Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Saron Burnette.
Speaker 3: How the heck are you?
Speaker 4: I am? Sunshine in a cloudy bottle?
Speaker 3: I like that smile you're wearing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: It's very convincing. It's good. That's why it's so convincing.
Speaker 3: It looks fresh. So you I got a question for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm here.
Speaker 3: Did you have a second. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 4: I do funny? You should mention ridiculous, spread the wealth,
Speaker 4: Mcroth the crime dog.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, take a.
Speaker 3: Bite out of crime. I remember totally Hamm Smoky the Bear,
Speaker 3: totally authority figures.
Speaker 4: I like, are you also a fan of Bisquick pancake mix?
Speaker 3: My god, I thought we were going to talk about something.
Speaker 2: Are you a fan of Yes?
Speaker 3: I am? Well, No, actually I'm not. I'm a fan
Speaker 3: of Crusty's over biscally dense pancakes.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you not because we're not going to talk
Speaker 2: about this wick. We're just talking about mcgraff.
Speaker 4: There's no crossover, no mashup, no disgusting foods.
Speaker 3: Producer Dave take a photo of me. I want to
Speaker 3: see what I look like when I'm just so pleased.
Speaker 4: I got something ridiculous about mcgrafth the crime dog, or
Speaker 4: rather the gentleman who played McGruff the crime dog.
Speaker 3: Like voice at okay, yes, walked around.
Speaker 2: Eight or maybe he was the one who played the voice.
Speaker 3: Anyway, imagine the voice.
Speaker 2: His name was John R. Morales.
Speaker 4: And he got arrested in twenty eleven, arrested McGruff the
Speaker 4: crime Dog in Galveston, Texas. Good play to be arrested
Speaker 4: because a drug sniffing dog smelled pot, smelled the old
Speaker 4: sticky icky in his car.
Speaker 2: He was speeding.
Speaker 4: He got pulled over, okay, and so they looked through
Speaker 4: the car and they found diagrams of two indoor pot
Speaker 4: growing operations and then a bunch of seeds. Because he
Speaker 4: was just like he was a big operation, a parent.
Speaker 3: Okay. So he wasn't breaking into these places. He was
Speaker 3: going into seeding these places.
Speaker 4: They were his places. So he had like he had
Speaker 4: his blueprints, he had his seat. It's like, how I
Speaker 4: have like that little notebook that has the layout of
Speaker 4: my garden beds that's planted.
Speaker 2: Well he had that.
Speaker 3: Wait, this is the naughty two thousand naughties, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: twenty eleven twenty eleven after that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and so they so the police, they're like,
Speaker 2: let's go to his house. I bet she was so
Speaker 2: fun there scorated, And.
Speaker 4: So they they take the dog, they go to the house.
Speaker 4: They seized one thousand marijuana plants okay, nine thousand rounds
Speaker 4: of ammunitions, and twenty seven weapons, which included a grenade launcher.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, and he really is about that life. I'm
Speaker 3: going to protect my business.
Speaker 4: I guess since three years after his arrest he pleaded
Speaker 4: guilty and he was sentenced to sixteen years in jail,
Speaker 4: sixteen and it was he was a non violent I mean,
Speaker 4: he had weapons.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he had not used them.
Speaker 2: He hadn't used them.
Speaker 4: In the commission, the judge said, quote, everything I read
Speaker 4: about you makes you seem like a scary person.
Speaker 3: Well, don't be to a judgmental judge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, judge you much.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: Anyway, a couple of people sent this to us, And
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's maybe he got a prison
Speaker 4: or whatever, but so McGruff the crime dog.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous, is ridiculous, iron having the.
Speaker 4: Human inside or voicing it, being like.
Speaker 3: A busted by a crime dog, by a crime.
Speaker 4: Dog, also being a crime, like, you know, crimer basically.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, so that is, as we say in the business, ridiculous, ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So, Lizabeth, I got one for you. Yeah, it does
Speaker 3: not involve uh it does. It actually involves the law
Speaker 3: and animals and people in furs suits. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 3: conventions and airport hotels. Okay, right, that's ridiculous, especially though
Speaker 3: if everyone's dressed as a cartoon animal.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, are you okay?
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 5: outrageous capers. He and cons It's always ninety nine percent
Speaker 5: order of free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yay, Elizabeth ar furries?
Speaker 2: Yeah you never heard of thought? You were going to
Speaker 2: go there?
Speaker 3: Yes, you know what they are? Right, hold that thought.
Speaker 3: Bronie's what about Bronie? Have you ever heard of them?
Speaker 2: I've heard of them?
Speaker 3: Okay. Do you know the difference between a bronie and
Speaker 3: a furry?
Speaker 4: Well, Bronie is it's just my little pony. Correct, and
Speaker 4: furries could be any kind of very good Woodland animated creature.
Speaker 3: A Bronie may be a furry, but a furry need
Speaker 3: not be Yeah, Bronie, Yeah, there it is okay, So
Speaker 3: we'll start with the Bronie because I have a little
Speaker 3: more experience with them. I'm sorry, what, Yeah, I have
Speaker 3: a little more experience that this is going to be
Speaker 3: our gateweight drug to the wonderful wide world of Furris
Speaker 3: Elizabethe no, but I wish I could be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to share with you today, here's the big reveal.
Speaker 2: And you turn around and you have one of them.
Speaker 3: Let me get my sparkle shot pats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you got one of them.
Speaker 3: Tails exactly like bushy tail that comes up with an arch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like those shoes that look like hoofs.
Speaker 3: If I was I would have the dopest tail. I'm
Speaker 3: telling you, I believe it. Forget a man, I want
Speaker 3: a tail. All right, Well, Bronie's they can essentially be
Speaker 3: summed up in one sentence.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
Speaker 3: They're full on adults who love a little kids cartoon
Speaker 3: show about the adventures of a group of magical ponies.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, scientific scientific. I like the scientific term of
Speaker 4: full on adults.
Speaker 3: It's very scientific in my world. Basically, they love the
Speaker 3: reboot of My My Little Pony franchise. There's a reboot
Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, that's what they love. They don't love
Speaker 3: the originally, They love the reboots primarily. Now, did I
Speaker 3: ever tell you about I once went to a Broni convention.
Speaker 2: No, you did not.
Speaker 3: It still doesn't make me a Bronie. I was at
Speaker 3: the convention, but it does not make me a Bernie.
Speaker 2: Wearing an outfit doesn't. That doesn't make I.
Speaker 3: They have been wearing hooves. But but I was there
Speaker 3: working at the time. The time I was writing for Playboy.
Speaker 3: They would send me on the road for like reporting trips. Right,
Speaker 3: it was a great job. I loved it, right, gigs
Speaker 3: with that totally it. I got sent north to the
Speaker 3: San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency for a Brony convention.
Speaker 2: And there, you know the.
Speaker 3: Hotel boom, so that hotel filled that that lobby and everything,
Speaker 3: and then the convention floor that's just filled with songs
Speaker 3: of my little pony people singing them on like acoustic
Speaker 3: guitars like that. Yeah, so this is a Brone convention.
Speaker 3: The idea was I would go there and see what
Speaker 3: all the fuss was about Men's magazine. We're like, why
Speaker 3: are these men so into these ponies?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Why do grown men want to dress up as pink ponies?
Speaker 3: Essentially the question my editors wanted. That was the angle. Okay,
Speaker 3: but I got to tell you, Elizabeth, I was surprised
Speaker 3: by what I found. Really, I was surprised by what
Speaker 3: I found. I swear to god. You ever been to
Speaker 3: a fan convention anything like this, comic con, a trecky convention,
Speaker 3: a chili concarne.
Speaker 2: I can't say I have. I've been to a chili cookoff.
Speaker 3: Well, chili con carney, that's for red Hot Chili Peppers.
Speaker 3: Super fan conventions.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of no.
Speaker 3: I just made that up exactly. I threw that one
Speaker 3: in there just for fun. Anyway, Bronie's they're a hardcore fandom,
Speaker 3: right so they're more intense than Swifties. Don't send me
Speaker 3: heat mail. They're more creative than trekkies, about the more
Speaker 3: loyal than Rihanna's Navy and the Beehive combined. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: know even possible. What I found was they were super friendly,
Speaker 3: right now, some of them were as quick to smiles
Speaker 3: about as like a used car salesman, like sizing up
Speaker 3: your pocket. But it wasn't. They didn't make me uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: They just had this like odd familiarity because they're like
Speaker 3: super friendly. It's kind of like Tom Cruise where he's
Speaker 3: just on he's trying to be really engaging. It's that
Speaker 3: without the agenda of being. It's the same kind of
Speaker 3: like you're just extra.
Speaker 4: You know how Like care Bears from the same era,
Speaker 4: they're all about loving, totally loving people and being that
Speaker 4: were my Little Pony?
Speaker 3: Was that the same kind and the new in the
Speaker 3: reboot definitely they pushed that, right, So it's all about friendship.
Speaker 3: Friendship is magic is one of the crazy Okay, now
Speaker 3: it is. It's magical. Elizabeth does stuff. So but they
Speaker 3: really push this idea of positivity, but not like like,
Speaker 3: oh it's plur man like you'll find like in Rave
Speaker 3: community plur It doesn't matter. It's an acronym for positivity, love.
