Speaker 1: Welcome to Nightcall, a production of I Heart Radio. It's
Speaker 1: one forty seven am in the St. Mark's Church Rectory
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome back
Speaker 1: to Night Call, of podcast for your strange days and
Speaker 1: lonely nights. I'm here in l A. My name is
Speaker 1: Tess Lynch and with me as always are Emily Yoshida
Speaker 1: and Molly Lambert. Guys, we have a lot of robots
Speaker 1: to cover. At the top of the show, it's our
Speaker 1: brief robot conversations last week spot News. Um. First off,
Speaker 1: we have a follow up on what we were talking
Speaker 1: about last week. Does Wally have a gender? Is he male?
Speaker 1: Is Evie female? Um? I looked into this and I
Speaker 1: found Kate Brenstein's blog. She has a whole essay on this.
Speaker 1: I will quote from it. Yes, Eve is Eve Evie.
Speaker 1: Eve is pretty pertly streamlined. Eve's eyes literally sparkle and dance.
Speaker 1: Eve giggles for Heaven's sake. Eve is kick ass, strong
Speaker 1: and powerful. Eve is performing fem while e is rugged
Speaker 1: and protective and shy and loyal. While he is is
Speaker 1: a sensitive little thing held together by sheer will and
Speaker 1: rubber bands. While he is performing butch I believe this
Speaker 1: is the definitive answer. Okay, I'm gonna say, I believe
Speaker 1: that robots can perform gender, right, they can perform gender,
Speaker 1: but they cannot have a gender exactly because the gender
Speaker 1: is robot. The gender is robot. Robot is is their
Speaker 1: gender agreed? But wait, does that mean that? Okay, never mind,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into an even authority or
Speaker 1: discussion of gender podcasts. No, absolutely not. Um, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they're they should. They should revel in their freedom from
Speaker 1: having to deal with this question at all. We should
Speaker 1: let them have that. Um. We also got an interesting
Speaker 1: tip from listener Angela Um, who sent us an article
Speaker 1: This is a Very night Call article from Smithsonian Magazine
Speaker 1: about how in a Chinese restaurant in Pasadena called to
Speaker 1: Panda Deli put a pair of quote disco blasting robots
Speaker 1: to work as servers. The article goes on to say
Speaker 1: each Japanese built robot purportedly cost twenty THO dollars about
Speaker 1: forty five THO dollars adjusted for inflation. But we're prone
Speaker 1: to dropping things and letting radio interference make them go
Speaker 1: a bit haywire when they work. They were a hit
Speaker 1: telling jokes and delivering food to customers who were assured
Speaker 1: that this would be the future of the restaurant business.
Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen eighties, the robots gained some national
Speaker 1: press in typical News of the World, Fashion and so
Speaker 1: it was there's a blurb about how the robots were
Speaker 1: just so not technologically advanced that they would just kind
Speaker 1: of like switch between languages, like they would drop food
Speaker 1: all over the place. They wouldn't know what to do
Speaker 1: when something was in their path. So it's a very
Speaker 1: short lived expect The police radios interfered with if they
Speaker 1: got too confused by commands, they would say, that's not
Speaker 1: my problem, which relatable, Yeah, totally, especially if he worked
Speaker 1: as a server was trying to radical as the robot
Speaker 1: service army. That's been a big theme on our show. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean this feels very eighties and that like they
Speaker 1: have to like demarcate that it's a Japanese built robot,
Speaker 1: but it's also what a Chinese Chinese restaurant. It does
Speaker 1: feel like also that first wave of eighties, like the
Speaker 1: robots are coming to take over jobs, which now we're
Speaker 1: back in again kind of. But it was just cute
Speaker 1: then and then it was just like shorthand for Japanese
Speaker 1: people too. Um, and now it's just actually, the robots
Speaker 1: are indeed coming for our jobs. They are. They're always
Speaker 1: making service robots. They're never making like management class robots,
Speaker 1: but they're making journalism robots are What you don't know
Speaker 1: about this? What do you mean? Uh? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: you know about Like tons of blogs are just automated content. Now, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know read one where you're like, who could
Speaker 1: this be written human? Yeah? I thought those were still
Speaker 1: written by a person, just badly. No, I think that
Speaker 1: you can auto generate. I mean, like, have you ever
Speaker 1: this is like there's a moment in vander Pump Rules
Speaker 1: when Jack's goes to Vegas and sees a robot bartender
Speaker 1: and he's like, my job. Yeah, He's just like, I
Speaker 1: can make a better drink than the robot. Yeah. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: the content that the robot, the journalis and robots right
Speaker 1: now are generally is content that I have been paid
Speaker 1: to generate before but have not generated in some time.
Speaker 1: But it is that kind of totally mindless, Like here's
Speaker 1: some of the top moments from this week's Kardashians episode,
Speaker 1: Like that kind of thing which I used to do,
Speaker 1: like I get, I used to get payment outsources. But
Speaker 1: I also think that there are some celebrity like info
Speaker 1: on celebrities where you can tell because at first you
Speaker 1: could think, okay, this could just be like run through
Speaker 1: Google Translate. But they have the same cadence as the
Speaker 1: chat bots, so that's what makes it identifiable. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like the same weird phrases that nobody actually uses and
Speaker 1: wouldn't probably pop up in what if they outsourced podcasting
Speaker 1: to bots? Oh they will know. Well, we're about to
Speaker 1: talk about Well, we will talk later in the episode
Speaker 1: about a particular kind of podcast that I think could
Speaker 1: very easily be outsourced to bot. I think you're right,
Speaker 1: But first let's talk about a cutie robot named Bali.
Speaker 1: Bolly is the non threatening smart robot that was recently
Speaker 1: rolled out by Samsung. It is a service robot, and
Speaker 1: it's basically like a what are the robot vacuum cleaners?
Speaker 1: Like a roomba, but it looks like a tennis ball.
Speaker 1: It's a prototype. Still it looks like b B eight
Speaker 1: but it's only yeah, just one little ball. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have the head balancing on top, and they purposely tried
Speaker 1: to make it non threatening looking and it's going to
Speaker 1: be affordably priced. Um, but it's terrifying. It's terrifying because
Speaker 1: it follows you around at a quote unquote safe distance
Speaker 1: or comfortable distance. Like it follows you. It looks like
Speaker 1: about three and a half feet behind you and it
Speaker 1: won't stop until you ask it to go away. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's like the one from the Miley episode
Speaker 1: of Black Mirrors. Yeah, this is sort of like it's
Speaker 1: sort of my dream of what I wanted in a robot.
Speaker 1: But I just wanted one that would play music for me.
Speaker 1: That's all that I want. Like, you know, people like
Speaker 1: sometimes that's a radio, yeah, but like not if you're
Speaker 1: not in the car. You could bring a radio where
Speaker 1: you don't. You have like a little portable wind up radio.
Speaker 1: I have a portable wind up rate for emergency. It's
Speaker 1: not like a normal Yeah. That's an eighties earthquake kicks building. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's when when power doesn't work after there and
Speaker 1: the wind if work, because I probably I have one
Speaker 1: that's probably from the eighties. It will work work in
Speaker 1: the case of an EMP of a what an e
Speaker 1: MP an electric magnetic Oh of course, of course, I think, well,
Speaker 1: the deal is the real thing we have to prepare. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it was like an n T like I think if
Speaker 1: you're a doctor of nose and throats, like, it should
Speaker 1: still work for you. It works the Electronic Music Project
Speaker 1: interesting where we are? You guys are not hipto a
Speaker 1: e MP like that's like that is a doomsday threat.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's like the scenario in which all
Speaker 1: like it could come from a solar flare or something.
