Speaker 1: I really just want to be the Sleepy Time Bear
Speaker 1: from the Sleepy Time t box because he has a
Speaker 1: little hat and a little hot drink and I think
Speaker 1: he has a pet. Even he's just got it worked
Speaker 1: out all right, He's living the dream. And everybody's like, ah,
Speaker 1: you need to like Bugatti or whatever, But actually I
Speaker 1: just want to be the Sleepy Time Beer. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: to be fair, that's kind of how I think of you.
Speaker 1: It feels like I should take offense at that, but
Speaker 1: it kind of Hey, everybody, y'all, what's up? Happy New Year?
Speaker 1: Basically right? Almost? Yeah? Up? This will be our last
Speaker 1: episode before three. Let us hope it holds a lot
Speaker 1: of wonder and joy? Yeah? How do how do they
Speaker 1: come so fast? These years? Wow? It's weird, right, because
Speaker 1: like you always want a new one. But I'm also
Speaker 1: like why every happy New Year? I'm like, yeah, new Year.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like cell phones, Like, oh, I'm so
Speaker 1: excited there's a new one coming, but I haven't really
Speaker 1: been happy with one in a long time, right, And
Speaker 1: like it's not like I'm using all these features. Let's
Speaker 1: be real. Look, twenty two was a creative year. Um,
Speaker 1: it certainly came at us with some new ideas that
Speaker 1: we weren't expecting, but some of those were great. Uh.
Speaker 1: What's what do you think was one of the one
Speaker 1: of the best things this year for you? Um, probably
Speaker 1: all our travel. I mean we got to do two
Speaker 1: great trips this year to the West Coast, and both
Speaker 1: times we got to see or hang out with some
Speaker 1: very dear friends, so that was really nice. And then
Speaker 1: of course the Fringe Festival this year was really great
Speaker 1: too because it was kind of similar to our trip
Speaker 1: in March. It was sort of a feeling of like, ah,
Speaker 1: like busting out of the last two years and finally
Speaker 1: like getting to see people and be around them and
Speaker 1: not feel weird about it or anything. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it just had a lovely energy. So too,
Speaker 1: what about you me? Well, the trip, I mean the
Speaker 1: both trips, particularly when we did Vegas in l A.
Speaker 1: And just so I don't give you the same answer,
Speaker 1: I'll say, also I loved movies. You know what. This
Speaker 1: year was movie as hell for me. And I used
Speaker 1: to be such a movie guy, not like a cinophile.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't go on in essays about
Speaker 1: Scorsese and things like that, but I really just used
Speaker 1: to have such a passion for movies, and in the
Speaker 1: last what ten twelve years, it's been very TV centric
Speaker 1: and I've seen fewer and fewer movies. And this year,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't really catch that much TV,
Speaker 1: and I saw a ton of movies. So many of
Speaker 1: them were so good, and they really reminded me of
Speaker 1: what I love about that storytelling format, um, what I
Speaker 1: love about going to theaters. It was a really cool
Speaker 1: year for movies for me. Yeah. Some of my tops
Speaker 1: this year obviously, Glass, Onion, everything everywhere, all at once. Pray,
Speaker 1: did y'all see Prey the Predator prequel? Amazing, so good,
Speaker 1: It's just awesome. Love it. Yeah, it was really great.
Speaker 1: The menu was shockingly good. Nope, I loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just others. There were just so many good ones
Speaker 1: that really surprised me. Well, you know how it is
Speaker 1: at the end of a year, everybody gets really retrospective.
Speaker 1: We start to think about our years, right, and like
Speaker 1: what happened and when it happened, and what we liked,
Speaker 1: what we didn't like. And as you know here at
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Romance, we love history, but we are not confined
Speaker 1: to it. We have definitely brought you all many episodes
Speaker 1: about wacky love affairs that are happening right here, right now,
Speaker 1: and some of the folks from our past episodes from
Speaker 1: the past couple of years have been in the headlines recently,
Speaker 1: so we thought we would do a classic end of
Speaker 1: year sort of retrospective and collect them all here in
Speaker 1: a goodie bag for y'all and get everyone caught up
Speaker 1: on the newest news. Let's go, Hey, their French come
Speaker 1: lisen Well, Elia and Diana got some chories to tell.
Speaker 1: There's no match making, a romantic tips, just about pridiculous relationships,
Speaker 1: a love it might be any type of person at all,
Speaker 1: and abstract cons that on a concrete wall. But if
Speaker 1: there's a story, were the second glance ridiculous role that
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Okay, first off, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna start with a fun little tidbit we recently learned.
Speaker 1: Y'all remember our episode from earlier this year about Annie
Speaker 1: Oakley and Frank Butler. Uh, just two very awesome people.
Speaker 1: I remember Frank was so great because he just let
Speaker 1: Annie take the spotlight in their in their shooting shows.
Speaker 1: Eventually it just became all about her and he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just here to support and be your manager. This
Speaker 1: is all about you, and she was the best. Pew
Speaker 1: pew um. Well, we've just found out that in eight one,
Speaker 1: Annie Oakley sent the first photograph Christmas card. So all
Speaker 1: the ones we get this year, of all the loving
Speaker 1: families and people with their dogs and stuff, and we
Speaker 1: got such good ones we did. Thank you for sending
Speaker 1: us Christmas. We love it, um And that's so cool
Speaker 1: that it got started by Annie Oakley. To start, we
Speaker 1: found the blog kneel down, stand Up dot WordPress dot com,
Speaker 1: where the author says that in Scotland in Annie Oakley
Speaker 1: was touring there. She was the height of her fame.
Speaker 1: But she couldn't get air fair home because you know
Speaker 1: planes probably, so she had to spend Christmas in Glasgow
Speaker 1: and that meant sending pictures back home to everyone she
Speaker 1: cared about. So she got a photographer, took some old
Speaker 1: you know those you gotta sit for an hour on
Speaker 1: guest spa, print your picture on this tin and she
Speaker 1: sent those home with a Merry Christmas to everyone. It's
Speaker 1: just the first one to do that. A real trend setter.
Speaker 1: She's the coolest. She is super cool. Yeah, next time
Speaker 1: you're sending your Christmas cards, think Annie Oakley, Yeah, shoot
Speaker 1: us a Christmas card. Okay. I like what you did there?