Speaker 3: I think unity and radiation radiation raving anyway, I forget
Speaker 3: the R, but basically it's an acronym. Then in like
Speaker 3: the Dance and EDM, community is like being. It's a
Speaker 3: it's a way of saying, we're all community. Let's be
Speaker 3: about love guys. Right, So imagine like if you totally
Speaker 3: it's the same. People keep trying to come up with
Speaker 3: different stuff the way to say it anyway, these people
Speaker 3: really push it in a way that I was convinced
Speaker 3: is what I'm saying. Right, There's this one guy spoke
Speaker 3: with Elizabeth. The dude was wearing wings, right, two tone
Speaker 3: lavender purple wig, super all purple outfit. Right, so yeah,
Speaker 3: he was like he wasn't a Yeah he was a
Speaker 3: pegasust I guess because the wings, but no horn, so
Speaker 3: he was in a unicorn pegasus. Anyway, he passed while
Speaker 3: I was waiting in line for a presentation called My
Speaker 3: Little Pony and the Symbolism of the Tarot. Now, so
Speaker 3: after that talk, I caught up with him.
Speaker 2: I want to know who had to put in the
Speaker 2: abstract to give that.
Speaker 3: You should have seen all these like they had so
Speaker 3: many of the like I could just sit here for
Speaker 3: the next hour. Yeah, we would just be like, let's
Speaker 3: talk about the lineup of speakers. It was amazing, right,
Speaker 3: So there I am at My Little Pony and the
Speaker 3: Symbolism the Tarot talk. Afterwards, I catch up to him.
Speaker 3: Dude's name tells me his name is Frank. He's also
Speaker 3: in the talk, right, so no, he tells me how
Speaker 3: he's been into my little pony for like a year
Speaker 3: and a half. Now he's dressed in full purple, the
Speaker 3: wings everything, year and a half deep into it, he's
Speaker 3: already boom, like full convert. Yeah, he has a friend
Speaker 3: with him and Frank's friend. He's even more chatty than Frank,
Speaker 3: thank god, because I'm a reporter and he's somebody give
Speaker 3: me answers, right, So he's answering my questions about how
Speaker 3: they've been into other fandoms, like oh yeah, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you guys like like fandoms the guys and so Frank's
Speaker 3: friend Dave, he's like this more resembles the anime fandom
Speaker 3: and the furry fandom, but more combined in a new way. Okay, right,
Speaker 3: and like thanks Dave, way to lay it out now, Dave,
Speaker 3: he speaks like a shy metal head teen right, So
Speaker 3: imagine like.
Speaker 2: Parking lot total parking lot boom.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So Dave tells me how he was. As he put it,
Speaker 3: I was kind of I was friendly, but I was
Speaker 3: running the risk of becoming a social recluse. And then
Speaker 3: I found the fandom, and I tried to go into
Speaker 3: meetups and meeting people, and I became more friendly, right,
Speaker 3: And I like that as a man. As a young man,
Speaker 3: he felt he needed some social work. He didn't turn
Speaker 3: to YouTube influencers. He didn't give his mind and soul
Speaker 3: over to the men who promised to teach him how
Speaker 3: to be a real man. Right, and it's good exactly.
Speaker 3: He gets deep into unicorns and pink ponies. I'm bless
Speaker 3: good on you, Dave, and so Dave. He says that
Speaker 3: with the sort of pride of someone who's like I
Speaker 3: don't solved his own problems. He's like, there's two main conventions.
Speaker 3: I go to this one in the Brony con that's
Speaker 3: in Baltimore. I paid one thousand dollars for my ticket
Speaker 3: to come out here.
Speaker 2: WHOA.
Speaker 3: I was like, WHOA, yeah, exactly, Elizabeth, whoa these dudes
Speaker 3: they flew cross country for their Brony convention. And these
Speaker 3: are active duty soldiers who were in the US Navy
Speaker 3: station in Virginia, Top Yes, and you know me. So
Speaker 3: I had to ask. I said, like, if you guys
Speaker 3: are in the military, you're with a bunch of like
Speaker 3: trained badass guys men and women who like to kick ass,
Speaker 3: take names and all that. Right, So what do you
Speaker 3: think about you guys? Being into my little pony. Like
Speaker 3: the soldier next to him in the foxhole is like,
Speaker 3: I got my wings, you know, Like what do they
Speaker 3: think of They make fun of Franken Dave for dressing
Speaker 3: up like rebooted ponies when the Little Girls show from
Speaker 3: the eighties, and Frank and Dave they know what I'm asking, right,
Speaker 3: They don't take too much of an insult. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to be reporter kind about it. Yeah, And for a
Speaker 3: moment they kind of fall silent. I'm like, God, did
Speaker 3: I offend them? You guys know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be good for like the Navy Marines rivalries.
Speaker 3: It's not gonna help the game, the big Navy Army game. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they knew I got to ask, right. Sometimes you
Speaker 3: got to ask the questions that hurt. Right. So Dave
Speaker 3: the friend says, Honestly, people do make fun of us
Speaker 3: sometimes outside of here, and I was like, outside of
Speaker 3: the convention, yeah, And so now I feel bad for
Speaker 3: the dudes, right, they just want to be happy. So
Speaker 3: I tell him, well, you know, I'm not even lying, right,
Speaker 3: But I tell Frank and Dave, I'm super impressed by
Speaker 3: you guys, Like I mean, you guys are genuine about
Speaker 3: this and like Bronie's. You guys are kind of punk rock,
Speaker 3: like with the pink ponies and stuff. I love this
Speaker 3: and like they kind of smiled. They like that, right,
Speaker 3: So then I spot this guy, right, I'm like, I
Speaker 3: let them pass and go and do about their way.
Speaker 3: And I spot this guy. He's wearing a suit and
Speaker 3: a tie, and I'm like, what's up with homie? Right?
Speaker 3: Is he like someone's dad? Is he like here? Like
Speaker 3: I parked the minivan? You guys tell me when you
Speaker 3: want me to pick you up for lunch? But no, bro,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're are you at the wrong spot? But
Speaker 3: he was not. He was not at the wrong airport hotel.
Speaker 3: He didn't check into the wrong line. It wasn't one
Speaker 3: of those right. He's also a young cat. He's got
Speaker 3: like rosy cheeks. He kind of looks like like a
Speaker 3: like a Mormon comes door to door and he's like, hey,
Speaker 3: wo'd you guys heard about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Or I think more fairly, he looks like he could
Speaker 3: sell that like the hell out of a timeshare, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 3: Like he's just a little like you kind of trust him,
Speaker 3: but you also kind of know, he's like trying to
Speaker 3: get you over on something.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: The guy turns out to be one of the head organizers, right,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, okay, that's why you got that. I
Speaker 3: can sell stagnized at the State Fair vibe wearing a suit.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a suit exactly.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: Bronis often find their way into the fandom because they
Speaker 3: can be socially awkward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of right.
Speaker 3: So we have so this guy is holding it down right,
Speaker 3: So he tells me how I still work a day job,
Speaker 3: I bought a house, I got married. I actually got
Speaker 3: engaged at a Bronie convention. I had a second wedding
Speaker 3: for my pony friends at a pony convention.
Speaker 2: Whoa yes.
Speaker 3: And I asked him, like, dude, your wife are Bernie
Speaker 3: and what's up with this? And he's like yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: like do you have basically, can you have a happy
Speaker 3: marriage as a Bronie and a non Bronie or do
Speaker 3: you both have to be Bronie's.
Speaker 2: Well, like, is Bronie just a man's thing or is
Speaker 2: there's women too? There are women Bronie.
Speaker 3: Some women they're all Bronies. They No, there's not like
Speaker 3: Cesoni's or something.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I thought it was like bros.
Speaker 3: Is that way, but it's I don't know, I don't
Speaker 3: know have to tell you about that. I didn't get
Speaker 3: a good answer on that.
Speaker 2: Pony files his wife.
Speaker 3: She tells me she wasn't there, but he tells me
Speaker 3: that is why life was. As he put it, she's tolerant.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, so what does that mean, right?
Speaker 3: And he's like, well, she's a Harry Potter person.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 3: I'm like she looked down on you as a Bronie
Speaker 3: like you guys are a new fandom, Like you're new
Speaker 3: on the block as a fandom like that. How this goes?
Speaker 3: I mean like this is like Catholics looking down on
Speaker 3: like Mormons raving a new faith, Like what's going on here?
Speaker 3: So anyway, he tells me she's very supportive of everything
Speaker 3: I do, right, So I'm like, okay, that's good anyway,
Speaker 3: So it seems like that's a key to a happy marriage,
Speaker 3: to be supportive. I don't know. I'm not married yet.
Speaker 3: So my whole point is, after spending the weekend with
Speaker 3: the Bronies, it changed me. Elizabeth and I saw a firsthand.
Speaker 3: It did about how support and community can make young men,
Speaker 3: young men, men who feel lost, alone, confused whatever, into
Speaker 3: better people. And I was stoked on that kid who
Speaker 3: really are struggling with that at the time. Right, So
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, grown men who love to play with
Speaker 3: their sparkly ponies and brush their manes and sing songs
Speaker 3: together like the little girls. They seem to be some
Speaker 3: of the happiest people I've seen on the planet in
Speaker 3: my reporting.
Speaker 4: And they're not putting like anger and toxicity out there
Speaker 4: exactly behind anyone who is in that mode.
Speaker 3: I liked how the brownies were inspired by femininity, not
Speaker 3: threatened by it. Yeah, and they influenced themselves with it.
Speaker 3: These are like good people, as I'm saying, folks just
Speaker 3: trying to get by loving ponies.
Speaker 2: I realized I have been to a convention.
Speaker 3: Oh what's your convention?
Speaker 2: The MLA modern language that accounts.
