Speaker 1: It's two thirty four am in the center of the
Speaker 1: world and you're listening to Night Call. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: tonight Call, a call in show for our dystopian reality
Speaker 1: I am Emily Oshida. I am in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: with me on the other line as always are Mom
Speaker 1: and Lambert and Tess Lynch. Today we will be joined
Speaker 1: by our special guest, Nicki Mayer. We'll be talking about
Speaker 1: the vow. We're gonna be talking about some voting stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh and surprisingly shockingly more pyramids. The pyramids are coming
Speaker 1: out the wazoo. Everybody's got a pyramid, so uh. But
Speaker 1: first we're going to take a night call. Hi, Night Call.
Speaker 1: I have a prediction. I think that Katherine Oxenberg, the
Speaker 1: former Dallas actress and current Nexium mom warrior, is going
Speaker 1: to be asked as a real housewife of Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: I just feels like she has the right category. I mean,
Speaker 1: she looks great, so I'm wondering if we will see
Speaker 1: that in Thanks by well, great question. We are joined
Speaker 1: to answer this question by our friend Nicki Mayard, who
Speaker 1: is a writer for Adult Swims, Laser Wolf and Netflix
Speaker 1: Enter Galactic Nikki. Welcome, Hi, Hi, This question is great.
Speaker 1: Has this occurred to you at all? No, But I
Speaker 1: have a really weird relationship with the Real Housewives franchise.
Speaker 1: I really love it, but I don't over the last
Speaker 1: few years, I don't really watch TV as well anymore,
Speaker 1: but my whole timeline does so I know things without
Speaker 1: having to watch. It's kind of like my relationship with
Speaker 1: Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Yes, I'm like, I watched
Speaker 1: enough seasons that now I can just watch other people
Speaker 1: talk about seasons. You can keep up by osmosis. It's
Speaker 1: a multi platform experience. I'm planning like a mega binge
Speaker 1: watch of like all of them if I can, like
Speaker 1: in the deep winter, in the deep Covid winter, when
Speaker 1: my brain is done. I got back into Beverly Hills recently.
Speaker 1: I had the same thought. So they're messy. I like them.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get into Potomac. Oh, Potomac is the
Speaker 1: best because I got into them last season because I
Speaker 1: was like, yes anything that's like a lot of black
Speaker 1: women are like fine. Potomac is amazing because they still
Speaker 1: let their real lives be plot lines on the show,
Speaker 1: where on on Beverly Hills, they like keep it. They
Speaker 1: have to have like fake plot lines for the show
Speaker 1: and then if something like something real did happen this
Speaker 1: season seemingly, which was a good season where Denise Richard's
Speaker 1: uh may a sexy gay affair with Brandy Glanville. But
Speaker 1: the main reason I think Katherine Oxenberg couldn't be on
Speaker 1: Real house Lives of Beverly Hills that they all live
Speaker 1: in the valley now and Malibu and it's too far.
Speaker 1: She's just a real housewife of Malibua. But not to
Speaker 1: make this too much like the Californians, but getting from
Speaker 1: the from the West Valley to Malibu is actually not
Speaker 1: a huge schlap. I mean, let's be honest. They are
Speaker 1: closer together than like Hollywood, and Malibu is like an
Speaker 1: hour and a half away from where I would watch
Speaker 1: The Real Housewives of Malibu if they wanted to do
Speaker 1: a second l a franchise. Wasn't Yolande At some point
Speaker 1: Yolanda was a Malibu and Yolanda is just like Catherine Oxenburg. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the same genre of women. I feel like Cather
Speaker 1: is also a royalty, right, so I'm imagining like she's
Speaker 1: got that European kind of Genia favorite. I watched. I
Speaker 1: watched with the watched with the subtitles on, and when
Speaker 1: she's talking to her mom, it's just says princess, and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, Princess, Nikki. I was going to ask you.
Speaker 1: We were talking before we started recording about whether or
Speaker 1: not we have been able to actually watch every episode
Speaker 1: of the VOW so far. Have you watched every episode?
Speaker 1: I've watched every episode. It's eight, right, the finality hasn't
Speaker 1: happened yet, right, Yeah, I watched every episode. We're all
Speaker 1: in here on the VOWE, even though it is the
Speaker 1: pacing of the VOW is so incredibly slow. I am
Speaker 1: all in. I will say I'm not up to date,
Speaker 1: but I don't mind being spoiled because I think, as
Speaker 1: we'll discuss the dissemb like the the distribution of information
Speaker 1: that the VOW is is uh you know doing, is
Speaker 1: very manipulative. So I don't mind like being spoiled. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. So on the most recent episode, episode eight,
Speaker 1: to spoil you, Emily, all of a sudden, they like
Speaker 1: revealed all the real stuff that they haven't been showing
Speaker 1: the entire show about Keith just being a straight up
Speaker 1: men's rights activists. Yeah, he's literally a living mentalist's disgusting.
Speaker 1: It's also just like I was kind d of saying
Speaker 1: that I liked the show even though it is edited,
Speaker 1: super weird and the information is laid out in a
Speaker 1: super strange way, Like they have never given us a
Speaker 1: bio of Keith Ranieri. Even though we're eight episodes into
Speaker 1: the show. We don't know like what his childhood was like,
Speaker 1: which seems relevant for well, wasn't it he was a
Speaker 1: judo champion at age eleven or something. We hear what
Speaker 1: he tells people in next year hatched out of an
Speaker 1: egg and was immediately good at judo. That is his biography,
Speaker 1: long as you called it like, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the Last Dance. Be similar to the Last Dance where
Speaker 1: it's like you're just it's like like it was birthed,
Speaker 1: it was meant to be destined. That's that's like I
Speaker 1: feel like Keith Vaneery like became he was born with
Speaker 1: his barrel chest and rounded shoulders. No, it was like
Speaker 1: super It's just like the Last Dance because it's edited,
Speaker 1: the timeline makes no sense and they keep jumping around
Speaker 1: back in time, so you're like, wait, I thought we
Speaker 1: were up to this and then they're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: now we're back at the beginning of doss or whatever.
Speaker 1: It just is very confusing, but maybe that is to
Speaker 1: emulate the feeling of being an occult. I don't know.
Speaker 1: The first time that I noticed this, it wasn't with
Speaker 1: anything so um, I don't know, Damnan or anything. It
Speaker 1: was just the omission of the fact that, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: Sarah Edmondson that she was married and was like married
Speaker 1: within Nexium and had a partner in Nexium and none
Speaker 1: of that. Like we spent maybe two episodes with her
Speaker 1: before we learned that, which it's not like crucial information,
Speaker 1: but it really changes the way that you think of
Speaker 1: her within the organization, like being married to somebody within it,
Speaker 1: like at an all next cum ceremony. Like up until
Speaker 1: that point, it felt like, oh, she's just like trying
Speaker 1: out this thing and she's on an adventure and she's
Speaker 1: discovering herself. But it's like, no, this was like you
Speaker 1: were super installed at this point. It wasn't like and
Speaker 1: you were, you know, opening centers and stuff. This person
Speaker 1: everybody making this documentary was so deep and nexing um
Speaker 1: is what you find out eventually. Yeah, Nikki, you had
Speaker 1: some good thoughts just about the cult in general. I
Speaker 1: think I think, like what so when I first started
Speaker 1: watching it, Okay, the first thing I didn't like was
Speaker 1: how they made it seem like Sarah and Mark wereth thing.
Speaker 1: And then they were like, oh wait, you guys were
Speaker 1: married to separate people, and I was like, why did
Speaker 1: we started this way to go this way? I didn't
Speaker 1: need the weird fake relationship for an episode. And then
Speaker 1: they're like, we're just friends, and I was like, I questioned,
Speaker 1: Like that whole framing made me feel really weird. And
Speaker 1: then on top of that, like you're moving through it
Speaker 1: and you're like they're not really telling you where they
Speaker 1: come from either. So like with the bio, the lack
Speaker 1: of bio of Keith Reneering, you don't have a bio
Speaker 1: on any of these people, I don't know where they're from.
Speaker 1: I don't know what if they're really I'm assuming all
Speaker 1: of them are rich. I just am because I'm looking
Speaker 1: around at their houses and I'm like, and their ability
Speaker 1: to travel and yeah, and it's like like it was
Speaker 1: nothing like everyone was like I went to all but
Speaker 1: I was like, you just packed up, like no questions asked.
