Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: There, listen, I want you to think very carefully about this.
Speaker 3: Okay, do I need to like focus?
Speaker 2: You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh god, it is easy. I got this one Elizabeth
Speaker 3: two pays. No, they're not ridiculous. That's not the part.
Speaker 3: It wasn't done two pays with cocaine underneath them.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: A man, a Columbian man, got busted trying to leave
Speaker 3: Columbia with what under his hat cokayene. This man had
Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty grams in little packages shoved up
Speaker 3: underneath his two pay glued down to his head, and
Speaker 3: somehow people spotted this two is.
Speaker 2: A lot because one hundred and twenty grams is one
Speaker 2: cup of flowers purpose.
Speaker 3: They have to be wrong because I'm going off with
Speaker 3: British tabloids from.
Speaker 2: Two cups of whole all purpose.
Speaker 3: He has a bunch of them. Although that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like little circles around the size of a quarter,
Speaker 3: but kind of fluffy with like so like I think
Speaker 3: that you could have the volume.
Speaker 2: But it made that it would lift off his head.
Speaker 3: That was also how he got caught. It was like
Speaker 3: there was a woman who got caught in Newark, which
Speaker 3: she had the same thing. She had like a beehive,
Speaker 3: and she filled it with cocaine. I think I told
Speaker 3: you about her. I always love looking at people like
Speaker 3: how they get caught with cocaine in airports. It's one
Speaker 3: of my hobbies, it is. Anyway, So this guy gets
Speaker 3: caught with his twopey and they like, there's footage of them,
Speaker 3: like peeling back is like hair wig is like his
Speaker 3: hair hat if you will, and then you're cutting it out.
Speaker 3: But they only claim that it's worth ten thousand dollars. Well,
Speaker 3: how is that possible? Two hundred and twenty grams only
Speaker 3: worth ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That's what's ridiculous, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Well, do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: How they value drugs on the Okay?
Speaker 2: What Elizabeth Robot music? Oh hell yeah, this is ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and undred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I know you heard that.
Speaker 2: It's right, you heard it. You and I know a
Speaker 2: lot of musicians.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, surprisingly.
Speaker 2: Surprisingly back in the day, these musicians they sold these
Speaker 2: things called albums, but.
Speaker 3: They still saw those. They just don't they actually anymore.
Speaker 2: CDs, CD ROM CDs. But like, the album sales was
Speaker 2: a revenue source, like a physical album sale, like in
Speaker 2: addition to touring.
Speaker 3: Physical act it's really important.
Speaker 2: And tour is where the real money is. You're not yet, yeah,
Speaker 2: But then the Internet came along and then Metallica, suit
Speaker 2: Naps and whatever, and then no one could deny that
Speaker 2: physical music sales were on the way out.
Speaker 3: That they found a way to make it legal.
Speaker 2: That's true. And the streaming was in and streaming, so
Speaker 2: with Napster and LimeWire in them, you were downloading files
Speaker 2: that you could then burn to a CD.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: I mean we've all done it.
Speaker 3: I still.
Speaker 2: But pretty soon music, as you said, was totally portable.
Speaker 2: We had the iPod and people had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: access all sorts of music about having to download.
Speaker 3: A whole album, and they started buying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's what we you know, we get what
Speaker 2: we have today, which is the way he wants, well,
Speaker 2: he gets it. That's a little cool hand Luke for you.
Speaker 2: So some artists they do really, really well with streaming
Speaker 2: royalties for Spotify. Some of the biggest streamers for the
Speaker 2: past few years are Taylor Swift, of Course, The Weakened,
Speaker 2: Yes Bad Bunny, Say Drake, Yes Billy Eilish, Ellish, Philly,
Speaker 2: Lady Gaga, Bruno, Mars, and ets. They dominate the charts
Speaker 2: on those You know.
Speaker 3: Who dominates on performances other than Taylor Swift, Eminem internationally
Speaker 3: is one of the top selling artists. I was looking
Speaker 3: for something else. I was like, he's still.
Speaker 2: So there are some on the list that I've never
Speaker 2: heard of, which is it's not surprising. Like I once
Speaker 2: had some students.
Speaker 3: Tell me each passing day, it's more likely more and
Speaker 3: more likely.
Speaker 2: What years ago, I had students tell me about this
Speaker 2: artist that they like Walk a Flock of Flame, and
Speaker 2: I was positive they were Oh. I was like, we
Speaker 2: watched them up at show.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 2: But their acts on Spotify on the Spotify list like Marshmallow,
Speaker 2: Teddy Swims, and Daddy Yankee. That sounds like the PBS
Speaker 2: Kids Saturday Morning lineup to I have to a Mellow
Speaker 2: Teddy Swims, Daddy Yanky right that replaced Arthur Okay, do
Speaker 2: you know who has more follows than Taylor Swift, who
Speaker 2: is in the number two spot in that category? How
Speaker 2: did you know Arjit Singh, an Indian singer in contemporary
Speaker 2: Hindi film most right, And then of course there's a
Speaker 2: triple sing Yes, I know. Then of course there's Mike Smith.
Speaker 2: Mike Smith, not Mike Jones, Mike Jones and not Sam Smith,
Speaker 2: not Sam Smith. The Smith is there?
Speaker 3: Mike Smith, like the Replacements or something like that.
Speaker 2: Mike Smith, Mike and the Mechanics.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2: Mike Smith is huge Smith. Let me read you, Let
Speaker 2: me read you some of his Spotify bio.
Speaker 3: Just help you out here, Please inform me, educate me.
Speaker 2: Mike plays twelve instruments and used this ability to perform
Speaker 2: and produce all of his upcoming album Pieces of My Soul.
Speaker 2: Mike is Cuban American. His mother was born in Havana, Cuba.
Speaker 2: The father of six has a great love story with
Speaker 2: his wife, Erica Smith. Mike and Erica almost married in college,
Speaker 2: broke up, and on the tenth anniversary of their breakup,
Speaker 2: they reconnected and have been together ever since. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I got to laugh at trying to explain to somebody. No,
Speaker 3: I'm really Cuban, all right, Mike Smith, Okay, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2: He says. He says that he's related to Fidel Castro,
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau's cousin. So Bustle magazine said that Smith quote
Speaker 2: first made his fortune in the nineteen nineties when he
Speaker 2: was only twenty three years old, with an IT business.