Speaker 1: All I was scared about was that it would take
Speaker 1: down the Internet, and which would probably for me personally
Speaker 1: only the positive that would be great, But it would
Speaker 1: take down everything that runs on electricity like nothing. They
Speaker 1: made a really bad show on ABC, I feel like
Speaker 1: five or six years ago that was about this, about
Speaker 1: like a total blackout. It's like a permanent blackout and
Speaker 1: you can never have any power anymore. And it's just like,
Speaker 1: but then you're going to really want that wind up radio.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I'm asked, But it won't give you
Speaker 1: a radio. Wouldn't You might be able to pick up
Speaker 1: like like it, but if the power is off at
Speaker 1: the radio station, can they even know that? You would
Speaker 1: be anything but you know what it can do. That's
Speaker 1: cool as it makes like a really loud siren noise.
Speaker 1: Well that's not related to anything else. No, I've definitely
Speaker 1: thought about the like the no technology apocalypse, um, because
Speaker 1: anytime I go somewhere that has no technology, like if
Speaker 1: you go up the Central Coast or something, and you're
Speaker 1: off the grid, even for like a night or two,
Speaker 1: it does make you realize how reliant all of us
Speaker 1: are on it to a degree that is unhealthy. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking about this. I was like, it's like
Speaker 1: the world's most boring drug, electricity. Yeah, I just like
Speaker 1: what a what A like not that fun thing to
Speaker 1: be addicted to. It's like sugar. It's like you don't
Speaker 1: even think about how addicted yard sugar until you try
Speaker 1: to deliberately take it out of your day, and then
Speaker 1: you really withdraw hard. Like I'm drinking a ginger ale
Speaker 1: and looking across the table at a bag full of candy. Yeah. An,
Speaker 1: it's like a Halloween candy, Like a giant plastic bag
Speaker 1: filled with mini candy bars. Just how they keep us
Speaker 1: podcast until the box get here. Exactly sugar in electricity,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on the fence about Bali though I have
Speaker 1: to say I have to. I feel like I have
Speaker 1: to pronounce it. Balls, I thought to view because you
Speaker 1: were such a b B eight I know, and I
Speaker 1: want a little like that's what I want out of that.
Speaker 1: And there's like there's one with wings on it from
Speaker 1: an anime that people I want. I want. What I
Speaker 1: want is this Robots and Sailor Moon that TV Sailor
Speaker 1: Moon has called Luna pe. It's a cat head that
Speaker 1: floats around. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the best. And
Speaker 1: she can like turn it, she can press a button
Speaker 1: on it and turn it into anything she wants it
Speaker 1: to be. That's what I want. Here's what it just
Speaker 1: is a companion. Oh it's just a friend. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: a babysitter because she's like a kid and she's like
Speaker 1: she's like on her own, So she has a robot,
Speaker 1: it says BOLLI would be like a baby monitor. That's
Speaker 1: what their advertised. But also it said in the venture
Speaker 1: Beat article that covered this, it said that it could
Speaker 1: be used to spy on your kids to let you
Speaker 1: know if they're doing their homework, which made me really
Speaker 1: freaked out because I'm like, well, then you can be
Speaker 1: spying on your spouse. You can be like spying. It's terrible,
Speaker 1: but that's all technology, right, Yeah, but that's bad. I
Speaker 1: don't want a little tennis ball that's like creeping around. Well,
Speaker 1: it's so much more sinister because they made it look
Speaker 1: tried to make it not look sinister. Well, here's what
Speaker 1: I think. I think we could still have these things,
Speaker 1: but they have to be like homebrew robots. What do
Speaker 1: you mean, like like we get someone who's not part
Speaker 1: of the surveillor state that it's kind of like open
Speaker 1: source your hit and then it's up to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you make it yourself. You have control of the network,
Speaker 1: so it's not going to be sending your data to
Speaker 1: some whore. You know. People could still hack it, probably, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what would you use it for though? What would
Speaker 1: be It's like design it just to have a little
Speaker 1: friend to follow, a little just a buddy, I mean,
Speaker 1: because that's what I do. Like when I'm wandering around
Speaker 1: the house getting ready and I'm listening to podcasts or whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm just taking my phone in my hand with me,
Speaker 1: and if that was just floating behind my head and
Speaker 1: playing and following me around and playing my podcast, So
Speaker 1: I don't have to remember pick it up, or I
Speaker 1: could like you both you could get well. I would say,
Speaker 1: my friend got the most amazing boom box from the
Speaker 1: swap meet in MacArthur Park. There's like this electronics store
Speaker 1: that faces the street had a lot of amazing boombox
Speaker 1: type things with microphones and amazing LED displays. And I've
Speaker 1: been really thinking like maybe this is the way I
Speaker 1: use my radio all the time. And I used to
Speaker 1: have a boombox that was like a kind of like
Speaker 1: early two thousands boom box that played CDs, which also
Speaker 1: I had, and all the time. I was trying to
Speaker 1: find a DVD and video player a while ago, and
Speaker 1: I was like where can I find those? And everybody
Speaker 1: was like two thousand three? But somebody at a record
Speaker 1: store gave me one because they had one, So you
Speaker 1: can get one still at like you know best, but
Speaker 1: and they cost twenty It's incredible. Um. But I also
Speaker 1: like watching like a regular TV now because I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's not a camera, it's not tracking my location. That
Speaker 1: is relaxing in and of itself. Because you were watching
Speaker 1: everything on a laptop for a while. I was like
Speaker 1: a very early adopter of oh my god, I was
Speaker 1: watching a Sex in the City episode of US Night
Speaker 1: or Samantha's Like, you can get a DVD delivered, It's fabulous,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was like pirrating things when you could.
Speaker 1: First I was like, Oh, movies on the screen and
Speaker 1: I can just like search for any movie I've ever
Speaker 1: wanted to see. Like that sounds great, But now I
Speaker 1: do feel like there's just like too much choice and
Speaker 1: also not enough, Like I never want to watch anything
Speaker 1: that's on any of the streaming platforms except maybe some
Speaker 1: weird like deep cuts on Hulu that I find. I
Speaker 1: still couldn't get you on board of the Kaminsky method
Speaker 1: so horrible. I'm just waiting for the next hit a
Speaker 1: Kamanski taking its time. I respect your commitment to the
Speaker 1: Kaminsky method. There's no way to do it seems so easy.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break for an ad and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to talk about a
Speaker 1: fun field trip and only went on. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: night Call, Molly. You went on a very special adventure
Speaker 1: this past week, um into the home of one of
Speaker 1: our faves. I got in the zone. Was it spiritual?
Speaker 1: The shrine? I went to the zone. Brittany the zone,
Speaker 1: the Britney Spears experience. Were you in the zone, was
Speaker 1: in the zone? I was alone in the zone and
Speaker 1: never alone in the zone. I wasn't like fully that
Speaker 1: I was with a group, but I wish I had
Speaker 1: gone with you guys, because I realized halfway throughout it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like you're supposed to do it with a friend,
Speaker 1: so you can take pictures of each other and like
Speaker 1: experience it with so black and that's the point of
Speaker 1: like all pop ups, it's just a thing to happen.
Speaker 1: I was just like, you know, okay, time to enter
Speaker 1: the void alone like a psycho not you know, but
Speaker 1: then I needed people to help me take good pictures.