Speaker 1: So I I'm like, there's a lot of like, um,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's like a very tight framework and I'm
Speaker 1: like addicted to it because of that, but also like
Speaker 1: the hell are all of you? Yeah? I mean Mark,
Speaker 1: I feel like we get the most background on But
Speaker 1: it's also because I mean you can't really talk about
Speaker 1: Mark without talking about what the bleek doing now, so
Speaker 1: we you know, and then you're like, Okay, he has
Speaker 1: money because he is a filmmaker and had this, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of pretty successful movies and the pre Q
Speaker 1: and on Zone. But yeah, like I but other than that,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh I was an actress. It's like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like how does she have that? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying, Like where did you come from?
Speaker 1: Like are you like a trust fund person who needed
Speaker 1: something to do and went to l A and try
Speaker 1: to be an actress? Are you from the Midwest and
Speaker 1: you really worked your way over there? So that those
Speaker 1: things to me make a difference in how I'm understanding
Speaker 1: how you came to uh executive success program? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I have my ideas and
Speaker 1: also like I didn't feel the funny thing is in
Speaker 1: the beginning, I noticed that I didn't feel like anyone
Speaker 1: was particularly dumb, whereas like where I'm obsessed with cult
Speaker 1: stuff because I'm always like how and I always said
Speaker 1: how like I'm always how from the Keith perspective, always
Speaker 1: like how do you get people to just hang onto
Speaker 1: your every word? And but when I thought about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, when they first started it, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. This is like a like one thousand
Speaker 1: of those self improvement classes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I and like I could see how they got
Speaker 1: into it like it was. I wasn't like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is weird. You went out of your way and started
Speaker 1: dressing and alread and moved into some weird plane in Oregon,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I'm like, oh, this sounds like you
Speaker 1: were taking some classes to try to get yourself together.
Speaker 1: But like the Sashes, when we get to the Sashes,
Speaker 1: nobody was like, is there a dweeb in charge? He
Speaker 1: was acting class Like we We talked on the podcast
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago about how the in the beginning,
Speaker 1: in the first two episodes or so, it really looked
Speaker 1: exactly like any kind of acting class or like a
Speaker 1: really intense writer's group, and so you can see how
Speaker 1: it would appeal to people in the entertainment industry. But
Speaker 1: the sashes, it's true that when it's really the juxtaposition
Speaker 1: of the visuals, you know, of them wearing the sashes
Speaker 1: and them doing these strange presentations and stuff, and it's
Speaker 1: you juxtaposed that with what's supposedly the basis of this organization,
Speaker 1: and you're like, there's a really big disconnect here. You
Speaker 1: guys are acting pretty cuckoo, and they act like it's
Speaker 1: nothing when they started calling him vanguard. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that made you susceptible to a cult.
Speaker 1: I need a little more background about who you are
Speaker 1: to help me understand why you heard the word vanguard
Speaker 1: and you weren't. Like. I think there's a group vibe
Speaker 1: thing though, and I think that's the thing that that
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the cult thing in general. But I
Speaker 1: think that's also something that a lot of these people
Speaker 1: shares that like they wanted to be, like in a club.
Speaker 1: They wanted to And so it's like, if if everybody
Speaker 1: else is saying normal to Colus guy, Vanguard, it's normal
Speaker 1: to wear a sash like you want to be you
Speaker 1: want to be accepted by this club. And if you say,
Speaker 1: L O L what's the sash business, then you might
Speaker 1: not get to, you know, go to the volleyball. It
Speaker 1: feels like they really they lay it on pretty thick
Speaker 1: at the beginning to get rid of anybody who might
Speaker 1: know that this was a cult. Yeah. The people that
Speaker 1: stay are all like a certain type of person. And
Speaker 1: I think I said the other day, like there's no
Speaker 1: black people in that car, that's right, and that is remarkable,
Speaker 1: like not even like one random like oh hey, you know,
Speaker 1: how did you end up here? There was one? There
Speaker 1: are people in the pictures there there are people in
Speaker 1: the classes, like there are people in the classes, but
Speaker 1: you can there's a really good one. There's one. There's
Speaker 1: like two people. There's one lady that's in the classes,
Speaker 1: and it kind of seems like she's a part, but
Speaker 1: she's never shown again, so you can tell that, you know,
Speaker 1: if she is, it's like she's still in like worker
Speaker 1: B mode. And then there's a picture of a guy
Speaker 1: at one of the like they like show a picture
Speaker 1: and there's a black dude and he's literally made his
Speaker 1: eyes are like popping out of his head, like he's
Speaker 1: like looking at the person next to him like what deep.
Speaker 1: But there is also there's the women. So there's the
Speaker 1: anonymous source, um, the Brooklyn and she was brought in
Speaker 1: by a black woman. She said yes and she and
Speaker 1: she was like specifically thrown by like oh and it
Speaker 1: was dass too. So it was like talking about the
Speaker 1: master slave thing and her being like really like this
Speaker 1: is what you're like. It's not even like but like
Speaker 1: as I really feel like like when she says she's
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, I was like, yeah, this woman literally looked
Speaker 1: at her. I was like, it's not even really like that,
Speaker 1: Like I can hear the voice. I was like, it's
Speaker 1: like my brother when he's like getting my mom, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, I know the voice, I know the
Speaker 1: voice that she used to get you to do this.
Speaker 1: But also but also that like that I think, Um,
Speaker 1: when I say that, it's not to say, uh, like
Speaker 1: we're less susceptible to cults, is to say that, like
Speaker 1: this is clearly also speaks to the class of people
Speaker 1: that were in this group and how they like actively
Speaker 1: we're not really trying to let in people that didn't
Speaker 1: look like them, you know what I'm saying, Like the
Speaker 1: reason I love the vow. It's like my favorite genre
Speaker 1: of movie show anything, which is white people being horrible
Speaker 1: to white people. It's like no one has to watch
Speaker 1: any trauma because everyone's just like I'll keeping it inside
Speaker 1: internal that's great, Like everyone here is privilege fantastic. That's
Speaker 1: why kath and Oxenburg belongs on the house as of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. That's like the peak of that genre. She's like,
Speaker 1: I gotta She's like, I gotta get my daughter arrested.
Speaker 1: I'm like, fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. Guy's exciting news. India Oxenburg.
Speaker 1: She got out of next m I think also they
Speaker 1: got a season two I don't know if here, yeah,
Speaker 1: like season two of what. As soon as they got
Speaker 1: up to like this woman lives in Malibu in this
Speaker 1: beautiful palace and she was on a soap opera and
Speaker 1: she's like a white woman whose daughter is named India,
Speaker 1: I was like, I know these people totally. So this
Speaker 1: is like an aspect of the show that I want
Speaker 1: to get on that I don't think we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of that like white people being horrible
Speaker 1: to each other genre, But it's also like there's something
Speaker 1: about the opening of the opening title sequence of the
Speaker 1: show that rubs me the wrong way, like souper like
Speaker 1: from day one. First of all, like I don't know
Speaker 1: why the filmmaking team who makes it are are referred
Speaker 1: to as the others, but it sounds that sounds culty
Speaker 1: already like and it's with like and it's without the
Speaker 1: last e and it's it's the tumblers tumblers. Um. So
Speaker 1: there's this yeah, this thing of like Okay, there's already
Speaker 1: this sort of like new ag wo Wou collective, it's
Speaker 1: making this documentary. And then the opening is like these
Speaker 1: images of our main subjects like Bonnie and Mark and Sarah,
Speaker 1: like having these introspective walks and staring at the water,
Speaker 1: and it's very much like you know, like searching stock
Speaker 1: photos for like troubled woman victim something like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's all this like it feels like we're and
Speaker 1: I watched this show about these people who are purely
Speaker 1: and specifically victims healing from this trauma. Like it's a
Speaker 1: very like healing from trauma like self help type imagery
Speaker 1: and vibe and that I think it should have been
Speaker 1: a red flag to me when I started watching this
Speaker 1: because it's so much more complicated than that, and I
Speaker 1: don't think the show is equipped to deal with that
Speaker 1: because they are getting their story from this very specific
Speaker 1: side UM that is just as culpable in many ways.
