aliens

1032
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: wearing a skin suit, like that's Susan Alamo looks except

1033
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: for like a lot of makeup too.

1034
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 2: What is that one movie I already forgot that has

1035
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 2: the aliens and obviously the White House is.

1036
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 3: Involved, like uh ship Glenn closes in it, and I

1037
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 3: think he like, do you know.

1038
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:30,719
Speaker 1: Correct, Let's let's let let's let's look this up real quick.

1039
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 3: Could be wrong. There's those aliens that's so bad, like digitally.

1040
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 4: I don't know.

1041
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound familiar to me at all. Mar Wait,

1042
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: they're saying at Mars attacks. Yes, yes, she does look

1043
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:46,400
Speaker 1: like she's she's got, she's got, like if those aliens

1044
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:48,839
Speaker 1: were wearing like a rubber human.

1045
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 3: Suit head what loos like?

1046
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating. What I what I want to get across

1047
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 1: is that they really don't look like regular people, like

1048
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: real people. Like they both look like almost cgi.

1049
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 3: Humans and she scares me.

1050
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 1: They are both frightening, I would say, but her particularly yeah, yeah.

1051
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 3: Like she I see her beating people. I see that.

1052
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, not hard. So now that we've said that,

1053
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 1: let's listen to them play beautiful music.

1054
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 6: Together to be dedicated to a message in songs. And

1055
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 6: it's Tony Alamo, J D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet,

1056
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 6: and we're going to try to preview as much of

1057
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 6: this album as we possibly can. So if you'll just

1058
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 6: stay right here with us and now, Tony Alamo, J D.

1059
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 6: Summer and the Stamps Quartet, I love you so much

1060
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 6: it hurts me.

1061
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:46,840
Speaker 3: She stills expiring.

1062
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 5: This song is dedicated to my wife, Susan. It's a

1063
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 5: message and song that's so very dear to my heart

1064
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 5: because I lived every word of this song during a

1065
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 5: very long long news.

1066
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: With my Susan.

1067
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 3: This is so painful.

1068
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 5: During those long dark years, I cried out to God

1069
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 5: every day of my life to let my sweetheart live.

1070
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 5: God and his divine mercy hurt my cries, and he

1071
00:56:15,719 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 5: answered my prayers.

1072
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,280
Speaker 1: I love your soul much.

1073
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 5: It hurts me.

1074
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 1: Okay, I think we're good.

1075
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 3: It went away.

1076
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:37,839
Speaker 1: Oh I stopped it. We didn't need it, We didn't

1077
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: need to keep going. I want to hear his singing voice.

1078
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 2: Really bad, Liken skip the Sunday.

1079
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: It feels like a parody of like Johnny Cash is

1080
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 1: a fucking uh scam preacher. Yes, his outfit is amazing.

1081
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: He's like standing alone on this bad Yeah, it's so

1082
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,720
Speaker 1: good to haunt me. It's a haunting vibe.

1083
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,000
Speaker 3: Right, I need someone come say to my house.

1084
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: It's like it's a deeply evil vibe. Yeah, like I can.

1085
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: I'm so glad the cancer came back, which it does.

1086
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: Susan dies in nineteen eighty two from the same cancer

1087
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: that had inspired the move back to Arkansas. Now, sam

1088
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 1: this creates real issues for Tony because by this point

1089
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 1: he and Susan they had spent seven years or so,

1090
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 1: you know, since she got sick preaching that she and

1091
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 1: he couldn't die.

1092
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 5: Right.

1093
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: Susan had described herself because they have a TV station

1094
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,040
Speaker 1: by this point, she would call herself the Lamb of

1095
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: God and would say that she and Tony were both

1096
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 1: had to be alive on earth to act as witnesses

1097
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 1: for the end times. Right, So the fact that she

1098
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: is dead now creates a real pickle for Tony Alamo

1099
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 1: and the cult, one that they're going to have to

1100
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: resolve in part two. You got any ideas about how

1101
00:57:57,400 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 1: they resolve it.

1102
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,200
Speaker 3: I'm thinking like we can a Bernie Oh my god,

1103
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 3: yes you've got it.

1104
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, indeed, absolutely, like an R rated weekended Bernie'.

1105
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: Unless Weekended Bernies was rated R I was. I think

1106
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: it was in the eighties, then like an X rated

1107
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:21,840
Speaker 1: weekended Bernie's. Okay, uh, Samantha, before we record that, you

1108
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 1: want to throw out your pluggables here because we're done

1109
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: with part one.

1110
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 2: Yeah again, you can find me on stuff Mom Never

1111
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 2: told you. With my co host Annie, we talk about

1112
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 2: a lot of intersectional stuff, so that means really sad

1113
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 2: stuff right now until like you know, we're actually on

1114
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 2: the list and people come at us. But anyway, that's

1115
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 2: a podcast that I'm on. And then you can find

1116
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 2: me on Blue Sky McVeagh Sam, and that's about it.

1117
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, check out Sam, find her on the Blue Sky.

1118
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 1: Listen to her podcast, and you know, listen to this

1119
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: podcast that you just listen to, go back in time

1120
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 1: and listen to it a second time so that we

1121
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 1: start trending in the other time streams, you know, right.

1122
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:06,560
Speaker 3: Or also listen to that song to your love, you

1123
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 3: know what.

1124
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: Put that song on and listen to nothing else for

1125
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 1: the next like forty eight hours. Right, It'll be fine.

1126
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 1: You're gonna be great. You're gonna do You're gonna do good.

1127
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: You're not gonna lose your mind.

1128
00:59:19,640 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1129
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia

1130
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1131
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1132
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 4: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1133
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 4: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1134
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 4: At Behind the Bastards