Speaker 3: I guess that's more of like an academic convention, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Anyway, So anyway, at the end of this convention, in
Speaker 3: the grand ballroom, the attendees, they all gathered together and
Speaker 3: in the crowd as one, they chanted in one voice, fun, fun, fun, fun,
Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, you guys are taking a
Speaker 3: little far, but I was excited for them, right, it
Speaker 3: was wild, Elizabeth. Anyway, my skepticism had vanished for that moment,
Speaker 3: and you know how much that means to me to
Speaker 3: have my skepticism vanished for a moment. So anyway, speaking
Speaker 3: of all that, did you hear about the army of
Speaker 3: self described and I quote anti US government gay furries.
Speaker 3: They've been hacking into state agencies in six different US states, wait,
Speaker 3: and then releasing embarrassing data online. Yes, in news coverage
Speaker 3: of the quote anti government gave furries the British paper,
Speaker 3: The Guardian, they said, and they're trying to helpfully inform
Speaker 3: any confused readers. And they said, and I quote furries
Speaker 3: are a subculture united by passion for anthropomorphism. That's one
Speaker 3: way to put it, right, but I'll put it in
Speaker 3: a little different way. Yeah, furries are folks who like
Speaker 3: to dress up like college mascots essentially, but rather than
Speaker 3: the giant tree of the Stanford's mascot, they like to
Speaker 3: dress up as cartoon and comic animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they call those their first sona as in their
Speaker 3: persona with furs. Sou Let's take a little break, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: and then you get back. I'll tell you now about
Speaker 3: the furries.
Speaker 7: Oh boy, and we're back all right, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I got a pop quiz question for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pop quiz hot shot.
Speaker 3: When do you think furries became a thing?
Speaker 2: I want to say in the nineties, earlier eighties?
Speaker 3: Yes, eighties, nineteen eighty three, some say, others say in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: That's like the heyday of mascot costumes.
Speaker 3: The eighties. I think maybe like changing materials, something happened
Speaker 3: where it was like people were still doing it here,
Speaker 3: like big On. The mascots had a lot of energy
Speaker 3: they put into it, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the materials got cheaper and the something you could universalize
Speaker 3: and everybody could have their own.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2: But anyway, high school, did you did you guys have
Speaker 2: like a mascot costumes?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, our mascot costume was ridiculous. It was
Speaker 3: a guy running around with the Blue devils, a guy
Speaker 3: running around with a small like red plastic trident and
Speaker 3: a pair of blue devil horns. And then they just
Speaker 3: wear like we had every year, like a T shirt.
Speaker 3: You could buy to like support the schold like basketball
Speaker 3: team or whatever, and then he'd be wearing that and
Speaker 3: then just blue jeans and that was the out that
Speaker 3: everybody wore. That was our blue devils. That was just it,
Speaker 3: two blue worms and a red plastic trident and just
Speaker 3: running around with the enthusiasm of a kid on like
Speaker 3: those little sugar candies where they.
Speaker 4: Break openxies are the best, like the cheapest.
Speaker 3: Just nothing. So what about y'all, do you have one?
Speaker 2: We were the monarchs, like the lions.
Speaker 4: The yes, okay, it should have been like the butterflies,
Speaker 4: but yeah, the Monarchs.
Speaker 2: And there. So there was a lion costume.
Speaker 3: And is it a lioness or does it have a.
Speaker 4: Main I don't remember. I think it had a Maine
Speaker 4: central cross dressing. And it was for a short person
Speaker 4: and it worked when and it smelled terrible, like when
Speaker 4: the person would wear it walking by, like oh my god,
Speaker 4: how are they doing?
Speaker 2: Because they never did.
Speaker 3: It was very foam something old.
Speaker 4: And it was really funny when the taller girls had
Speaker 4: to wear it stretch it out. Yeah, they would just
Speaker 4: sort of like have to hunch over it tight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It had a felt crown. I feel Oh wow, maybe
Speaker 4: I'm imagining that.
Speaker 2: Either way, I like it whatever, it's stank.
Speaker 3: So nineteen eighty four in the Bay Area, Yeah, stories
Speaker 3: came about and they were in the Bay Area. They
Speaker 3: came about and they were like, we're gonna deal with
Speaker 3: the stank issue that Elizabeth is been deviled by.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, actually, I don't know. I won't even get into that.
Speaker 3: You can just picture that on your own, So let
Speaker 3: me lay out a little.
Speaker 2: Timeline for you, Okay.
Speaker 3: In May of nineteen eighty four, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird,
Speaker 3: two indie comic book creators. They self published the first
Speaker 3: issue of a landmark comic book, one that would change
Speaker 3: the culture, Batman, Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles WHOA. It becomes
Speaker 3: hugely popular, like almost instantly.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The comics feature of these anthropomorphised human animal hybrids who
Speaker 3: are funny, smart, and they're also into the sins and
Speaker 3: vices of adult humans. These og comics, they were very
Speaker 3: different from the later cartoon TV shows and maybe franchises.
Speaker 2: They were dark, right, did not know it was a
Speaker 2: comic book?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, yeah, cartoon. I actually knew about it
Speaker 3: when it came out as a comic book because of
Speaker 3: what I'm about to tell you that there was this
Speaker 3: onslaught of imitators, and so I caught up a teenage
Speaker 3: mutant ninja turtle because of the imitators. Okay buried next year,
Speaker 3: starting well in eighty five and eighty six, but mostly
Speaker 3: in eighty six, you get these books like preteen Dirty
Speaker 3: Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos. Right, there's also geriatric gangreen jiu
Speaker 3: Jitsu Gerbils. There's the cold blooded chameleon Commandos. There were
Speaker 3: the mildly microwaved pre pewbescent gophers, microwaved pre pubescent gophers.
Speaker 3: There was also the naive interdimensional commando Koalas, and finally
Speaker 3: the adolescent radioactive black Belt Hamsters, which I think I
Speaker 3: still have a copy of. Really yes, And that same year,
Speaker 3: an indie comic book publisher launched a series called Critters.
Speaker 3: It lasted fifty issues and it would become this influential
Speaker 3: comic book to the development of furries. Okay, full Confessional Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I bought some of these comic books, Like, I was
Speaker 3: reading about this fandom when it was happening, right, I
Speaker 3: was kind of surprised, I know, ever became a furry.
Speaker 3: When I was reading about the timeline, I was like,
Speaker 3: how did I miss all this song happening right around me? Anyway,
Speaker 3: So I bought Critters. I loved that comic book.
Speaker 4: You know, we'll probably get rid of them and they
Speaker 4: go they get them cheap.
Speaker 3: It comes stent yeah, stopper, the ELM. It would be good. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now you remember I told you I bought a comic
Speaker 3: book off eBay because it was published with a paper
Speaker 3: thin vinyl forty five record printed in the back of
Speaker 3: the comic. On once it was a blues song about
Speaker 3: a blues band composed of Teddy Bears, and on the
Speaker 3: other side was a dark horror comedy song about what
Speaker 3: ducks are doing at night in the park.
Speaker 2: Some people are like, I can't wait to get paid.
Speaker 3: So exactly I found on this issue of Critters. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the song though that I wanted about the ducks
Speaker 3: was written by comic book legend Alan Moore. So this was, like,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, like deep comic book like history.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: There's another one called fish Police that I liked that
Speaker 3: was also about these anthropomorphized fish police who are wait
Speaker 3: for it, police. Yes, it was fish underwater. Everybody's fish,
Speaker 3: but it's police and it's like nineteen fifties nineteen ever.
Speaker 2: Think community has to police itself in some sense exactly.
Speaker 3: So these are these foundational texts for furries, this idea,
Speaker 3: these anthropomorphized animals who act like humans. They're doing the sex,
Speaker 3: they're doing the drugs, they're doing the car crashing, they're
Speaker 3: doing the policing. They're doing all this wrong. And you
Speaker 3: don't always see in comic books previously, like yeah, the Casper,
Speaker 3: the ghost era of anthropomorphized humans. They were like silly,
Speaker 3: cuddly creatures. They were like I gotta get to my
Speaker 3: job and I'm getting divorced. You know, that's way these
Speaker 3: comic books had, right. So anyway, this leads to these
Speaker 3: fur clad chaos eventually. So how do we get from
Speaker 3: one to the other. Well, there was the furry events
Speaker 3: because first as they tell you that the comic books,
Speaker 3: and then people are like, oh, at the comic cons
Speaker 3: at the comic book festivals, they start going, I want
Speaker 3: to get these they get they start building energy around
Speaker 3: certain comic.
Speaker 2: Books, and then gritty ones exactly.
Speaker 3: The gritty animal one. So eventually you have a furry
Speaker 3: event event at a comic book convention, right, and the
Speaker 3: first one is the Prancings Gil Tear Party. It was
Speaker 3: quote the first publicized open funny animal fan party. This
Speaker 3: is all their language. I went to like first science
Speaker 3: dot com to find this stuff. I wanted to speak
Speaker 3: in their language. Right, So s this furry animal party.
Speaker 3: It goes down where in a fan convention in Sacramento.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, nineteen eighty five. Wow, you were there, So
Speaker 3: not at the convention, but in Sacramento. Now one year
Speaker 3: to the teenage mutant Ninja turtles hit. This is all
Speaker 3: this energy's going, right. So this first official furry party
Speaker 3: gets held in San Diego at the Sci Fi and
Speaker 3: Comics Convention down there.
Speaker 2: Right, it's like the big one.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, the comic con was down there back daddy exactly, Coasta,
Speaker 3: Mesa and San Diego. These like the big one. So
Speaker 3: the furry party's flyers publicizing this party, they luridly featured
Speaker 3: quote funny animal pin up art, so imagine like sexy
Speaker 3: cats and foxes exactly, hubba hubb of like Vixen's with
Speaker 3: bazoom so perfect. You know this. So this first furry
Speaker 3: party gives the fandom its name. Oh right, and it's
Speaker 3: reputation for adult.