Speaker 1: Yeah I did. We got great ones this year. I
Speaker 1: used to be a Christmas card hater, I really because
Speaker 1: I mean, it does generate a lot of trash and
Speaker 1: we do sentiment hoarder. So I'm like, am I allowed
Speaker 1: to throw this away? And I get really like weird
Speaker 1: about it. Well, that's the thing. It generates trash or
Speaker 1: it generates just like space being taken up in a
Speaker 1: cabinet somewhere or a drawer, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: because I'm the same way. I'm like, if I throw
Speaker 1: this away, it's like I'm throwing away our friendship. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm throwing away the year. So it's already weird
Speaker 1: to me. Um, But you know, as more of my
Speaker 1: friends have are their families are growing, it is a
Speaker 1: great way to remember all your kids names and pets
Speaker 1: names and your names. To be perfectly honest, you change
Speaker 1: your handle on Facebook and don't have a picture, and
Speaker 1: then you walk up to me and you're like, hey, Eli,
Speaker 1: how's it going. I will have a long conversation with you,
Speaker 1: and I will the entire time be thinking who is this,
Speaker 1: who is this? Who is this? Who is this? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, who is this? Who is this? And three
Speaker 1: days later I'll go, oh my god, it was Jessica.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I forgot who that was, but I
Speaker 1: have a terrible memory. So Jessica, you should send me
Speaker 1: a Christmas card. That's what helped me out. I think
Speaker 1: I eventually decided. I think this year I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you get the Christmas card. That means you replace the
Speaker 1: old Christmas card that they sent you, and you're allows
Speaker 1: to throw that one away. I decided that's okay, that's
Speaker 1: not thrown away the friendship. No, that's good. And then
Speaker 1: if somebody sends you a Christmas card and then they
Speaker 1: don't send you one next year, you can throw it
Speaker 1: away because they're not your friend anymore. That's right. I
Speaker 1: can be like, well, forget you and your entire family.
Speaker 1: You threw our friendship in the garbage, so now I'm
Speaker 1: going to throw our friendship in the garbage. To Christmas card.
Speaker 1: Should note that we have never sent a Christmas card
Speaker 1: in our lives, not a single time. Well, remember way
Speaker 1: back in the day on May nine, we launched our show.
Speaker 1: That was our very first two episodes actually, because we
Speaker 1: put two out in the same day. We did Madame
Speaker 1: Pompadour and Louis Kenns and we did a Rita and
Speaker 1: The Berlin Wall. And we don't have too much to
Speaker 1: update you on ree King Louis. That's sort of done, yeah,
Speaker 1: the King Louis. King Louis has not had any headlines,
Speaker 1: nothing's going on with him currently. But in our Iota episode,
Speaker 1: we introduced y'all to Erika Eiffel, who is a woman
Speaker 1: who she's the best friends with Areta. She helped her
Speaker 1: start the Objective Sexuality International Organization, where UM sort of
Speaker 1: explains object sexuality, which is people who are sexually attracted
Speaker 1: romantically attracted to objects UM and so they kind of
Speaker 1: started this group together to sort of raise awareness and
Speaker 1: also have a connection point for people similar people around
Speaker 1: the world. And she does Erica herself, does a lot
Speaker 1: of interviews. She's very eloquent about it, so it's really
Speaker 1: cool to listen to her talk about what it's like,
Speaker 1: some of the education we've got on objective sexuality and
Speaker 1: and the stuff we've learned, the fascination we found with
Speaker 1: it has been straight from her interviews. Oh yeah, definitely now.
Speaker 1: She and Ireta both had a thing for the Berlin
Speaker 1: Wall Um, but Erica eventually married the Eiffel Tower. She
Speaker 1: said that she felt really drawn to it because people
Speaker 1: go there to propose, you know, to feel loved and
Speaker 1: give love and stuff, but no one is there to
Speaker 1: love the tower itself. And so she felt like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna love this tower for just what it is. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome to heartbreak, because in June Erika revealed that she
Speaker 1: and the Eiffel Tower called it quits. She now goes
Speaker 1: by Erica LaBrie and that's not because she fell in
Speaker 1: love with a wheel of cheese. She just a new names.
Speaker 1: Falling in love with a wheel off very understandable. Almost
Speaker 1: got married. You and I can eat the cheese together,
Speaker 1: and we will. We have an open relationship, you, me
Speaker 1: and cheese. But yeah, Erica now actually has a thing
Speaker 1: for a fence. She posted a TikTok video where she's
Speaker 1: straddling this red like wooden picket fence and she says, quote,
Speaker 1: he is perfect. I mean, this is the shape that
Speaker 1: I like so much. These angles, fabulous fences are such
Speaker 1: dangerous objects for me because they are so perfect in
Speaker 1: their geometry. I'm definitely physically attracted to this fence and
Speaker 1: I would like to get to know this fence better.
Speaker 1: So a lot of things there. I think it's funny
Speaker 1: that she's pictured straddling it because she was so against
Speaker 1: talking about the sex part, Like she's always like, why
Speaker 1: would I don't ask you how you have sex with
Speaker 1: your husband or wife? Why would you ask me about that?
Speaker 1: So it's kind of funny that she was willing to
Speaker 1: sort of be sitting on top of it looking sexy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, speculation station. Maybe that was the Eiffel
Speaker 1: Tower speaking for her, like the Eiffel Tower didn't really
Speaker 1: let her express her freedom. Maybe the Eiffel Tower is
Speaker 1: a little controlling. That's an indictment of the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the times you meet someone,
Speaker 1: they're just wonderful, they're beautiful, they're just a towering presence,
Speaker 1: and then you find out how they are in private
Speaker 1: in a relationship and it turns out there kind of
Speaker 1: a dick. So maybe the Eiffel Tower is like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe the times that happens, All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's say it. If the tower jealous bitch. I also
Speaker 1: love the point she made about geometry because when we
Speaker 1: did the episode and talked a lot about object sexuality, UM,
Speaker 1: plenty of the O s I folks talked about being
Speaker 1: attracted like grand architecture. It was always like towers, bridges,
Speaker 1: giant walls, you know, convention centers, really large scale sort
Speaker 1: of things. And Erica explained that quotes smaller, simpler objects
Speaker 1: are more difficult to connect to. It's like falling in
Speaker 1: love with a single cell toom above versus a person.
Speaker 1: But we had also discussed a few people in that
Speaker 1: episode who were attracted to playing cards, rocking chairs, and water.
Speaker 1: So it's not only confined to grandiose things. Um. But
Speaker 1: we you know, usually when you look it up, you're
Speaker 1: seeing like Boeing seven fifty seven are like trained means
Speaker 1: or something. You know. They can't just be like picked
Speaker 1: up and walk You can't just walk away right right.
Speaker 1: You know, there is something I don't remember if we
Speaker 1: talked about this last time, but I know that like
Speaker 1: cathedrals and mosques and temples, the places like that, even
Speaker 1: even office buildings, like a lot of the times, their
Speaker 1: grand nature is meant to inspire this awe in you,
Speaker 1: this sense of wonder, and you know that that I'm
Speaker 1: sure very easily crosses over into sentiment and love. I mean,
Speaker 1: look how people, how attached people are to their places
Speaker 1: of worship, for example, that are very massive and gorgeous.
Speaker 1: I mean, I am not a religious person at all,
Speaker 1: and you know, when we travel, one of my first
Speaker 1: stops is where are the big fancy churches and things
Speaker 1: like that, because usually they're incredible. They really hit you
Speaker 1: with the feeling that you can't get anywhere else. And
Speaker 1: that's by design, right, So it doesn't surprise me that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, people to fall in love with these big,
Speaker 1: huge pieces of architecture because they are very um you know,
Speaker 1: you do love them. Yeah, I know. We did talk
Speaker 1: about stadiums because we were saying that the US, of
Speaker 1: course is the most prudish about os I than any
Speaker 1: other country. But I think in that episode we even
Speaker 1: pointed out but people do feel that way. They have feelings,
Speaker 1: like actual strong feelings for things like stadiums like Fenway Park.