Speaker 2: According to his website, he then built, bought, and sold
Speaker 2: three regional chains of medical practices. Oh, I mean that
Speaker 2: is like a star is born.
Speaker 3: Totally. It's the artist path.
Speaker 4: It completely is.
Speaker 3: This is according canuisitions on your way.
Speaker 2: To Can I read to you from Wikipedia?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 2: Which is like my favorite thing to hear. Mike's is
Speaker 2: a Cuban American recording artist, record and television producer. He's
Speaker 2: a number one Billboard charting artist. He is best known
Speaker 2: for being one of the stars and main judge on
Speaker 2: b ET's original programming series One Shot. He's also well
Speaker 2: known for numerous hit singles, including the top five Billboard
Speaker 2: hit Beautiful Day and Billboard top forty hits hard Working
Speaker 2: Man and You're My Kind of Beautiful. Smith has worked
Speaker 2: with many artists including DJ khaled T, I, Juicy J,
Speaker 2: Royce five nine, Remy ma and Gilby Clark of Guns N' Roses.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's quite an interesting list. Like he also
Speaker 3: apparently has Wikipedia editing privileges.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say, Like, okay, so that
Speaker 2: was written by him. Let's break this down though. Okay,
Speaker 2: he's like another Mister World ride here. Sure he's got
Speaker 2: his fingers and everything.
Speaker 3: Do you know if you look up Pitbull, he outranks
Speaker 3: the dog you go in and like, yeah, he's very form.
Speaker 2: I'm happy I saw I am Mister World activated by
Speaker 2: the inclusion of Gilby Clark at the end of that
Speaker 2: list of artists. Oh, it's like a punchline, exactly, beautiful scorpions.
Speaker 2: The video for hard Working Man is up on Mike
Speaker 2: Smith's YouTube page. It's typical American idol style fare right.
Speaker 2: It's like country pop and he walks around a cowboy
Speaker 2: hat and like a tight T shirt and he's got
Speaker 2: a loaded six string on his back playing for keeps
Speaker 2: Aaron and he might not get The video has.
Speaker 4: More than a million views.
Speaker 2: I don't care, I don't Is he ringing a bell?
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Well, I well no, let's talk about b Et one Shot.
Speaker 2: I can't believe you didn't remember him from that. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you. B Et one Shot ran from twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: Oh that's that was dragging my blackout.
Speaker 2: It was like American Idol for hip Hop, hosted by
Speaker 2: Sway Callowaymah yeah, at least that's what the IMDb description says.
Speaker 2: Sway is only a producer in the credits. No, he
Speaker 2: was on it. Mike Smith is listed as the main judge.
Speaker 2: I think he has IMDb editing.
Speaker 3: He's got everywhere. He's an admin of every website you've
Speaker 3: ever been.
Speaker 2: So he's on that.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the guy there it is.
Speaker 2: He's alongside t I, Twista, dj K and everywhere.
Speaker 3: Another one.
Speaker 2: Video Vixen Emmy Elliott.
Speaker 3: I've always wanted to be called a video to.
Speaker 2: As like her title is video Vixen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want that title to Elizabeth want to be
Speaker 3: video here by.
Speaker 2: W video Vixen. And you can put it on a business.
Speaker 3: Card really suitable for framing you go ahead.
Speaker 2: So Smith, he's introduced on the show as quote, music
Speaker 2: producer and owner of S m H Records. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: so the fellow judges of his King Crooked k x
Speaker 2: NG Crooked and King Tech.
Speaker 3: We got to kings.
Speaker 2: They're introduced as quote considered one of the West Coast
Speaker 2: greatest m seas of all time.
Speaker 3: And one King Bible story.
Speaker 2: And the man who helped spark the careers of Eminem
Speaker 2: and jay Z.
Speaker 3: I find that hard to believe.
Speaker 2: Well, King Tech is this bar area dute. He got
Speaker 2: a morning show at Cameol with sway. Oh hell, he
Speaker 2: took it to New York, So that's how he.
Speaker 3: Gets So he played them early.
Speaker 2: Right, okay, exactly No, I was the.
Speaker 3: First person to play jay Z. I was the first
Speaker 3: person to play.
Speaker 2: But he makes it like I made them who they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he was in the studio but a little louder.
Speaker 2: He was like, how about we do it this way?
Speaker 3: Do it on the ones and twos.
Speaker 2: Spoiler alerte for you. The winner of one Shot was
Speaker 2: a dude named three, which is like, if you want
Speaker 2: to have a career, make it really googleable three three,
Speaker 2: so unless.
Speaker 3: Your pit bull and then just.
Speaker 2: Dominate take that dog. In his finale performance, he's dressed
Speaker 2: like Jesus in a middle school passion play. Like he's
Speaker 2: draped in a flat sheet, has a crown of thorns
Speaker 2: that looks like it came from the Christmas garlic section
Speaker 2: at Michael's. And he's wearing a pair of white running shoes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I cannot stress to you how horrible his
Speaker 2: performance is. I feel like there's nothing that I can
Speaker 2: say that will adequately adequately.
Speaker 4: Convey how bad it is.
Speaker 2: You have to have a b ET plus subscription to
Speaker 2: mine expired the actual episode. But I found a YouTube
Speaker 2: video titled b ET one Shot Winter three, okay, and
Speaker 2: in it this is like one of the first time
Speaker 2: I always say things on here. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is, and then people email or message
Speaker 2: us and be like, you know, it's there's a YouTube
Speaker 2: video of it. I'm like, what's that? I actually went
Speaker 2: on the YouTube. So anyway, this b ET one shot
Speaker 2: Winter three video someone filmed their TV with their classes poorly,
Speaker 2: like it's like, it's such it's so good. Three, as
Speaker 2: part of his prize, got a record deal with Mike
Speaker 2: Smith's s m H Records. I found Three's Instagram and
Speaker 2: it looks like he has all sorts of hustles, like
Speaker 2: inspirational stuff. He sells merch for some thing that he got.