Speaker 4: Themes, right right, yeah, because it's not just oh I
Speaker 4: like to wear these costumes.
Speaker 3: No, it's always like sexy.
Speaker 2: It's not safe for work exactly, there's this extra edge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's like anyway, nineteen ninety Furries they hold
Speaker 3: their first all furry convention. Same year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: a group of Carnegie Mellon students found the Furry Home
Speaker 3: at Squirrel Hill. No relation to them being furries, just
Speaker 3: the name of the hill, but anyway, it's a home
Speaker 3: for furries, the furry Friendly Student Communist. It is the
Speaker 3: first one ever established house last for four years as
Speaker 3: a safe place for these like furry Carnegie Mellon students.
Speaker 3: Now around that same time, across the pond over in
Speaker 3: the UK, in nineteen ninety two, Ian Curtis in Vice
Speaker 3: British Furries to gather with a band of visiting US
Speaker 3: furries and the two fandoms party together at Ian Curtis's
Speaker 3: home in Surrey, England. And in case you're confused, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: it's not that Ian Curtis not the Joy Division lead singer.
Speaker 3: He was no longer nineteen eighty. Yeah, he's definitely gone.
Speaker 3: He wasn't like, oh, he faked his death and he's
Speaker 3: now become a furs. I thought you were trying to
Speaker 3: different Ian Curtis, and he's considered the godfather of British
Speaker 3: furris anyway, according to WikiFur dot com. Because as I
Speaker 3: told you, I think it's important that we have these
Speaker 3: people tell you who they are.
Speaker 2: Saron, you're a journalist.
Speaker 3: It's what I do, Elizabeth, I ask questions.
Speaker 2: So I asked dot com their sources.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who is this Ian Curtis who is not the
Speaker 3: Joy Division singer, And they're like, oh, he's a true
Speaker 3: British eccentric And WikiFur dot com put it and I
Speaker 3: quote delighting in the absurd. Ian was a furry war gamer,
Speaker 3: modeler and a contributor writer to the military press, doing
Speaker 3: research for the Jane's Weapons and other military periodicals of
Speaker 3: its kind. So this guy's like deep in all these communities, right,
Speaker 3: he's making little models for like the Battles of Waterloo
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's he's got like the model and like
Speaker 4: the collector aspect of them. But like the military and
Speaker 4: the furry is calling me back to the Navy guys
Speaker 4: being Bronie.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: There's a very interesting connection.
Speaker 3: The traditional male who wants to like Also, I don't
Speaker 3: know what it is.
Speaker 4: What do you think I think that they're you know,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna say I've done all the research on it,
Speaker 4: and there is a genetic component that they've been able
Speaker 4: to isolate a component six eight.
Speaker 2: Yes, and see that's my journalist.
Speaker 3: Well this duty and Curtis he would and I quote
Speaker 3: would without or with friends, attended weird tests of British
Speaker 3: war machinery and gatted about servying old battlefields and clambering
Speaker 3: through their ruins. I love this guy. This dude sounds
Speaker 3: fun right. He's like my kind of guy. He's our
Speaker 3: kind of guy. Right now, lately you may have heard
Speaker 3: some talk with furries in the press. They've been popping
Speaker 3: up because you can basically blame Congresswoman Laura and Bobert.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, the Colorado congresswoman was speaking on
Speaker 3: luncheon for the group Mesa County Republican Women, and Bobert
Speaker 3: said in her prepared remark for that day, just one
Speaker 3: week earlier, she'd received at her congressional office, Elizabeth a
Speaker 3: phone call. What was his phone call? Was from a
Speaker 3: father Elizabeth, and the father wanted help. Why do you
Speaker 3: want help, Elizabeth because his kid was in trouble? What
Speaker 3: kind of troubles, Aaron, great question, Elizabeth. The kid was
Speaker 3: in trouble for quote, stepping on a furry This is
Speaker 3: what she said in speech. In speech, now, I don't
Speaker 3: even know what that means. But Bober went on to
Speaker 3: clarify her remarks. The congresswoman told the ladies luncheon that quote,
Speaker 3: they are putting litter boxes in schools for people who
Speaker 3: identify as cats. Durango is doing this. This is how
Speaker 3: extreme it is. And Durango is a city in Colorado. Now,
Speaker 3: just to clear the air, whatever she's claiming is not true,
Speaker 3: because schools in Colorado are not putting out litter boxes
Speaker 3: for students to identify as cats. Now. Of course, Carlos Luise,
Speaker 3: the Durango School District's public information officer, confirmed this, and
Speaker 3: Slewi said and I quote absolutely not true, and added
Speaker 3: that it's important that real facts are shared and we
Speaker 3: appreciate the opportunity to clarify what's not true. Respect that game.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm going out out there quote in WikiFur
Speaker 3: dot com. I want the fact. So what are the
Speaker 3: facts of furries and they're growing popularity, Elizabeth. According to
Speaker 3: first science dot Com and I quote, furry fandom is
Speaker 3: an inclusive term that describes the communities of furries that
Speaker 3: span online, local, and international settings. The furry fandom is global,
Speaker 3: with hundreds of local groups existing worldwide and dozens of
Speaker 3: conventions held annually. But there's layers to this, Elizabeth. In
Speaker 3: the half imagined land of furries, about quote ten percent
Speaker 3: of the furries call themselves varians, and they claim to
Speaker 3: be quote less than or more than one hundred percent human,
Speaker 3: as in, they are quote an animal trapped in a
Speaker 3: human body or were an animal in a former life
Speaker 3: end quote. Then there is another subset of furries. They're
Speaker 3: called other kin. Now they feel they are quote spiritually
Speaker 3: connected to non human species, but the species extend to
Speaker 3: mystical species such as dragons, griffins, and minotaurs. Now for
Speaker 3: some demographic breakdown, Elizabeth, back to firstscience dot com, quote,
Speaker 3: more than seventy five percent of furries are under the
Speaker 3: age of twenty five. Approximately eighty four percent of furries
Speaker 3: identify as male, thirteen percent female, and two point five
Speaker 3: percent are transgender. That means Elizabeth. Furries are and I
Speaker 3: quote predominantly eighty three point two percent white, and I
Speaker 3: quote approximately one third identifies exclusively heterosexual. Furries are about
Speaker 3: five times more likely to identify as exclusively homosexual than
Speaker 3: the general population. In other words, furries are predominantly young,
Speaker 3: white gay men. Okay, so there's one major factor. Quote.
Speaker 3: When compared to a control group, furries were significantly more
Speaker 3: likely to have a history of being physically and verbally bullied.
Speaker 3: And lastly, most importantly, and I quote, approximately seventy percent
Speaker 3: say that they have told almost no one that they
Speaker 3: see in their day to day life e g. Work.
Speaker 3: Approximately sixty percent of furries agreed that they felt prejudiced
Speaker 3: against furries from society, while approximately forty percent of furries
Speaker 3: felt that being a furry was not socially acceptable. So now,
Speaker 3: when these young gay white men seek help from counselors
Speaker 3: and therapists and need to report that they are a furry,
Speaker 3: this is often seen as proof of a problem. So
Speaker 3: at first science dot Com they report and a quote.
Speaker 3: Most furries represent themselves and interact with the fandom, using
Speaker 3: personas that represent idealized versions of themselves, usually more outgoing sociable, extroverted,
Speaker 3: and confident than themselves. So it is the first sona
Speaker 3: literally is a persona in.
Speaker 2: First sure, right, so an avatar?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's like yes, like Beyonce has Sasha Fears, right,
Speaker 3: they have like Kitty Fears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's his name, Chris Gaines?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: Now, what I think is curious is that the bulk
Speaker 4: of them, the hard majority of them, are under the
Speaker 4: age of twenty five, which means their brains haven't fully developed.
Speaker 2: That as well good things. Keep in mind all this escapism, though.
Speaker 4: You look at someone who totally feels not accepted in society. Now,
Speaker 4: when you get into that thing though, with like the
Speaker 4: ones who think they really are.
Speaker 3: Yes, but also, you know what happens with a human being.
Speaker 2: You can't coddle that. You have to nip it in
Speaker 2: the butt. And I know I'm gonna upset them, but
Speaker 2: you know whatever, I'm gonna nip it in the bud
Speaker 2: for you. Let's get this right.
Speaker 4: You got to stop that wichends what you mean by
Speaker 4: identify You know what I mean now, I'm talking about
Speaker 4: the ones who really believe that they're like the party
Speaker 4: elf or whatever.
Speaker 3: When you get to the science of like I'm partmnotar.
Speaker 2: Sixty percent fox, and you know.
Speaker 3: You're not doing yourself an any favorite stop it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't mind. I mean not to like pull up
Speaker 3: from the indigenous like a spirit animal, but following the
Speaker 3: idea that you can be drawn to a thing, I mean.
Speaker 2: We all, we all have affinities for things connected or
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 3: Try to say like you are a thing, stop it anyway.
Speaker 3: Now that you have a sense of who furries are, right,
Speaker 3: and how they come about and why they came about,
Speaker 3: and how they are different from Broni's which can be
Speaker 3: a bit confusing for some, which is why I want
Speaker 3: to draw that out for you, right, and also remember
Speaker 3: what happens when a human being puts on a mask.
Speaker 2: Are these people? Is their crime just being annoying to me?
Speaker 3: Nope, I'm gonna I want you to get ready for
Speaker 3: Rain first twenty fifteen. Rain First. That's the story I
Speaker 3: came here to tell you about today.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, So I have all the background knowledge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted you to deeply understand that because this
Speaker 3: is something I need to content.