Speaker 1: I want a full guided tour of Britney. Yeah what so,
Speaker 1: so tell us what this is, why it is where
Speaker 1: it is. I was asked by my editor at the
Speaker 1: l A Times, Craig Bars, if I wanted to write
Speaker 1: about it, and I said, of course. Um, it is
Speaker 1: in a former km art across from the Grove. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in this amazing mini mall that has really not changed,
Speaker 1: even though the grove has been across from it years now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the Brittany Museum is next to the Whig Store,
Speaker 1: which the Whole Foods though, yeah, but still like there's
Speaker 1: an Italian restaurant and it used to be really good
Speaker 1: type place. I don't know if it's the whole vibe
Speaker 1: is perfect for Brittany. The Zone um, and it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a pop up experience put on by a production
Speaker 1: company in conjunction with like a merchandizing agency. So it's
Speaker 1: basically like a store to buy Brittany merchandise and then
Speaker 1: also ten rooms, each one themed after a different Britney
Speaker 1: Spears video with immersive experiences and a bracelet, a chip
Speaker 1: bracelet that you scan to make videos in different parts
Speaker 1: of it Brittain Chip Britney Land Yikes. A chip bracelet
Speaker 1: that says a zone on it. It was like an
Speaker 1: hour after I left the Zone that I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to get the bracelet off one tracking me.
Speaker 1: Wait did you did you leave with it on? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is it just a paper braceletter? You don't know, it's like, um,
Speaker 1: it's like a backstage. Yeah, it's on a it's on
Speaker 1: like a just a piece of fabric. But it's like
Speaker 1: the Coachella on the app. Yeah, it has a little
Speaker 1: chip in it, but then it's like was pulled too
Speaker 1: tight and I like went into a place to be
Speaker 1: like cut this off me right now. It was an anklet.
Speaker 1: But um, the zone is basically an escape room, but
Speaker 1: like foreign escape to the past. You know. Um, it's
Speaker 1: definitely for people in their thirties. Yeah, um to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember twenty years ago, don't you wish it was still
Speaker 1: that a little bit instead of now? Remember when you
Speaker 1: had what you thought the future was going to be, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the crazy video. Yeah remember the TRL the
Speaker 1: late nineties turn of the millennium projection of the future
Speaker 1: where everything was going to be like Vinyl oh final
Speaker 1: body suits, everything in. Yeah, that was a good future
Speaker 1: and then it got dystopian in like a much worse
Speaker 1: and boringer way. Okay, but I would not look back
Speaker 1: on the music, particularly the music videos of Britney Spears
Speaker 1: and be like, ah, yes, I wish I could live there,
Speaker 1: that's what you think. But now the first okay, so
Speaker 1: the first room is hit me maybe one more time,
Speaker 1: and it's just like a classroom set. Um, did you
Speaker 1: get costumes? No costumes. There are like some interactive lockers
Speaker 1: you you can write a note to Brittany and like
Speaker 1: leave it in a locker and when there's like a
Speaker 1: tiny basketball hoop and tiny pink basketballs, you can play basketball, um,
Speaker 1: just like in the video, and they show video on
Speaker 1: a giant screen. I mean there's a classroom set that
Speaker 1: just looks like a porn set, which obviously I was
Speaker 1: a big pan, but they just show the video on
Speaker 1: a giant screen. It's like it's an art installation of
Speaker 1: that music video. It just it just makes you think
Speaker 1: about like where you were at these different moments in
Speaker 1: time a lot. It's a lot of like simula simula.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I've never been a big fan of
Speaker 1: pop up museums because they like take over spaces that
Speaker 1: should be turned into like homeless shelters, and then they're
Speaker 1: like the Fruit Museum, you know, like jump in a
Speaker 1: pile of clementine. It's so crazy, see that. That's how
Speaker 1: the world where it just seems like a trick to
Speaker 1: give everyone the flu Like the wall listen into the
Speaker 1: history because I guess they were like invented by the
Speaker 1: Museum of ice Cream a couple of years ago, which
Speaker 1: that was more than a couple of years ago, according
Speaker 1: Museum of ice Cream is kind of really that's the
Speaker 1: article about it. But they invented the sprinkle pool, which
Speaker 1: is the like the centerpiece of money experience. I was
Speaker 1: actually I was so disappointed when the first time I
Speaker 1: heard about the Museum of ice Cream, because I was like,
Speaker 1: I would actually like to go to like a historical museum.
Speaker 1: I mean just the idea of the selfie museum, you know,
Speaker 1: as a thing of like, oh, people are taking selfies
Speaker 1: in front of art, so let's just like cut out
Speaker 1: the middleman that is the art and just make it
Speaker 1: places to take selfies in front of. However, the Brittany
Speaker 1: Museum is like fraught with a lot more meaning in
Speaker 1: a way that like it does feel like an art
Speaker 1: installation where you're like I'm thinking about a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in this space ace and not just like taking
Speaker 1: selfies mindlessly, but like mindfully. Is it more or less
Speaker 1: spiritual than the helmet of Climp show? At the there
Speaker 1: is a spiritual component, which is that um so there's
Speaker 1: like different the other different rooms where like oops, I
Speaker 1: did it again, a space room. There's a room is
Speaker 1: a stronger video that has metal chairs and like a
Speaker 1: weird like shutter. It's like her dancing on a chair.
Speaker 1: It's just her jump like like it's like a solo
Speaker 1: dance video, like a Janet Jackson like routine with a
Speaker 1: chair where she's like playing a chair all around. It's
Speaker 1: about her taking control of her womanhood. It's a great video,
Speaker 1: but it's also like a weird one to do a
Speaker 1: room around. So it's just a black box with chairs
Speaker 1: in it, which is very like it's like so weird.
Speaker 1: It's like the rain room at Lacma or something. It did.
Speaker 1: They have one where you can get in an argument
Speaker 1: with Stephen Dorff, but they have Me against the Music
Speaker 1: where you can dance with like a Brittany impersonator who's
Speaker 1: on the other side of a wall. She was not
Speaker 1: working the day we were there, and you get to
Speaker 1: be Madonna with the cane and that's when you scan
Speaker 1: the bracelet and it's like now a countdown and then
Speaker 1: it's like you do your dance. I saw Katie from
Speaker 1: the Under Pump Rolls did it um with the cane
Speaker 1: where you get to do it on the other side
Speaker 1: of the so stuff like that. And that was where
Speaker 1: there was like a swing with a fake autumn background,
Speaker 1: which um, I guess that's from me against the music video,
Speaker 1: but it was a great photo, thank you. I thought
Speaker 1: it was a deep cut reference to my favorite Brittney song,
Speaker 1: Autumn Goodbye. There's like some easter eggs. Like the people
Speaker 1: who made it, I think, like Brittany genuinely they would
Speaker 1: have to write, yeah, well it's a marketing from those yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's also like they they said, right generation there
Speaker 1: also probably yeah exactly, and it has like a sense
Speaker 1: of humor, like it's not it is strange. But the
Speaker 1: best part is the Blackout room, the Blackout phase, which
Speaker 1: was like when Brittany got fifty fifty and had sort
Speaker 1: of her personal low point to represent that just like that.
Speaker 1: Erec is also it's people's favorite album and it's the
Speaker 1: best album. It's a chapel and it's like there's no
Speaker 1: pictures of Brittany. You can't even really take a selfie
Speaker 1: in it. But it's like sort of like a Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliette bos Lerman like chapel to Brittany with like
Speaker 1: blackout stained glass windows and like this altar with just
Speaker 1: like the cover of Blackout like a neon rectangle and
Speaker 1: then just like led candles everywhere and like flowers and hearts. Um,
Speaker 1: and that was like where I had a spiritual expa Imagine,
Speaker 1: did you forget you were in a formermart? Yes? I mean,
Speaker 1: And I was like I would stay in here all day,
Speaker 1: you know, if I weren't with a group and moving along, like,
Speaker 1: I would totally just hang out here forever because it's
Speaker 1: like great, it's a great space. And they said they've
Speaker 1: had requests already for people to get married in there.