Speaker 1: You haven't even watched episode eight yet, right, So episode
Speaker 1: eight I was I had to pacee. That was the
Speaker 1: one that actually like set because that one actually features
Speaker 1: like you get to see what the abuses, like what
Speaker 1: the actual problem with this cult was. And the thing
Speaker 1: that blew my mind when I watched UM episode eight
Speaker 1: was the lack of accountability. Like that was the point
Speaker 1: where I was like Mark, honestly like my Like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where there's a scene on the pier
Speaker 1: where Nippi basically is like what are you doing? Like
Speaker 1: why are you trying to talk yourself? Because he's being like,
Speaker 1: we're good people. It was a good thing. And my
Speaker 1: theory is that Mark wants to be Keith like he's
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much he believes this because
Speaker 1: I don't know him and I'm not his therapist, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna conjecture too much on it, but it's
Speaker 1: like I believe that he wants to be Keith. He
Speaker 1: believes that there's a good way to be Keith, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, the fact that you even want to be
Speaker 1: this is already bad. But there's no way to make
Speaker 1: wanting to be this person good. And I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: i'd be interested to see him have a mental breakdown
Speaker 1: from realizing that season two, that's what's going in season two,
Speaker 1: I know. But he like interrupts his wife at the
Speaker 1: end of episode eight, you know, she's her and Katherine
Speaker 1: are laughing about like, you know, they're just laughing at
Speaker 1: the absurdity of not one of them not saying anything
Speaker 1: about how absurd some of the rituals looked like she
Speaker 1: was sleeping in a dog bed or something, and he
Speaker 1: just like fulies on the handle. And my favorite part
Speaker 1: is as he's doing it, Bonnie looks up at him.
Speaker 1: She goes, I'm fine, just so you know, I'm okay,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's that should have been the title
Speaker 1: sequence of the whole documentary. That's also very you know,
Speaker 1: it ties in with the whole society of Protectors and
Speaker 1: and Janess and how there's just this like rampant misogyny
Speaker 1: that we're just finding. I mean, it's we always kind
Speaker 1: of knew it was in there, but in episode eight
Speaker 1: they really lay it there. And I think maybe Episode
Speaker 1: eight was also where they talked about the fact that
Speaker 1: Katherine Oxenberg had brought India into this organization. Hello. I
Speaker 1: mean the whole time, you're thinking that she's, as the
Speaker 1: caller put in a mom Warrior, where she's just been
Speaker 1: horrified by this the entire time, but she dragged her
Speaker 1: daughter into this and now is upset that India remains there.
Speaker 1: You know, like when her mom stopped going, did she
Speaker 1: not check on India and say, Hey, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: cutting myself off from this because it feels something she
Speaker 1: and her mom went together for like two years. See,
Speaker 1: that's so fucked, Like like I don't know, I haven't
Speaker 1: gone to this part it, but like you can still
Speaker 1: lay out an interesting and complicated narrative that is surprising
Speaker 1: about how people get involved in an organization like this
Speaker 1: without withholding that degree of information like you're putting it
Speaker 1: in episode eight. Yeah, it's crazy. I Mean somebody was saying, like,
Speaker 1: why did I watch eight hours of this stuff to
Speaker 1: get to this stuff? And I was like, well, that's
Speaker 1: how a cult works. They're like all the interesting info
Speaker 1: is gonna be a secret that will tell you At
Speaker 1: the end, I will say this is incredibly fucked up.
Speaker 1: But episode eight was like the first time that Keith
Speaker 1: Ranieri shows like real cult leader charisma that you understand
Speaker 1: why people got in this cult. It's like they show
Speaker 1: all the Frank T. J. Mackie stuff that he does,
Speaker 1: which is like you understand suddenly, like oh, he's not
Speaker 1: just this like gentle fake youth pastor guy. His whole
Speaker 1: thing is like you know, the cock is king, like
Speaker 1: master the cunt stuff, which is like, okay, that is
Speaker 1: a totally different thing than just like self improvement. You know,
Speaker 1: they set it up well because the episode before that,
Speaker 1: when the ladies talking about how he was playing, he
Speaker 1: was like pressing her pressure point and that's how he
Speaker 1: got her to stop smoking. But then when she came
Speaker 1: out of the room, someone was like, you were in
Speaker 1: there for two and a half hours, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this man sent you into a few state what so
Speaker 1: you know, like and like, you know, it's so easy
Speaker 1: when you first see him on screen to be like like,
Speaker 1: I think you described it so well, Molly, You're like
Speaker 1: this camp counselor. I'm like, yeah, like everyone feels like
Speaker 1: they know this dude, and like, if you have been
Speaker 1: through certain experiences in your life or have you learn
Speaker 1: certain things like that, he probably looks like a walking
Speaker 1: red flag to you. Not to say if he doesn't
Speaker 1: that you're any better or less. Trauma works differently, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I'm looking at him and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know that there has to be
Speaker 1: something like sure they look it to you, but you
Speaker 1: know that there has to be something that got all
Speaker 1: these people to believe in them. And you're watching episode
Speaker 1: eight and I think the most ridiculous part is when
Speaker 1: he is talking about with a level tin like like
Speaker 1: you made up these modules or whatever the hill right,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you girls couldn't handle a tent. We
Speaker 1: just sexually shocking because when he when he jumps up
Speaker 1: and goes boom and then he has the woman go boo,
Speaker 1: and he's like, no, that doesn't scare me at all.
Speaker 1: I would have pushed him in the face. We have
Speaker 1: to talk about this because Molly, you've been watching this
Speaker 1: investigation discovery series about Keith Nary, which gets into a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that the Vow has not gotten into,
Speaker 1: and a Daily Mail article about like the fact that
Speaker 1: he may or may not have literally killed at least
Speaker 1: a few women. He may have murdered like four women
Speaker 1: including um is her name, Pamela, who was referenced in
Speaker 1: the documentary, a longtime girlfriend of his who dies of cancer.
Speaker 1: But she's not the only person who have died of
Speaker 1: cancer who dated Keith through neary Um. It's really yeah,
Speaker 1: do you know about this? Nikki? Uh? Molly gave me
Speaker 1: a little heads of about the four women. I didn't
Speaker 1: know how. I figured Pamela was one of them, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know how that they had all died, of
Speaker 1: how they had all died, and that they had all
Speaker 1: died of kids to two of them were presumed um suicides,
Speaker 1: and two of them had cancer. And then many other
Speaker 1: women got sick when they were living with him. And
Speaker 1: so this documentary, which is called The Lost Women of Nexium,
Speaker 1: it raises the question of did he poison the women
Speaker 1: that lived with him with rat poison? Because they found
Speaker 1: traces of barrium and bismuth in a hair sample from
Speaker 1: one of the participants and they were like, You've got
Speaker 1: crazy heavy metals in your hair, what's going on? And
Speaker 1: then they also had Frank investigator Frank from the from
Speaker 1: the Vow. He weighed in on this as well. The
Speaker 1: craziest one. I mean, the poisoning ones are obviously crazy,
Speaker 1: but the one that they sort of it's just one
Speaker 1: episode and it's also a very weird documentary. It involves
Speaker 1: our man Frank a lot. Oh yeah, who's a weird
Speaker 1: with the blog. I'm obsessed with Frank. I think Frank
Speaker 1: and Katherine got a little love Jones going on. I
Speaker 1: need to know. Yeah, there's something like this documentary has
Speaker 1: also involves Frank. And then the person who told me
Speaker 1: about it also said that it's maybe like funded by
Speaker 1: Roger Stone because they were trying to make some sort
Speaker 1: of a connection between Nexium and like the Clinton body
Speaker 1: count thing. So it is possibly a little like you
Speaker 1: and on related, But it's the thing they start with
Speaker 1: is this woman who went to a retreat in Alaska,
Speaker 1: a Nexium retreat at a hotel and then was found
Speaker 1: killed with a gunshot wound at a lagoon with a
Speaker 1: suicide note that said don't look for my body. Um.