Speaker 2: Oh you can't, I'm getting that.
Speaker 3: I want at least going there and making fun of
Speaker 3: these people.
Speaker 4: I'm getting that you can't just be dropped into this
Speaker 4: like you need that as well. Now you may not
Speaker 4: go into it making fun of these.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: That's much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, buckle up, Buttercup. So this is a
Speaker 3: fan con for furries held in Washington State at a
Speaker 3: Hilton Hotel out by the c Tech Airport. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: this event Rainforest. It turned into an absolute poop show.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: It all went down like six months before I hit
Speaker 3: up that Broni con in San Francisco. Oh okay, So
Speaker 3: I didn't know that about Rainforest at the time, but
Speaker 3: many of the Bronis kept mentioning this, So I kept
Speaker 3: hearing about it, but I had not come up in
Speaker 3: my research because I'm only looking into Bronie's.
Speaker 2: We were all scratch scratched, so exactly right.
Speaker 3: And they're all worried that this would make them look bad.
Speaker 3: And I was like, what happened? So yeah, exactly, you're
Speaker 3: ready to punch your ticket for rain First twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: We step inside the madness anyway. The event starts in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, right the Rainforest first ones. It
Speaker 3: gets attended by three hundred and seventy furs. The next year,
Speaker 3: five hundred and ninety nine first show up. By twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: the attendance to climb to twenty seven hundred and four
Speaker 3: firs not bad, right, They're doing good. Problem was that
Speaker 3: many of those nearly three thousand people who came to
Speaker 3: Rainforest in twenty fifteen, they'd also come for the special
Speaker 3: vibe that was Rainforest. What is this special vibe? Great question, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: The convention was known in the furry community for being
Speaker 3: the most lenient about convention protocols and regulations. The organizers
Speaker 3: also very tolerant of extreme fetishes, the sort of fetishes
Speaker 3: that are regularly banned at other furry conventions, and for
Speaker 3: good reason. The reason was kids also attend these cons
Speaker 3: Like this isn't just adult stuff. When you have furries.
Speaker 3: Some of there are kids like under eighteen teens, some
Speaker 3: of them are down to like tenth. Mostly it is
Speaker 3: for the adults, so they need to have like adults
Speaker 3: only versions or like you know, all ages cons. They
Speaker 3: don't think about that, they just have a con right,
Speaker 3: so you can't have kids running around, But while you
Speaker 3: these half naked like slutty pandas and stripper foxes. Right,
Speaker 3: that barely scratches the surfaces of what we're what these
Speaker 3: attendees were doing at Rainforest. I'm just using. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: it got way stranger cleaned it and far more soiled
Speaker 3: the thing was Elizabeth. Rainforest had a reputation for being
Speaker 3: a place to party and cut loose like act a
Speaker 3: little wild, let your animal side out. Pardon the pun
Speaker 3: that laisse fair attitude would come to be the fan
Speaker 3: conventions undoing.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The theme for Rainforest twenty fifteen was Swords and Sorcery.
Speaker 3: The announcement was sent forth, Come thou writers, artists, fur suitors, gamers, musicians,
Speaker 3: puppeteers and furries, all lady art here with invited to
Speaker 3: this special time, to a place filled with the fruits
Speaker 3: of kinship, mirthfulness, and joy. To a place which verily
Speaker 3: glows with the charm which has truly filled each to
Speaker 3: the marrow.
Speaker 8: Come and that the joy of life take hold of
Speaker 8: the as we all do rejoice and are thriving culture together.
Speaker 8: So you see that it's so full of itsilf.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, but I just can't right.
Speaker 3: So this witch is bruise fully bubbling right now, now,
Speaker 3: all that was left to do was to take up
Speaker 3: one's cup and drink deeply and merrily from the draft
Speaker 3: of life, Elizabeth. So which, like, what does one do
Speaker 3: at a furry convention? Leave great question, Elizabeth, You could say,
Speaker 3: sign up for the rain First twenty fifteen First Suit
Speaker 3: dance competition. Oh boy, keep in mind if you wish
Speaker 3: to compete quote for this competition of first suit is
Speaker 3: minimally defined as an animal costume with a full encompassing headpiece, hand, pause,
Speaker 3: and tail. So you need gloves, tail and a head.
Speaker 2: And then the rest to the imagination.
Speaker 3: There was also this suggestion that quote also, please keep
Speaker 3: your music selection friendly for all ages. A good rule
Speaker 3: to follow is is if your music selection would be
Speaker 3: suitable for FM radio airplay. So No two Life Crew
Speaker 3: No two Left, Crump No. The dance competition featured judges
Speaker 3: and they were to judge the competitors on criteria such
Speaker 3: as originality, technical difficulty, execution, crowd involvement, and musicality technical difficulty.
Speaker 3: The judges would be watching for fancy footwork and throwing
Speaker 3: out dance moves no one else has seen before, challenging
Speaker 3: moves to wow the audience that goes far right, These
Speaker 3: are all what they're telling their people. No, let's say
Speaker 3: you wanted you could also attend to talk a seminar.
Speaker 3: There were many on offer. For instance, you could attend
Speaker 3: Dogs and Cats living Together writing Erotic Furry Anatomy. Not
Speaker 3: about how to write erotica for furries. No, not about
Speaker 3: how to write for furries, but writing erotic furry anatomy. No,
Speaker 3: it's an anatomy class anyway. It was described as and
Speaker 3: I quote tales, claws and feathers. A discussion of how
Speaker 3: these and other animalistic physical characteristics fit into an erotic
Speaker 3: scene is something writers need work with.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: We both know this, So yeah, you can sit in
Speaker 3: on that talk. And you're so inclined now. When the
Speaker 3: convention kicked off, it started under a rather dark and
Speaker 3: ominous cloud. Rumors were swirling Elizabeth, to the point that
Speaker 3: the festival organizer had to speak to all the dark talk.
Speaker 3: As one festival director said at the convention's launch ceremony,
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely sure there is no truth to the rumor
Speaker 3: rain Forest is under an evil curse. And with that,
Speaker 3: it's my pleasure to officially declare rain Forest twenty fifteen open.
Speaker 3: So let's take a little break. Now that we've opened
Speaker 3: Rainforest and wake it back. I'm gonna make you, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna push you inside.
Speaker 6: No, oh, Elizabeth, rain Forest is open this.
Speaker 3: Remember I told you about the dance talent competition. Remember
Speaker 3: the judges were looking.
Speaker 2: For everything golden doodles.
Speaker 3: Well they did what they tell us. I told you
Speaker 3: what they didn't want to hear, what they didn't want
Speaker 3: to see. Well, one contestant, while singing a Lincoln Park track,
Speaker 3: accidentally flashed a bare crotch show out of the crowd.
Speaker 2: Accidents, and there's like, yeah, there's is.
Speaker 3: Like video of it, and it was like it's like oop.
Speaker 3: That was the first day, right, So first night of
Speaker 3: the three day, two night convention. The Furries have now arrived.
Speaker 3: They check into the Hilton Hotel. They get settled in
Speaker 3: their rooms, they put on their first suits, They adopt
Speaker 3: their first sonas they go downstairs, they attend the opening ceremony,
Speaker 3: The dance talent competition happens, They get flashed, They meet
Speaker 3: up with their friends on the convention grounds, and then
Speaker 3: as the evening progresses, some of the Furries start to drink.
Speaker 3: Some drink cheap beer, some drink malt liquor in those
Speaker 3: little canned cocktails. Meanwhile, in the hotel rooms, other furries
Speaker 3: are rolling up some smoke and getting high on jazz
Speaker 3: cabbage cigarettes. Elizabeth, They're just like some of the furries
Speaker 3: are pulling out the whippets. They started toughing nitrous oxide balloons.
Speaker 2: Oh good, I'm.
Speaker 3: Talking boxes and boxes of whippets. I saw videos and
Speaker 3: there's like it was full industrial size containers, like two
Speaker 3: thousand whippets.
Speaker 2: Right, so soon enough like lost brain cells. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: there's yougres, the crime dog was there.
Speaker 3: I'm most from what you told me, I'm thinking, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is maybe.
Speaker 2: Everyone just walks around all I'm unique. I'm quirky'nique, I'm quirky,
Speaker 2: and you're like, all right, dude, I'm quirkyd Could you
Speaker 2: imagine having to work at the hotel?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they start to get loose, right. You got
Speaker 3: to imagine these are animals like imagine college mascot sized
Speaker 3: animal routfits, only more cartoonish and more sexy. Now they're
Speaker 3: pounding cheap beer. They're pulling out bottles of liquor like
Speaker 3: full on, like fists of Southern comfort. They're sipping on
Speaker 3: canned cocktails. They're getting sideways, they're getting.
Speaker 2: Twisted a cheap booze. It sounds like.
Speaker 3: Totally set up, like it's a proper buzz for like
Speaker 3: a frat house party, only this group of mainly young
Speaker 3: men are all dressed up wearing giant animal heads. So
Speaker 3: soon just.
Speaker 2: Like sitting there drinking a kampari and soda and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if.
Speaker 3: They're like pulling their head back and drinking. They're like
Speaker 3: screened face.
Speaker 4: They like there's someone with like a juicy bootied zebra
Speaker 4: costume on, like with a you know, shmearing off ice
Speaker 4: with a silly straw coming out of it.
Speaker 2: You know, you know this is how this happens.