Speaker 1: I just liked the idea. I was like, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: grace like and it's like a secular space of worship
Speaker 1: for like someone that we love, but also like they
Speaker 1: don't have to be here for us to like worship
Speaker 1: them at this point, it's probably better for everyone if
Speaker 1: they're not. So who else was there when you were there? Like,
Speaker 1: did you see a good mix of ages and stuff?
Speaker 1: Or was there pretty much everyone? It was a little
Speaker 1: people in their twenties and thirties, and um, there was
Speaker 1: a couple there who seemed to be having the most
Speaker 1: fun of anyone because they were like like one of
Speaker 1: them was like looking at this Brittany infinity mirror and
Speaker 1: everyone was like, what's this? And he was like our
Speaker 1: future bathroom and they also told the guide at the
Speaker 1: end that there's apparently like a gay sex club a
Speaker 1: few blocks away, also called the Zone. They were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we heard that. They thought it was funny, like yeah,
Speaker 1: like they seemed to be having the best time, and
Speaker 1: they also were like take had a buddy to take
Speaker 1: photos of each other. And then there were some people
Speaker 1: with camera, people who were like YouTubers I imagine, and
Speaker 1: who were like coming with their own person filming them
Speaker 1: kind of dressed up from the thing. And then there
Speaker 1: was me reporting on this zone, lurking in the shadows
Speaker 1: of the zone. Um, yeah, I had a really good time,
Speaker 1: and um, I know a lot of people who are going.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of weird when you think, when you
Speaker 1: were talking earlier about how the vision of the future
Speaker 1: from the kind of like you know, late nineties or
Speaker 1: mid nineties to late nineties, how everybody was so obsessed
Speaker 1: with thinking about the future, and now everyone is only
Speaker 1: thinking about the past. It seems very dark. It is
Speaker 1: to be explored later, Yeah, I mean exactly, to be
Speaker 1: explored never very much like consciously like a respite from
Speaker 1: the darkness. Well, I mean that's what that's what's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting is when you have these pop up museums,
Speaker 1: there is this kind of inherent sinnis them, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and I find them deeply creepy maybe, and and also
Speaker 1: just so shallow and so so kind of obviously not
Speaker 1: anything physical, you know. It's it's like a very two
Speaker 1: dimensional opiate like yeah, I don't know. It's like everything
Speaker 1: is a respite. Yes, yes, we all need a respite.
Speaker 1: But what if all of culture is now a rescie? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's cool about the Brittany thing is that it's
Speaker 1: a commentary on that maybe I'm reaching. It feels like
Speaker 1: a commentary whether it means who are not because it's
Speaker 1: like a children's museum for adults. That's what they all are.
Speaker 1: That's that's what they all are. But this is like
Speaker 1: about someone who's like in an arrested state of childhood
Speaker 1: in our cultural memory in many ways, and like there
Speaker 1: are no pictures of her now. It's very much like
Speaker 1: like take a journey through her life and like don't
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on right this moment because we
Speaker 1: just want to appreciate. But does also make you be
Speaker 1: like she has such a body of work that like
Speaker 1: she cant higher if she wants to, Like she shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to make anything else. She doesn't get to decide,
Speaker 1: which is the horrible thing. Yeah, I mean I know
Speaker 1: they didn't use that. It's a pop up. It's not
Speaker 1: a museum. It's something using the word museum like a
Speaker 1: lot of places use it. It's an experience. It's an experience. Like.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that like, at some point, if
Speaker 1: there is a future, uh, there should be a Brittany
Speaker 1: Spears museum, um, like in her hometown or something that's
Speaker 1: like a presidential library or something like that. And it's
Speaker 1: weird to think about that, like a presidential library obviously
Speaker 1: in Louisia where she is one. Yeah, I think there
Speaker 1: maybe is one in her hometown. That's kind of like
Speaker 1: like an ad hoc type like enthusiasm, Yeah, like local
Speaker 1: hero type thing. I mean, yeah, it's just like but
Speaker 1: like I would also just want there to be like
Speaker 1: an actually academic and like honest look at the life
Speaker 1: of Brittany and like what she represented and where she
Speaker 1: sat in history and why she was significant. And you know,
Speaker 1: obviously lots of journalists and critics and stuff will write
Speaker 1: about her in that way, but like and have written
Speaker 1: about her in that way. But like when all museums
Speaker 1: are like experiences that are just like these sort of
Speaker 1: worshipful walks down nostalgia lane, it just feels like maybe
Speaker 1: that's all the only way we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to look back on the past is like with rose
Speaker 1: colored glasses or something. I don't know, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think part of it is that it kind of
Speaker 1: also alludes to the fact that there's so much we
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, and that if there were an
Speaker 1: actual museum, there would have to be information about what's
Speaker 1: going on with her now, which is perplexing and not
Speaker 1: going to have challenging So instead they kind of serve
Speaker 1: you something to counteract this like other movement going on. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like, you know, again, this is the thing
Speaker 1: I've had. I haven't had this conversation with many people,
Speaker 1: by the way, where it's like like we've stopped assuming
Speaker 1: that there is going to be a future because I'm
Speaker 1: just like, well, in the future, like maybe we will
Speaker 1: find out what's been going on this whole time, Like
Speaker 1: that will be uncovered in the way that like a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, like a bad example is like
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson or something where it's like somebody is so
Speaker 1: famous and obviously troubled and a lot of it is
Speaker 1: shrouded mystery, and then like maybe after their death is
Speaker 1: when all of that stuff comes out. And not that
Speaker 1: I think that anything that dark is necessarily happening with Brittany,
Speaker 1: although something dark is definitely happening with her, but like
Speaker 1: we are not going to be in the position to
Speaker 1: know about that so long as like she's around. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's interesting that somebody can be so famous
Speaker 1: so she is, and there is so much that we
Speaker 1: don't know about her. That's also why she's like the
Speaker 1: perfect star, because she's like Maryland, You're just like you
Speaker 1: can't really get away with that anymore you start out now,
Speaker 1: I feel like, but there's also something where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't. They would love for someone to be as
Speaker 1: big of a star as Brittany and the way that
Speaker 1: she was a star. And it also is like sort
Speaker 1: of a museum to dead technology because there's like magazine
Speaker 1: covers and like thing, you know, physical CDs as an
Speaker 1: ideas just it it's very nostalgic, but it made me
Speaker 1: feel things. So it's art is art, So speaking of
Speaker 1: spiritual experiences. I have a friend who recently clued me
Speaker 1: into the phenomenon known as sleep casts, which I did
Speaker 1: not know about. I'm sure a lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: probably already know about this. UM The app Headspace has
Speaker 1: what are called sleep casts, and they're not a s
Speaker 1: MR and they're not super narrative, but there is a
Speaker 1: narrative component. They are forty five minute long podcasts intended
Speaker 1: to lull you to sleep. So on the headspace um
Speaker 1: website it's as similar to Bedtime story. Sleep cast take
Speaker 1: you on an audio guided tour of a dreamy environment,
Speaker 1: whether that's a California desert at night or a beautifully
Speaker 1: tranquil lakeside lotch. Sleep casts vary in length from forty
Speaker 1: five to fifty five minutes. Each one begins with a
Speaker 1: wind down, which could be a meditation exercise or even
Speaker 1: a simple breathing technique, and then it's like followed by
Speaker 1: a narrated tour of a sleepy landscape, a sleepy landscape.
