WEBVTT - Part One: Bill Cooper: The Man Who Killed Truth 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.120 Sodomy. Shit, fuck, god, damn it. No, that's not the 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:12.000 way to introduce the post. I'm so sorry. That was 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.640 just the word sodomy. That's not an introduction of of 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:20.840 any sort. I'm terribly sorry. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.080 This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast a fine Day 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.880 where we talk about bad people, and I've ruined it. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.760 I've ruined our discussion of genocide by mentioning the word sodomy, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.720 and I apologize for that. You're just kind of subverting 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.559 the narrative, and I do appreciate that. I don't know 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.159 what a narrative is. But speaking of narratives, the subject 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:49.280 of our episode today was was the master of creating narratives? Um? Also, 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.920 Jamie Loftus, you're the guest. Sorry, I got so caught 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.200 up in saying the words satomy quietly that today you 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:57.720 really gave your all to it. And I know you're 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.080 not feeling well, so that that took a lot to it. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.800 That kind of Are we talking about Aaron Sorkin, No, 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:12.559 we're talking about kind of. I mean, okay, so Chris 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.400 Carter was the X Files guy, right, were possible? Maybe 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.480 I think it was Chris Carter. We're talking about the 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.360 guy who inspired a lot of the X Files, also 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:28.240 talking about the guy who inspired Alex. It is Chris Carter. Okay, 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:30.760 I mean as long as as long as he inspired 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.039 Alex Jones. I think you're gonna say Alex Mack. No, no, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.800 not Alex mac. But he also inspired the Wu Tang Clan. Wow, Okay, 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.800 well you got a hand it to him? What a life. Yeah, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:49.080 we're talking about a real, a real influential piece of 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.360 ship today. Um. Some people, I think when I when 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.440 I mentioned the Wu Tang Clan, the folks who know 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.320 this guy recognized who it is. But we're talking about 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.520 Bill Cooper. Have you ever heard of Bill Cooper? I have, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.040 but I don't know in which of these contexts I've 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.800 heard of them. Was he like a conspiracy got like 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.600 a conspiracy he was? He was a radio show host 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.880 who was kind of the first Alex Jones in a 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.600 lot of ways. Man. He also was a very successful 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.800 author of a conspiracy book that um went on to 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.320 become one of like the foundational documents of American gangster 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:36.080 rapp Um. The first paragraph of his Wikipedia page, I'm excited. Yeah, 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.600 he's quite a character. I like the first paragraph is 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.200 just a full journey. Holy sh it. His real name 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.359 is not even Bill, isn't it isn't his real name, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.880 It's William. It's William. But isn't that also not even 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:55.400 in his real name? UK William Milton Williams my grandfather's name. 0:02:55.440 --> 0:03:00.120 So we're gonna take that Bill. He's Bill. Yes, I've 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:02.520 decided that already. Don't. Like, Yeah, I have a long 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.120 I have a long and it hasn't really failed me yet. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.120 I have like a long distrust of someone that insists 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.040 on going by three names, and um, I have a 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.800 feeling that this is no different. No, No, he was 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.280 pretty consistent about just Bill. But yeah, you still shouldn't 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:24.000 have trusted him because he was a famous liar. Um. Okay. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.960 So kind of the reason I think this is important 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.960 to talk about today is that um AT at the 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.960 present moment, Jamie eleven Q and on believers are currently 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.520 have uh like active congressional candidates have they have either 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.720 won primaries or runoffs. Um, and we'll be on the 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.400 ballot in November. Yeah. And if if you're if you're 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.960 just joining us from the year two thousand fifteen, um, 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.000 some ship has gone down First off, you might want 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:59.400 to now yeah, yeah, should just turn your car and angle. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.160 Yeah so uh. Q and On the qua on conspiracy 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.040 theory basically states that the whole Democratic Party and and 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:12.080 all global political leadership is part of a satanic cult 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.880 that drinks the blood of children. Um. Donald Trump was 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.000 chosen by our military and also Jesus to take power 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.919 and root out this cabal of devil worshippers. And we 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.640 talk about at the barbecues I have at my house. Yeah, 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.120 as as you should. Um. In some versions of the conspiracy, 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.200 JFK Jr. Is a crucial part of it. Um. But 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.640 that's very much a contentious issue within within this community. 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.760 So there's even I mean there's at least one of 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.919 the Q and On candidates is also hot, which I 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.680 found to be. Yes, there's some hot ones. Yes, I 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.599 know the hot people were in Q and On that 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.600 did you know. I was just like, okay, so they 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.400 know skincare at very least Yeah, okay, I mean you 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.040 can you can give a shit about you know, your pores. 