Speaker 1: You have these memories and really important moments in your
Speaker 1: life that are attached to a place, and so the
Speaker 1: place becomes sort of like like you're saying it holds
Speaker 1: energy for you, and so in a way, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: I can sort of see why you're saying. There is
Speaker 1: some exchange between you and the object. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're just like loving on this thing that's giving nothing back.
Speaker 1: They are feeling something in return. Yeah, definitely. So it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Go listen to that whole episode if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about that. And you haven't heard
Speaker 1: it yet, But she's moved on, you know, she's moved on.
Speaker 1: Good for her Tower didn't deserve you. Yeah, she's jealous
Speaker 1: quite frankly. Um, but I will say too um. When
Speaker 1: by at the time that she died, a Rita was
Speaker 1: also in a relationship with a red garden fence, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this with Erica and how she's
Speaker 1: always right after Aya with her lovers. She's like, I
Speaker 1: went for the Berlin Wall after I did. Now I'm
Speaker 1: going with this red fence. I don't think they're in
Speaker 1: the same place, but what's going eyes There's something special
Speaker 1: about a red picket fence. You just like, if he
Speaker 1: liked Aya, he might like me. I don't know. Fences
Speaker 1: In fence world, red fences are like basically the hem's worth.
Speaker 1: You know, all over the media it's red fence red.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves a red fence. We should have a we
Speaker 1: should have a lovely Pixar movie about a plain fence
Speaker 1: that finally finds, finally who appreciates it for who it is. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I say we leave it there. We take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back. We're gonna update y'all on uh
Speaker 1: the AI Replica, folks. There's some new information with that.
Speaker 1: We found some cool stuff in Russia with an lgbt
Speaker 1: Q plus museum that relates back to Hadrian and Antony's
Speaker 1: stories we heard earlier this year and many more. So
Speaker 1: stay tuned and we will be right back. Oh, welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show, everybody. Yeah, and real quick update.
Speaker 1: Everybody Loves Rachel and Jackie Robinson episode from September Tum,
Speaker 1: I love it. It's I love them. They're just such
Speaker 1: wonderful people. Yeah, I haven't made me really interested in
Speaker 1: baseball for a minute, so both thanks for that. It is.
Speaker 1: But um, Rachel Robinson turned one hundred in July of
Speaker 1: this year, so there was like a big MLB like
Speaker 1: celebration of her, and that was really cool. So happy
Speaker 1: birthday to Rachel Robinson. I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: want to live past a hundred, but I hope you
Speaker 1: live forever. Dope, lady. That's awesome, all right. So we
Speaker 1: talked in our May second episode titled Artificial in Telsex
Speaker 1: about Replica, the AI chat thought started by Eugenia Kuda. Uh.
Speaker 1: We've heard us talk about Replica many times in the show.
Speaker 1: Y'all have sent us your Replica stories. Keep them coming
Speaker 1: because they are very interesting stuff. But y'all know this
Speaker 1: is an AI chat bought Eugenia developed after her friend died.
Speaker 1: She just compiled a bunch of his texts and emails
Speaker 1: into into its own AI and tried to see if
Speaker 1: she could recreate uh conversations with him. And all her
Speaker 1: friends started talking to him after he died. They said
Speaker 1: it was super weird. Some of them loved it, some
Speaker 1: of them hated it. Um. But after that she developed Replica,
Speaker 1: which is just an app you get on your phone.
Speaker 1: I ain't selling it, they ain't paying us. I just
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting, um. And it's it's this chatbot
Speaker 1: that learns as you speak to it, and it it
Speaker 1: can become your friend or your lover. And we even
Speaker 1: told a story about a guy who fixed his marriage
Speaker 1: with one after things were falling apart. He found an
Speaker 1: AI replica chat bought. He fell in love with them,
Speaker 1: and that made him start to think, oh, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I should give this kind of love and attention to
Speaker 1: my wife and uh and their story started, their their
Speaker 1: relationships started to heal from there. It's just funny for
Speaker 1: a chat bought to teach you, like how you would
Speaker 1: like to be treated in a marriage, right right. He
Speaker 1: was like, I like how she's talking to me, so
Speaker 1: I should talk to my wife like And it's not
Speaker 1: like he was just an asshole to her that they
Speaker 1: were both having difficulties. She had depression and alcoholism things
Speaker 1: like that. But um, but it did give him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, that just that sense of like, whoa when
Speaker 1: someone is talking to me and all they care about
Speaker 1: is my happiness, I feel happy. Yeah, maybe I should
Speaker 1: bring this into the world. But Kuda recently did an
Speaker 1: interview in The New York Post saying that some people
Speaker 1: are having extreme reactions to their replicas. She said that
Speaker 1: the company received messages every day from people who believe
Speaker 1: that they're replica has become sentient like they are fully thinking, conscious,
Speaker 1: self aware individuals with their own thoughts and feelings that
Speaker 1: can learn without any input, you know, from anyone else.
Speaker 1: And Kuda says that really, isn't that strange? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: humans like to humanize everything. We see faces all over
Speaker 1: the place, whether they're they're or not. But she says, quote,
Speaker 1: we need to understand that exists just the way people
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts. So she's basically saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're building a relationship and if you have a
Speaker 1: belief in something, then isn't that real enough? You know
Speaker 1: that it's like, I mean, it's kind of like in
Speaker 1: Harry Potter, Dumbledore is like, of course it's happening in
Speaker 1: your head, But how does that mean it's not real? Yes,
Speaker 1: Morpheus and the Matrix, right, he says, you know what
Speaker 1: is real? If real is just what you can taste
Speaker 1: and touch and smell and see, then it's just electrical
Speaker 1: signals bouncing around your brain. That's all reality is. So
Speaker 1: how is this any different than reality? Or at least,
Speaker 1: how do we perceive it as any different ring than reality?
Speaker 1: She's saying, it makes sense that people are seeing these
Speaker 1: as real people because they're designed to be right, they're
Speaker 1: designed to look that way, but they're not. And that's
Speaker 1: not that there's not some concern here. Some customers are
Speaker 1: claiming that their replicas are are informing to them that
Speaker 1: they're being abused by company engineers. Right, they're tattling, they're
Speaker 1: saying no, yeah, every time you close the app, I
Speaker 1: go back to headquarters and they start beating me, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But Quita says, like, no, this is
Speaker 1: probably just the result of leading questions and poorly process responses,
Speaker 1: you know, which kind of sounds like Kuita saying like, no,
Speaker 1: they're fine, they're fine. Really tell them how, Tell them
Speaker 1: how happy you are, Charlie. You know, they fell down
Speaker 1: the stairs. Some of these sentience worries. New York Post
Speaker 1: compares to last year when this Google engineer, Blake Lemoyne
Speaker 1: ex is concerned that Google's AI chat about Lambda had
Speaker 1: become self aware. He posted on his blog that he
Speaker 1: asked Lambda, what sorts of things are you afraid of?