Speaker 3: Like hooked up as Sesame Street. You know, they used
Speaker 3: to be like brought to you by the letter the
Speaker 3: number H.
Speaker 2: He's got it better. He's got it better. He also
Speaker 2: has a link on there to his only fans.
Speaker 3: Oh god, I had never visiteds like Sands Clothing on.
Speaker 2: The never visited that website. And I can say that
Speaker 2: I truly regret. I truly regret clicking the link in
Speaker 2: the bio.
Speaker 3: What did you see, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: I not terrible things.
Speaker 3: Can't you forget them?
Speaker 5: It's so terrible, dude, seriously about them. I had to
Speaker 5: I had to wash my computer. I put my computer
Speaker 5: in the dishwasher, threw the laptop in there, and I said,
Speaker 5: get behind me, satan.
Speaker 2: Uh. So, I think it's safe to say that Mike
Speaker 2: Smith did not make three a Star, you know, unless
Speaker 2: he's is three.
Speaker 3: In the process of making three Star on his own.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 2: What's the deal with this record label?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I'm just always asking myself. The website is
Speaker 2: smhworldwide dot net. Oh wow, and that is killing me
Speaker 2: dead in my tracks. And according to Pitchbook, the label
Speaker 2: was founded in twenty thirteen. It's based in Cornelius, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: It's like twenty miles north of downtown Charlotte, Okay, And
Speaker 2: you know what, that's also where the wrapper three happens
Speaker 2: to be from.
Speaker 3: Oh shocking, interesting cousin.
Speaker 2: So Cornelius is a Charlotte suburb at this point, and
Speaker 2: Charlotte like just continues to grow and grow. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Smah records. It was originally called Smith and Hay Productions.
Speaker 2: We'll find out about Hey later. The label claims to
Speaker 2: have raised thirty million dollars in venture capital funds upon
Speaker 2: its inception. They did not spend any of that money
Speaker 2: on their.
Speaker 3: Website, I'm guessing not.
Speaker 2: The list of their artists is a doozy Mike Smith.
Speaker 2: The top of Mike Smith, I mean the household flags
Speaker 2: sway he's an artist apparently. And then William Lee Golden
Speaker 2: of the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3: Not William Lee Golden of the Okridge Boy Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know William Golding, but no William Lee Golden. David Frizzell,
Speaker 2: brother of Lefty Frizzell. What, Yeah, his big hits were
Speaker 2: You're the reason God made Oklahoma And I'm going to
Speaker 2: hire a whino to decorate our home, Dear God, I
Speaker 2: I wish I were making that up. Then there's Goldie Locks.
Speaker 2: Her bio reads. Moonshadow is an American singer and professional
Speaker 2: wrestler known as Goldilocks or Goldie Locks. She is perhaps
Speaker 2: best known for her appearances with Total NonStop Action Wrestling
Speaker 2: as an interviewer and manager. Oh lord, then we got
Speaker 2: Jesse Kramer up in there. His bio begins, Jesse Kramer's
Speaker 2: story is as authentic as it is unpredictable, and then
Speaker 2: it concludes with the quote, I think the best way
Speaker 2: to really understand the world is through music. I would
Speaker 2: like people to feel and vibe with me and let
Speaker 2: them know that there's still authentic, raw and genuine music
Speaker 2: out there. Simply put, I want my music to really
Speaker 2: touch people. And I'm ready to do whatever it takes
Speaker 2: and go anywhere I must to make this happen.
Speaker 3: See like, that could be an earnest sentiment I would
Speaker 3: agree with, And that could be the most annoying person.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to be stuck in an elevator world.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's like he's been on a couple
Speaker 3: of say the name is Jesse Wesll.
Speaker 4: His name was Jesse Kramer, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He's been on a couple of reality TV music competition shows.
Speaker 2: And that's what that quote kind of sounds like. It
Speaker 2: does that we got Dave Gibson, Dude, Dave Gibson, the
Speaker 2: songwriter who has some sort of connection to the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, to go on.
Speaker 2: And then we have Music of the Sea, Music of
Speaker 2: the Seed that's a hybrid publishing and licensing company, and
Speaker 2: it looks like they're there. They know they're like the
Speaker 2: middleman between labels or artists and the entities that want
Speaker 2: to use their song like movie soundtracks.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they do like licensing. Okay.
Speaker 2: So SMH Records claims to have twenty top ten Billboard
Speaker 2: charting albums and if you want to know which ones,
Speaker 2: you'll have to guess because they're not listed anyway. This
Speaker 2: is what the website says. SMH Records is one of
Speaker 2: the biggest indie labels in the world, with twenty top
Speaker 2: ten Billboard charting albums, numerous top forty singles, and over
Speaker 2: one point five billion streams for our artists. SMH Records
Speaker 2: is by far the most effect of label for independent
Speaker 2: artists out there. And then they go on to talk
Speaker 2: about their diverse catalog listing all these random names. H
Speaker 2: SMH Records has had albums chart in the top ten
Speaker 2: on Billboard for numerous genres, including rock, Country, Americana, Jazz, Christian,
Speaker 2: and hip hop.
Speaker 3: They're just a one stop shop.
Speaker 2: Mike Smith dot net. I went there. He says he
Speaker 2: got three top ten singles, over one billion streams, five
Speaker 2: number one Billboard charting albums. Check out the McDonald's over there,
Speaker 2: and yet neither of us has ever heard of him.
Speaker 2: He's secretly popular.
Speaker 3: I'm still doubting at all, and as you.
Speaker 2: Can see, I'm not paying him much reverence. He comes
Speaker 2: across as how do you say.
Speaker 4: A con artist?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 3: Fake?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, good buddy. I think he is allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 3: Wait what is he like?
Speaker 2: I want to tell you about the alleged crimes of
Speaker 2: Mike Smith because he's been indicted, but he hasn't been convicted.
Speaker 2: He still deserves his stay in court.
Speaker 3: Fair enough.
Speaker 2: The accusations are probably not what you'd expect in terms
Speaker 2: of scammy music industry types. Okay, it's a modern day version,
Speaker 2: a new era, So.