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:04.040 And also believe that the Luciferian Cabal has been orchestrating 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.800 global politics in order to harvest to dream of chrome 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:13.840 from the blood of children child Yes, well, I mean 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.320 actually yeah, but that's something some of us just learned 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.080 by accidents. So uh yeah, Q and On, it's pretty silly, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.000 pretty silly stuff. And it's so silly that all credible 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.279 media kind of ignored it for three years and pretended 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.719 it wasn't happening until there were hundreds of thousands of 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.800 Americans who believed it, and eleven of them who might 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:37.040 wind up in Congress. Michaels, one person that you went 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.640 to high school with, deeply powerfully would die for Q 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.159 and On, would die for this conspiracy. Yeah. Michael Flynn, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.119 a lifetime military intelligence man, a general, and a former 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.280 member of President Trump's staff, recently had his whole family 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.520 swear an oath of allegiance. Uh like the mysterious que 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.320 and his cause. So, um, it's a problem. It's become 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.680 an issue. It's a real issue, and it's not like 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.480 there's the only thing to do about it is kind 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.000 of laugh because of how how much of a problem 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.239 it is. But it really is not a laughing matter. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.520 It's a very serious issue. Um, it's it's and and 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.800 it's worth noting. Like Q and On, for a long time, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.080 people would talk about it as a conspiracy theory, and 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.680 one of the researchers I follow, Sarah high Tower, UM, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:23.280 has kind of been making the point for quite a 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.320 while that like calling it a conspiracy theory really misses 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.560 the point. It's a cult. Um, it's and like it's 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.479 a religious movement. And I think at this point you 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.320 could probably make a pretty good case that Q and 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.719 On is the USA's fastest growing new religious movement UM, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.640 which is again a real problem. So the question, one 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.520 of the questions we should all be asking ourselves is 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.520 we we try to deal with this thing that's happening, 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.400 is how did we get here? Um? Like, well, the 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.360 question I've been asking myself is who is Q? I've 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.159 been asking myself this for many years. See, I think 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.440 that's the least important thing in the world. Actually, uh, 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.240 but yeah, I I at this point, the belief system 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.600 has gone so far beyond whatever the individual or individuals 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.200 who are like posting the Q drops actually have been 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.520 pushing people to do that. It's like, I think, kind 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:19.880 of almost immaterial who Q is? UM. So the broader 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:21.640 question when we look at like Q and on, and 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:22.840 we look at just the fact that we're in a 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.560 place right now where like the guy who got elected 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.440 president is a famous conspiracy theorist who has like repeated 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.360 conspiracy theories about the active pandemic killing people during his 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:39.040 administration while delivering like like news to the nation about 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.520 the pandemic. Like the fact that that's where we are 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.520 right now, um like kind of begs the question how 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.280 the fund did we get here? Um? And there's a 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:52.440 number of theories about like how conspiracism um became what 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.800 it is in American culture. Uh. And it it kind 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.080 of starts in the nineteen seventies with the work of 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.160 a British sociologist named Campbell, who coined the term cultic 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.800 milieu to refer to the kinds of supportive cultural environments 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.840 that allow cults to form. So prior to Campbell's work, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.160 most experts had kind of seen cults as freak phenomenon, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.920 strange and terrible, like things that just sort of happened, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.240 Like some charismatic guy would come along and he would 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.680 enthrall the brains of a certain group of people, and 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.520 then you'd have a cult, and it was just sort 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.640 of like this thing that happened, um, as sort of 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.560 like a freak curiosity um. But Campbell's argument was that 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.640 cults didn't come out of nowhere, and they weren't primarily 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.520 the product of whatever individual or individuals were behind them. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.080 They kind of grew mushroom like from a fertile cultural substrate. 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.520 You had to have like a culture that could support 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.240 the growth of cults, and certain things in a culture, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.520 certain like um trends within a culture would make it 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.640 much a much more fertile ground for cults to sort 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.800 of like form and thrive in. So that's like what 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.520 a cultic milieu is. Uh. In the book A Culture 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.439 of Conspiracy, scholar Mike Barkun notes, quote, the cultic milieu 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.319 is by nature hostile to authority, both because it rejects 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.439 the authority of such normative institutions as churches and universities, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.160 and because no single institution within the milieu has the 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.040 authority to prescribe beliefs and practices for those within it. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.439 As diverse as the cultic milieu is, however, Campbell finds 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.400 in it unifying tendencies. One such tendency is its opposition 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:25.640 to dominant cultural orthodoxes. This is also a major characteristic 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.600 of the culture of conspiracy, within which the reigning presumption 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:34.360 is that any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Okay, 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.880 so that that sounds a little familiar. It definitely does. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:45.440 I feel like the like conspiracy. Uh, like the conspiracy 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.679 label is used to be dismissive too often of like, oh, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.679 it's kind of a fun tabloid story. More more so. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:55.760 And then when you start calling it a religion which 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:00.400 has much of the same properties, it's suddenly become serious. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.320 And all of a sudden, there's hot people running for 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:07.319 public office. Yeah yeah, or or you know, compounds outside 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.839 of Waco getting burnt down by the FBI, a number 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.240 of things. Do you just bring Waco in here? I'm this, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.040 we're gonna talk so much about Waco today, getting into 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.360 Waco today. Oh yeah, we're gonna be wake up ready 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.720 for Waco today. Nobody wakes up ready for Waco except 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.920 for David Koresh briefly but not more. Yeah. So, uh, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.480 we live in a culture of conspiracy now, and and 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.480 I think a lot of Americans are kind of waking 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.720 up to the extent to which that is happening and 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.439 continuing to happen. And what a problem it is, um 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.800 And it wasn't this kind of cultic milieu that that 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.560 has overtaken a lot of even mainstream culture now, like 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.880 didn't didn't happen by accident. It was formed kind of 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.880 intentionally by individual human beings who tended it like a 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.320 good farmer tends to soil, and made basically made our 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.680 culture into one in which a famous conspiracy theorist could 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:02.920 not just get to become president, but could could get 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:08.480 to like shout out his nonsense um to like, could 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.920 get to like shout out conspiracy theories about an active 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.000 plague while it was going on, and have millions of 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.880 Americans say, well, like, surely that guy's right. Like the 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.200 fact that we're there now isn't an accident. It was 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.240 it was like the yeah, I don't know, this is 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.280 this is a bad way to introduce this. There's a 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.400 lot of that. I'm trying to like kind of even 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.800 wrap my head around here because the problem is so extensive, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.400 and there's a number of individuals who were sort of 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.600 behind bringing us to this point because this wasn't always 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.880 the case. You know, there used to be you can't 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.360 really what we're looking at. What we're looking at as 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.320 the root cause of of why we are where we 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.480 are culturally right now and politically right now. Is the 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.560 death of any kind of shared conception of truth. It's 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.040 not possible to have that because a huge chunk of 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.440 the country, whenever somebody claims to be hims to be 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.199 like trying to tell them facts about the world UM 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.200 now kind of automatically will reject those facts if they're 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.280 in opposition to you know, whatever belief structure that person 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.160 has UM and will form the fact that like some 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.400 professional person is telling them that that that their beliefs 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.360 are wrong, will kind of graph that automatically onto this 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.560 conspiratorial belief about the nature of of of the world 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:30.920 at the moment, like the fact only accepted truths exactly exactly. 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.120 And today we're going to talk about probably the man 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:39.200 who's most responsible with kind of setting off that domino 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.800 chain reaction that led to the death of truth. I'm 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.280 not going to say that that that this guy killed 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.760 truth on his own, UM, but Bill Cooper probably deserves 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.000 more credit for building our cultic milieu UM than any 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.440 other single person. And only again, like two kinds of 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.600 people really recognize Bill's name today. The first kinder folks 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.080 who like study conspiracy and the history of right wing extremism, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.079 the militia movement. Those folks will have heard of Bill Cooper. 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.280 The second kind of people who know Bill Cooper today 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:15.360 are are fans of nineteen nineties gangster rap. Yeah. Yeah, 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.080 it is the Wu Tang clan. I'm thrilled that we 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.960 have found this intersection at Long Last. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.600 Bill left a really big influence on both worlds. And 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.720 it's kind of fascinating as to why. Um So, Milton 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.160 William Cooper um So, Yeah, that's the name, Jamie. He 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.960 is a Milton um It's really unfortunate. Was born on 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:41.040 May six, nineteen forty three, in Long Beach, California. His father, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.040 Milton Vance Cooper, was an Air Force pilot who got 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.439 his start flying for the US military before the Air 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.480 Force even existed. Milton wisely went by the name Jack, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.600 which is a much better name for a pilot, Jack Cooper. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.839 That's a good that's a good pilot name. Yeah, that's 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.640 just a good old fashioned MGM renamed. Yeah, and you'll 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.120 note that like neither Milton William nor Milton Vance ever 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.200 went by the name Milton, because it's a it's an 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.679 objectively bad name. Well, I mean, just you know say 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.000 which you will about his life choices, but he did 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.920 make at least one solid Yeah. No, no, he made 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.320 the right call there. Um and yeah, as a little kid, 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:23.280 Bill went by little Jackie um, which is is Yeah. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.560 I don't like that's perverted. I don't like that. Yeah. 