Speaker 1: So one of them is called Midnight Launderette and it
Speaker 1: gives you a tour of a nighttime laundromat. There's also
Speaker 1: cat Marina, which bustle in covering the sleep cast. It says,
Speaker 1: it sounds exactly how the name suggests. It's a particularly
Speaker 1: unique highlight. Perfect if you're a fan of boats or
Speaker 1: a fan of cats, even better if you happen to
Speaker 1: be a lover of both. That's what That's what cat marinas.
Speaker 1: So I listened to like, I forget the name because
Speaker 1: they it was not like one of the most unique ones.
Speaker 1: It was available on YouTube. I don't have the headspace
Speaker 1: app um, and I was strangely into it. And I
Speaker 1: guess they're remixed so that if I think, you know,
Speaker 1: they're always kind of like unpredictable, because apparently when something
Speaker 1: becomes predictable or you've done it before, you start anticipating
Speaker 1: in that creates anxiety and then you can't fall asleep.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm kind of super into them, and I
Speaker 1: was like, maybe we should have a nightcall sleep cast.
Speaker 1: I feel like people are going to think we're doing
Speaker 1: spawn right now. Cut Space advertises on a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 1: I know, if they want to advertise here, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was going to make fun of your sleep casts,
Speaker 1: and then I listened to one and I was like, actually,
Speaker 1: can I say though that I would find personally to me,
Speaker 1: it would be stressful not to know what's happened already.
Speaker 1: That's what stops me from falling asleep most of the time.
Speaker 1: Do you want to find out what happened? Like? I
Speaker 1: can't fall asleep like watching a law in order, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have to know who didn't kill it.
Speaker 1: But you have to know how the laundry comes out
Speaker 1: of the midnight launder because then once I know, it's
Speaker 1: relaxing to watch it, which is why I fall asleep.
Speaker 1: To David Fincher's Zodiac, what they need to do is
Speaker 1: just have people come on and tell you about their dreams,
Speaker 1: because that is the most most Do you guys ever
Speaker 1: heard Dion McGregor have we ever talked about him on here?
Speaker 1: He's a guy who made these records in the late
Speaker 1: fifties or early sixties where he talked in his sleep,
Speaker 1: and he apparently was like sleeping on a friend's couch
Speaker 1: who was like, you don't have to pay me in
Speaker 1: exchange for if I can record you talking in your sleep.
Speaker 1: And so it's like recordings, these long recordings of someone
Speaker 1: narrating their dream out loud. It's not relaxing because a
Speaker 1: lot of them are anxiety dreams. It's like now I'm
Speaker 1: in the balloon contest and I'm getting in the balloon.
Speaker 1: But they're super weird. I used to play them on
Speaker 1: my college radio show. Well, we should play them on
Speaker 1: college radio show next maybe next week we'll follow up that.
Speaker 1: My friend Mike got me into it. It's there's just
Speaker 1: like a couple of records of it, but it's one
Speaker 1: of the all time great weird records. What is the
Speaker 1: most is the most boring thing people telling you about
Speaker 1: their dreams, or is one of them that's the most
Speaker 1: And it's really hard to put your finger on why,
Speaker 1: I guess because it has no buring on anything you
Speaker 1: actually need to care about. It's like not when somebody
Speaker 1: telling you a regular story about their life, where it's
Speaker 1: like and what happened next? And what did you think
Speaker 1: about it? What are you going to do about that?
Speaker 1: It's like there's nothing, just like this thing happened and
Speaker 1: it wasn't real. Well, yeah, I feel like it's often
Speaker 1: like someone trying to explain like a run they did
Speaker 1: in a video game, right, and then I got the
Speaker 1: coins and then I didn't have the coins anymore. Weirdly, though,
Speaker 1: watching people do runs on video games is compelling, but
Speaker 1: should we start playing We were talking about maybe playing
Speaker 1: tatris on Twitch sometimes. I please, let's do this, please
Speaker 1: you guys. I got the other day. I was like
Speaker 1: playing it at tattris and I was like, why is
Speaker 1: no one watching me? No one's here. It's so it's
Speaker 1: not real. I need everyone clapping for me. I take
Speaker 1: a clue shirt please. I've been practicing, Dr Mario. We
Speaker 1: are up to date on the games of oh No,
Speaker 1: because also now the next generation my son is has
Speaker 1: started the Legend of Zelda. And but much like the
Speaker 1: difference between watching someone play the Legend of Zelda, which
Speaker 1: is a very beautiful game, when someone is telling you
Speaker 1: that they found an apple and a piece of fish
Speaker 1: and how they cooked the apple and the fish to
Speaker 1: regain their it's just like, wow, that's a sleep cast.
Speaker 1: That is a sleep cast. There, I have to say,
Speaker 1: I find while I appreciate the idea and I love
Speaker 1: the absurdity of stuff like what is it Kitty Marina,
Speaker 1: Cat Marina, Cat Cat Marina, I am a little bit
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just a hyper paranoid mode because of what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about in our next segment, but like,
Speaker 1: I do feel kind of weird about letting somebody into
Speaker 1: my head in that before I fall asleep. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does feel like it could easily tilt over into it.
Speaker 1: It also feels like to me, any streaming thing it
Speaker 1: could just like who knows what it goes to next?
Speaker 1: You know, like you can't that's why you can't fall
Speaker 1: asleep to YouTube. I like that this is going in
Speaker 1: a conspiracy direction though, too, because when I was listening
Speaker 1: to it, it starts off like describing this environment, but
Speaker 1: then it leads you through so breathing and relaxation exercises,
Speaker 1: and it was occurring to me. I was like, what
Speaker 1: if you were listening to something like this and they
Speaker 1: were like, now take a deep breath and hold, hold, hold,
Speaker 1: and then people. I was like, there's my movie right
Speaker 1: there where it's like someone in meditation now just makes
Speaker 1: people die. But Bean like, don't don't breathe, don't break.
Speaker 1: SMR is going to be a horb It will be,
Speaker 1: it will, it will come out. We said it here.
Speaker 1: Copyright the copy right nightcall copyright if you say copyright,
Speaker 1: it's coffee right w G A registration right now. No,
Speaker 1: I've had this idea. It's just like because you know,
Speaker 1: it's like frequencies, and you know they make you tinkle,
Speaker 1: and what if one made you tingle so much that
Speaker 1: your brain exploded. Such a good idea about a lot
Speaker 1: of these things is like the way to fall asleep
Speaker 1: is to have your phone be off. Well, isn't your
Speaker 1: phone obviously off when you're lying in bed trying to
Speaker 1: go to sleep? Yeah, but not if you're playing Kenny
Speaker 1: Marina Cat Marine that well no, but I would like
Speaker 1: I put it on airplane motif. I'm thinking about it
Speaker 1: because I don't like it when it lights up in
Speaker 1: the middle. I plug mine in in a different room,
Speaker 1: so that's basically off. Yeah, well that's smart, um like
Speaker 1: to sometimes at least sometimes like doesn't a meditation app
Speaker 1: seems sort of counterproductive because like to keeping you plugged in,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't. You shouldn't need an app to meditate. You
Speaker 1: should your brain as the app. Well, have you guys
Speaker 1: ever tried the breathing thing? That's like, I'm getting it wrong,
Speaker 1: So don't do this because you'll you'll probably die like
Speaker 1: I just suggested. But it's like a four three five
Speaker 1: kind of thing where you breathe you inhale for a
Speaker 1: certain number of counts, hold it for a certain number
Speaker 1: of counts exhale, and if you do it a certain
Speaker 1: number of times, Apparently most people can fall asleep after
Speaker 1: doing that. It didn't work for me, but I think
Speaker 1: I was probably doing it wrong. No, but I've had
Speaker 1: a therapist like do something like that. I think it's
Speaker 1: like cognitive therapy. You do that to calm down. But
Speaker 1: I don't think cognitive therapy. I can never remember what
Speaker 1: it is. Right is well, we can have a whole
Speaker 1: other discussion. Um, this is weird but unrelated, but like
Speaker 1: I've been having a lot of vertigo recently and there's
Speaker 1: like this this feels very like also like could become
Speaker 1: a horror movie. There's a series of maneuvers called vertigo, yeah,
Speaker 1: taken unfortunately vertigo to unrelated vertigo too cool and unrelated
Speaker 1: covert it. But there's a series of maneuvers you do
Speaker 1: if you have vertigo called the uply maneuvers. Oh I
Speaker 1: know about that, Yeah, And it's very it's very like
Speaker 1: the movements in UM a way. Like it's it's like
Speaker 1: this thing where you turn your head one way and
Speaker 1: then you slam your head. You like fall backwards onto
Speaker 1: the bed really fast, and then you have to like
Speaker 1: do you turn over to the side, and then you
Speaker 1: quickly turn over to the other side. And I'm not
Speaker 1: on the mic because I'm trying to do it. But
Speaker 1: it's like it feels sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't,
Speaker 1: and it feels like what if this is just a
Speaker 1: thing to put my brain in just the right position
Speaker 1: in my bread my head? That too hard? It too hard,
Speaker 1: afite too hard, so hard, I think anything that takes
Speaker 1: your mind off things. Has anyone else ever had water
Speaker 1: port kind of soft water boarded for hiccups? Oh? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Well do you ever you drink up out of the
Speaker 1: wrong side of the cup? Up side? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: such like it's such a weird thing to do to yourself. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing that I was someone sometimes hold your pinky.