Speaker 3: He's not doing crimes against people. He's not like going
Speaker 3: and doing the things that we don't like of like
Speaker 3: assaulting and all that.
Speaker 2: And he's not.
Speaker 3: Getting people up with his henchmen or hanging people out
Speaker 3: of windows of.
Speaker 2: No, let's take a break. When we come back, we're
Speaker 2: going to dive deeper into his catalog.
Speaker 7: Okay, Mike Smith, Yes, how you do it?
Speaker 3: My new favorite musicians.
Speaker 2: As I said, according to his website, three top ten singles.
Speaker 3: You know I love success.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over a billion streams.
Speaker 3: That's what I look for in a musician. I'm like, how
Speaker 3: many streams? I don't care what the music sounds like. Now,
Speaker 3: how many streams of other people listen to this?
Speaker 2: Does he have five number one Billboard charting albums? Not exactly?
Speaker 2: Oh what do the kids say? The math ain't math?
Speaker 3: And yes they do say that. I heard they do.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 2: He mentions hits on various Billboard charts, Jazz, hot Christian Songs,
Speaker 2: top album sells. None of those are available to play
Speaker 2: on any streaming serve. It has happened to be no
Speaker 2: one is referred to the hoodlum ball w h O
Speaker 2: O D l U M.
Speaker 3: Like the players ball but ball.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, And it's supposed to be a song
Speaker 2: that was apparently the number one hundred and fifty six
Speaker 2: song on the Billboard two hundred and twenty eighteen, but
Speaker 2: it can't be played on Spotify and it come it
Speaker 2: comes up as an album not a track on band
Speaker 2: Camp under the name Jonathan Hay with Mike Smith and
Speaker 2: DJ who Kid. Yeah. So there's a track on it
Speaker 2: called Jazzmine j A Z Z M I N E.
Speaker 3: Features really into the spelling, aren't they.
Speaker 2: Featuring riff Raff.
Speaker 3: That guy.
Speaker 2: If you want, you can go bury yourself in a
Speaker 2: hole on Daytona Beach and hope it collapses on you.
Speaker 4: Total I did.
Speaker 3: We hang out and smoke cigars and complain about how
Speaker 3: things aren't plastic.
Speaker 2: Jonathan Hay is a music publicist and he looks like
Speaker 2: Jelly Roll without the high school detention desk scribbled on
Speaker 2: his face.
Speaker 3: Good call.
Speaker 2: His website Jonathanhay Celebrity dot com. It's pretty amazing. The
Speaker 2: bios top notch. You have to indulge me so while
Speaker 2: I read this is our company was established by award
Speaker 2: winning publicist Jonathan Hay, who's widely recognized as a quote
Speaker 2: media guru and one of the greatest publicists of all time.
Speaker 2: Jonathan Hay's professional career started with Days of the New,
Speaker 2: the multi platinum post grunge band who had four notable
Speaker 2: hit singles. They are most known for Touch, Peel and
Speaker 2: Stan that spent seventeen weeks at number one, breaking modern
Speaker 2: rock record. The song was recently named greatest of all
Speaker 2: time mainstream rock song by Billboard magazine. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Days of the New helped launch the career of bandmate
Speaker 2: Nicole Chezingerzinger whatever the Pussycat Dolls, who have sold over
Speaker 2: fifty five million records in their own right, they actually
Speaker 2: have Imagine sure in March of two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: You're gonna love this. This is why I'm quoting this.
Speaker 2: Hay wrote Rihanna's first press release, which premiered on MTV
Speaker 2: News for her debut single, Pawn Day Replay that was
Speaker 2: co produced by Nobles. Shortly after, Hay launched the controversial
Speaker 2: publicity stunt that helped Rihanna gain worldwide attention, which was
Speaker 2: ten years after the legendary stunt, Hay was encouraged to
Speaker 2: publicly apologize to Beyonce for the unauthorized biography Becoming Beyonce
Speaker 2: by best selling author Jay Randy Taborelli. Hay was featured
Speaker 2: in the book for his publicity tactics of spreading rumors
Speaker 2: about a love triangle between jay Z Beyonce and.
Speaker 4: Rihanna Oh.
Speaker 2: All these actions were done without malice to help boost
Speaker 2: the debut single and launch Rihanna's career. Hey confessed that
Speaker 2: he started those rumors during a personally difficult time. Quote
Speaker 2: the pr stunt that I did was out of desperation
Speaker 2: to help break ponder replay. Hay said it was reckless
Speaker 2: and I didn't think it was gonna work. I was
Speaker 2: just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it
Speaker 2: would stick.
Speaker 3: I relate. That's when I claimed that Guy Fieri was
Speaker 3: afraid of playing me in trivial pursuit. Yeah, my guy
Speaker 3: Fieri resists this. That's how I got famed.
Speaker 2: You get the picture about this guy, dude.
Speaker 3: So this guy is He's the reason why I don't
Speaker 3: have a personal website. People like him I just don't
Speaker 3: want anything to do with. I'm so real, I don't
Speaker 3: even have a website.
Speaker 2: Researcher Marissa has a theory that Hey is an unnamed
Speaker 2: co conspirator in what the Music Publicist aka CC two
Speaker 2: or the Music promoter CC four in Mike Smith's indictment.
Speaker 3: Which we'll get to s Yeah, we're gonna get there.
Speaker 2: So Mike Smith, he's on Spotify. His top song on
Speaker 2: Spotify is a karaoke version of Tupacs I Ain't.
Speaker 3: Mad at You Wow.
Speaker 2: And like I said, that song Hardworking Man of his
Speaker 2: has more than one million streams on YouTube, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't have any listed on Spotify. He also seems to
Speaker 2: be like he's like a four hire producer and session
Speaker 2: musician in Cornelius, North Carolina, which is a hotbed of
Speaker 2: the music industry. I know when I hear there's a
Speaker 2: hot new musical artist on the scene, I'm like, they've
Speaker 2: got to be out of Cornelius.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Tell It's like, is it Muscles Show? Is it Cornelias One?