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.520 So Bill's ancestors had come from all over the British Isles, 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.960 which you shouldn't call the British Isles because it wipes 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.480 out the existence of Scotland and Ireland, two nations that 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.560 were kind of oppressed by the British for centuries. But 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.800 I want to challenge the British and the Irish to 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.160 unite and finally wipe out the English, and I feel 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.160 like goading them this way might work. So just as 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.280 a note in the future, when I call something the 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.040 British Isles, it's because I'm trying to orchestrate the destruction 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.120 of the English people. Yeah, you're just trying to people 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.960 to radicalize and get some done. Yeah. Yeah, so like 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.680 you know, I'll I'll refer to them properly Scotland and 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.360 Ireland when you in Wale, when you do something about 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:08.440 the English. Um. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, Bill uh, Bill's 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.760 family came from all over the aisles, and they wound 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:12.960 up in the United States. Uh, and kind of all 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:14.840 over the United States. He had family that fought on 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.400 both sides of the Civil War. Um, there were a 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.480 lot of frontiersman in the Cooper family. As a boy, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.800 Bill was particularly taken by stories of his great grandfather, 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.720 who he would later call a real cowboy. Uh. He 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.080 wrote later that as a child, he saw photos of 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.920 his great grandpa. Yeah. He would later write that as 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.080 a child, he saw photos of his great grandpa quote 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.200 standing in front of a saloon with a six gun 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.200 in his belt. Now, Bill was a famous liar. And 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.920 this is probably a lot of just wret A lot 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.560 of those guys really like as as a rule, it 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.000 was like a fake that was a constructed image in 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.000 the first place. That's fun fun. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.880 and yeah, but this is what Bill, This is what 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:56.680 Bill at least thought it was important for people to 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.080 think about his family background. They were cowboys. Yeah, this 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.680 is a very mature cowboys and horse thieves. He was 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.240 also like, oh, yeah, and one of them got hung 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.680 as a horse thief. Yeah it was Yeah. So the 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.760 Cooper family moved constantly to accommodate Jack's military career. And 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.080 this was not a low stress period to be the 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.560 family member of somebody doing what Jack was doing in 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.880 the military. The Cold War was at its coolest level. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.440 Nuclear annihilation was a constant threat, and young Bill grew 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.760 up knowing that at any moment his father might be 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:27.920 sent off to die in a war that would almost 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.560 certainly kill his family in nuclear hell fire as well. Um, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.000 it was a stressful way to be a kid. Um. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.960 I I know that particularly well because my dad and 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.720 Bill had very similar childhoods. Actually, my dad was about 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.960 about a decade younger, UM, But his dad, I don't. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:45.680 I don't even know what my grandpa on that side 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.960 of the family actually did. He was a civilian employee 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:49.960 of the Department of the Defense, and he was constantly 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.000 in Southeast Asia, and we don't know, like nobody really 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.520 knows anything else about what Grandpa was doing. I think 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.240 he was probably posing like a cowboy in front of 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.800 a saloon. If I probably posing like a cowboy. But 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.480 like my dad has these memories of like when the 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.280 when the there were stateside, when the Cuban missile crisis hit, 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.000 and he was just like he and I think his 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.639 mom like drove him and his sister out to like 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.439 family who lived away from a city, and they just 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.160 stayed there for days without really knowing anything, just knowing 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.560 that like something had happened, and dad says, like, you 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:29.439 guys shouldn't be in the city. Yeah. Yeah, it was 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.040 like in a lot of there were a lot of 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.679 kids who grew up, uh, Like my whole family in 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.680 this period of time were military brats, and there was 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.439 a lot of like it was a stressful thing to 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.040 be like, you know, because you're always you're always worried 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.840 that nuclear annihilation is around the damn corner. And so 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.520 Bill grows up with this kind of apocalyptic expectation is 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:48.840 just a constant part of his reality. Is like a 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:53.480 little kid. Um, so that's not great. Um yeah, the 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.680 bioy Yeah, and it's yeah. The biography Pale Horse Writer 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.919 by Mark Jacobson, which is a biography of William Cooper, 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.320 notes quote, once while his father was assigned to Lajah's 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.480 Field on ter Sierra Island and the hisurs uh, the 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.560 young Cooper was sitting in the base reck room watching 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.760 a movie when the projector ground to a halt. The 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.600 lights came on and a plea was made for blood donors. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.240 I knew immediately something terrible. It happened. Running outside, Cooper 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.760 saw that a B twenty nine super Fortress had crashed. 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.240 I saw men on fire running through the night. Cooper 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.600 wrote in Behold a Pale Horse, I was only nine 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:30.160 years old, but felt much older. That's not great. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.160 that's not great. Ye's the problem at the beginning, all 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.159 of these stories start out with like just a traumatized, 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.080 broken little boy. There, we need to start well, no, 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.159 this is probably, but they're like, there needs to be 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.080 some sort of muppet babies for for the bastards. Yeah, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.879 bustard babies there, and then they can just all go 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.080 to a child therapist and really talk ship through and 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.359 saving a lot of trouble. Yeah, except for Saddam, who 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.480 would have absolutely smuggled in a gun and shot that therapist, 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.800 like shot that therapist immediately. Was Yeah he was, he was, 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.119 you know, are born that way? He was, he was. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:12.200 He was a hardened gangster by thirteen. Yeah, but also 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.800 had the heart of a poet, you know. Yeah, well 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.000 of course, yeah, like al Capone, right right. So in 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.560 his own book Behold a Pale Horse, Bill which is 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.440 a great name for a book. It is a great 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.360 name for a book. Bill. One thing you'll learn about 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.600 Bill is that he was a fantastic marketer. And that's 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:33.040 an objectively incredible title. Like I'm it's a memoir, no, no, no, no, 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.640 it just includes a section on his background. We'll talk 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:40.159 about what Behold a Pale Horse is because very influential, Like, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.480 it's kind of it's a very appealing title. Well it's 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.040 but it's from that book that uh, that line in 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.359 the Book of Revelations. But again we'll talk about that 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.480 in a little bit. So, yeah, it is a great title, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.600 and I'm kind of frustrated that he took it because 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.600 it would be a great title for a book right 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.280 now about Yeah, So anyway, um, Bill would later write 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.879 himself right a his upbringing that quote, I didn't always 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.640 love my father. He was a strict disciplinarian. My dad 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.040 did not believe in spare the rod, and his belt 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.000 was put to use frequently in our family. And like 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.520 most children who grew up in such families, Bill grew 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.760 was like Bill grew up with a like basically focusing 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.600 all the time on how to avoid getting in trouble, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.480 like right, That's the thing you learn as a kid 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:25.080 with authoritarian parents who punish you, um physically particularly, is 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.280 how to not get in trouble. Um. And he was 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.359 regularly the focus of his dad's anger, which kind of yeah, 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.639 his his whole life was his whole life as a 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.240 kid was revolved around hiding from his dad's anger. Um. 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:39.960 And yeah, he grew up with the feeling that quote, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.080 rules didn't mean much until I got caught breaking them. 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.200 And discipline like this has the effect of kind of 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.080 training children to be exceptional liars. Um. It teaches them 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.439 to always have a story, a really believable story, in 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.919 order to not get in trouble. And there's actually research 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.080 to back this up. In two thousand and sixteen, Victoria 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.240 talwar an expert on children's social cognitive develop a minute, 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.200 McGill University published a study on this. I f L 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.320 Science reported quote tal Warren and her colleagues developed a 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.760 test to identify effective young liars called the Peeping Game. 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.840 Taking her test to West African schools, one with relaxed 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.719 rules and one with harsh disciplinary regimes, the peoples were 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:17.920 asked to guests, without looking at it, which object is 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.040 making the noise behind them. Importantly, the last object made 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:22.960 a noise that was different from any sound it could 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:26.000 actually produce. For example, a baseball would make a squawking noise. 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.719 If any children knew what this final object was, they 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.880 were clearly taking a peek at it while unsupervised. During 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.240 the experiment, the supervising adult leaves the room and upon 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.000 returning asked the child two questions what the object was 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.480 and if they peaked at it. Talwar discovered that the 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.320 more relaxed school showed a distribution of liars and truth 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.280 tellers similar to that found in many Western schools. However, 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.720 in the strict school, the children proved to be extremely 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.439 rapid and effective liars. Um So that's going to become 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.280 very relevant as we talk about every single thing Bill 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.280 says about his life. Uh so, much of the information 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.080 we have on Bill's filthood comes from Bill himself. And again, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:10.040 he's a he's a liar. So yeah, okay, this is difficult, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:14.240 This is tough with him, but that's because he wants 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:16.639 to and that's because he's a good liar. That's because 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:18.680 he's a good liar. That also doesn't mean that he's 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.120 lying about everything, and in fact, there's a lot. He's 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.359 definitely telling the truth about um, including the fact that 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.239 his dad. I have new trouble believing his dad was 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.200 an authoritarian, you know, parent, because he was a military man, 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:32.600 and that's real fucking common. I have no trouble believing 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.800 that he was constantly stressed out as a kid about 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:38.399 nuclear war, because that's what it was like growing up 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:44.120 in the fifties on a military base. Yeah. So that said, though, 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.800 we're going to we're going to enter into a lot 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.159 of areas where we have Bill's version of the of 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.520 what happened and what's more likely to have happened, and 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:57.040 they diverge quite rapidly. So uh. Bill's relationship with his 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:59.439 mother was a little more positive than his relationship with 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:01.520 his father. He describes her as the kind of woman 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.920 who used to be called a Southern bell, the type 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:06.200 of women that men like to dream about when they're lonely. 