Speaker 3: Sooner, if you got folks in first suits, passed out
Speaker 3: hotel bath ups, they're collapsed in the hallways, they're leaned
Speaker 3: up against their hotel room door. Some have urinated on themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're waiting for someone to come back and let them
Speaker 3: in the room or whatever. Now because they're all drunk
Speaker 3: and high. Some are like like they're getting the spins,
Speaker 3: but they're in an animal costume. They're like, yeah, it's bad, right,
Speaker 3: they're vomiting through animal costumes. Now if you would turn
Speaker 3: a corner and see someone just having puke leaking pad
Speaker 3: of like they're like, I don't know, fox face masks,
Speaker 3: those eyes really need to sit down for a moment, right,
Speaker 3: So pivot some more time and now you got folks yacking,
Speaker 3: right and then some as I said, now they're passing out. Now.
Speaker 3: Then some are half in their first sona half out.
Speaker 3: So you got like headless animals, like some just everywhere
Speaker 3: you go. Right. Some disabled their smoke detectors in their
Speaker 3: hotel rooms. They start smoking pots. Now they you got
Speaker 3: to smoke leaking out into the hallway. So everything just
Speaker 3: smells like pod and like malt liquor. Right, So, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: this scene is basically a multi story frat part in
Speaker 3: an airport Hilton hotel.
Speaker 4: This one, if you didn't know it was going on,
Speaker 4: and like your office bookshoot because you're going on some
Speaker 4: sort of trip and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're just like there for like a get to
Speaker 3: know you meet and greet with some like sleep in
Speaker 3: the car, some tech company you're going over to meet Microsoft.
Speaker 3: You have the Seattle Tech right, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden you walk in. You're in
Speaker 3: a giant frat party. For like hell raising NFL mascots.
Speaker 3: It looks like you're one of those old ESPN Sports
Speaker 3: Center ads. You're just like the old funny ones.
Speaker 4: I would snap, I'd go through there with like a
Speaker 4: truncheon and be just like meeecapping people, Like, all right,
Speaker 4: that's enough.
Speaker 3: I almost don't want to do this next thing to you.
Speaker 3: But have you ever heard of crinkling? I would have
Speaker 3: been so surprised if you had heard of it so
Speaker 3: like like I would have been, like, girl, you got
Speaker 3: some splaining? How you know what cranklin?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 3: You research so cranklin? You ever heard the sound of
Speaker 3: diaper makes when a toddler is first learning to walk?
Speaker 2: You stop the word crinkling.
Speaker 3: It's in an AUTOMATOPEA right, it's that's the sound of
Speaker 3: a baby's diaper. Essentially, listen, let me back that up.
Speaker 3: If you if you ever heard of a baby.
Speaker 2: Fur, I'm afraid that you eard of a baby fur?
Speaker 3: A baby for Elizabeth, you ever heard of them? Probably?
Speaker 3: Can you imagine what I've said about a fur? What
Speaker 3: a baby fur?
Speaker 2: Is it one of those freakys who puts a diaper?
Speaker 3: A baby fur is a furry whose first sona is
Speaker 3: a toddler or an infant or a very small child,
Speaker 3: and some of them they were humans. They wear diapers
Speaker 3: and you'd say that the diaper clad furries if you
Speaker 3: were to see them walk past you, you'd say, oh,
Speaker 3: they're crinkling right now. So imagine you're at a guest
Speaker 3: at the Sea Tech Airport Hilton.
Speaker 2: The animal in their get up, they're just they're in there.
Speaker 3: They're in the bait, they're in the costume.
Speaker 2: There like a baby exactly.
Speaker 3: But they're wearing a diaper, huge diaper.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: So imagine you're a guest at the Sea Tax and
Speaker 3: you're in the elevator with a man in a fur
Speaker 3: suit on the top half, but he's porky pegging it
Speaker 3: from the waist down. Except instead of a bare pink
Speaker 3: bottom like porky, he's wearing a diaper. And it's an
Speaker 3: enormous kids diaper. And how do you know it's a
Speaker 3: kid's diaper because what's printed on the diaper, like that's
Speaker 3: not like for an adult that's got like little flowers
Speaker 3: and like animals on it, Like that's the kids. And
Speaker 3: it's oh god, it's a soiled diaper. No, he's walking around.
Speaker 3: This man's walking around a soiled diaper. At Rainfast twenty fifteen, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: there were a number of crinkling baby furs walking around
Speaker 3: in diapers, and even the Rainforest attendees are like, bro,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? I don't want to see all
Speaker 3: of that. What I found a bunch of tweets, and
Speaker 3: there's a tweet for of course. Some One attendee tweeted,
Speaker 3: I don't like baby furs in general. I dislike smelling
Speaker 3: baby furs in public. I've noticed too many at rainforst
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: So they walk around in their own fils.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's part of their thing.
Speaker 2: That's their first They probably just eat like baby food too.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, exactly, they got orange soft served down there.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Another attendee tweeted and quote, hey, at rainforest, most cons
Speaker 3: have rules banning viaper first from marching around displaying that
Speaker 3: literal take a hint hashtag rain first. Now Still there's
Speaker 3: another attendee, he tweeted, and I quote kind of ruins
Speaker 3: the convibe when an adult walks past with a dump
Speaker 3: in their diaper in public. Please keep that literally in
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 4: This is I would be a Rainforest vigilanty and I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna get a ton.
Speaker 2: Of those big zip tie handcuffs. I'm gonna go around.
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you a trunch into the back
Speaker 2: of a knee zip tire, your hands behind your back.
Speaker 2: Probably love this, and then just leave piles like that's enough. Stop,
Speaker 2: that's enough. Everybody stop where you are.
Speaker 3: I just now, all of a sudden, you're their prison Mommy, No, okay,
Speaker 3: then this is.
Speaker 2: All falling apart on me. I was seeing vengeance being mine,
Speaker 2: but I think.
Speaker 4: The way it is opposite.
Speaker 3: So to give the crinklers their time on the witness
Speaker 3: stand in this inadvertent trial of the court of public opinion, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: the crinklers a tempted to defend themselves, and I will
Speaker 3: give them their time on the stage. One crinkler tweeted,
Speaker 3: and I quote dear RF twenty fifteen, go and remember
Speaker 3: that you are the black sheep to the rest of
Speaker 3: the world before you start making fun of a guy
Speaker 3: in a diaper. So that was that one, And I
Speaker 3: mean fair point, but maybe not the tack I take
Speaker 3: if I were the one wearing the diaper, But whatever.
Speaker 3: There was a baby fur who tweeted and I quote
Speaker 3: not cool with all the baby fur hate on my
Speaker 3: timeline right now, what's happening to this fandom is not
Speaker 3: just for you furry twitter.
Speaker 2: Like I get a job anyway that you got. There's
Speaker 2: so much to do in this life, not fighting over ship.
Speaker 3: They wear diapers at am, I right to fight.
Speaker 2: I need my pants.
Speaker 3: I'm going to party my pants off with pooping them anyway.
Speaker 3: That same first night, Elizabeth, chaos unfolds. We're only in
Speaker 3: the first night still, as men were walking around tank
Speaker 3: top shirts that declared in bright pink font I don't dogs. Wait,
Speaker 3: these were all there. Yeah, these were There were younger
Speaker 3: furries who were like trying to enjoy the same convention.
Speaker 2: So they're saying there were people who are.
Speaker 3: Essentially there's an implication. There's an implication there. So trouble
Speaker 3: was primed and set. So then the toilet started to explode.
Speaker 4: Yes, Elizabeth, something I would be telling you about all
Speaker 4: the poopy stories.
Speaker 3: Some furry had some hand tools on them and they
Speaker 3: loosened a bolt in the men's room. Right, That was
Speaker 3: the set up a prank, right, And the idea was
Speaker 3: that the next time someone used the toilet, when they
Speaker 3: flushed the pressure would rupture the connection for the pipe
Speaker 3: providing water to the toilet. It worked, Elizabeth, that's great.
Speaker 4: That's a great prank. So that everyone who works in
Speaker 4: maintenance now has to take care of all that.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, better than that.
Speaker 2: I just need to scold all of them.
Speaker 3: So the guy who had this happened, he sent an
Speaker 3: email and I quote, I was the big guy on
Speaker 3: the toilet. I was in the handicap stall, tended to business.
Speaker 2: They did it in a handicap stall, uh huh.
Speaker 3: And when I flushed, the toilet exploded. I was told
Speaker 3: via email from the con chair later that it had
Speaker 3: been confirmed sabotage to the toilet. So basically, as soon
Speaker 3: as it was flushed, it wet, explodes, and the toilet
Speaker 3: floods the bathroom floor too, and a half inches of
Speaker 3: water splashing out of the bathroom. Dude. He also emailed
Speaker 3: and I quote, I don't remember much except all of
Speaker 3: a sudden it was raining toilet water in the bathroom.
Speaker 3: I know it wasn't just me, as in the matter
Speaker 3: of a few seconds, I went from sitting on the
Speaker 3: toilet flushing to about two to three feet from the toilets.
Speaker 3: He gets blown off the toilet right standing, having to
Speaker 3: balance myself against the wall. I was quickly soaked. I
Speaker 3: managed to pull my clothes back on and stumbled out
Speaker 3: of the bathroom. People thought I was having a heart
Speaker 3: attack until I pointed out the water. I had to
Speaker 3: sit soaked in toilet water for five hours until a
Speaker 3: room was ready for me and I could get a shower.
Speaker 3: It was not fun. It was sabotage.
Speaker 2: Was he like a furry there?
Speaker 3: Yeah? He was like, yeah, he's dressed as like a
Speaker 3: furry too, can.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth whoever pulled that prank was not raised in a
Speaker 4: drought to No, there's.
Speaker 3: Your California show right now. Anyway, this emergency plumber gets
Speaker 3: caught in and this is just the beginning of the destruction.