Speaker 1: And she was married to her wife, is like in
Speaker 1: the documentary she usu married to this woman, but she
Speaker 1: possibly had an affair with Keith and then possibly got
Speaker 1: pregnant with his child and announced it at this Nexium
Speaker 1: retreat and then was like dragged out and then mysteriously
Speaker 1: died like a day later. So all signs point to Keith. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to even believe any of that, even
Speaker 1: without him having to be I mean, he's I mean,
Speaker 1: he mistreats women in his home and he like controls
Speaker 1: their diets and he causes them a lot of stress.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, even if you didn't kill them, like
Speaker 1: physically kill them spiritually, like there's no one no one
Speaker 1: living with you or no one living with you over
Speaker 1: a long period of time, he's living healthily. And they
Speaker 1: get up to a part they play like an audio
Speaker 1: recording of Keith being like, I've had people killed, I
Speaker 1: could have you killed. I mean, I'm not surprised, literally
Speaker 1: like I've had people killed because of my beliefs. I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised because, first of all, how do they have
Speaker 1: so much footage of him? This is my other question
Speaker 1: I have from Mark Boo. You've got a lot of tea, Um,
Speaker 1: where did you get it? All the tea? From? You
Speaker 1: got a lot of tea sounds like you were in
Speaker 1: that kitchen cooking. What's up? Like, like what you like
Speaker 1: vision goggles versions of him being like we're gonna get
Speaker 1: Like why is he so comfortable speaking on camera with you?
Speaker 1: Why do you have all this footage? I need a
Speaker 1: little more information, my friend. Like, that's the thing that
Speaker 1: really hooked me when he's trying to like you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's the reason. I'm like, you really wanted to
Speaker 1: be him, because so much of what is interesting about
Speaker 1: this documentary is the access that you had. You keep
Speaker 1: replaying that clip when they went to see the Dali
Speaker 1: Lama and he's like and he's like Mark, Mark, Mark,
Speaker 1: you know, every every every clips like Mark, Mark, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, okay, great you left, but you
Speaker 1: seem to be like really like removing yourself from a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that you saw in real time. Mark
Speaker 1: is like the most interesting person in the world to
Speaker 1: me because he's such a blank. He was in a
Speaker 1: different halt before Nexium that they haven't talked about, called Rantha,
Speaker 1: which is like way crazier than Nextium even Granta. Wait,
Speaker 1: what how do I not know about Rance? Okay? I
Speaker 1: saw Rantha for the first time at the UFO convention
Speaker 1: thing I went to last year at the at the
Speaker 1: convention center, they had like a Randa booth. It's like
Speaker 1: this woman who's like, I'm the reincarnation of like an
Speaker 1: ancient spirit, multiple thousands year old being, and she like
Speaker 1: has a funny voice that she uses when she's speaking
Speaker 1: as Randtha. I mean, I would love to see a
Speaker 1: documentary about Rantha because that one even more is like
Speaker 1: you're you're really you're screening for people that are going
Speaker 1: to be like, yes, this makes it makes sense. And
Speaker 1: it said actually even more about like more like you know,
Speaker 1: definitive things about Mark, the sente that he was into
Speaker 1: that he's so impressionable. It's just like he seems like
Speaker 1: that like what the bleep do we know? Too? Is
Speaker 1: just all people being like what if yourselves? How little spirits?
Speaker 1: And you're like, oh my god, you know, what if
Speaker 1: what if they did? Everything he says about himself and
Speaker 1: the way he grew up, especially in the last episode
Speaker 1: where he's like, it was always a weird boy, because
Speaker 1: that's how you talk. It was always a weird boy.
Speaker 1: That's kind of an incredible and that in that accent.
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna hold, y'all white people from South Africa.
Speaker 1: That accident really creasy out because I'm like, it's like,
Speaker 1: it's like, you sound like a colonizer in the film,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, what's happening? You sound like
Speaker 1: a villain um And he's just like yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And and he's like, I was never I could never
Speaker 1: fit in and the boys they make fun of me.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you are severe. So here's my
Speaker 1: thing that I said about next hum from jump. I
Speaker 1: yelled this at the TV and then I tweeted it,
Speaker 1: and then I yelled at TV again and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is so crazy. You'll spend so much money avoiding therapy,
Speaker 1: like this is a therapy avoidance club, Like it's just
Speaker 1: a bunch of broken people with no life plan, which
Speaker 1: is fine because maybe isn't a lifestyle. Therapy is like
Speaker 1: a thing that you commit to and it's boring and
Speaker 1: it's right. Given this, y'all, given this more hours than
Speaker 1: you would need to give therapy, like therapy would be
Speaker 1: less intensive and less money and less money and just
Speaker 1: as intense, like you would feel all these because the
Speaker 1: other things for therapy, they're addicted to intense feelings so
Speaker 1: it's like a bunch of people who don't have any
Speaker 1: beliefs or any like real say on stuff, and they
Speaker 1: come into this program and Keith gives them intense feelings.
Speaker 1: So they're all like, oh, it's working because I feel
Speaker 1: intensely like the woman who literally starts crying, and it's
Speaker 1: like I used to be bullied by boys in high school,
Speaker 1: like really crazy stuff, and I'm just realizing that they
Speaker 1: were going through the same thing. I'm like, that's insane,
Speaker 1: because you know what, I don't feel the same. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, you know, that does not feel
Speaker 1: like you're trauma. This sounds so mean, I have to say,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, you assume that a lot
Speaker 1: of people who get into cults are coming out of
Speaker 1: like traumatic life experiences, are like trying to like men
Speaker 1: some harm that's happened to them in the past, spent
Speaker 1: a lot of the next sm stuff just feels like, oh,
Speaker 1: you have nothing that you feel to find to you,
Speaker 1: like nothing has happened to you. Because there are two
Speaker 1: types of people that joined cults. There are people that
Speaker 1: join cults that are severely traumatized, but the main like
Speaker 1: bank of cults is people who have no they're empty boards,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean. They don't really have
Speaker 1: a sense of life, they don't really have a sense
Speaker 1: of self, they don't really have a sense of purpose.
Speaker 1: So because they're so white space white board, you can
Speaker 1: write anything on them. And they're like, I'm just so
Speaker 1: happy to be of use. I'm just happy to feel
Speaker 1: of use. And that also that ties in with the
Speaker 1: with the constant texting and the tasks and all of that,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of these people too it
Speaker 1: kind of lost their way in their careers and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and they're basically given a job and their
Speaker 1: job is to self improve and they have someone they're
Speaker 1: accountable to, so all of a sudden and it it
Speaker 1: kind of calls back to Marks not Mark two Keith
Speaker 1: former business cb I, where he it's like a pyramid
Speaker 1: scheme and you feel like you're an employee of self improvement,
Speaker 1: your way at the bottom. You're constantly being held accountable.
Speaker 1: And I think in a way that maybe plays into
Speaker 1: the guilt that some of these people have if their
Speaker 1: acting careers had slowed down or something like that. And
Speaker 1: they want to be given like orders, they want to
Speaker 1: be given jobs, they want to be working working hard
Speaker 1: at something that's this ephemeral thing, or they're just like
Speaker 1: rich and privileged and have no direction in life and
Speaker 1: then someone comes in who's like, here's what you should do.
Speaker 1: I mean, that feels like the India thing like that
Speaker 1: to a t like that seems like she did with
Speaker 1: her mom. She did it with her mom, who also
Speaker 1: was a rich, privileged person who really didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do. She just became an actress. And like I
Speaker 1: was talking about this, but on the Real Housewives of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills, Teddy Mellencamp, who's John Mellencamp's daughter, runs this
Speaker 1: thing that's like called an accountability coaching service that turned
Speaker 1: out to be like to me, it felt kind of
Speaker 1: similar to DOSS because it's like they're texting you all
Speaker 1: day to make sure you didn't eat, you know, to
Speaker 1: be like like show me a picture of your food.
Speaker 1: Oh like take those carrots off there like too many
Speaker 1: calories and people pay for this time with the carrot.
Speaker 1: Let us have a carrot. My mom, My mom is
Speaker 1: one of these people. My mom has never joined a cult,
Speaker 1: but my mom is extremely susceptible and I mean I've
Speaker 1: had to watch her like try to improve her life
Speaker 1: through a lot of pyramid schemes and a lot of
Speaker 1: multi level marketing schemes, to the point where I had
Speaker 1: to like warn my brother because she was dragging him
Speaker 1: into it too. And my mom is the same thing.