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.960 She's the kindlest, gentlest woman I've ever known. Once she 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.320 likes you, she cannot be driven away. She is loyal 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.240 to a fault. Um that that will become a little 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.119 bit more relevant later too. So Yeah, Bill was a 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.040 high spirited, sensitive mama's boy who moved around too often 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:23.359 to build strong ties, and one of the few constants 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.720 in his youth was Armed Forces radio. Bill was obsessed 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.720 with the emerging popular music of the day, particularly Sam Cook. Moreover, 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:32.919 he fell in love with the idea of being a DJ, 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:35.280 which at the time was the guardian and arbiter of 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:40.320 popular youth culture. Yeah, and again, all of a sudden, 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.240 it's kind of weird the extent to which Bill and 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:45.920 my dad had the same childhood because my dad also 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.280 grew up on military bases wanting to be a DJ 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:52.000 and like doing that in high school and ship, Um, 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:54.240 it was like the cool thing. Like it's not now, 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:55.879 but at the time, like being a DJ was the 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:58.879 coolest thing you could fucking be. Uh, Proberties, you are 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:01.400 just saying it's not, curl the coolest thing you could be, 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.520 because it still is. Asking the coolest thing you can 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:10.359 be is a white guy who does a podcast about politics. 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:13.040 That's that's that's what this is. The conspiracy theories are 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.919 that's actually a popular Q and on belief is that 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:21.119 having a podcast is cool. You know what, who definitely 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.400 actually does think that having a podcast is cool? Who 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:32.159 the products and services to support this show? They'd fucking better. Uh, 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:41.720 Lord in Heaven, we're back. Uh. And I just I 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:44.240 have some good news for everybody. We have a new 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:47.040 face mask that will be selling in the behind the 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:51.240 Bastard store. Uh. It just says f d A approved 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:55.919 to prevent all diseases. Um, so you know when we're 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:59.000 as we're talking about colts, Jamie, I just want everyone 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:01.480 to know I am, in act doing everything I can 0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:04.600 to to to get us violently rated by the Food 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:08.879 and Drug Administration. That that is the goal. So grab 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:12.680 your kids, uh, take them to my compound in the mountains, 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:14.639 put them in a basement, and we'll wait for the 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:20.480 f DAY to come firebomb us. Um yep. But a 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:24.679 beautiful image. What a beautiful image. Yeah, we're gonna make 0:25:24.720 --> 0:25:28.280 them do it. We're gonna we're gonna radicalize the f 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:31.040 d A, Jamie. That's my goal. That would be kind 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:34.600 of fun. It would be neat fun, radicalized with good outfits. 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:38.520 Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I don't know. Well, but the 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.720 FDA and crop tops see what happens. So okay, fine, 0:25:41.800 --> 0:25:43.879 as long as as long as you know they're still 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:47.280 like unaccountably violent. That's my my dream for the f 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:49.679 d A. Oh, they're extremely violent. I'm just saying like 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:52.199 a cult that it like a Heaven's gate. You know, 0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:56.240 it's like there, you know they have they have no morals, 0:25:56.240 --> 0:26:01.320 but also you know they look nice. They match. Okay, okay, okay, 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:05.280 well we'll we'll talk about this more. So. Bill was 0:26:05.359 --> 0:26:07.879 a Yeah. Bill Bill as a as a kid on 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:09.960 the military based like falls in Love with the idea 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:12.680 of being a dj um in an age sixteen, while 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:15.320 he was living on Tachikawa Air Base near Tokyo, he 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.160 got his very first radio show on the Armed Forces 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:25.240 Networks Radio teen program Radio teen. Bill would later write quote, 0:26:25.280 --> 0:26:27.800 I was called the Mad Lad and my theme song 0:26:27.840 --> 0:26:31.720 was Quiet Village by Martin Denny. And this is, Yeah, 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:34.080 he's a huge dork, And it's the fact that he 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:36.520 picks Quiet Village is really interesting because it is it 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:38.720 is not the kind of song you might expect a 0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:41.080 seventeen or a sixteen year old to make his like 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:45.160 introduction music when he comes on the fucking radio. It's 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:49.359 like it's a mournful ballad about lost love that starts 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:52.080 with the lyrics alone in my quiet Village, I pray 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:54.720 you will be returning one day to me returned to 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.680 me alone, living with the memory of you promising you'd 0:26:57.680 --> 0:27:00.959 always be true to me, be true to me. So 0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:04.239 that's a little weird for sixteen year old Billy just 0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:09.240 right eye energy to it. There's equivalents of this. It's 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:11.760 really unsettled, like like you can you can kind of 0:27:11.800 --> 0:27:15.520 tell Bill is not going to go good places. Yeah, 0:27:15.560 --> 0:27:19.200 this isn't this isn't going to end well, Okay, it's 0:27:19.200 --> 0:27:24.800 intense very to Yeah. So, as a young DJ, Bill 0:27:24.840 --> 0:27:27.480 finally felt the acceptance that had been cruelly denied to 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:30.280 him by his father's constant travel. He would later recall 0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:33.679 being elated that quote, hundreds of teenagers all over Japan 0:27:33.760 --> 0:27:36.640 were dancing to the music I spun on my little machines. 