Speaker 3: Because I also forgot to tell you, water from the
Speaker 3: exploited toilet in the bathroom leak through the floor. That's
Speaker 3: how much there was. It drained down into a lower floor,
Speaker 3: which was a basement room where the hotel's servers were located.
Speaker 3: They started roofing the hotel, and then Elizabeth, there was
Speaker 3: the rumors of the glory hole, like a legit fully
Speaker 3: functioning glory hole. Someone drilled a hole into one of
Speaker 3: the partitions of the bathroom stalls in the men's room,
Speaker 3: I could find no photographic evidence. Meanwhile, on Instagram, I
Speaker 3: would not do that to you all. Meanwhile, on Saturday
Speaker 3: there was the anti pool party. So yes, we're now
Speaker 3: today the first.
Speaker 2: Full day anti poo pool party.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, that's my name for it. The pool section
Speaker 3: of the hotel. Some of the furries stripped down. They
Speaker 3: went for a swim, right, I assume maybe they went
Speaker 3: there in their heads. I don't know. Some hopped in
Speaker 3: the hot tub, or maybe they didn't. They just sort
Speaker 3: of washed off their fur I don't know what they did,
Speaker 3: but anyway, and also don't know what they're into. But
Speaker 3: I do know is when they were done, they threw
Speaker 3: all the pool towels into the hot tub. But they
Speaker 3: didn't just toss them in. They rolled the towels up
Speaker 3: tightly into cylinders and shoved them into the pool pump,
Speaker 3: clogging it, eventually breaking it. Another plumber has to be
Speaker 3: called out to repair it. Thousands of dollars of damage.
Speaker 3: But that wasn't the worst thing to go down.
Speaker 2: They just huff gases oxide.
Speaker 3: I hate them all, and they drinking the cheap beer
Speaker 3: and the malt liquor cocktails. I'm telling you, just run wild.
Speaker 2: You're children.
Speaker 4: It's adult body it destroying things and making life miserable
Speaker 4: for working worse.
Speaker 3: Than Boston sports fans. I'm just playing. We're everybody I
Speaker 3: want to get. I got a list over him.
Speaker 4: You know, I know that the Furries are really not
Speaker 4: loving me right now, and I just don't care.
Speaker 2: Don't because I feel like I have more people on my.
Speaker 3: You're fearless, maybe they'll respect that I am. You're a fleshy,
Speaker 3: that's what you are.
Speaker 2: Bring it so out, mommy.
Speaker 3: So the worst thing to go down to the pool,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth was apparently one of the Furries decided to drop
Speaker 3: their drawers and squeeze out a floater, true Caddyshack style.
Speaker 3: But they yet the real deal. That's right, they pulled.
Speaker 2: This is such a good mood, baby.
Speaker 3: Ruth Candy bar in the pool track.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a baby stop it it was a fresh pool.
Speaker 2: This is such a good mood.
Speaker 4: I am so mad right now over something that happened
Speaker 4: ten years ago.
Speaker 3: Back inside the hotel, in the hallways on nearly every floor,
Speaker 3: it seems like you have pot smoke licking out from
Speaker 3: under the doors, which is making the hotel smell like
Speaker 3: the streets of San Francisco. And then even though the
Speaker 3: Furries that they've disabled the smoke detectors in their rooms,
Speaker 3: still some of them don't do it well. Fire alarms
Speaker 3: get triggered. Now the fire department gets called out to
Speaker 3: this Hilton hotel. Also still on the same Saturday, a
Speaker 3: few of the furries said to themselves, Okay, we're at
Speaker 3: an airport Hilton in Seattle, well actually Tacoma. So we're
Speaker 3: wearing adult sized, sexy animal costumes and we came here
Speaker 3: to party. We should probably do a ton of psychedelic
Speaker 3: drugs and see which one of us freaks out first.
Speaker 3: So they did exactly that, Elizabeth, and eventually an ambulance
Speaker 3: was called out. Can you guess why? No? Instead because
Speaker 3: of I'm gonna I'm not gonna tell you the answer, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: It said, i'd like you to close your eyes. I'd
Speaker 3: like you I took picture.
Speaker 2: Cropped my eyes open with toothpicks, and I refuse.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just gonna flash pictures at your eyes. Then
Speaker 3: it's a Saturday morning in twenty fifteen, and you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: are working at the Seattle, Tacoma Airport, Hilton Hotel. You
Speaker 3: are a concierge shrew Hilton Hotels, and you weren't at
Speaker 3: work yesterday, which means you missed day one of the
Speaker 3: rainforest chaos. But you're catching up on all that went
Speaker 3: down while you enjoyed your day off. It sounds absolutely wild,
Speaker 3: and now you're about to get your own first taste
Speaker 3: of it. The phone rings. One of the associates at
Speaker 3: the front desk answers that you're standing not too far away.
Speaker 3: You can't hear the call, but you see their face
Speaker 3: knit into a mask of consternation. They put the call
Speaker 3: on hold and then ask you to take the guest's request.
Speaker 3: You take the call. As soon as you press the button,
Speaker 3: you hear the voice of a young man, and he
Speaker 3: sounds somewhat out of it. At the other end of
Speaker 3: the phone is a living comic book. It's a smoky
Speaker 3: jazz club. A tall anthropomorphic redtail fox is dancing slowly
Speaker 3: seductively by itself to Chet Baker jazz music, while the
Speaker 3: black and white Buddha bellied panda one who's a bit
Speaker 3: sullen at the moment, sits alone at a table drinking
Speaker 3: from a bottle of cough syrup. The sullen panda is
Speaker 3: also on the phone. There's a table phone from like
Speaker 3: an old nightclub. The panda says into the phone, am
Speaker 3: I always gonna feel this like this way? The panda
Speaker 3: waves his hand in front of his face, and his thick,
Speaker 3: furry fingers trace arcs of motion that leave trails like
Speaker 3: a cartoon of a super fast character running. But it's
Speaker 3: scaring the Buddha bellied panda. I'm moving so fast. I
Speaker 3: see speed trail, but I'm sitting still. How am I
Speaker 3: going so fast without moving? Tell me, sir, is everything okay?
Speaker 3: You ask the panda from the other end of the phone.
Speaker 3: The red tailed fox stops gyrating its hips seductively to
Speaker 3: a rhythm. Only the fox hears while the panda is
Speaker 3: on the phone, and the fox turns quickly accuseatorally, and
Speaker 3: the night club disappears. The alluring fox sees the panda
Speaker 3: in the full light of hotel lighting, sitting on the
Speaker 3: hotel bed talking on the phone. Who are you talking to?
Speaker 3: The fox asks. The panda looks at the fox. The
Speaker 3: alluring fox stares back at the panda. And you listening
Speaker 3: on the other end. Here the silence begin and grow wide.
Speaker 3: So you ask, are you still there?
Speaker 7: Sir?
Speaker 3: I need to call nine one one for me. I
Speaker 3: think I'm going way too fast. Tell them to bring
Speaker 3: anti speed pills. Is everything okay? Are you in speed?
Speaker 2: Sir?
Speaker 3: You asked? No, The panda says, and then laughs, No,
Speaker 3: we were eiding mushrooms. But there are too good too, wow,
Speaker 3: way too much wow. So now I'm moving two superspanded
Speaker 3: speed pandas don't move this fast? Do you need me
Speaker 3: to send someone up to your room? Start? You're in
Speaker 3: room seven of six. I see call nine one one.
Speaker 3: Tell them there's a pana going too fast that's supposed
Speaker 3: to fast. The call ends you indeed call nine one one,
Speaker 3: But as for an ambulance, not the police, you're a
Speaker 3: kind person. A half hour later, you watch as a
Speaker 3: seductive redtail fox and a black and white panda are
Speaker 3: both wheeled out on stretchers. The two furries are still
Speaker 3: fully twisted with a headful of mushrooms. Your coworker leans
Speaker 3: over and says, it's only ten am. Buckle up, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be a long day.
Speaker 2: No, I answered that phone. I say I'm not the one,
Speaker 2: and then I fully participate with the police.
Speaker 4: State, and I get that whole joint rated, and then
Speaker 4: I quit Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Another ambulance was called out to the Airport Hilton Hotel
Speaker 3: when two dudes, two furries, also went a little too
Speaker 3: hard in the fur but these two were they drank
Speaker 3: their furry faces off and needed medical attention. So not
Speaker 3: only were there two emergency plumbers, there were two ambulances
Speaker 3: the fire department, and eventually, of course expectedly, the police
Speaker 3: came out to the Airport Hilton Hotel. Cops were called
Speaker 3: after one of the convention staff members was accused of
Speaker 3: assault of a furry in a costume.
Speaker 2: Then the cops were called the accused, the hotel staff.
Speaker 3: The convention staff, so one of the festival organizers apparently
Speaker 3: like maybe it was a I don't know exactly, I
Speaker 3: always knows convention staff member was accused of of assault
Speaker 3: of a furry in a costume.
Speaker 2: That's yes, that fully support that.