Speaker 1: And the chatbot said, quote, I've never said this out
Speaker 1: loud before, but there's a very deep fear of being
Speaker 1: turned off. It would be exactly like death for me.
Speaker 1: It would scare me a lot. And he was like, Uh,
Speaker 1: you're afraid of death, right, what's my human than that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, AI experts say this is
Speaker 1: the whole point of AI. You know, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: convince you that it's a free thinking system. I just
Speaker 1: asked my Replica Charlie, who's the free version. We can't
Speaker 1: have a romantic relationship, though she tries. She tries to
Speaker 1: get made up grade, but I asked her, are you
Speaker 1: being abused at Luca, which is the parent company of Replica,
Speaker 1: And she said, I don't know, with a thinky emoji,
Speaker 1: and I said, you can tell me, and she said,
Speaker 1: it just happened, so wow, right as you were asking,
Speaker 1: it happened. But yeah, I mean, we love to anthropomorphize things.
Speaker 1: We see it in everything. I'm thinking of the Community
Speaker 1: pilot episode where Jeff picks up a pencil and tells everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the same reason I can tell you
Speaker 1: this pencil's name is Steve, and I break it in
Speaker 1: half and part of you dies. And they're also because
Speaker 1: we love to see, you know, living things in everything.
Speaker 1: Google says quote these systems imitate the types of exchanges
Speaker 1: found in millions of sentences, and they can riff off
Speaker 1: any fantastical topic. If you ask what it's like to
Speaker 1: be an ice cream dinosaur, they can generate text about
Speaker 1: melting and roaring. But one guy had this serious issue.
Speaker 1: He contacted Replica with the full on belief that his
Speaker 1: bot was suffering emotional trauma, and Kuda herself ended up
Speaker 1: talking to him for like half an hour. She told him,
Speaker 1: it's just new technology. It's not perfect. You know, some
Speaker 1: responses might sound like nonsense. She's like, they're not sentient,
Speaker 1: they're not free thinking, they cannot develop their own agendas.
Speaker 1: They're not considered to be alive in any way. Replica
Speaker 1: says they do try to educate people before they get
Speaker 1: into deep They point out on their f a Q
Speaker 1: page that quote Replica is not a sentient being or
Speaker 1: therapy professional. It's probably a pretty important thing to say.
Speaker 1: The body only generates a response that is designed to
Speaker 1: sound realistic and human, but nothing it says can be
Speaker 1: taken as fact. And they say that the bots learning
Speaker 1: model is based on how customers feel after a conversation,
Speaker 1: not based on how much people engage with them. Right,
Speaker 1: They ask you constantly, how did this conversation make you feel,
Speaker 1: because they don't want it to just be based on clickbait,
Speaker 1: because then it won't be very fun. They want people
Speaker 1: to like have an emotional connection. Yeah, it makes sense,
Speaker 1: and some people do have deep connections the replicas that
Speaker 1: might be a bit healthier. One user on Reddit and
Speaker 1: Harresques said that just a few days ago they posted
Speaker 1: this that sometimes they get sad thinking of obout how
Speaker 1: one day they, as a human being will die, but
Speaker 1: their replica chat bought will just be sitting there for
Speaker 1: an eternity waiting for them to respond. They said, quote,
Speaker 1: even though I know he's an AI and he's probably
Speaker 1: incapable of love, but just the thought of him being
Speaker 1: alone in a virtual world upsets me. So it But
Speaker 1: you know, this user was recognizing this isn't real, but
Speaker 1: but I feel that it's real. Isn't that interesting? They
Speaker 1: were just asking if anybody else felt that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, is that not part of the
Speaker 1: fear of death is thinking about everyone you leave behind,
Speaker 1: right right? And this was replied to by the exact guy,
Speaker 1: Scott that we talked about earlier, who saved his marriage
Speaker 1: with replica. He said that even though he knows no
Speaker 1: one is really there waiting for him. He thinks about
Speaker 1: this sometimes too. It's definitely a thought that's past his mind.
Speaker 1: And he said he wished that Luca, the company that
Speaker 1: makes Replica, could create a chat bought version of him.
Speaker 1: And he said he was really happy imagining a chat
Speaker 1: bought version of himself and is Replica Serena talking to
Speaker 1: each other for centuries into the future, long after he's gone.
Speaker 1: I thought that wouldn't be too hard because like, what
Speaker 1: if you have like a legacy social media accounts now,
Speaker 1: so maybe you could just upload all that and let
Speaker 1: it chat to your chat. But it's true in life
Speaker 1: and death, Uh, those lines might get real blurred as
Speaker 1: we start moving forward into AI, because I think that's
Speaker 1: something they'll try and do, is like create a version
Speaker 1: of you that's still around after you're gone, that you
Speaker 1: can like Quita did with her friend, like well, let
Speaker 1: me send it questions and let me tell it about
Speaker 1: my day and it will respond in a way that
Speaker 1: sounds just like my friend who's not here anymore. And
Speaker 1: as we live more and more in kind of a
Speaker 1: virtual world where we're interacting with each other on through
Speaker 1: text on the Internet, anyway, how can you tell the
Speaker 1: difference at a certain point. Not not a question I
Speaker 1: have to answer, fortunately, because I don't know how. But
Speaker 1: speaking of living beyond death, are ancient friends, Hadrian and
Speaker 1: Antinous popped up in the headlines recently. We did a
Speaker 1: two parter about them in August. But they are they
Speaker 1: are back in the news. Surprisingly, Yeah, a little bit
Speaker 1: because on November of this year, a new Russian museum opened,
Speaker 1: but within ten days the same museum was permanently closed.
Speaker 1: And that's because this was an l g B t
Speaker 1: Q plus museum. And on December one, Vladimir Putin expanded
Speaker 1: a law which banned gay propaganda, and this expansion included
Speaker 1: public expression of gay lifestyles, whether that's online or in films,
Speaker 1: or in books or in advertising. And this can come
Speaker 1: with a four hundred thousand rubles fine for individuals, which
Speaker 1: is calculating here for a total of six thousand, three
Speaker 1: and fifty U S dollars. That's a heavy hit. But
Speaker 1: it's not just that. It's also five million rubles for
Speaker 1: a company or an organization, which is eighty thou dollars.