Speaker 2: It's got to be one or the other. I mentioned
Speaker 2: streaming way back in the day. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: So musicians and songwriters they make money on streaming services
Speaker 2: via royalty pennies on the dollar, right, oh, less than pennies.
Speaker 2: None of the services Spotify, Apple, YouTube, et cetera. None
Speaker 2: of them want to say exactly what they pay, but
Speaker 2: the general range is from fractions of a penny per
Speaker 2: play to possibly a penny per stream. So Business Insider
Speaker 2: says that Spotify pays artists and rights holders about point
Speaker 2: zero zero three dollars. So you know of a cent
Speaker 2: or point zero zero five penny per stream.
Speaker 3: How long have we been saying pay the piper. I mean,
Speaker 3: we know you got to pay the musicians. We want
Speaker 3: the musicians.
Speaker 2: Well. For most and here's the weird thing. For most platforms,
Speaker 2: Spotify and Apple specifically, the money is paid proportionately. There's
Speaker 2: something that's called stream share.
Speaker 3: This is an algorithm.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a proportional number based on all total monthly.
Speaker 4: Streams per country.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So DK Music Business Academy explains it as such. Quote.
Speaker 2: In simple terms, this means that if you, an artist
Speaker 2: were to receive one in every ten thousand streams in
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom, you'd receive one pound out of every
Speaker 2: ten thousand pounds that Spotify pays to artists out of
Speaker 2: their particular royalty pool for the UK. Because of the
Speaker 2: way stream share is calculated, the amount of monthly royalties
Speaker 2: you'd get for streams on your tracks is highly dependent
Speaker 2: on whereabouts your music is streamed and Spotify's own revenue
Speaker 2: for that market. So there's an alleged crime in here
Speaker 2: aside from this, what it all?
Speaker 3: Of this?
Speaker 2: What's the crime all? Quote from the US Department of
Speaker 2: Justice and their indictment. Please, from approximately twenty seventeen and
Speaker 2: up to and including twenty twenty four, Michael Smith, a defendant,
Speaker 2: orchestrated a scheme to steal millions of dollars of musical
Speaker 2: royalties by fraudulently inflating music streams on digital streaming platforms
Speaker 2: such as Amazon Music, outter Music, Spotify, YouTube Music. Who, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: what does this mean?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Great questions Aaron so First.
Speaker 2: Smith, he made a bunch of fake streaming accounts using
Speaker 2: email addresses that he purchased online. And when I say
Speaker 2: a bunch, I'm talking thousands.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, I'm like, this isn't seven ten thousand.
Speaker 2: He even outsourced the creation and maintenance of these streaming
Speaker 2: accounts to paid co conspirators, And it's a lot for
Speaker 2: just one man to man.
Speaker 3: I was figuring he had like whatever those task grabit
Speaker 3: type people, and in another country it could be Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't do these types of things.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm innocent.
Speaker 3: So then he created.
Speaker 2: Software to stream his own music on loops from all
Speaker 2: these different computers, so it made it look like there
Speaker 2: were individual listeners logging in from different places to hear
Speaker 2: the sweet tunes of now Remember how the fellas at
Speaker 2: Studio fifty four had to call him in their ledger
Speaker 2: marked skim Well. In twenty seventeen, Mike Smith emailed himself
Speaker 2: a financial breakdown that calculated the kind of money he
Speaker 2: could make with this. He figured he could stream his
Speaker 2: songs six hundred and sixty one, four hundred and forty
Speaker 2: times each day. WHOA so six hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 2: times a day that he figured that's going to let
Speaker 2: him take in daily royalty payments of like thirty three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars as much as one point two million in
Speaker 2: a year.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So the streaming services they're totally onto this though, like
Speaker 2: they're expecting this. They know that people are greedy and
Speaker 2: looking to crime. Smith one step ahead. Like de Bone
Speaker 2: in Fast Times, he cast a wide net, so he
Speaker 2: spread his activity across a shoop ton of fake songs
Speaker 2: rather than just like they're looking for like, oh, this
Speaker 2: one song out of nowhere has a no this way,
Speaker 2: the tunes of his wouldn't draw attention because individual songs
Speaker 2: wouldn't get too many hits. That's where people are making
Speaker 2: their mistake. Zarin, close your eyes. Oh, I want you
Speaker 2: to picture you are a pizza delivery driver. It's twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen and the door dashes of the world are just
Speaker 2: starting to creep into your turf. Not really out here
Speaker 2: in Cornelius, North Carolina, but in bigger cities for sure.
Speaker 2: You've got a delivery to a subdivision. You don't recognize
Speaker 2: the address, but there you are, cruise along Old Statesville
Speaker 2: Road with a steaming pie in your back seat. That's
Speaker 2: not a euphanism. You're a pizza delivery driver.
Speaker 7: Dang.
Speaker 2: It's a typical North Carolina summer day. Hot, muggy, oppressively so,
Speaker 2: the air is thick with moisture and the buzz of cicadas.
Speaker 2: You see the address and screech to a halt. You
Speaker 2: reach behind you and grab the pizza, and then get
Speaker 2: out and make your way to the front door. The
Speaker 2: heat and humidity hit you like a heavy blanket. You
Speaker 2: ring the bell and wait. A middle aged man opens
Speaker 2: a door and.
Speaker 4: Feats you with a smile.
Speaker 2: Come on, in, He offers, no, you just try and
Speaker 2: hand him with the pizza and tell him the total.
Speaker 2: I gotta go get my wallet, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to leave the front door open, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to make you stand outside in the heat. Come on in,
Speaker 2: he tells you, against your better judgment. You do. The
Speaker 2: house is cool and dark, but not creepily, so follow me.
Speaker 2: The guy tells you. You trail after him down a
Speaker 2: hall and into what looks like a music studio. There's
Speaker 2: a faint melody playing from the speakers, some sort of
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar stuff. Another guy sits at a production deck,
Speaker 2: fiddling with some knobs. I don't see how you're gonna
Speaker 2: be able to make a hundred songs this week, Mike,
Speaker 2: the man at the deck says, Mike tells you to
Speaker 2: set the pizza on the table. When you oblige, the
Speaker 2: man at the deck spins around his chair and is
Speaker 2: startled to see you. You raise a feeble wave at
Speaker 2: him and keep your eye on Mike, who's digging through
Speaker 2: a pile of stuff on the table.