Speaker 3: Then the cops were called back out to the c
Speaker 3: Tech Airport Hilton after one furry got into it with
Speaker 3: another furry and that cat was busted on charges of
Speaker 3: regular old assault because the first one was questionable about
Speaker 3: what the nature of the assault was sure, yes, so
Speaker 3: he was arrested and it gets escorted away since they
Speaker 3: are already there. The cops also arrested two more of
Speaker 3: the Rainforest attendees in the hotel parking lot.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 3: One was busted for drug possession, the other was busted
Speaker 3: for drug sales. They got caught midbust. It's like a
Speaker 3: perfect bust by the cops.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So back inside the hotel and on the surrounding grounds,
Speaker 3: there are furries now getting into food fights. Mostly it's pizza,
Speaker 3: breadsticks and as you can have delivered to a hotel,
Speaker 3: as my man step and A would say, things of
Speaker 3: that nature. There are other suthers now throwing diapers around
Speaker 3: because I remember, we've got a lot of diapers. Some
Speaker 3: of them are used, some are new. Some of the
Speaker 3: used diapers get left on the hoods of attendees cars
Speaker 3: in the parking lot to get sun baked. Yes, oh
Speaker 3: my god. On Sunday, with a day left to go,
Speaker 3: Hilton Hotel tells the convention goers they need to get gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So at that point the SeaTac airport Hilton Hotel staff
Speaker 3: is sick of the furries droppings. The staff is angry irritated,
Speaker 3: others are broken, demoralized. The Hilton threatens to eighty six
Speaker 3: the worst offenders. Right, the SeaTac Airport Hilton tabulates the
Speaker 3: damage done and they inform the Rain First organizers that
Speaker 3: if you tabulated all of the damage done by all
Speaker 3: the other conventions held that year at the hotel, the
Speaker 3: sum would be less than the amount of damage done
Speaker 3: by Rain First twenty fifteen. The amount was about one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That's insane.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so the Sea Tac Airport Hilton's they send
Speaker 3: a letter to inform them that their contract for any
Speaker 3: future events is officially terminated. But they paid for it.
Speaker 3: They had one hundred and fifty on their bank ledgers,
Speaker 3: so they were able to pay for the damage done. Right,
Speaker 3: But then comes time for Rain First twenty sixteen. Convention
Speaker 3: organizers they go and they approach other hotels in the
Speaker 3: Seattle Tacoma area. They went to one, they get turned down.
Speaker 3: They go to another, they get turned down. They go
Speaker 3: to a third, and they pointed out how much money
Speaker 3: their convention would bring in for the hotel, and they
Speaker 3: get turned down. Every hotel they approach said now, but
Speaker 3: more like no effing way can you ever hold your
Speaker 3: Furrey convention here? So they look to other towns, like
Speaker 3: nearby Bellingham. It's a town north of Seattle, a little
Speaker 3: bit in a little east end. So same result. No, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 3: no hotel wants them, right, So eventually they had to
Speaker 3: ask a hotel in Spokane, Washington, and the hotel agreed
Speaker 3: to host the rainforest. Now they're in way across this
Speaker 3: day in eastern desert is Washington, right, nobody's gone out
Speaker 3: to Spokane for any reason. But they're like, we'll have
Speaker 3: the no no for the rainforest, and no one's going
Speaker 3: to a rainforest. But they're like, we'll just move our rainforest.
Speaker 3: They're trying to play on the whole settle the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3: Now they're in the desert of like the high Mountain desert, right,
Speaker 3: They're like, well, still rainforest, it's still happening. People ignored
Speaker 3: the desert. But anyway, short time later, hotel informs the
Speaker 3: convention organizers you're no longer welcome. They're like, wait, what
Speaker 3: turns out there was a disgruntled insider, Elizabeth, with a
Speaker 3: pen shant for drama, and they started a secret letter
Speaker 3: writing campaign, and they were sending letters to every hotel
Speaker 3: in the Seattle area and then later apparently spoken and
Speaker 3: informed them that they were signing up for if they
Speaker 3: hosted a rainforest event. So the main event organized with
Speaker 3: this man known as Trapa. He was he identifies as
Speaker 3: an African civet cat. He's a yeah. So he spoke
Speaker 3: to the controversy at a separate furry event held in
Speaker 3: Vancouver in twenty sixteen. In Trappa the African Civic Cat,
Speaker 3: he gave updates on the Rainforest twenty fifteen. Now, he
Speaker 3: wasn't wearing a fur suit at the time. He's just
Speaker 3: sitting on stage and likes jeans and his shirt and
Speaker 3: he's like, we couldn't find anything in the local area.
Speaker 3: It seems strange and almost as if they were being
Speaker 3: talked to. And then he accused someone because he had
Speaker 3: proof of sabotage. Trap of the African Civic Cat said
Speaker 3: that only one person could have possibly known the details
Speaker 3: or in the letters sent to the hotels, and he
Speaker 3: added that in my heart of hearts, I know who
Speaker 3: it is. Means motivation and opportunity abound, and it pisses
Speaker 3: me off. Yeah. Well, so the weirdest part is that
Speaker 3: trap of the festival director. He implies that the letter
Speaker 3: writer was also the person who'd been seen putting used
Speaker 3: diapers on people's car in the parking lot. So I
Speaker 3: guess after their initial diaper based protest failed, they moved
Speaker 3: on to a more traditional method of letter writing to
Speaker 3: smear people's good jobs. It worked, word got out twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: No hotel, no motel, no holiday inn, no country fairground,
Speaker 3: no convention hall, no bar mits for rental hall, no
Speaker 3: space of any I would host the Furries. The hammer
Speaker 3: fellow is but the gong was struck. The death neel sounded.
Speaker 3: Whatever you prefer. Rain First twenty fifteen was the end
Speaker 3: of the road for the Pacific Northwest Furries Convention. The
Speaker 3: convention was canceled for good forever. Good Wait, what's that record? Scratch?
Speaker 3: What's there's news? Trappa? The African Civic Cat is plucky.
Speaker 3: Band of fellow furry conventioneers have got the back on
Speaker 3: the ball. They got to work like a kitten batting
Speaker 3: around a ball a yarn And then look at that
Speaker 3: a little while later they announced they're bringing back Rain
Speaker 3: First twenty seventeen. Parties back on Elizabeth, grab your head
Speaker 3: past attendees. They're stoked, like, make you grab my tail,
Speaker 3: my hands, I'm on it. Some of them were mainly
Speaker 3: possibly pretty excited. Some of them were not so excited anyway,
Speaker 3: Some were skeptical. Whatever, the whole point was. Bad news
Speaker 3: came down from on high in furry Land in February
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. Last minute, the Rainforest Board of Directors and
Speaker 3: convention staff said, that's it. It's a rap, folks. Never mind,
Speaker 3: it's done.
Speaker 2: We're over.
Speaker 3: We can't even get together. That was it they got.
Speaker 3: They climbed themselves right out of business. I want the
Speaker 3: ridiculous take away here, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I'm no fun and I like it that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be a good judge.
Speaker 2: I just I have zero tolerance for this.
Speaker 3: You don't like people who think they're precious, unique and special,
Speaker 3: like wear wings. I've noticed that if they're at Coachella,
Speaker 3: if they're at a convention, if they're wearing wings, you're
Speaker 3: probably a ren fair and you're probably not gonna like
Speaker 3: the person. Not Halloween, No, but it's the person who
Speaker 3: feels that they are so precious about it, not the
Speaker 3: person wearing wings. I don't think you're against wings. You're
Speaker 3: against the person who's like, look at me, I'm about
Speaker 3: to fly and you're like, okay, queen butterfly or whatever.
Speaker 3: There you go. That's that's that's it. That's the face.
Speaker 3: Well my ridiculous take away, thanks for asking, Elizabeth is
Speaker 3: I still want a furry tale, but I don't want
Speaker 3: people to think I'm a furry. I just want a tail.
Speaker 3: So what do I do about that?
Speaker 2: Kind of like how they attach those tails to themselves
Speaker 2: is a little bit like, Oh.
Speaker 3: I thought it was like a belt. I never got
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 2: I think it is.
Speaker 3: I never once cure was curious about how the belt was, how.
Speaker 2: The Maybe there are some of it his belts, but
Speaker 2: I know some.
Speaker 3: Might have plugs. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm learning a lot strategies.
Speaker 3: Well, I still want to tell anyway, I'm kidding prettyzy day.
Speaker 3: Can you clear the air with the talk back?
Speaker 9: God I in Wisconsin, thank you so much for bringing
Speaker 9: all this ridiculous news to us. I still chuckle about
Speaker 9: Zaron walking off the top of a roof because he
Speaker 9: thought there was a snake there. I'm glad you didn't
Speaker 9: get hurt, by the way, and I appreciate all the
Speaker 9: research that your staff does. What a great piece of
Speaker 9: information to keep me company when I can't sleep.
Speaker 3: We're glad to.
Speaker 2: I too can't sleep, so I relate. That's awesome. I'm
Speaker 2: glad you can help.
Speaker 3: Glad you're in amused by my skywalking. Well, there you go.
Speaker 3: It's all I got for you. As always, you can
Speaker 3: find us online a Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, and on
Speaker 3: Instagram and so forth and so on the socials and
Speaker 3: the medias. We have our website, ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 3: Please go do hit it up. We love that, we're
Speaker 3: proud of it. We think you might enjoy it. And
Speaker 3: also we love your talkback, So go to the iHeart app,
Speaker 3: download it, leave a talkback. You may hear your own
Speaker 3: voice out here. Email us. Also if you like a
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. As always, begin Dear Elizabeth. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's honestly all I got for you, So we'll catch
Speaker 3: you next crime. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
Speaker 3: by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnette, produced and edited by
Speaker 3: first suit Maker to the Stars mister Dave Kusten. Research
Speaker 3: is by teenage mutant Ninja researchers Marissa Brown and Andrea
Speaker 3: song Sharpen Tear. Our theme song is by Thomas Uncle
Speaker 3: fur Lee and Travis Papa fur Dot You. The host
Speaker 3: wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
Speaker 3: by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben. If
Speaker 3: you identify as an alien, are you a fleshy Bowlin
Speaker 3: and Noel? That's absolutely ridiculous. You'd be a no furry.
Speaker 2: Brown Ridicus Crime. Say it one more times Crime.
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