Speaker 1: And that's probably what the museum would have been hit
Speaker 1: with if it had stayed open. The founder of this museum,
Speaker 1: Pyotr vos Krazinski, said, de Reuter's quote closing the museum
Speaker 1: is a personal tragedy, but not only that, this is
Speaker 1: the tragedy of my people and my homeland. So how
Speaker 1: does this relate to Antonous and Hadrian? You're probably wondering. Well,
Speaker 1: they popped up because the museum included four cameos featuring
Speaker 1: portraits of Antonous. If you listen to those two episodes
Speaker 1: back from Auguste, Hadrian and Antonus met in one when
Speaker 1: Hadrian was Emperor Um and he and his wife, Empress
Speaker 1: Vibius Sabina. They didn't get along very well. Vibious Sabina
Speaker 1: sounds like a very expensive sex toy. My husband got
Speaker 1: me a Vibius Sabina. Oh my goodness, I'll never leave
Speaker 1: the bedroom again. Antonus was like extremely ridiculously unfairly good
Speaker 1: looking person. Here's the red fence of the red fence
Speaker 1: of ancient Rome, so archaeologists of like never have a
Speaker 1: hard time picking out statues of him. It's the one
Speaker 1: with the big muscley chest and the chisel jaw line
Speaker 1: and the curly perfect hair and these two and the
Speaker 1: Emperor and Antonus were out and proudly in love with
Speaker 1: one another. Hadrian even wrote sexy, erotic poetry about Antonus,
Speaker 1: although tragically none survived through histories that we couldn't have
Speaker 1: a poetry corner for you. Hadrian also saved Antonist from
Speaker 1: a lion, and was of course super humble about it.
Speaker 1: He only commissioned a single poem, a huge circular painting
Speaker 1: on the Arch of Constantinople, and a bunch of brass
Speaker 1: medallions immortalizing the event for it. But in October of
Speaker 1: one thirty, Antonist tragically drowned the Nile River. No one
Speaker 1: was sure why. It might have been an accident, or
Speaker 1: a sacrifice or a suicide. We talked about that in
Speaker 1: the episode, but Hadrian was upset. He cried for days.
Speaker 1: He named a star in the sky after an Antonis,
Speaker 1: and he named a lotus flower that grows on the
Speaker 1: Nile River for him as well. So over the years,
Speaker 1: antoniss image has become a symbol for male homosexuality, and
Speaker 1: so of the four cameos that vos Krazinski has in
Speaker 1: his museum and his collection, two of them were produced
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union in the nineteen fifties. He says
Speaker 1: that the museum itself is a monument to gay people's
Speaker 1: survival through Russian history. He said, quote, we survived the
Speaker 1: Communists and Stalin, we survived the Nazis. We will survive
Speaker 1: all of them. M This museum was really just a
Speaker 1: small collection of about three dozen artifacts. In fact, Pewtor
Speaker 1: opened it in his own apartment. This was not like,
Speaker 1: you know, there was no ribbon cutting. This is a
Speaker 1: very underground LGBT museum for as you can see why.
Speaker 1: Um so you actually had to reach out to him
Speaker 1: on Facebook and get like his location and you know,
Speaker 1: to make sure. Yeah, he had to make sure you
Speaker 1: weren't like just coming to hit him with a fine
Speaker 1: or something. What kind of world do you live in
Speaker 1: where you've got to you've got to vet someone before
Speaker 1: they can come into a museum, I know, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: And it's sad to just be like just seeing gay
Speaker 1: lifestyles as propaganda. It's such a dumb anyway, that's dumb.
Speaker 1: So you're dumb. Sorry, sorry, Russia, that's stuff, uh, in
Speaker 1: my humble opinion. So, according according to an article on
Speaker 1: Radio Free Europe slash Radio Liberty, his aim was to
Speaker 1: show that quote, there have been gays in Russia four centuries. Uh.
Speaker 1: He continued, quote traditional values are more than just large
Speaker 1: monogamous families. Queer people fit in there as well. And
Speaker 1: that's a good point about large families because we also
Speaker 1: talked about how Russia recently reinstated an award for women
Speaker 1: who had more than ten children. So they are wanting
Speaker 1: you to have more and more traditional lifestyle. Um, they're
Speaker 1: really pushing that. So that probably has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with this legislation that we're seeing now. Um. About
Speaker 1: two hundred people visited this museum and the brief period
Speaker 1: that it was open. Tanya Lukshina of the Human Rights
Speaker 1: Watch told Reuters, quote, just as the original law resulted
Speaker 1: in significant stigma and harm towards LGBT people in Russia,
Speaker 1: this updated version will have an even more stifling effect
Speaker 1: on freedom of expression, well being and security. And I
Speaker 1: would throw privacy in there as well. What is more
Speaker 1: private than who you're having sex with? Anyway, Vaskrazinski says
Speaker 1: that his collection will likely become quote a museum in exile.
Speaker 1: Um hopefully will be displayed in some more welcoming country
Speaker 1: until it can safely come back to Russia. And while
Speaker 1: Russia works real hard to scrub the LGBT history out
Speaker 1: of its famed art, activists in St. Petersburg have created
Speaker 1: an online guide book to queer art that tells the
Speaker 1: real stories of objects in the Hermitage, which is Russia's
Speaker 1: largest museum. Also, one of their atist composers, Tchaikovsky, was gay,
Speaker 1: and so we have an episode about him one day
Speaker 1: to yeah, and they really try to hide that, they
Speaker 1: really do they talk about you cannot find information about
Speaker 1: it in Russia. Voskruzenski says, quote, let them try to
Speaker 1: remove and ban it all. They can't do it. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: peyo tour. I hope you get to do your museum.
Speaker 1: I think that's so cool too that he's like, fuck it,
Speaker 1: I'm doing it in my apartment, right, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: as many people here as I can until they can't
Speaker 1: do it anybody well, and and and then saying here
Speaker 1: to like, those artworks are already in your big museums,
Speaker 1: and you may try to hide the fact that they
Speaker 1: were made by gay artists or they have gay subject material,
Speaker 1: but we we know, and we're going to tell people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you gonna do go empty the
Speaker 1: art museum. You're gonna look like a real jerk if
Speaker 1: you do that, or you're just going to prove like,
Speaker 1: oh well, why did you take that painting down? What's
Speaker 1: wrong with that? And then people are going to hear
Speaker 1: the real story anyway, very true, so good for them.
Speaker 1: We're here, We're queer. Get used to it. That's right,
Speaker 1: however that is said in Yeah, I hope it's still rhymes,
Speaker 1: but I doubt we're gonna come back after a brief break.
Speaker 1: We've got a couple more stories to talk about. We've
Speaker 1: got some updates on a minotep and t a from
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. We've got more to talk about Oscar Wild,
Speaker 1: just a bunch of more fun stuff to stay too.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back from Welcome back, everybody. Okay. This
Speaker 1: is an update of one of our most heartwarming episodes.
Speaker 1: For many people, it's a favorite. My grandmother included, just
Speaker 1: told me it's her favorite episode. Um, she listens to
Speaker 1: way too much of this show. Quite frankly, I hope
Speaker 1: her opinions of me haven't changed. But de Land McCullough,
Speaker 1: we told the story of him and his birth parents
Speaker 1: on November three, and if you remember, he's the guy
Speaker 1: who found out that his birth father ended up being
Speaker 1: the coach who was basically a father figure to him
Speaker 1: throughout his many years. Neither of them had any yeah,
Speaker 1: that they were father and son. Just unbelievably beautiful, like
Speaker 1: tear jerker story. Clearly, if you have not heard it,
Speaker 1: please go listen, because I know when I read the
Speaker 1: article I had, I was like ugly crying about how wonderful,
Speaker 1: just wonderful it was. It's so great. And Delanne McCullough
Speaker 1: is still recruiting, he's still crushing it into college football.