Speaker 1: Like my mom had no um my mom was no
Speaker 1: life goals. So like she was a teacher and then
Speaker 1: she moved here, and then she became a nanny, and
Speaker 1: then she became a mom, and then she like worked,
Speaker 1: you know, she immigrants to My mom has like a
Speaker 1: union job in a hospital that she's had for like
Speaker 1: forty years, so she has like tunts. She also it's
Speaker 1: like you know when she when she retires, she'll be
Speaker 1: taken care of. But it's like my mom. I used
Speaker 1: to watch her like latch on my mom to like
Speaker 1: Primerica like all that stuff. Like Mom would just latch
Speaker 1: onto that stuff because she was just constantly trying to
Speaker 1: like self improve. And that's the thing. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: not just the thing about the thing about the cult.
Speaker 1: The thing about cult and the thing about this the
Speaker 1: valve that made me keep watching it. When I said
Speaker 1: that I was watching and I was like I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like anyone was particularly stupid, you know. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't feel like I'll dumb. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing that people forget about cults, Like it's
Speaker 1: not that they're looking for dumb people, They're looking for
Speaker 1: vulnerable people. And so when you we get so focused
Speaker 1: on this is something that happens to it's human right.
Speaker 1: We watched this stuff because we're fascinated by like I
Speaker 1: would never end up in a cult, or like how
Speaker 1: do I make sure let me find out? It's like
Speaker 1: it's like the morbid way people always ask how someone die,
Speaker 1: so they do, you know, if it was some way
Speaker 1: they can avoid you know what I mean, And you
Speaker 1: do that and you're always like how do they do it?
Speaker 1: But the thing that the problem with that is that
Speaker 1: we're all trying to not be victimized, so then we
Speaker 1: don't look at the villain. So the thing that I
Speaker 1: actually liked about episode eight, even though it was really
Speaker 1: hard for me to watch because it was so misogynist,
Speaker 1: it was like so diabolical, was that it was like,
Speaker 1: now you get to see that this is a manipulative person.
Speaker 1: These people aren't idiots, you know what I'm saying. Yes,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a sense of purpose. Yes, they are
Speaker 1: privilege and they didn't know what they wanted to do
Speaker 1: with themselves, But that could happen to anybody, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, That coul happened to anyone at any time.
Speaker 1: And this person is seeking, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like he's sniffing out people this way. So that's why
Speaker 1: I say, like hearing all these women harm themselves or
Speaker 1: died under durest, it's like, whether he did it or not,
Speaker 1: it's like they were this predator manipulated them, and that
Speaker 1: takes on a physical toll one way or another, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, even if you didn't fake
Speaker 1: or suicide, the fact that she's commits suicide right after
Speaker 1: doing all of that is because of you. It's literally
Speaker 1: because of you. Yeah, and episode nine We'll Be will
Speaker 1: have aired by the time this comes out. But I
Speaker 1: think they're finally going to deal with the fact that,
Speaker 1: like the biggest nexium contingency that still exists in Mexico City,
Speaker 1: there's like an entire, an entire wing of nexium that
Speaker 1: they haven't talked about it all because they've just been
Speaker 1: focusing on these white people the whole time. And then
Speaker 1: at the very end. They're like, oh, also there's a
Speaker 1: whole Nexium thing in Mexico. So also it's a very
Speaker 1: like aristocratic like it's similar. Yeah, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: seeking out rich people's like the son of a former president. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tons of It's a city of people who are like
Speaker 1: what am I going to do with my life? Sorry?
Speaker 1: I went there in February. Is the last thing I
Speaker 1: did before It was the last thing I did before quarantine.
Speaker 1: And I was walking around and as someone who survived
Speaker 1: like gentrified Brooklyn and like come to l A, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I see Yeah. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: having a good time, but I see why this city
Speaker 1: is the one yelping right. Yeah, Well it's a lot
Speaker 1: of like art, you know, people that were in the
Speaker 1: arts or want to be in the arts, and here's
Speaker 1: somebody telling you, I'm going to make your dreams come true.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make that project happen. That big documentary
Speaker 1: about nexium that what is it called, like carbon carbon
Speaker 1: content or something. Mark's documentary that his biopick of Peth
Speaker 1: with the little cutie horrible cheap drawings of Keith are
Speaker 1: very that's the worst. Now we talked about that that's
Speaker 1: like my absolutely so oh yeah, uh well, Nikki, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us to talk about the bow,
Speaker 1: one of my goals all season. And what's to get
Speaker 1: you on to talk about? I know? I was like,
Speaker 1: I've been talking to you. It's just you and me.
Speaker 1: It's just me and Molly on the timelin going for
Speaker 1: the back, Nicky, before we let you go? Where can
Speaker 1: people find you on social media? I am Judd, Nikki,
Speaker 1: j ut n I k k I on every single
Speaker 1: thing anywhere. I don't have a website because I just don't.
Speaker 1: And you should watch Laser Wolf on Adult Swim or
Speaker 1: HBO Max. When is that coming? Uh? Season one is
Speaker 1: already out and on HBO Max just got to UK.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be in Canada soon and
Speaker 1: season two is coming out in December. December, so I
Speaker 1: got some good surprises for that lasor Wolf rules. Hey, Molly,
Speaker 1: Hey Chess, Hey there Emily, Hey guys, shall we take
Speaker 1: another night call? Let's do it? Hey guys, my name
Speaker 1: is Jason, and I am a mail carrier and an
Speaker 1: avid listener of your podcasts and I been thinking about
Speaker 1: something I could call you guys about. And it's occurred
Speaker 1: to me that maybe I should let everybody know to
Speaker 1: put their names in their mailbox before the election because
Speaker 1: ballots are coming out in the state that I live in.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to state the state, but I'm in
Speaker 1: the Western States. Yeah, I just stopped that up. In
Speaker 1: terms of all the voting issues going on, it would
Speaker 1: be a good idea for people to make sure, especially
Speaker 1: if you live in an in an apartment building, put
Speaker 1: your name in your mailbox so you'll get your your
Speaker 1: ballot on time without any confusion. To help people get
Speaker 1: their ballots. Uh, there's a lot of things can go
Speaker 1: wrong in the mail We're not perfect, and that's that's
Speaker 1: really all I wanted to say. I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many conspiracy theories to share anything,
Speaker 1: but I think we've got enough on our hands as
Speaker 1: it is. So help your mail mail carrier out this
Speaker 1: year and make sure you get your mail and put
Speaker 1: your name in your mailbox. If you don't want to
Speaker 1: put it on your in a house where somebody can
Speaker 1: find out what your name is, put it in your
Speaker 1: locked mail box so your mailman can see who lives
Speaker 1: there and your mail will get delivered to be for
Speaker 1: a free to address and on time so you can
Speaker 1: all vote and get rid of the stipuniality. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for your podcast. I am so glad that there
Speaker 1: is a postal worker who listens tonight call, at least one.
Speaker 1: It warms my heart so much. Thank you for calling.
Speaker 1: I feel like I had this thought prior to getting
Speaker 1: this call. I think I was just like out, you know,
Speaker 1: watching my mailman do his rounds, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if there any any of them listen tonight call.
Speaker 1: This is great, This is just great. Um. Do you
Speaker 1: guys have your names on your mailboxes? Actually, when I
Speaker 1: first heard this call, when it was in our our mailbox,
Speaker 1: our virtual mailbox, I was like, oh, I definitely need
Speaker 1: to do that. I still get a lot of mail
Speaker 1: for the previous residents of uh my house, and they
Speaker 1: are were, I don't know, big Trump supporters. So I
Speaker 1: always get very nervous when I bring in the mail
Speaker 1: that someone's going to be like, there goes tests with
Speaker 1: her big Trump mailer. Yeah, yeah, number one Trumpian. Ye,
Speaker 1: they got your numbers. But yeah, I'm definitely gonna put
Speaker 1: my name in my mailbox. And also I wanted to
Speaker 1: say that for anyone out there who wants to track
Speaker 1: their ballot um. This is the first year I've tracked
Speaker 1: my ballot. I don't know if it was even available
Speaker 1: before this, But if you do vote by mail, you
Speaker 1: can go to I think it's ballot tracks and it
Speaker 1: makes you feel better just to see it go. I
Speaker 1: also signed up for that before I even got my ballot.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it, guys. I don't know should I
Speaker 1: vote in person or vote by mail. I was just
Speaker 1: going to vote in person, like, because I do you
Speaker 1: have a mail ballot? Yeah, I have one. Well, they
Speaker 1: have those ballot boxes now that are like special ballot boxes,
Speaker 1: the real one one. But what I did last year
Speaker 1: was filled out my vote by mail ballot and then
Speaker 1: just turned it in in person. I've done. That's what
Speaker 1: I was thinking of doing, just so that I can
Speaker 1: see it. I don't know. I just wanted mine in.