Speaker 1: You squeeze your pinky really hard until it's unbearable, and
Speaker 1: then they were like, it's better if you do it
Speaker 1: to someone else. So for why someone have Piccups'd be
Speaker 1: like your pinky, Like, oh, we should like what are
Speaker 1: you doing? We should do a series on like Old
Speaker 1: wives tales? We should yeah, because yeah, because there's so
Speaker 1: many things that are just kind of pseudoscience that are
Speaker 1: just in the ether of like, we don't know how
Speaker 1: to stop the hiccups. Well, speaking about things we don't know,
Speaker 1: we should take a break and then come back with
Speaker 1: a vintage story, mr Story. We are back. So we
Speaker 1: wanted to kick off our month of spooky love, unconventional
Speaker 1: love stories, strange romance kind of stuff by revisiting the
Speaker 1: Golden Suicides, which we all read the Vanity Fair feature
Speaker 1: by Nancy Joe's sales from two thousand seven. Nancy Joe,
Speaker 1: Nancy Joe, do the whole thing. Um this is about
Speaker 1: Teresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, a couple who both committed
Speaker 1: suicide within ten days of each other, uh, following some
Speaker 1: kind of they are very two different stories at play here,
Speaker 1: a kind of conjunct melt down that may or may
Speaker 1: not have had something to do with scientology. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned it when we were talking to our friend
Speaker 1: Lily Simonson about um back because of his recent scientology apostasy,
Speaker 1: which this is one of several sources that proves that
Speaker 1: what he said was not true, which was what he
Speaker 1: said was that I never said I was a scientologist
Speaker 1: and I never would have said that. Um, and in
Speaker 1: this he is. UM. I don't I can't tell if
Speaker 1: this is something from another source that she's citing in
Speaker 1: it or something that she like she interviewed him for
Speaker 1: this story. I think I think he this was directly
Speaker 1: to Nancy Joe okay, because part of it is that
Speaker 1: they the couple was working with him and um, and
Speaker 1: he was in They allegedly said they were getting him
Speaker 1: out of the church, and he was like, no, that's
Speaker 1: never true. So, UM, that was sort of what we're
Speaker 1: minded of us of this story. Uh, it's one of
Speaker 1: the most haunting. It's really upsetting. It's a very very
Speaker 1: upsetting feature. Um, it's a very upsetting story because they
Speaker 1: were both super talented on the rise. Um, beautiful, super
Speaker 1: in love, only had wonderful things to say about each other.
Speaker 1: And uh, this was like an all time Vanity Fair story.
Speaker 1: It really was. Um. Do you remember reading it when
Speaker 1: it first came out? Oh? Yeah, and I remember. I
Speaker 1: mean speaking of spooky love. One of the things that
Speaker 1: they were known for was that they did the imagery
Speaker 1: for Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Dunk Gloves and the cover
Speaker 1: of Becks Sea change. Yeah, so a couple of the
Speaker 1: the two of the best things to come out of
Speaker 1: the two thousands. Um, and that she was involved in
Speaker 1: making educational seed roles. Well, she was like this, she
Speaker 1: was kind of reinventing new media a little bit. Like
Speaker 1: she just seemed very kind of forward thinking. She feels like,
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't mention it, but just because she
Speaker 1: was in New York in that time period and like
Speaker 1: working in tech, I just like I meant, they're like
Speaker 1: pseudo people, like people who are hanging out it we
Speaker 1: live in public totally. I was totally thinking that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like the Douglas Copeland micro surf generation of people
Speaker 1: that made money on the first wave of tech, like
Speaker 1: trying to make tech into like, oh, bohemian things as
Speaker 1: opposed to what it ended up. Right, Um, studo was
Speaker 1: very ahead of its time. Though. Yeah, I've been really
Speaker 1: compelled to rewatch that movie. It's an amazing movie. We
Speaker 1: Live in Public. I love it. Probably have we done
Speaker 1: one about it? I don't think we've mentioned it. I
Speaker 1: did a jack am about it. Actually. Last Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: Johnny and I went on together to talk about We
Speaker 1: Live in Public because we thought that a couple doing
Speaker 1: a morning show together every day. It was kind of
Speaker 1: we live in public key industry, watched dig same okay, wild.
Speaker 1: We should do like a late nineties or early two
Speaker 1: thousand's march. Maybe, oh yeah, let's do let's do time
Speaker 1: hopping spring and we'll just skip around fondom leap. We
Speaker 1: could do like Y two K or something. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we should give some background in case anybody isn't familiar with,
Speaker 1: like the kind of trajectory of what happened. We should
Speaker 1: run through this story. So in very vanity fair style,
Speaker 1: we're introduced to this couple who just seemed to have
Speaker 1: it all. They're gorgeous and brilliant, and Teresa is a
Speaker 1: she she designs. She's like, UM doing CD ROMs, educational
Speaker 1: CD ROMs, games, that kind of stuff. Jeremy is an artist.
Speaker 1: Um also has a blog Yes with the Staircase, Yes
Speaker 1: early yeah Um. And they meet kind of through the
Speaker 1: d C punk scene and then later hanging out in
Speaker 1: New York. So it's like very cool nine and these
Speaker 1: hipster scenster type stuff. But things started to go wrong
Speaker 1: when they moved to l A and that was they
Speaker 1: were living in a venice bungalow, and they had a
Speaker 1: bunch of kind of also cool neighbors, and at some
Speaker 1: point it seemed as though they both got tremendously paranoid.