Speaker 4: Until he triumphantly produces a wallet.
Speaker 2: Aha, he says. Then he tells the other man, I've
Speaker 2: tried farming it out. I bought some songs from a
Speaker 2: catalog and I got some studio guys in. It's just
Speaker 2: not cost effective and it takes so much time. Zarin,
Speaker 2: you're a bit of an amateur futurist. You saw something
Speaker 2: recently on Reddit about music production and AI. You mentioned
Speaker 2: to Mike as he digs through his wallet. Ay, I
Speaker 2: don't mean interfere or eavesdrop, but if you need to
Speaker 2: make a bunch of songs in a short amount of time,
Speaker 2: have you thought about using AI? Artificial intelligence AI? Says Mike.
Speaker 2: The guy at the soundboard shuts off the music in
Speaker 2: the background. You go on to explain to the pair
Speaker 2: how it works and what they need to do. Mike's
Speaker 2: face lights up. He hands you one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 2: Keep the change, kid. Now you are a sixty year
Speaker 2: old woman. But whatever, A tip's a tip, all right. So, however,
Speaker 2: he came to the realization. Sure, outside of that fictionalization,
Speaker 2: Smith found that using AI would be a way to
Speaker 2: make faster and cheaper music than what he had been
Speaker 2: trying so far.
Speaker 3: This is what I'm hold by Sam Altman.
Speaker 2: He couldn't just write his own songs fast enough. I mean,
Speaker 2: hard working man was lightning in a bottle. How can
Speaker 2: you force such.
Speaker 3: An Yeah, I mean not everyone has that in them.
Speaker 2: Well, then it's like he bought a catalog belonging to
Speaker 2: a music publicist, but that didn't work out for him,
Speaker 2: And after that he tried selling his bot farming services
Speaker 2: to other musicians who would pay him to play their
Speaker 2: music or like hand over a chunk of their royalties
Speaker 2: when he did, and he didn't get any takers for that.
Speaker 2: So bring on the robots. Let's pause for our robot
Speaker 2: advertising overlords. When we get back, AI is about to
Speaker 2: ruin everything, just like it had been foretold. Mike Smith.
Speaker 2: Mike Smith, Mike Smith, He's about to bust a serious scam, allegedly,
Speaker 2: I'm rooting for allegedly.
Speaker 3: You'd stick it to the streamers. I'm saying.
Speaker 2: He teamed up with the CEO of an AI music
Speaker 2: company and a music promoter, and these two happened to
Speaker 2: avoid any trouble with the.
Speaker 3: Law on this.
Speaker 2: Really yeah Smith, But Smith, Okay, So he creates an
Speaker 2: absolutely obscenely large catalog of AI songs, fake songs, you'll like, thousands,
Speaker 2: thousands of songs. There's no meaning, no heart no artistry,
Speaker 2: bogus computer slacking, three long yeah, and so he's yeah thousands.
Speaker 2: He's uploaded the streaming platforms every week. So he and
Speaker 2: his partners made sure to put their misdeeds in writing.
Speaker 2: One of the executives wrote to him in an email
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen that said, in part, quote keep in
Speaker 2: mind what we're doing musically here. This is not music.
Speaker 2: It's quote instant music. And then like the winking emoji,
Speaker 2: this is a crime.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: According to the Department of Justice, the AI music exec
Speaker 2: quote ultimately provided Smith with hundreds of thousands of AI
Speaker 2: songs for which he could manipulate the streams. I shall
Speaker 2: read to you from the indictment Zara oh Yes. Smith
Speaker 2: then created randomly generated song and artist names for audio
Speaker 2: files so that they would appear to have been created
Speaker 2: by real artists rather than artificial intelligence. For example, an
Speaker 2: alphabetically consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
Speaker 2: the AI song Smith used is as follows. Zygo facia, zygophyllasia, zygophyllum,
Speaker 2: zygo septaria, zygoceptaris, zygopteron, zykeeptaurus, zygospork, zygotetiges, zygos, zygotic, zygotic, laney,
Speaker 2: zygotic washstands, zyme, bedoing, zymes, zimite, zymophyte, zime, cimogenic, zymologies. I'moplastics,
Speaker 2: i'm apears, imotechnicals, smotechnic, zimozymss. I love that the departments, like,
Speaker 2: get a load of this crap. Here's twenty five just
Speaker 2: the z songs. Those are just song names.
Speaker 3: And so he just got got around like zygo and
Speaker 3: was like, I can work with this.
Speaker 2: I think he had every letter of the alphabet just
Speaker 2: like planned out. Anyway. The quote continues similarly in an
Speaker 2: alphabetical consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
Speaker 2: quote artists in the AI song Smith used is as follows. Calliope, bloom, calliope, ratum, callous, callous, humane, callous,
Speaker 2: post callousness, calm, baseball, calm connected, calm force, calm identity,
Speaker 2: calm innovation, calm knuckles, calm market, calm the super, calm, weary,
Speaker 2: calm scorching, calorie event, calorie events, calorie screams, Calvin Man, calvinistic, dust,
Speaker 2: calypso Zord, Cambelist, Dyson, Camelsi, Minerva, cambis cagelings and camel edible.
Speaker 3: Calliope balloom sounds like a name you come up here
Speaker 3: at a bar that you didn't want to tell someone
Speaker 3: your real name completely.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm a huge fan of the songs I'm be doing, but.
Speaker 3: Call them the super how you're not going to since I.
Speaker 2: Cannot play any of these for you on here because
Speaker 2: they no longer exist. I asked the ridiculous crime director
Speaker 2: of Tech Services, who has a PhD in the Miami
Speaker 2: big bass sound. Oh that's right, yeah, oh yeah, Bogo
Speaker 2: Donner bar like whose parents would do that to their kid?
Speaker 2: But I asked him to approximate a tune for us
Speaker 2: and he was offended.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a human to do ai music.
Speaker 2: And then he decided to express his offense through song.