Speaker 1: They start counting the ballots as soon as they are received,
Speaker 1: and I just I And part of it is that
Speaker 1: I have such crushing anxiety, as I'm sure everybody does
Speaker 1: about this election, that I just wanted to know that
Speaker 1: I had done it, and then whatever happens in the
Speaker 1: next few you know weeks that it's it's been done
Speaker 1: and I know it's been counted. Um. But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much anxiety about all of this and uh
Speaker 1: means going on the mailbox guys. Yeah, I always do it,
Speaker 1: just because I moved so much in general, like I
Speaker 1: move on an average of once a year, and so
Speaker 1: there's always I'm always getting other people's meals. I've gotten
Speaker 1: other people's ballots. This has happened to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I've I got somebody else's ballot, and like I'm not
Speaker 1: I have to share what to do with it. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think like just you know, especially now,
Speaker 1: and also especially like I don't know when everything is
Speaker 1: happening via mail because we're not going on. It's like
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just smart, don't get your packages stolen, cetera. Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nice for a mail carrier to sort of confirm that,
Speaker 1: like sometimes the mail has problems and be careful with
Speaker 1: your mail. So on a totally different topic, UM, I
Speaker 1: would like to thank all of our listeners for being
Speaker 1: so enthusiastic about pyramid Pal. This was a shockingly enthusiastic topic. UM.
Speaker 1: We now are going to be branching out a bit
Speaker 1: from just pyramids to also mounds. This was mounds and ribs.
Speaker 1: I think, Emily coins, I just want to get into
Speaker 1: calling pyramids rits it, you know, outs the rits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a bunch of interesting emails and calls about
Speaker 1: um these these these formations. So let's start with a
Speaker 1: call about some mounds, just to mix it up a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I call, um, so, I just calling
Speaker 1: about the pyramids of pyramids how from last week? Um
Speaker 1: so the first weird thing I'm actually related to Oaks Aints.
Speaker 1: Uh My mom found this out about six months ago,
Speaker 1: and she's been doing a ton of genealogy in the
Speaker 1: last six months and found that out. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: turns out loves shady dealings other things. I wondered if
Speaker 1: you guys could talk about mounds. So there are pyramids,
Speaker 1: but also the mounds of North America are really cool
Speaker 1: to the Cokey Amounts are the ones in particular that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. They just kind of look like a
Speaker 1: giant Dare mounds. But when you start to intereven and
Speaker 1: if you've ever been to them, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of experstens about this that they used to be really
Speaker 1: big pyramids and the mounds are kind of just the
Speaker 1: base and then above that they had these giant wooden
Speaker 1: structures or sort of workships, sacrifice rules, who knows, um.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think that's right. I love mounds. How
Speaker 1: do you guys feel about mounds? Mounds freaked me out
Speaker 1: a lot. Mounds rule. I'm pretty freaked out by mounds.
Speaker 1: Just the idea that I could not know it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, anything I might not recognize as being there,
Speaker 1: but is there is kind of scary to me. But
Speaker 1: they're fascinating. I actually was not familiar with the Cohokia
Speaker 1: Mounds UM. They're across the Mississippi River from St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and they're pretty ancient and they do just kind of
Speaker 1: look like hills and then you can see their stairs
Speaker 1: going up the hills. But they're fascinating. Yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 1: The first mounds that I was familiar with, we're actually
Speaker 1: natural mounds. These are in Washington State, but you wouldn't what.
Speaker 1: I just started laughing at the Mima Mounds UM, and
Speaker 1: they are they actually look much more unnatural than the
Speaker 1: Cokia mounds. They look like something that was put There's
Speaker 1: like a land work type thing. But they're apparently caused
Speaker 1: by maybe gophers. Nobody really quite knows why they form.
Speaker 1: But they just look like acne basically on the surface there.
Speaker 1: That's just like bumps um. It's very strange. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they give me a weird feeling. It's like, it's like, what,
Speaker 1: what's the fear of small dots? But like the holes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the hole sphere, it gives me that feeling. It's on
Speaker 1: a massive scale. It's kind of the opposite of the holes.
Speaker 1: But I guess it also is not the opposite of
Speaker 1: the holes because there's holes in the mounds. Yeah, Earth
Speaker 1: is so cool. It is so cool. And also we
Speaker 1: were talking about the fact that you know, pyramid pals.
Speaker 1: We could go on forever. But we're also very interested
Speaker 1: in just strange, more end or mysterious dwellings. So if
Speaker 1: you have a weird building, mound thing that is inhabitable,
Speaker 1: please give us a night call about it at two,
Speaker 1: four oh four or six night. You can also text
Speaker 1: us at that number or email us at night call
Speaker 1: podcast at gmail. But we should also move on with
Speaker 1: more pyramids. We got we got more pyramids, We've got
Speaker 1: more many pyramid emails. We got one from our listener
Speaker 1: of Alora, who is at A who works at the
Speaker 1: Center for Land Use Interpretation, which I don't know about.
Speaker 1: You big fan. Also very stoked that somebody from uh
Speaker 1: Center for Land Use Interpretation listens to the pod as
Speaker 1: stoked as I am at somebody who works for the U. S.
Speaker 1: Postal Service listens to the pun. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of Aurora. We should have her on sometime. Yes, Aurora,
Speaker 1: come on. The pod also does one of my favorite
Speaker 1: Instagram series, which is Castles of Burbank. I believe cool.
Speaker 1: She takes pictures of Maybe it's just the l A,
Speaker 1: but it's like she pictures of a lot of buildings
Speaker 1: that are in the form of fake castles of all kinds.
Speaker 1: There's a really good fake castle by where I live
Speaker 1: that I should show you guys sometime. It's insane, but uh,
Speaker 1: this is this is a Veras email, She says. Uh.
Speaker 1: American pyramids have been an ongoing topic of personal interest
Speaker 1: and of interest at the Center for Landy's Interpretation where
Speaker 1: I work. Here's a pyramid collection we've been working on
Speaker 1: over the years. We'll link to it in our shore notes.
Speaker 1: And a silly poster of some pyramids of the USA
Speaker 1: I put together for an art book fair a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. One of my favorite American pyramids is
Speaker 1: the Center of the World and Museum of History and
Speaker 1: Granite at Felicity near the California and Arizona border along
Speaker 1: Highway eight. It's a truly special place, and you can
Speaker 1: get a taste of it through its website, which we
Speaker 1: will also link to in the show notes. It's been
Speaker 1: a few years since I've been out there, but it
Speaker 1: seems to still be open to visitors, and I highly
Speaker 1: recommend stopping by if you're in the area. And then
Speaker 1: she also tells us about the four or steel Case
Speaker 1: slash Current Switch pyramid near Grand Rapids, and she says
Speaker 1: it's also especially curious. Built in is the corporate development
Speaker 1: center for the somewhat utopian office furniture slash design company Steelcase.
Speaker 1: In it was sold to Switch and adapted into a
Speaker 1: massive data center. Unlike the Center of the World, this
Speaker 1: pyramid is not open to visitors, but you can check
Speaker 1: out the corporate video walk through here. I love the
Speaker 1: the phrase utopian office furniture slash design company utopian office furniture.
Speaker 1: I approve of the Steelcase brand. I've never heard it
Speaker 1: referred to as utopian, but I get it on like
Speaker 1: a gut level. My desk is a steelcase desk. I love.
Speaker 1: It's a good brand. We just love pyramids. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: this the steelcase one. I want to start with that one,
Speaker 1: just because this is which is my favorite. From a
Speaker 1: esthetic position, it is. It looks the most like the
Speaker 1: Pyramids and Blade Runner of any of these that we've
Speaker 1: seen so far, because it's not a sheer glass side
Speaker 1: like the lux Or or like the Astrosenica pyramid. It's this.