0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:40.320 He managed to convince himself that millions of Chinese teens 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:43.879 were also listening into his radio program, which could not 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:47.200 have been true um, and that the communists said had 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:51.080 jammed his signal to stop it. Which, okay, this isn't 0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:54.720 like your DJ energy is like not just that people 0:27:54.720 --> 0:28:00.000 don't have access to it. There if in communism, if 0:28:00.000 --> 0:28:02.679 they can listen to my sad songs about quiet like 0:28:03.119 --> 0:28:06.240 villages and girls not liking me, enough. Oh my god. 0:28:08.480 --> 0:28:11.080 Uh yeah, even at age sixteen, Bill was convinced that 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:14.040 he had somehow become the target of a global communist movement, 0:28:14.240 --> 0:28:17.560 um of the global communist movement, which is is funny 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:21.199 and again he's probably just inventing this decades later. But 0:28:21.320 --> 0:28:23.480 also I wouldn't be surprised if at the time young 0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:26.040 Bill Cooper convinced himself the Communes were trying to stop 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:31.960 his terrible radio show. So teenaged Bill was convinced that 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:34.919 rock and roll music was the very best advertisement for 0:28:34.960 --> 0:28:37.479 capitalism possible. And to be honest, he was probably right 0:28:37.520 --> 0:28:43.120 about that. It's actually something too that's actually at that time. Yeah, 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:46.280 I think a lot of teenagers in Cuba got a 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:51.240 really unfairly rosy idea of American culture by listening to 0:28:51.280 --> 0:28:54.040 the Stones and Ship. I don't like that. I don't 0:28:54.080 --> 0:28:56.720 like the feeling of agreeing with him, but yeah, I'm 0:28:56.720 --> 0:28:58.920 on board for that one. Yeah, No, he's probably right 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:03.560 about that. Nowto the rock and roll listen, I think 0:29:03.600 --> 0:29:05.760 I'm very skeptical of this rock and roll music that 0:29:05.840 --> 0:29:07.400 the kids are listening to. I think it might be 0:29:07.520 --> 0:29:12.000 dangerous as an adult. Bill Witho mourn in his writing 0:29:12.040 --> 0:29:14.600 that Chuck Berry was thrown in jail for two years 0:29:14.720 --> 0:29:17.720 rather than being made Secretary of State, quote like he 0:29:17.800 --> 0:29:21.640 should have been. So he believed Chuck Berry should have 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:23.680 been the Secretary of State. And it's probably here that 0:29:23.760 --> 0:29:27.000 I do you know much about Chuck Berry, Jamie not 0:29:27.120 --> 0:29:30.120 really know the right side of who he is. His 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:32.640 music sounded like, yeah, I mean, father of rock and roll, 0:29:32.760 --> 0:29:38.120 incredible musician, historically an important musician. He was also thrown 0:29:38.120 --> 0:29:40.760 in jail for transporting a fourteen year old across state 0:29:40.800 --> 0:29:46.760 lines for a moral purposes India. Okay, well, yeah, like 0:29:46.840 --> 0:29:49.640 it wasn't a mild It wasn't like a like, it 0:29:49.680 --> 0:29:51.760 wasn't that they weren't just going after him to like 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:54.160 shut down this rock and roller he was. He was 0:29:54.240 --> 0:29:57.800 sexually trafficking a teenage girl. I mean, to continue on 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:02.040 my anti rock and roll tirade, which rock artists of 0:30:02.120 --> 0:30:04.680 this arrow was not doing that. It was that is 0:30:05.200 --> 0:30:08.200 that is very fair. We had some ship but no one, 0:30:08.400 --> 0:30:10.720 but no one wants to talk about it. No, I mean, 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:15.200 Billy Joel didn't. But but that's the only one. I 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:17.680 bet that it was just that, not that he didn't 0:30:17.720 --> 0:30:20.239 that he couldn't because he would have been terrible at 0:30:20.240 --> 0:30:23.520 sex trafficking. Really, he would have been horrible at it. 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:28.120 So can't be a good liar. No, no, he can't. 0:30:28.760 --> 0:30:32.080 He's an innocent man. So in nineteen eighty eight, Chuck 0:30:32.120 --> 0:30:34.880 Barry was arrested again and charged for punching a woman 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:37.440 in the face so hard she required stitches. He was 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:40.320 also accused by multiple women and girls of filming them 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:42.560 in the bathroom of his restaurant. So, I don't know, 0:30:42.720 --> 0:30:45.480 maybe not the best pick for Secretary of State, although 0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:47.360 even with that resume, he would have been better than 0:30:47.440 --> 0:30:49.360 kissing Jerry I was supposed to say. I'm like, there 0:30:49.360 --> 0:30:53.800 have been worse people as secretary of state. Oh, that's 0:30:53.840 --> 0:30:57.120 so depressed. There's truly not one rock legend that isn't 0:30:57.520 --> 0:31:00.560 the most horrifying person though there they were all monsters. 0:31:00.600 --> 0:31:04.960 It turns out when you like elevate mostly young teenage 0:31:05.040 --> 0:31:09.640 in twenties something men to like effectively living gods. Uh, 0:31:09.800 --> 0:31:12.880 they do horrible, horrible things repeatedly. Really have been known 0:31:12.920 --> 0:31:15.040 to take advantage of it. Yeah, yeah, it turns out 0:31:15.040 --> 0:31:17.840 to be a bad call. So in nineteen sixty learn 0:31:17.880 --> 0:31:20.000 from it, though, Yeah, we don't do that anymore. It 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:24.120 doesn't happen anymore. No, and it never will again. Yeah. 0:31:24.160 --> 0:31:27.040 In nineteen sixty two, nineteen year old Bill Cooper joined 0:31:27.080 --> 0:31:30.000 the Air Force. The Navy was his first choice, but 0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:31.960 he got sea sick easily, and he didn't think he'd 0:31:31.960 --> 0:31:33.720 be able to handle a career on a boat. Um, 0:31:34.000 --> 0:31:37.600 this will be slightly ironic. Later, uh, young Bill chose 0:31:37.680 --> 0:31:40.520 to enlist rather than joining as an officer, which surprised 0:31:40.560 --> 0:31:43.360 his family because his family, you know, his military tradition 0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:46.080 had been officers. Um. He wound up going to a 0:31:46.200 --> 0:31:49.440 technical school outside of Amarillo, Texas, where he later claimed 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:52.520 to have seen real atomic bombs. Quote. I worked around 0:31:52.600 --> 0:31:54.440 them on a daily basis. Because of that, I had 0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:56.640 to wear a dosimeter just in case I was exposed 0:31:56.640 --> 0:32:00.960 to radiation. Bill's first gig was in the field maintenance squadron, 0:32:01.000 --> 0:32:04.440 watching after everyone's quarters and basically keeping their work area police. 0:32:04.760 --> 0:32:06.480 It was a job that kept him alone a great 0:32:06.480 --> 0:32:08.080 deal of the time, and so he was sitting on 0:32:08.120 --> 0:32:10.360 his own and the barracks watching TV on the day 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:14.200 that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot by Bernard Montgomery Sanders. 0:32:14.480 --> 0:32:17.640 As Bill later wrote, quote at that point, huge tears 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:20.240 began to stream down my face. Waves of emotion rushed 0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:22.160 through my body. I felt that I had to do something, 0:32:22.200 --> 0:32:24.240 so I picked up the direct line to the command center. 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:27.080 I choked back tears. When the command duty officer answered, 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:29.080 I told him that the president had just been shot 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:31.400 in Dallas. There was a pause and he asked me, 0:32:31.560 --> 0:32:33.440 how do you know he has been shot. I told 0:32:33.480 --> 0:32:35.160 him that I had watched it on television and then 0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:42.040 hung up the phone. I was numb all over. You know, people, 0:32:42.240 --> 0:32:44.960 you know, it's just so what President Kenny got shot? 0:32:45.000 --> 0:32:50.040 Get over it by Bernie Sanders. Yes, absolutely to it. 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:52.760 I think I have actually brought this up on this 0:32:52.760 --> 0:32:56.120 show before. But it's my favorite fact, my favorite fun 0:32:56.200 --> 0:32:59.840 fact about the assassination of JFK, which is that meat 0:33:00.000 --> 0:33:03.760 Off was there. Yes, you did bring it up. I 0:33:03.760 --> 0:33:06.880 would think to bring it up. Meat Loaf is like 0:33:07.080 --> 0:33:09.640 thirteen or fourteen years old, and he was like I 0:33:09.680 --> 0:33:12.520 guess he lived in that area and he went like 0:33:12.600 --> 0:33:15.720 with his family to see that he was. He was there. 0:33:16.280 --> 0:33:18.960 So would we have bad out of Hell had JFK lived? 