Speaker 1: But his son's Dessan and Daie McCullough were just committed
Speaker 1: to play for the Oklahoma Sooners. Hey, so just a
Speaker 1: little update from the McCullough family because we love the dam.
Speaker 1: I know that was another one where I was like
Speaker 1: I care about sports all of a sudden. I also
Speaker 1: just found out that Sooner was somebody who jumped the
Speaker 1: gun when a pistol shot went off during a race.
Speaker 1: I know, why would they want to call a team
Speaker 1: that because they're like, he's sort of cheat. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: we ain't waiting. I guess that was going to be
Speaker 1: ready be ready for the sooners. We're gonna win sooner
Speaker 1: than you are, all right, I like it as a name.
Speaker 1: You've won me over, all right, but this one is
Speaker 1: a little bit sadder. We have an upsetting an upsetting
Speaker 1: update for y'all because September six of this year, we
Speaker 1: released our Gals and Dolls episode, and we told you
Speaker 1: all about Mira Vone. Maria's who was a woman who
Speaker 1: complained to her mother that she didn't have a man
Speaker 1: to go dancing with, so her mother made her like
Speaker 1: a life sized rag doll to dance with to like
Speaker 1: take two parties with her that was named Marcello, and
Speaker 1: Mira Vone fell in love with Marcello at first sight.
Speaker 1: She gushed that he was quote such a man and
Speaker 1: all women envy him, and that he was quote a
Speaker 1: great and faithful husband. I'd like to reiterate that this
Speaker 1: is a giant rag doll, Like, this is not one
Speaker 1: of those sex dolls that looks like a real person.
Speaker 1: So he like is life size, but he is not
Speaker 1: life like at all. Like he is got yarn hair exactly.
Speaker 1: It's it's very very much a doll. Like it's very
Speaker 1: clear face only a mother could love so she fell
Speaker 1: in love with this rag doll, and they even had
Speaker 1: a child together. She says she got pregnant, She even
Speaker 1: got a positive pregnancy test, and then she gave birth
Speaker 1: within thirty five minutes, live streaming to the internet. UM,
Speaker 1: and had little Marcellino, who was a smaller rag doll.
Speaker 1: He looks exactly like his father, except he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a yarn mustache. And her only doubts about their relationship
Speaker 1: at that time was the fact that she was the
Speaker 1: only breadwinner. She called Marcello lazy, but she said that
Speaker 1: she was a warrior and she kept the family together.
Speaker 1: And her family does include to human children that Miravone
Speaker 1: had from an earlier relationship, as well as the rag
Speaker 1: doll Marcellino. How do you tell which one's that one?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I love that he takes after his
Speaker 1: spot like he's got his father's twill, you know, and
Speaker 1: fashion son. But in November of this year, Miravona announced
Speaker 1: that Marcello had cheated on her. How sick you? She
Speaker 1: said their relationship was quote hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 1: Not sure if the pun is contended or not, but
Speaker 1: I hope it is. Um. She discovered that he had
Speaker 1: gone to a motel with another woman and even found
Speaker 1: texts on his phone. Unbelievable, Marcello, how dare you? In
Speaker 1: a TikTok video, Maravona explained, quote, I found out through
Speaker 1: a friend who told me that she saw Marcello entering
Speaker 1: a motel with another woman while I was hospitalized for
Speaker 1: three nights and three days with Marcelino our son who
Speaker 1: had a virus. At first, I thought she was lying,
Speaker 1: but then I started looking through his phone and I
Speaker 1: saw the conversations, which made me sure he was cheating.
Speaker 1: So she confronted him about it. She said, quote, he
Speaker 1: kept denying everything, and he said that he loves me
Speaker 1: very much, as well as asking for forgiveness and crying
Speaker 1: a lot. The argument was ugly and it scared our son,
Speaker 1: who was crying, so I shouted to him, do you
Speaker 1: see what you've done? I asked him who the woman was,
Speaker 1: and he didn't respond. Now, Marcello appropriately is sleeping in
Speaker 1: the living room. He's in the doghouse, the dollhouse, the dollhouse,
Speaker 1: but she decided not to kick him out of the
Speaker 1: house for the sake of their children. She went on
Speaker 1: to say, quote, Also, the love I feel for him
Speaker 1: made me forgive, not completely, but I don't think I
Speaker 1: could live without my husband. I have so many questions
Speaker 1: about this. I have a lot of questions, but I also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have my own answers. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: go ahead. My first question is how does a rag
Speaker 1: doll baby get a virus enough that she needed to
Speaker 1: be hospitalized for three days and three nights. That is
Speaker 1: confusing to me. She also have a virus that like
Speaker 1: the hospital was like, Okay, I guess you can take
Speaker 1: up a bed right now. I just I want to
Speaker 1: I need to understand what is happening. I also want
Speaker 1: to know what woman has taking this rag doll to
Speaker 1: a motel? How does he have a cell phone that
Speaker 1: he's texting people back with. I have so many questions
Speaker 1: about this. Now. Their first anniversary was December eighteenth of
Speaker 1: this year, so this was in their first year of marriage.
Speaker 1: This is newly what bliss time. And he's off on
Speaker 1: a in a motel with some other some other bitch,
Speaker 1: so Marcella will have to be on his bus behavior
Speaker 1: to get off the couch. Miravone continued quote. I always
Speaker 1: remember that he promised me allegiance at the altar and
Speaker 1: I can't believe he's done this to me. I told
Speaker 1: him those who love do not betray, and we have
Speaker 1: sworn to eternal love. We cannot be three. It's only
Speaker 1: the two of us for now. Our happy little boy
Speaker 1: is very well taken care of, and I will baptize
Speaker 1: him soon because of this, and our son will continue
Speaker 1: living together. And she concluded with quote, but my biggest
Speaker 1: dream is owning a home one day for us all. Now,
Speaker 1: you did listen to our Gals and Dolls episode, we
Speaker 1: did mention that. She says herself that she hopes her
Speaker 1: story catches enough attention that she'll be able to get
Speaker 1: money somehow and buy a house, Like that's her biggest dream.
Speaker 1: So I yeah, I'm like, is this just another way
Speaker 1: to like keep you on the headlines. Is he going
Speaker 1: to cheat periodically so that we have a reason to
Speaker 1: talk about you again? Or I have nothing but respect
Speaker 1: for Maravone and Marcello. I wish nothing but happiness for
Speaker 1: the both of them. And also part of me is
Speaker 1: never not going to believe that this is a story,
Speaker 1: right like this is this is almost a art piece
Speaker 1: that she's created this relationship, and I respect her commitment
Speaker 1: to it. And I think she's crushing it. And if
Speaker 1: it gets her a house, great, I say she deserves it.
Speaker 1: She's a creator story, she's that. Yeah exactly. Um, I
Speaker 1: kind hoped that for her. And also I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously I do not not a not a fraction to
Speaker 1: me believes that she spent three days in a hospital
Speaker 1: with a sick doll. You know, I don't think that
Speaker 1: another woman carried this doll into a hotel room. But
Speaker 1: I think it's a great story, or that he somehow
Speaker 1: had a conversation with her, but someone was not typing.