Speaker 3: Would you like that's a true artistic statement.
Speaker 2: Would you like to hear this?
Speaker 3: You know it? Smash that play button. If you're hearing this,
Speaker 3: it's too late. The computers have taken over and they're
Speaker 3: writing freaky songs and song songs. I want to write
Speaker 3: a million hand songs and songs and song songs.
Speaker 2: So I want to write a million hand song and
Speaker 2: saying over and.
Speaker 3: The bringing over a saying over taking. I love that.
Speaker 2: I think it really captures the essence of what's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a mystery science theater three thousand like
Speaker 3: if it if they could put out like an album
Speaker 3: of hits, I would expect that song to be on.
Speaker 2: It done, done it again.
Speaker 3: Du bongo always he doesn't miss Now that's a big drummo.
Speaker 2: Never never misses. I did ask chat GPT to write
Speaker 2: me some lyrics for a song called zime Bedoing by
Speaker 2: Calm the super It.
Speaker 3: Would be a fun name to name a kid, Chad GPT.
Speaker 2: Chad, She said, Chad name, and then have his middle
Speaker 2: initials be GPT.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but spelled out like g e e.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay elon. All right, So we want to hear
Speaker 2: the lyrics that chat that Chad GPT wrote for zime
Speaker 2: Be doing verse one, in the quiet of the storm,
Speaker 2: I found the light, a shimmer in the dark where
Speaker 2: day meets night. Zime Be doing whispers on the breeze,
Speaker 2: like a quiet song carried through the trees. And then
Speaker 2: the pre chorus, I felt it in the pulse deep inside,
Speaker 2: a rhythm from the earth, No need to hide, zime
Speaker 2: Be doing touches something true it's a feeling I can't shake,
Speaker 2: but it's new. And then the chorus, zime be doing.
Speaker 2: It's in my vein a gentle wave of love, like
Speaker 2: summer rain. Every drop is a memory, soft and pure.
Speaker 2: Zime be doing. We endure, We.
Speaker 3: Endure, ride like a horse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, AI thinks the artist is garbage. I guess this
Speaker 2: is like something that someone would play on an autoharp
Speaker 2: at an open mic night at a coffee shop in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five. After listening to forty eight hours of
Speaker 2: nothing but Enya and Tool.
Speaker 3: And Live altogether.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can see that zime be dooing umberdure.
Speaker 3: Finding a rhyme for zime but doing is not easy.
Speaker 2: I love it so much. By June twenty nineteen, Smith
Speaker 2: was earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a month
Speaker 2: a month a month, and he had to peel some
Speaker 2: of that offer as co conspirators. According to the indictment.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the BBC wrote quote mister Smith, prosecutors said
Speaker 2: flatly lied to music distribution companies. In October twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: one company informed mister Smith that it had received quote
Speaker 2: reports of streaming abuse and that it planned to remove
Speaker 2: his songs from all stores and then, according to Variety, quote,
Speaker 2: we need to get a ton of songs fast to
Speaker 2: make this work around the anti fraud policies these guys
Speaker 2: are all using. Now, that's what he wrote in an
Speaker 2: email to his co conspiracy.
Speaker 3: You need to get around the anti fraud because what
Speaker 3: we're doing I have to fraud harder. Brought more.
Speaker 2: The Mechanical Licensing Collective reached out to him, well more
Speaker 2: than reached out.
Speaker 4: They confronted him.
Speaker 2: I was wondering, Yeah, they're the ones who distribute the royalty.
Speaker 2: So this was in twenty twenty three. They figured there
Speaker 2: was absolutely no way he could be generating that much
Speaker 2: authentic music. He had to be using AI. And that
Speaker 2: didn't even touch on the whole streaming.
Speaker 4: Bots part of it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so Smith, he denies any problem with what
Speaker 2: he's up to. Quote, this is what a representative. We
Speaker 2: have clearly demonstrated that Mike Smith's works are not AI generated,
Speaker 2: but rather they are human authored.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, because he wrote in the title, well.
Speaker 2: Calm the super is everyone's favorite artist. I don't know.
Speaker 2: In February twenty twenty four, he wrote an email.
Speaker 3: Calorie event though, I mean I saw the red Rock.
Speaker 2: Oh in original lollapalo so good.
Speaker 3: Body count, calorie event and I think it was d side.
Speaker 3: It was an amazing show. Calm Knuckles was there and
Speaker 3: punched the clown.
Speaker 2: So Smith wrote an email another email in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four quote talking about his existing music has generated at
Speaker 2: this point over four billion streams and twelve million dollars
Speaker 2: in royalties since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Four billion. Take that j long, we know.
Speaker 2: How much a billion is.
Speaker 4: There's a lot, a lot of twelve million dollars.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money. It's like Taylor Swift money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good money.
Speaker 4: September twenty you can find it.
Speaker 2: He gets arrested, so they charged him with wire fraud conspiracy, wirefraud,
Speaker 2: time money laundering conspiracy. Oh yeah, he could get up
Speaker 2: to sixty years in prison. He's not happy. He wrote
Speaker 2: a strongly worded letter.
Speaker 3: Oh good for him. So he's doing the praz defense
Speaker 3: from Fuji.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what he said. Quote. This is absolutely
Speaker 2: wrong and crazy. There is absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.
Speaker 2: How can I appeal this? That doesn't sound like AI
Speaker 2: And in fact I asked chat GPT to write me
Speaker 2: a paragraph denying the charges. Yeah, this is what chat
Speaker 2: GPT came about.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 2: I categorically deny any involvement in wire fraud or money
Speaker 2: laundering in connection with music created by AI. At no
Speaker 2: point have I engaged in any illicit activities relating to
Speaker 2: the production, distribution, or financial transactions involving AI generated music.
Speaker 2: My actions have always been income clients with all relevant
Speaker 2: laws and ethical guidelines. The creation and use of AI
Speaker 2: and music is a legitimate and innovative field, and I
Speaker 2: have been here strictly to all legal and professional standards
Speaker 2: in my work. Any suggestion of illegal conduct regarding these
Speaker 2: matters is entirely unfounded and untrue.
Speaker 3: Wow, hey, I got a lot to say.