Speaker 1: It's this sort of tiered thing, but it's not a
Speaker 1: ziggurat type structure. Is a pyramid that goes up, but
Speaker 1: at each what you can tell is like a floor
Speaker 1: in it. It only looks like it's maybe five stories tall.
Speaker 1: It's not that tall, but it's a very broad pyramid
Speaker 1: and it looks very eighties, very space age, very star trek.
Speaker 1: It's so cool, it's perfect. It's beautiful. Um. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend people check it out. We will link to it
Speaker 1: in the notes. Yeah. I mean, I think we just
Speaker 1: love retrofuturistic things, and like nothing is more retrofuturistic than
Speaker 1: the pyramids because the ancient Egyptian pyramids obviously still feel
Speaker 1: incredibly futuristic, and it feels like there's still stuff that
Speaker 1: is not you know, people we don't know about it.
Speaker 1: It also feels like you know, and on one hand,
Speaker 1: it feels like a not it feels cool because it's
Speaker 1: not the most efficient use of space, Like it's not
Speaker 1: a box, which is endlessly you know, you can stack
Speaker 1: a zillion boxes next to each other and it's a
Speaker 1: city and and they all you know, can fit very
Speaker 1: tightly next to each other, and all the airspace is
Speaker 1: taken up. But then it's also like there's I mean,
Speaker 1: the Egyptians had to be onto something with the structure
Speaker 1: of the pyramid, like that's why they're still standing. Like
Speaker 1: it's a very structurally sound form of architecture. It's just
Speaker 1: not like spatially efficient in the way that we're used
Speaker 1: to now. But that's why it feels like kind of special.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, fuck being spatially efficient. Who wants a box?
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. You know, maybe the geodesic dome
Speaker 1: is like the thing that is more spatially efficient, But
Speaker 1: it does just feel like there are so many ways
Speaker 1: to make dwellings. Why do we just make this one
Speaker 1: kind of dwelling. I would love to live in a mound.
Speaker 1: I mean the dome is kind of the skeleton of
Speaker 1: a mound. You to live in a Hobbit house, what
Speaker 1: you Yeah? Yeah, for sure. I love natural houses and
Speaker 1: I think that just looking at ways people were dwelling,
Speaker 1: you know, in pre Columbia and America is very useful
Speaker 1: because it is not like we have done such a
Speaker 1: great job with the land use, with the colonizing. It's
Speaker 1: just like, especially with climate change, it just feels like
Speaker 1: finding ways better more to build housing that's more in
Speaker 1: tune with nature, earth houses, stuff like that. You know,
Speaker 1: what the Steelcase pyramid made me think of is what
Speaker 1: if we could make bricks from our trash, you know,
Speaker 1: like recyclables and stuff like that and build pyramids that
Speaker 1: look like the Steelcase pyramid wall E style. That's a
Speaker 1: great idea to build like a Watts tower style pyramid.
Speaker 1: I mean I spend so much time on Wikipedia on
Speaker 1: the like Outsider Architecture page and stuff like that. I'm
Speaker 1: American pyramids. There are so many cool things that people
Speaker 1: built with like no money, just out of trash and
Speaker 1: so much trash, and there I think There have been
Speaker 1: articles recently about how, you know, trash that's kind of
Speaker 1: like thoughtfully disposed of can kind of become part of
Speaker 1: the environment in a non harmful way. But honestly, like
Speaker 1: you look at the steel case pyramid and tell me
Speaker 1: we couldn't We couldn't make a trash pyramid to live
Speaker 1: in that could be very efficient to you, guys, I
Speaker 1: have a crushed file cabinet here. That's our base, Like
Speaker 1: that's the base or that could be the top. And
Speaker 1: you know why it's crushed because I didn't get a
Speaker 1: steel case steelcase built to sponsors. Should we take another
Speaker 1: night email? Okay? This one comes from Jonathan high Night call.
Speaker 1: This week's discussion of Astra Zeneca brought to mind New
Speaker 1: England's other great pyramid, the Apex Pyramid of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: The Apex Pyramid is a zigarat shaped former department store,
Speaker 1: visible right next Interstate just north of Providence. It was
Speaker 1: built in nineteen sixty nine and designed by Andrew Geller,
Speaker 1: who is best known as one of the designers of
Speaker 1: the model home in which Nixon and Kruschev's kitchen debate
Speaker 1: took place. The department store closed in the early two
Speaker 1: thousands and the d m V moved in. I got
Speaker 1: my first license there. It's partially reopened as a store
Speaker 1: and as the subject of an intense preservation debate, namely
Speaker 1: whether it's a true landmark or an eyesore that should
Speaker 1: be replaced with a soccer stadium growing up here. I
Speaker 1: know multiple people who have had dreams about climbing it.
Speaker 1: As a former archaeologist, I can say that this is
Speaker 1: the best pyramid I visited. The second best is the
Speaker 1: Great Pyramid of Giza. Two things that foggle the mind
Speaker 1: about it. That's great. Unlike other Egyptian monuments, the Great
Speaker 1: Pyramid is completely unadorned inside, no higher glyphs, no carvings.
Speaker 1: The king's chamber is just bare polished stone, with the
Speaker 1: four foot high base of a similarly undecorated granite sarcophagus
Speaker 1: off to the side. It's uniquely creepy. When I went,
Speaker 1: two middle aged American ladies were sitting on the floor
Speaker 1: and chanting in an attempt to commune with whatever was
Speaker 1: responsible for this spooky vibes there. The pyramid is about
Speaker 1: two fifty one yards on each side, and it's only
Speaker 1: point oh five percent from being a perfect square less
Speaker 1: than four point five inches. I've also driven past the
Speaker 1: bass Pro Pyramid in Memphis with the friend I visited
Speaker 1: Egypt with. We've tried to complete our pyramid punch cards
Speaker 1: with a visit to Nicholas Cage's Pyramids Future Tomb in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, but we couldn't quite find it. So this
Speaker 1: Apex pyramid, this one looks much more like um a
Speaker 1: seventies church. I'm going to say it has that vibe
Speaker 1: to me. I'm not as big of a fan's pyramid.
Speaker 1: I disguy speaks very very highly of it. Personally, I'd
Speaker 1: rather see the Great Pyramid of Pisa that was pyramid.
Speaker 1: But it does have kind of it looks like a
Speaker 1: pizza hut. Yeah, it kind of has that like the
Speaker 1: roof of an old McDonald's type thing. I though, can
Speaker 1: understand wanting to climate because it looks like there are
Speaker 1: a lot of great places to sit because it's sure,
Speaker 1: you know, but it also looks like it Mike cave
Speaker 1: in if you sat on it, it looks kind of
Speaker 1: that's true, But looking at I was reminded of like
Speaker 1: that that kind of era of architecture, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how have I not mentioned Ki Arena in Seattle again
Speaker 1: coming in with the Washington State references here, that was
Speaker 1: the basketball or it was where the it was where
Speaker 1: the Sonics played. And it is a weird thing because
Speaker 1: it's not exactly a pyramid, but it ends up looking
Speaker 1: like a pyramid. It's more like kind of a tent
Speaker 1: type structure um, but it's raised up so it doesn't
Speaker 1: go all the way to the ground. It's like there's
Speaker 1: a glass there's glass sides on it, and then this
Speaker 1: sort of tent roof that comes to a point in
Speaker 1: the middle. Yeah. I mean I have a real soft
Speaker 1: spot for that kind of seventies and eighties, like brutalist futurism.
Speaker 1: I understand why other people might think it is ugly
Speaker 1: or you know, an I sore, But compared to like
Speaker 1: the horrible everything being glass style of now, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I find it a much more. I mean, maybe it's
Speaker 1: just because that is our nostalgia for being younger, but no,
Speaker 1: I just find it it doesn't feel us those just
Speaker 1: glass and steel buildings, like the fucking Sofi Stadium that
Speaker 1: is allegedly opening. But you know, covid Um is just
Speaker 1: like so blade runnery in a way. That's genuinely dystopian.