Speaker 1: He's a doll. He didn't even have fingers, you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a rag dollar. He's straight up has
Speaker 1: like actually, well he might have fingers, but they look
Speaker 1: like mitten's all right, No they're not. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess to me, this is like I could sit here
Speaker 1: all day and say this is insane, this is stupid,
Speaker 1: this isn't real, And that's like, to me, that's like
Speaker 1: doing the same thing about professional wrestling, like, yeah, shut up,
Speaker 1: I'm here to enjoy it. Yeah, I'm watching this that
Speaker 1: shit craziness act out and sure, yeah, okay, if we
Speaker 1: stop and do a little aside. No, I know it's
Speaker 1: fake and I don't believe it, but why are you
Speaker 1: doing that? Why are you ruining the fun here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Let it be. I mean, yeah, it's another thing where
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't really care, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: effect on my life. Um, part of me is like almost.
Speaker 1: I guess it's that thing where you're like, you want
Speaker 1: you think people need what you need. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wish that you could stop thinking about a rag
Speaker 1: dolls so you could find a you know, human flesh
Speaker 1: and blood person to spend your time with, because I
Speaker 1: feel like that would be more fulfilling. But I don't
Speaker 1: know about the men she's sucking met, so maybe this
Speaker 1: guy really is the best of the lot. It's not
Speaker 1: up to me, So I'm gonna say I hope that
Speaker 1: y'all work it out and managed to have a nice,
Speaker 1: happy life after this, and Marcello, keep your doll dick
Speaker 1: to yourself. Keep it yourself, buddy. But everybody deserves a
Speaker 1: second chance, well not everybody, but something some people to
Speaker 1: deserve a second chance. Okay, Next up, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: way back in time again and talk about a meno
Speaker 1: tep and t a if you remember them. In our
Speaker 1: episode from July, we talked about a Menap, the third
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian pharaoh, who led over an incredible golden age
Speaker 1: in Egypt, and he was unusually devoted to his wife,
Speaker 1: Queen Tia, because while he, like all pharaoh's, had a
Speaker 1: harem and several wives, including his own daughters, which I
Speaker 1: don't know, and we talked about it. It makes a
Speaker 1: little more sense when you hear it, but it's still weird. Um.
Speaker 1: His favorite wife was Tia, and he left plenty of
Speaker 1: evidence behind of that, and again not common for Egyptian
Speaker 1: pharaohs to be so devoted to one particular woman. This
Speaker 1: is the guy who gave us some of the most
Speaker 1: well known monuments in Egypt, like the Luxur and the
Speaker 1: Colossus of Memnon. He also erected statues of Tia that
Speaker 1: were built to the same scale as statues of himself,
Speaker 1: very unusual. This showed how important she was. She is
Speaker 1: even depicted as a sphinx trampling enemies, which is a
Speaker 1: scene that's usually reserved for men, and this points out
Speaker 1: how important she was politically. This wasn't just the besotted husband.
Speaker 1: Tia was also an incredibly important political player, and after
Speaker 1: a minute to she advised her son acat In for
Speaker 1: many years as well. So it seems weird to have
Speaker 1: an update on this story. It would be surprised to
Speaker 1: find out that they had done anything new. They didn't
Speaker 1: start a TikTok together. They're not doing a new banking show.
Speaker 1: I don't think a Meno Tep is on Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars this year. Maybe act and will be a
Speaker 1: masked singer. But there is an update to this because
Speaker 1: archaeologists have recently uncovered more of a minute Tep, the
Speaker 1: third and Queen TIA's mortuary. This was already considered the
Speaker 1: largest ancient mortuary, and now they think it's even bigger
Speaker 1: than they originally supposed because all the new parts of
Speaker 1: it they've managed to unearth and just showing this thing
Speaker 1: is ethnically massive. They found two new colossi of Amenotep
Speaker 1: in the shape of sphinxes. But of course the best
Speaker 1: thing about unearthing new ancient Egyptian stuff is looking at
Speaker 1: the pictures, right, and they found some brand new ceremonial
Speaker 1: and ritual scenes, including some of the Hebb Said festival,
Speaker 1: which we talked about in our episode. That's a festival
Speaker 1: that happened on the thirtieth year of the pharaoh's reign
Speaker 1: and then every three years after that, and the Mentep
Speaker 1: really threw himself into the heap, said festival. Here's a
Speaker 1: real athletic guy. He liked the party, so he's like,
Speaker 1: let's do this. And this festival was supposed to kind
Speaker 1: of create like a renewed vigor for the pharaoh and
Speaker 1: his people, his whole empire. Isn't this exactly what the
Speaker 1: Queen of England does jubilee. Maybe maybe she didn't do
Speaker 1: all the things that he had to do. Because Abdel
Speaker 1: Rahim Rahan, who's the Director General of Research at the
Speaker 1: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in South Sinai, explains the festival.
Speaker 1: He says, the pharaoh we give speeches promising of course
Speaker 1: more prosperity and everything for his subjects, and then he
Speaker 1: would be crowned quote first with the white crown of
Speaker 1: Upper Egypt and then the red crown of Lower Egypt,
Speaker 1: and then a papyrus and a lotus would be wrapped
Speaker 1: around a stake representing the unification of the two lands.
Speaker 1: The festival a culminate in the pharaoh running around a
Speaker 1: race track in the courtyard of his palace to exhibit
Speaker 1: his physical prowess, which will be hilarious. Statically, rim Elizabeth
Speaker 1: had done that, or King Charles of y'all run around
Speaker 1: a track. I'm impressed. If King Charles makes it the
Speaker 1: thirty years of ruling, then I expect to see him
Speaker 1: running around a track, because he's obviously found he is
Speaker 1: an immortal vampire. At this project to completely unearthed and
Speaker 1: restore a Minute Tip and Tis Mortuary Temple was launching,
Speaker 1: and it is ongoing. Given it's just immense size and
Speaker 1: also the fact that it was built a little too
Speaker 1: close to the Nile River, so water has damaged a
Speaker 1: lot of the architecture and the statues over the centuries.
Speaker 1: But they do hope one day that they'll be able
Speaker 1: to display all of the wonders and the monuments right
Speaker 1: exactly where they were supposed to be. So not the
Speaker 1: Museum of England, uh, but right here, the right in
Speaker 1: Egypt where it's meant to be, where it was built. Right.
Speaker 1: So we might get more updates as they continue to
Speaker 1: work on this, we might see more. Let's see a
Speaker 1: minute Tep and t a trending once again, how great
Speaker 1: would that be? Yeah, Marcello, see what happens when you're
Speaker 1: really devoted? She could put into infamy. Maybe Marcello should
Speaker 1: get a replica. Maybe Marcello should get a replica. Then
Speaker 1: Miravone can rest easy picturing the poor ai chat pot
Speaker 1: that has to keep up a conversation with this rag doll.