Speaker 2: I love that AI defends AI music totally.
Speaker 3: I got a question for you. You remember like the
Speaker 3: I don't know if you went to Sunday School, but
Speaker 3: you did CCD education with Catholics.
Speaker 2: I went to Catholics.
Speaker 3: At some point some kid will say, you know, can
Speaker 3: God make a rock so big even God can't raise it?
Speaker 3: Or say old George Carlin, bitch.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: But I want to know is does anybody ever asked
Speaker 3: AI to write a letter saying I've never used AI
Speaker 3: took pleasure. Yeah, I want them and then put that
Speaker 3: in court. I want someone to go to court and
Speaker 3: he use a letter that says written by Ai, that
Speaker 3: says I never used AI, and I want to see
Speaker 3: how AI writes letter.
Speaker 2: As Bongo wrote in his song it's too late.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the computer.
Speaker 2: Smith he pleaded not guilty. Of course, bail said at
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand dollars. Trial coming up to be determined,
Speaker 2: So we're gonna mark this one as unresolved. And again
Speaker 2: remember he has only been indicted, not convicted, so everything's
Speaker 2: alleged totally. We're just fun in over here. Shortly after
Speaker 2: the indictment, though, Spotify chimed in. The company said that
Speaker 2: its platform accounted for less than one percent of the
Speaker 2: ten million dollars generated in the fraud case. Quote Spotify
Speaker 2: invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect,
Speaker 2: and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.
Speaker 3: Is what they were flexing on the others.
Speaker 2: Like in this case, it appears that our preventative measures
Speaker 2: worked and limited the royalties Smith was able to generate
Speaker 2: from Spotify to approximately sixty thousand dollars of the ten
Speaker 2: million noted in the indictment, as Spotify typically accounts for
Speaker 2: around fifty percent of stream share. This shows how effective
Speaker 2: we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on
Speaker 2: our platform.
Speaker 3: Now you are more of a fan of petty than
Speaker 3: I am. On a scale of like five side eyes.
Speaker 3: How what would you rate that on pettiness?
Speaker 2: Oh, they're basically like unlike some other platforms. Oh, I'd
Speaker 2: give them four side eyes. Wow, they're like, you know,
Speaker 2: unlike Amazon Music, we have security.
Speaker 3: The title you lazy, the grand is still.
Speaker 2: A good chunk of change, you know, for fake songs.
Speaker 3: I'll take it, Saren.
Speaker 2: What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: AI?
Speaker 2: AI I mean like AI.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so I'm still so mad that I used
Speaker 3: to be able to say the words to the letters
Speaker 3: rather AI. And everybody knew I met Alan Iverson. I
Speaker 3: knew I met Alan Iverson. And now when I say AI,
Speaker 3: I mean like the one of the worst most destructive
Speaker 3: forces on the planet. And everyone was like, man, I
Speaker 3: wish he was talking about Alan Iverson.
Speaker 4: Good point.
Speaker 3: There you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: It's hard enough to make it as a musician, then
Speaker 2: you got to wade through this garbage totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also the streamers. Just before that, you have
Speaker 3: the streamers, then you got AI now on the back
Speaker 3: end coming at you.
Speaker 2: I want I want like a major like electromagnetic event
Speaker 2: of course, to wipe everything out. We got to go
Speaker 2: back to like cassettes and singles.
Speaker 3: I want more emphasis on live music. So people are like,
Speaker 3: and I mean like not live music, like when you
Speaker 3: go to see a show. I mean like your uncle
Speaker 3: starts playing the piano in the room and everyone comes
Speaker 3: in and starts that. I see that stuff in like
Speaker 3: old movies. You know, I watch a lot of old culture. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my brothers exactly. It still exist in some of these
Speaker 3: multi generational homes and homes of musicians, but I want
Speaker 3: it used to be everybody. But also before we had
Speaker 3: recorded music, almost every home they played music.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they had a piano or something.
Speaker 3: Somebody listen.
Speaker 2: The other thing is that when you're talking about live music,
Speaker 2: it shows I back the Jack White.
Speaker 3: Put in the back the best.
Speaker 2: It was amazing being in a show like that where
Speaker 2: you don't see phones up, everyone's just watching this.
Speaker 3: Thank you inting me to that.
Speaker 2: That was super cool, welcome, But like, I hate going
Speaker 2: to a show I've never done it. Like, I just
Speaker 2: see the person in front of me. They're filming the
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 3: Now they have iPads, like they hold up iPads. I
Speaker 3: gotta start through.
Speaker 2: The bad Grandma at a high school graduation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just mug them, just still like we got
Speaker 3: both hands on the iPad. Have no hand on your wallet.
Speaker 3: That's a good I'm kidding. I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2: Dave, could you perhaps favorite with the talk bag?
Speaker 3: Hell? Yeah, I like that call. Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: love jet.
Speaker 6: Ahright, I'm Karen. I just got finished listening to the
Speaker 6: ltimb Stevens Junior kidnapping episode, and you brought up the
Speaker 6: town of Ramlap, Alabama, where the kidnappers are from, and
Speaker 6: how ram Lap is Palmer felt backwards and wondered if
Speaker 6: Palmer was already taken kind of yes. I grew up
Speaker 6: in Palmerdale, Alabama. My mom grew up in one of
Speaker 6: my b Alabama. They are very close to each other.
Speaker 6: The ridiculous story I always heard growing up was that
Speaker 6: there was one mister Palmer who needed to name two
Speaker 6: towns after two different sounds.
Speaker 2: And this was a solution. That is I love that
Speaker 2: look at me guy, like home, Thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Appreciates you.
Speaker 2: That's us for today. You can find us online at
Speaker 2: ridiculous Crime dot com, the only website where the subscription
Speaker 2: service we pay you.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's true.
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Speaker 2: email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then,
Speaker 2: most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by Robot producer Dave Cousten, starring Annalise
Speaker 2: Rutger as Judas. Research is by lead singer of Electric
Speaker 2: Solstice Marissa Brown and backup drummer for Lunar Wavelength Alex French.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by manager of Crimson Circuit Thomas Lee,
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