Speaker 1: It has no warmth to it whatsoever. It's all glass
Speaker 1: and steel. These have like warmth to them to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the interesting thing would be to talk to
Speaker 1: kids who are, you know, going to games that structures
Speaker 1: like this, like the new like that kind of structure,
Speaker 1: like a new, shiny arena, and see how they feel
Speaker 1: about it, Because like, when I look at the Key Arena,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about myself as like a child, like a
Speaker 1: young child, and like how it looks so cool and
Speaker 1: adventurous and like I wanted to like climb all over
Speaker 1: it. It It looked like a fun, inviting structure, even though
Speaker 1: it's crazy looking. And I wonder if kids feel that
Speaker 1: way about this sort of noveaux architecture that like this
Speaker 1: glass and steel stuff that's so dumbinant now, Like, do
Speaker 1: does a kid look at the Sofi a d M
Speaker 1: and be like cool? I wanna I want to explore it.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody looks at so Fi Stadium and
Speaker 1: that's cool. Well yeah, but I mean I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I think that like you're saying, though, like I'm
Speaker 1: sure that when these these structures were contemporary, people were
Speaker 1: like what an ice or Yeah, I mean the thing
Speaker 1: that's interesting about so far is that it's like half built,
Speaker 1: so it does feel very like our ruins in progress
Speaker 1: half Star. Yeah. Or they did have the half death
Speaker 1: Star on will Share for so long. You film museum
Speaker 1: that's opening that is literally in the shape of the
Speaker 1: death Star because it's a George Lucas museum, But like
Speaker 1: a lot of things, it's like they either ran out
Speaker 1: of funding or just you know, I couldn't finish it
Speaker 1: on schedule. So there was this half built death Star
Speaker 1: on will Share and Fairfax for years, and I liked
Speaker 1: that way more than the completed thing obviously. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: always made that part of Miracle Mile feel just like
Speaker 1: a little stressful though. Yeah, I mean that is a
Speaker 1: stressful part. But yeah, I mean I think also we're
Speaker 1: coming to this point where people are like, should we
Speaker 1: preserve some of these buildings that are like these seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties buildings that people are very divided on esthetically. Um,
Speaker 1: they just knocked down Lacma here, which is a building
Speaker 1: that a lot of people like fifties building actually, but
Speaker 1: it was very glass bricky. It was it was it
Speaker 1: like I wasn't limestone. I mean, it was very sort
Speaker 1: of ancient Egyptian ey. To me always, I felt like
Speaker 1: it had sort of a pyramid feel even though it
Speaker 1: wasn't a pyramid. And there's that great Japanese pavilion that
Speaker 1: was really like a spiral staircase building, like an upside
Speaker 1: down Guggenheim. Yeah, no, it's it's it's weird, like I think.
Speaker 1: Also the thing that's kind of throws me off about
Speaker 1: the newer like whatever our contemporary version is of these
Speaker 1: pyramid buildings, I just call it like Apple store core. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess a lot of it just feel is really cheap.
Speaker 1: To me, it feels really like flimsy um. A lot
Speaker 1: of condo buildings that are supposedly luxury buildings. I look
Speaker 1: at them, and especially like in l A, when places
Speaker 1: get like dirty really easily because it doesn't rain ever, uh,
Speaker 1: it just looks like it it can so easily turn
Speaker 1: into just looking really really crappy, and that's poor design. Like, well,
Speaker 1: there's there's all that stuff. Now that's like what they
Speaker 1: built a million of in every city. You know, people
Speaker 1: call them like the gentrification blocks, but they're those those
Speaker 1: apartment buildings that look like a bunch of lego blocks.
Speaker 1: What they really look like to me, it's just like
Speaker 1: twee brutalism. Yeah, it's like brutalism. And then they'll be
Speaker 1: painted a fun color. There's a fun color on it,
Speaker 1: Like you know I'm saying, it's like then they get
Speaker 1: dirty and it's just brutalism. I'm really excited for whatever
Speaker 1: happens after coronavirus, like if there are if we somehow
Speaker 1: adapt our architecture to reflect how this has changed everything,
Speaker 1: because I also think that a lot of these is
Speaker 1: kind of like luxury you know, condo buildings and luxury
Speaker 1: apartment buildings that spring up that are also uniform inside
Speaker 1: they're all open floor plans. Um having them be all
Speaker 1: glass and steel really lends itself to these big open
Speaker 1: rooms with big high ceilings, and I think that's just
Speaker 1: not what anyone needs right now. And I think that
Speaker 1: we're going to have to adapt to assuming that you know,
Speaker 1: pandemics are because we've lived through it for the better
Speaker 1: part of a year and potentially could again, Like what
Speaker 1: kind of architecture reflects being caught at home? You know,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm looking forward to is like, you know,
Speaker 1: how during the energy crisis in the seventies, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of structures that just don't have
Speaker 1: windows because they were an energy efficient. Like what if
Speaker 1: all of these glass buildings have to get greened and
Speaker 1: just get like covered up in bricks, like getting changed
Speaker 1: in a shell and a candy shell. But if they
Speaker 1: have to get green and we just let like annihilation
Speaker 1: plants take over there, we go, Yeah, that would look cool.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited by the idea of, you know, more
Speaker 1: outdoor spaces being attached to units, like having there be
Speaker 1: more of an outdoor zone inside of apartments. And I
Speaker 1: think that having bedrooms with built in work areas, even
Speaker 1: though that's probably awful for your emotional well being, it's
Speaker 1: you know, having everyone have a work area and envisioning
Speaker 1: like a two bedroom with three people in it or
Speaker 1: four people in it, where everyone has a space to work.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm excited by the idea that an end
Speaker 1: of an era is coming and like we have to
Speaker 1: get more creative. Now, well, that's like what the total
Speaker 1: recall isolation tanks will be. Maybe we're dancing around the
Speaker 1: obvious here though, which is the night call pyramid? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going glass bricks. Guys, I'm going brick bricks. I
Speaker 1: think I'm going trash bricks. That's what I'm saying. Okay,
Speaker 1: So clearly we combine all these ideas and what we
Speaker 1: do is make one out of like coke bottles or
Speaker 1: there's there's layers to it and we do chia seeds
Speaker 1: around them so they stuff grows on. Yeah, we need
Speaker 1: to have some sprouts in the mix. Just to wrap
Speaker 1: up our Pyramid Pals segment for this week. We may
Speaker 1: have a real pyramid pal connection, uh with two night
Speaker 1: callers or night emailers. So the previous emailer sent us
Speaker 1: his email. Then I checked the email box and I
Speaker 1: noticed an almost identical email from Emily. Not Emily Oshida,
Speaker 1: but night caller Emily, and she was also talking about
Speaker 1: the Apex pyramid um. I won't read the entire email
Speaker 1: because it includes a lot of the information in Jonathan's,
Speaker 1: but I will say that she did report. As a
Speaker 1: side note, I went to the bass Pro Shops pyramid
Speaker 1: back in the entire place was sensory overload, but you
Speaker 1: could also feel this vast empty dark space looming above you.
Speaker 1: It reminded me a lot of the blue by restaurant
Speaker 1: at Disneyland or the areas in Vegas with fake painted ceilings.
Speaker 1: I don't have many pictures, but I do remember playing
Speaker 1: a fake duck hunting game. Um, but I think that
Speaker 1: maybe these two should be real Pyramid pal. Maybe this
Speaker 1: was the end of the road that we were always
Speaker 1: leading to. They were linked by the ziggurat. They were,
Speaker 1: so you guys should correspond. Maybe well, thank you everybody
Speaker 1: for your pyramid emails and calls. I jokingly created a
Speaker 1: segment called Pyramid Pals and you all delivered, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Um, and uh, you know, keep sendyone
Speaker 1: in also send another start. We can really don't want
Speaker 1: to be pyramid specific. Any any strange structures that have
Speaker 1: an interesting story that you're into, give us a night
Speaker 1: call one to four oh four six night and share
Speaker 1: them with us. We love them obviously and we will
Speaker 1: see you all next week. You can follow us on
Speaker 1: social media if you're not already. We were on Twitter
Speaker 1: at night call Odd and Instagram at book at night
Speaker 1: called podcast. You can't subscribe to our podcast and rate
Speaker 1: and review it on Apple podcast. We would really appreciate
Speaker 1: that helps people find our show, and you can join
Speaker 1: our Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall, where you
Speaker 1: can get our fromous episodes, our newsletter, and a lot
Speaker 1: of other fun stuff. To check it out and we
Speaker 1: can see you next week. Goodbye Pyramid Pals, good Bye