Speaker 1: UM people said that Theresa would be hanging out in
Speaker 1: the alley kind of like hooting and hollering. They would
Speaker 1: um encounter their neighbors and say, like, we need you
Speaker 1: to take a loyalty oath to us and promise us
Speaker 1: that you won't join the Church of Scientology, and promise
Speaker 1: us you're not already in there. And these people wanted
Speaker 1: to work with Jeremy and Teresa because they were so
Speaker 1: exciting and like they were visionaries, so they just kind
Speaker 1: of went along with it. But then eventually this turned
Speaker 1: into harassment. They said that, you know, they seemed like
Speaker 1: they were either very mentally ill or maybe on drugs,
Speaker 1: or they didn't, you know, know what was going on there,
Speaker 1: and they started with a lot of paranoia about Scientology,
Speaker 1: seemingly branching off from their involvement with Beck because Um
Speaker 1: Teresa had a film that she was trying to get
Speaker 1: made that she was trying to get back to be
Speaker 1: signed onto star in, and then he ended up back
Speaker 1: head out and it kind of made the entire project collapse,
Speaker 1: or at least was one of the factors that made
Speaker 1: her film kind of stall out. And so I think
Speaker 1: she she was very discouraged by that. The way that
Speaker 1: the story goes is it like I feel like the
Speaker 1: film is sort of the thing that her getting involved
Speaker 1: in the film industry was sort of like one of
Speaker 1: the things that started to make everything go sideways. That
Speaker 1: is also the point where sort of the narrative convergent diverges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: diverges were the narrative diverges into two like possible equal
Speaker 1: paths where either they were being stocked by a cult
Speaker 1: and they became incredibly paranoid and sort of lost her
Speaker 1: minds together, um or they had a serious drug problem. Well. Also,
Speaker 1: though what's interesting about Back had said, I didn't really
Speaker 1: know them that while I met them like one or
Speaker 1: two times, and they I guess I read the script eventually.
Speaker 1: I was never in talks to be in it. But
Speaker 1: Teresa was publishing pictures I think on her blog of
Speaker 1: them all hanging out with them all hanging out on
Speaker 1: the beach, and which seemed to kind of go against
Speaker 1: what Back had said, And it could be I mean,
Speaker 1: it's totally reasonable that maybe back had been just trying
Speaker 1: to be nice and got the sense that they were
Speaker 1: kind of a little fringy, and the questions did they
Speaker 1: fall into scientology at some point and that's how they met? See,
Speaker 1: this is how I understood this story. But when I
Speaker 1: first read it when it came out, I understood it
Speaker 1: as like they probably got involved to scientology and then
Speaker 1: tried to get out. Well, it's also it's an interesting
Speaker 1: complicated thing because one of the way scientology operates is
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are these sort of like
Speaker 1: pseudo bohemians, and especially at that time in that scene
Speaker 1: in l A, there were a lot of people that
Speaker 1: were scientologists, but also some people who weren't all making
Speaker 1: art and doing stuff together. So it seems very likely
Speaker 1: that they got involved in the scene there. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is all like I mean, people have you know,
Speaker 1: there had been some real reporting about scientology at this point,
Speaker 1: but I think this, I would say, this is like
Speaker 1: well before scientology and like the abuses and all all
Speaker 1: of the real dirty laundry, Scientology was really out there
Speaker 1: for like public consumption or like it was commonplace knowledge.
Speaker 1: That's also why I think so. She She claimed that
Speaker 1: she was being stalked by scientologists, the phone ord ring
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, there were people hanging
Speaker 1: out outside her house. You know, there was a dead
Speaker 1: cat on the roof. And what's interesting is, I think
Speaker 1: at a certain point um there was a real kind
Speaker 1: of like reversal of how people thought about scientology. For
Speaker 1: a while, it was there were kind of whispers about
Speaker 1: harassment and things like that, but only much later than
Speaker 1: their suicides was this kind of acknowledged as being something
Speaker 1: that the church actually does. So in a way, it
Speaker 1: kind of lends legitimacy to the idea that maybe she
Speaker 1: was being harassed. But if you're being harassed a little bit,
Speaker 1: it's also easy to see how if you're a little unstable,
Speaker 1: you can start to see everything. It's also possible again
Speaker 1: that if they were being harassed, and maybe they were
Speaker 1: also smoking crystal meth, which is what some people alleged
Speaker 1: was going on, because they were like covering the windows,
Speaker 1: and they were drinking. He was drinking at work, she
Speaker 1: had She was drinking bottles of shampon. They possibly had
Speaker 1: addiction issues that could have been exacerbated by actually being stocked.
Speaker 1: And then paranoia just makes you feel like whether you
Speaker 1: are being stocked or not, you're always feeling like you are.
Speaker 1: But I always thought that it was just drugs until
Speaker 1: right now, and the detail about the dead cat just
Speaker 1: made me rethink everything, right because that story just came
Speaker 1: out about um the guy from the Mars Volta who
Speaker 1: is married to one of Danny Masterson's accusers, said that
Speaker 1: their dog was just poisoned. Yes, oh yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like there have been a few poisonings killing stuff like
Speaker 1: because it wasn't their cat though I don't think it was,
Speaker 1: but it seems like that's a tactic, is poison I
Speaker 1: think maybe going clear or maybe on the Operation Clan
Speaker 1: Bake blog or something there there was a mention of something.
Speaker 1: I think it happened in St. Petersburg or at clear
Speaker 1: Water whatever. That it's like a thing that is definitely right.
Speaker 1: And again it's like maybe if they signed up for
Speaker 1: some list or something like that doesn't mean that like
Speaker 1: Back was like, you know, send the hounds after them. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think Back had anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: I think that, but I think that Back maybe was
Speaker 1: friendlier with them than he later claimed. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: also kind of like or was it just like Hollywood bullshit. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's funny that that you're more convinced
Speaker 1: it with Scientology this time around, because I was certainly
Speaker 1: convinced it with scientology when I first read it, and
Speaker 1: that was like very chilling to me. I mean that
Speaker 1: was one of the first things I read where I
Speaker 1: was like, holy sh it, I'm never going to step
Speaker 1: set foot in a Scientology building, never get which not
Speaker 1: that I have changed my mind all about that, but
Speaker 1: I think reading it this time, so many of the
Speaker 1: patterns and like and stuff that happened, like the same
Speaker 1: back is going to be in your movie, which could
Speaker 1: be like stretched she in a truth, Like you met
Speaker 1: him once, you hung out once at a party, you
Speaker 1: hung out a couple of times, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be my movie and just say that so
Speaker 1: you can try to get like, you know, hype going
Speaker 1: for your film and try to get it made like that.
Speaker 1: All that all tracks is like a very common kind
Speaker 1: of delusion slash white lie you can tell to try
Speaker 1: to get yourself ahead, and feels like this very gen
Speaker 1: x thing of like they had this great success in
Speaker 1: New York and they were this golden couple in New
Speaker 1: York and then they moved to Los Angeles and they
Speaker 1: couldn't like replicate that cloud, so they just kind of
Speaker 1: like and she didn't succeed immediately at trying to get
Speaker 1: him film made because she was just like in or
Speaker 1: just they were like, oh, everyone's beautiful and talented, so
Speaker 1: like get in line. But also she in the feature
Speaker 1: they mentioned that she had published an interview that she
Speaker 1: had with Um the Priest who was married to Nancy
Speaker 1: Joe Sales Frank Morales, and it was about MK Ultra
Speaker 1: and Operation Chaos and and kind of started off with
Speaker 1: real mind control things, but then she kind of segued
Speaker 1: and was like, what if Dick Cheney actually is Satan?