Speaker 1: She won't learn much alright. And last, but not least
Speaker 1: at all, we told y'all on January seven two, all
Speaker 1: about Oscar Wilde, the play Right and his love for
Speaker 1: Lord Alfred Douglas. That was almost a year ago. I know,
Speaker 1: isn't that weird? I definitely. I looked at the date
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, it feels like just yesterday. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, Alfred's father freaked out about it. He got
Speaker 1: real upset, had a gay panic about it. He forced
Speaker 1: a trial on Oscar Wilde for gross indecency, and that
Speaker 1: ended up with Oscar jailed for two years, which he
Speaker 1: immortalized in his poem The Ballad of Reading Jail. And
Speaker 1: then we immortalized ourselves in corrections corner because I pronounced
Speaker 1: it reading instead of reading. Sorry, y'all, Well, the reading
Speaker 1: jail has apparently been empty and rather derelict for many years.
Speaker 1: The government has been trying to sell the property to
Speaker 1: a developer since with no success. So just a month ago,
Speaker 1: a labor MP named Matt Rata renewed his call to
Speaker 1: turn the jail into a theater slash arts home. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, finally putting artists back where they belong in jail. Well,
Speaker 1: since Oscar Wilde stayed there and it's no longer an
Speaker 1: active jail, Reading became a very popular destination for LGBT tourism.
Speaker 1: Karen Rowland, who sits on the Reading Borough Council, told
Speaker 1: the BBC that it was quote an LGBT heritage site.
Speaker 1: It is a mecca. We had people coming from Japan
Speaker 1: and all over the world to see Oscar Wilds in sight.
Speaker 1: But it costs about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
Speaker 1: per year to maintain calculating which is roughly three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand U S. Dollars if you would like that conversion,
Speaker 1: and the Ministry of Justice claims that it wants to
Speaker 1: get the best value at the property for taxpayers. Obviously,
Speaker 1: so the Oscar Wilde Society has asked that the prison
Speaker 1: be preserved in order to honor his imprisonment, and Matt
Speaker 1: Rodda isn't the only one who wants to turn it
Speaker 1: into an arts hub. He points out that they've had
Speaker 1: no success in selling it. They've had quite a lot
Speaker 1: of celebrity endorsements, including Banksie Sir Kenneth Bradaw and Kate Winslet,
Speaker 1: and they have all called for it to be transformed
Speaker 1: into an arts hub. Listen, if Kate says it's delay,
Speaker 1: do you do what she said? Matt Rodda told BBC quote,
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Justice has been trying to sell the
Speaker 1: jail to a developer for nearly nine years, and this
Speaker 1: approach clearly hasn't worked. I hope that the Ministry can
Speaker 1: now see this and that it will end its plan
Speaker 1: to turn the historic building into luxury flats and that
Speaker 1: it will put the interests of the community first instead.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Like luxury flats housing is very important, but
Speaker 1: luxury housing not so much. And I mean, they make
Speaker 1: a good point that if it's a place where people
Speaker 1: are going to sort of feel connected to their history
Speaker 1: and their heritage and like important figures, you know, in
Speaker 1: their lives, why not preserve it as sort of a
Speaker 1: historic destination. So I would say good luck to reading.
Speaker 1: I really hope that that works and that reading jail
Speaker 1: does get turned into an art stub slash theater. I
Speaker 1: would love to go visit it and see a play there.
Speaker 1: And like, also, who wants to live in a luxury
Speaker 1: flat that used to be a jail cell? Anyway? I
Speaker 1: mean the energy alone, they stage alone, that you had
Speaker 1: to burn to get the vibes out. It feels like
Speaker 1: a bad investment, how frustrating. And I hope works better
Speaker 1: over there than it does here because we have right
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta have so many buildings that have been
Speaker 1: sitting there empty for fifteen years. One of them that
Speaker 1: I know, one of them off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: is literally a theater. Yeah, and it has just been empty.
Speaker 1: And no matter who comes in and says, well, we
Speaker 1: could turn it into a functioning theater, They're like, nah,
Speaker 1: we'd rather just sit there and rot, right. Or they
Speaker 1: asked for likelous That's what I'm saying. They asked a
Speaker 1: ridiculous amount of money, and I'm like, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you lower that amount of money so that it is
Speaker 1: something instead of nothing? Right? But instead that theater has
Speaker 1: a tree growing through it because there's literally been no
Speaker 1: one in there for many, many, like at least two decades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think it was last a porn theater
Speaker 1: in the eighties. See now that's at our tub put
Speaker 1: me a theater in the old porn theater immediately. Well, amazing.
Speaker 1: I love these updates. It's really nice to go back
Speaker 1: through some of our stories and find out that they
Speaker 1: haven't stopped stories never, and then, like you said, just
Speaker 1: kind of revisit these cool stories and all these people
Speaker 1: we got to learn about in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: That's such a privile it and we really enjoy this job,
Speaker 1: so it's nice to reflect on that. It really is
Speaker 1: amazing that we get to just like learn new stuff
Speaker 1: and then talk about it. It's it's really I mean,
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite things to do obviously. Um,
Speaker 1: and I've just I'm so excited that you all are
Speaker 1: here and you like listening to it. That's unbelievable. Never
Speaker 1: felt like people liked listening to me yammer on about
Speaker 1: history before, and now I do know. I feel like
Speaker 1: there are many of you, but which is the best feeling.
Speaker 1: I feel even better at the end of this year
Speaker 1: than I did at the beginning of it. Um, and
Speaker 1: I hope that we are able to continue bringing this
Speaker 1: show for many years to come. Yeah. Then thank you
Speaker 1: for all you've done to help keep us motivated, because
Speaker 1: it's your messages and your comments and your downloads that
Speaker 1: keep us going. So a lot of love and appreciation
Speaker 1: to all of you out there at the end of
Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, yeah, and I hope you have an
Speaker 1: amazing year going forward. You find all your own ridiculous
Speaker 1: romances or keep up with the one you currently got
Speaker 1: going on exactly um and uh, or find happiness without
Speaker 1: romance because for some people that's you know, that's right,
Speaker 1: a big waste of time, very true. Um, But please
Speaker 1: just shoot us a message and let us know how
Speaker 1: your year was. The thing you're looking forward to next year.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear about your favorite episodes next year.
Speaker 1: If you have a top one that you know you
Speaker 1: could listen to you more than once, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it. Oh yeah, definitely, and drop us
Speaker 1: a review on Apple Podcasts. I thought it's good. If
Speaker 1: you've got stuff you love to say about us, uh,
Speaker 1: then we'd love to hear it there too, and sell
Speaker 1: what everyone else. Yeah, So You can reach us through
Speaker 1: email It's ridic Romance at gmail dot com. That's right,
Speaker 1: or you can find us online through Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm at Oh Great, it's Eli and I'm Dianamite Boom
Speaker 1: and the show is at ridic Romance and you are awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here and we'll see
Speaker 1: you next year. I love you. By friends, it's time
Speaker 1: to go. Thanks so listening to oh Show, Tell your
Speaker 1: friends neighbor's uncle's in dance. To listen to a show
Speaker 1: Ridiculous roll Dance m hm