Speaker 1: Like what if that's well, it's hard to It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell though, because it could be kind of a
Speaker 1: like flip whatever this. Yeah, because I think that the
Speaker 1: track they go down, which seems to get kicked off
Speaker 1: by the scientology thing and then go into like documented
Speaker 1: but still like conspiracy theorist type material like mk Ultra
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and then go into Alex Jones
Speaker 1: and nine eleven Truthers and stuff like that, that all
Speaker 1: feels like very prescient of like what it's like to
Speaker 1: be on the Internet now, except this is all like
Speaker 1: pre social media really like in a real way. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like they died in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: I think being online is a mental like a mental
Speaker 1: illness that people like we joked about internet addiction always,
Speaker 1: you know, like there was a diagnosis for internet addiction,
Speaker 1: but we all have it, right, the idea that we're
Speaker 1: all addicted to it in a way that is like cigarettes,
Speaker 1: where it's like not good for you. It's compulsive. The
Speaker 1: more you do it, it makes you feel bad. But
Speaker 1: if you like stop doing it, you like freak out
Speaker 1: about doing it again, unless you stop for an extended
Speaker 1: period of time and then you stop needing it. Well,
Speaker 1: it also kind of breaks your ability to be able
Speaker 1: to infer what's sincere and what it performed. The irony poisoning,
Speaker 1: if from like Twitter, is just like one of the
Speaker 1: most I've seen. That's more so than people losing their
Speaker 1: minds online from like for paranoid reasons, Like the irony
Speaker 1: poisoning is just like one of the reasons I can't
Speaker 1: actually read Twitter that much anymore. It's really hard to like,
Speaker 1: I mean, once you start going down right like that
Speaker 1: path because I do also feel like I made fun
Speaker 1: of like all the Pizza Gate stuff obviously, but then
Speaker 1: like the Epstein stuff is like made a lot of
Speaker 1: people into Pizza Gate on the other side of the
Speaker 1: fence because there is a lot of crazy stuff about
Speaker 1: the government. Well. It's also some of the things with
Speaker 1: m the Duncan and Blake story that are interesting is
Speaker 1: they do seem self aware. I mean, like, so Blake
Speaker 1: did the Winchester trilogy obviously about someone losing their mind,
Speaker 1: and in a way it's like so much of their
Speaker 1: entire story it's I don't want to say it felt performative,
Speaker 1: because obviously taking your life is not performative, but it
Speaker 1: was there dramatic people and dramatic, but the people it's
Speaker 1: just buying into like living this kind of life that
Speaker 1: you you feel is I mean, like we live in
Speaker 1: public where you feel like you're being like you're important
Speaker 1: and you're putting out important work, and then you yourself
Speaker 1: are an important work and you're a target, right, But
Speaker 1: then you also are kind of tying it in with
Speaker 1: things like interviewing someone on your blog about conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: while you deeply believe in a conspiracy theory, but you're
Speaker 1: clearly kind of aware, like we're not really like but
Speaker 1: then you know, there's this weird blurred line where you
Speaker 1: can really easily understand how someone right, Like at what
Speaker 1: point does obsession just like take over? You know, And
Speaker 1: a lot of high functioning people and smart people also
Speaker 1: have mental illnesses and a lot of Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel especially like if if you're a high functioning
Speaker 1: smart person and you have been told that you are
Speaker 1: a high functioning and smart person your entire life, then
Speaker 1: you are more inclined to think that you are can
Speaker 1: be let in on some kind of information that not
Speaker 1: everybody else's let it like you you are you are
Speaker 1: more well informed about something and gen x, there's like
Speaker 1: this performative thing of like, but also you can't show
Speaker 1: how bad you want it. You have to like pretend
Speaker 1: to be too cool to well. I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it made them mad. I think instead of
Speaker 1: making them feel humbled, it made them mad. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people do like come to Los
Speaker 1: Angeles with like a big expectation of like what will
Speaker 1: happen there and then are humbled by the reality. I
Speaker 1: think that's true about everywhere. I agree, But I mean
Speaker 1: I think they moved to New York and they moved
Speaker 1: into this like cool like artists spot whatever. Its five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month. They weren't making money and like
Speaker 1: the mid odds it was. And I think when people
Speaker 1: are having success, it's like they do sometimes feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're like blessed, you know, we're especially important people. But
Speaker 1: those are the people also that think they get abducted
Speaker 1: by aliens, as we saw in communions, by at least
Speaker 1: driver a kind of like wanting to be exceptional that
Speaker 1: becomes a kind of like psychopathy. Yeah, did you guys
Speaker 1: find them to be a romantic couple at least before
Speaker 1: things went south? Or well there's something romantic about like
Speaker 1: going crazy together? Yes? And they were so they seemed
Speaker 1: so completely committed to each other. They were together for
Speaker 1: twelve years. They obviously moved a bunch of times, their
Speaker 1: careers evolved, and they they only ever had wonderful things
Speaker 1: to say about each other. They seemed really creatively supportive.
Speaker 1: They were each other's hype men. But maybe that was
Speaker 1: actually sort of what doomed them, because if they had
Speaker 1: had more outside influence, if they hadn't just had each
Speaker 1: other to be like, this is what's happening. You're right,
Speaker 1: maybe they were confirming each other's paranoia. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's that detail like the last night that uh,
Speaker 1: like the last night that Teresa was alive. They were
Speaker 1: in Hollywood for a meeting with George Pelicanos because they
Speaker 1: were working on a an adaptation of a book of his.
Speaker 1: And then like they were last seen by the people
Speaker 1: that they were dinner with, like still holding hands while
Speaker 1: they were walking across the street back to their car.
Speaker 1: It's just like after like a Hollywood meeting, it's like
Speaker 1: a married couple and nearly and you like it's still
Speaker 1: just like holding hands all the time. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like very it's like very um yeah. And then
Speaker 1: like ironically, like this did make their I p important
Speaker 1: to somebody, you know, And there was going to be
Speaker 1: a movie at one point written by Bretty Snellis, although
Speaker 1: it got Can you imagine I would be so mad
Speaker 1: if I if my life if it's a Bretty Snellis
Speaker 1: because yeah, no way, Yeah, I feel like it's possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's somebody with more empathy yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's also it is like we don't know that
Speaker 1: much about them as interiors, which is what's interesting. It's
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of information about them. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of photos of them. She has an entire blog,
Speaker 1: and I definitely remember looking at her in the article
Speaker 1: and having that creepy failing of reading a dead person's blog,
Speaker 1: you know where you're like that so many people will
Speaker 1: get to enjoy now that everyone has a blog is
Speaker 1: a blog graveyard. But it is like that's one of
Speaker 1: those things where you're like should I be doing this?
Speaker 1: Like this is bad? Yeah, Like I read the Cecil
Speaker 1: Hotel girls. Yeah, just was like this is making me
Speaker 1: feel gross. But also it gives them like this humanity
Speaker 1: if you're like, here's them alive person not just like
Speaker 1: I think it's not. I don't think that it's like
Speaker 1: a moral to read like obviously, like you put something
Speaker 1: down out on in a public form, and like you
Speaker 1: do that for a reason because you want people to
Speaker 1: read your words, I mean generally, and I think like
Speaker 1: there is some something to be gained by. It's just
Speaker 1: sad because you're always like they feel alive and they're
Speaker 1: posting still. Well, there's also I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I died under mysterious circumstances, I don't think there
Speaker 1: would be like clues on my tumbler. But what if
Speaker 1: you left a series of tapes sort of you know,
Speaker 1: a treasure hunt? Uh yeah, yeah, Well, if you have
Speaker 1: any favorite tragic romances, weird romances, unusual romances, unusual romances,
Speaker 1: strange love triangle, yeah, we're gonna be talking about them
Speaker 1: all month long, so share your thoughts with us. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email at Night Called podcast at
Speaker 1: email dot com or give us a night call at
Speaker 1: one to four oh four six night. You can also
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Speaker 1: sorts of fun stuff like our newsletter. Our bonus episodes
Speaker 1: are mixed tapes, so check it out and we'll be
Speaker 1: back next week. Thanks for listening with more Spooky Love.
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