0:33:18.960 --> 0:33:21.240 We may not know. That's a shame that we have 0:33:21.360 --> 0:33:26.400 bad out of Hell. I love, Okay, I know that 0:33:26.440 --> 0:33:29.080 I famously hate rock and roll, but I do kind 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:31.120 of like that Out of Hell me Love's a terrible person, 0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:33.560 but you know he was fine in fight Club and 0:33:33.560 --> 0:33:36.200 bad out of Hell is pretty good. Yeah, and he'd 0:33:36.240 --> 0:33:38.360 probably I don't know, I had something to do with 0:33:38.400 --> 0:33:40.760 the jfk assassination anyway, I think yeah, he was pro 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:44.479 of the Youth the youth plot, Yeah he was. He 0:33:44.520 --> 0:33:48.000 was spotting for Bernie Sanders a sniper scope. Um So, 0:33:48.760 --> 0:33:53.400 now Jamie, uh So, you can kind of see in 0:33:53.400 --> 0:33:56.200 that little paragraph like and this is this is again 0:33:56.240 --> 0:33:58.760 from something that Bill writes decades later. But he's kind 0:33:58.760 --> 0:34:01.720 of like he's kind of like sprinkling into his life 0:34:01.760 --> 0:34:05.719 story these little bitty elements of conspiracy. Like obviously he 0:34:05.760 --> 0:34:08.080 calls the duty officer and the guys like how did 0:34:08.080 --> 0:34:10.840 you know he'd been shot? And like nothing else happens, 0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:13.160 but there's this little insinuation that like, you know, Bill 0:34:13.200 --> 0:34:15.319 had kind of stumbled onto something a little bit and 0:34:15.320 --> 0:34:18.440 like that will happen repeatedly. That happens repeatedly in his 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:21.799 narrative of his early life that he later publishes. Um, 0:34:21.880 --> 0:34:24.239 He'll he'll drop these little like if it like he 0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:26.680 kind of he kind of frames it almost like a movie, right, 0:34:26.719 --> 0:34:28.760 where like he drops these little bit of hints about 0:34:28.760 --> 0:34:32.080 the vast conspiracy and his his childhood like stories of 0:34:32.160 --> 0:34:35.239 his early life. Um. And he does it really well 0:34:35.320 --> 0:34:39.520 like it's it's it's it's good good storytelling. Um. Which 0:34:39.560 --> 0:34:41.680 is something that like Bill has a real talent for 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:46.000 is is telling stories because he's a great liar. Um. Yeah. 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:49.480 So uh. He also brought aliens into the mix in 0:34:49.600 --> 0:34:52.480 his his his biography, but not in a way, not 0:34:52.560 --> 0:34:54.719 in a way that was super cookie. Um. This is 0:34:54.760 --> 0:34:56.600 this this part, this is the way he does this 0:34:56.680 --> 0:35:00.440 I actually think is really effective as a storytelling tool. Um. Quote. 0:35:00.440 --> 0:35:01.880 It was during this time when he was he was 0:35:01.960 --> 0:35:04.360 working um in the Air Force, that a couple of 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:06.960 sergeants kind of adopted me. We went out to clubs 0:35:06.960 --> 0:35:09.000 together and usually ended up chasing women and drinking a 0:35:09.040 --> 0:35:11.399 lot of beer. They told me several stories about being 0:35:11.400 --> 0:35:14.400 attached to a special unit that recovered crashed flying saucers. 0:35:14.480 --> 0:35:16.160 Sergeant MIAs told me that he had been on one 0:35:16.160 --> 0:35:18.920 operation that transported a saucer so large that a special 0:35:18.920 --> 0:35:22.240 team went before them, lowering all telephone poles and fence posts. 0:35:22.400 --> 0:35:24.799 Another team followed and replaced them. They moved it only 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:26.920 at night. It was kept parked and covered somewhere off 0:35:26.920 --> 0:35:29.440 the road during the day, since we were always half tanked. 0:35:29.440 --> 0:35:32.000 When these stories came out, I never believed them. Sergeants 0:35:32.040 --> 0:35:34.320 were known to tell some tall tales to younger guys 0:35:34.400 --> 0:35:36.680 like me. So that's a good that's a good way 0:35:36.719 --> 0:35:39.040 to kind of start sprinkling this ship into your narrative. 0:35:39.080 --> 0:35:41.560 That's really that's really smart. I feel like that doesn't 0:35:41.600 --> 0:35:44.560 come out come up enough of like, well, I wasn't 0:35:44.560 --> 0:35:46.840 totally sure at first. It sounded a little weird. It 0:35:46.880 --> 0:35:49.600 sounded a little bit. But the more I listened, there, 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:54.400 that's that. That is effective storytelling. Yeah, that's good storytelling. Yeah. 0:35:54.600 --> 0:35:57.480 The assassination of President Kennedy brought several more days of 0:35:57.520 --> 0:36:00.080 apocalyptic stress to young Bill Cooper. The nation went to 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:02.120 the brink of war with Russia because nobody knew what 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:04.120 the funk was going on, and Bill spent his nights 0:36:04.160 --> 0:36:07.280 sleeping under a B fifty two loaded with nuclear munitions, 0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:10.080 waiting for the order to go. So again, to understand 0:36:10.120 --> 0:36:12.200 Bill Cooper's mindset, you have to understand this kid spent 0:36:12.280 --> 0:36:15.880 like the first several decades of his life, sometimes literally 0:36:16.160 --> 0:36:19.120 sitting next to nuclear weapons, knowing that, like all human 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:23.240 life could end in moments. It's like there's no moment 0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:27.200 of his life that he is not deeply stressed out. Yeah, 0:36:27.239 --> 0:36:30.160 deeply stressed out and just waiting for the apocalypse to 0:36:30.239 --> 0:36:36.600 him like that. Yeah, it's a it's a tough it's 0:36:36.600 --> 0:36:42.680 a tough way to grow into being an adult. Sure, sure, yeah. 0:36:43.080 --> 0:36:46.719 So thankfully the order to end all human life via 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:50.239 nuclear annihilation never came. In the nineteen sixty six Bill 0:36:50.280 --> 0:36:53.360 got an honorable discharge from the Air Force. He immediately 0:36:53.360 --> 0:36:56.200 decided to join the Navy next since his seasickness had 0:36:56.200 --> 0:36:58.520 apparently improved. And Bill was, you know, shipped over to 0:36:58.560 --> 0:37:02.600 serve on a submarine in Hawaii that because apparently his 0:37:02.719 --> 0:37:06.439 C six C sickness improved. As A yeah, the way 0:37:06.480 --> 0:37:08.640 he describes it as like, after four years in the 0:37:08.640 --> 0:37:10.400 Air Force, he was like, I've always wanted to be 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:12.240 in the Navy. Like I'm not gonna let I'm gonna 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:14.840 I'm gonna get over this this problem and do I 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:20.160 don't Yeah, so Bill or something and was like it 0:37:20.200 --> 0:37:23.640 sounds like he he bought a drug store supplement. Yeah. 0:37:23.760 --> 0:37:26.879 Probably so. Bill claims he got along famously with all 0:37:26.880 --> 0:37:29.719 of his new comrades in Hawaii, including his best friend, 0:37:29.760 --> 0:37:31.920 who Bill takes great pains to inform us, was a 0:37:31.920 --> 0:37:36.759 black sailor named Lincoln Loving. Um, which I had. There 0:37:36.800 --> 0:37:39.440 are actual people named Lincoln Loving, so he might not 0:37:39.520 --> 0:37:42.279 have been making that name up. It does kind of 0:37:42.320 --> 0:37:44.560 sound like the name a white guy would make up 0:37:44.600 --> 0:37:46.560 for a black sailor to be his best friend. In 0:37:46.600 --> 0:37:50.000 the narrative of his life. Uh, Bill's other best friend 0:37:50.040 --> 0:37:52.360 was an American Indian who he doesn't give us the 0:37:52.360 --> 0:37:57.000 guy's real name, but informs us that he was nicknamed Geronimo. Um. 0:37:57.040 --> 0:37:59.839 So I don't I can't say that Bill's lying about this, 0:38:00.040 --> 0:38:03.200 but maybe I can. I can say that I'm pretty 0:38:03.239 --> 0:38:08.440 sure he's lying about this. The sounds yeah, fake as hell. Yeah. Anyway, 0:38:08.480 --> 0:38:10.799 while Bill was stationed in Hawaii, he poisoned one of 0:38:10.840 --> 0:38:13.480 his shipmates. Uh. In fact, the guy who was the 0:38:13.480 --> 0:38:16.640 ship's cook. Now. Bill claims that this is because, for 0:38:16.680 --> 0:38:18.840 no reason at all, the cook banned him from eating 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:21.200 in the mess, and he also insists that the cook 0:38:21.280 --> 0:38:23.400 was a drunk and Bill was nobly worried he might 0:38:23.520 --> 0:38:27.120 endanger the other crew members. While underway, Bill wrote quote, 0:38:27.239 --> 0:38:29.279 I won't tell you what I laced his vodka with, 0:38:29.400 --> 0:38:31.799 but it wasn't anything you'd ever want to drink. Believe me. 0:38:32.040 --> 0:38:34.239 I kept that chief so sick he was transferred off 0:38:34.239 --> 0:38:36.560 the boat for medical reasons. I didn't want to hurt him, 0:38:36.560 --> 0:38:38.000 but it was either get rid of him or starved 0:38:38.000 --> 0:38:39.680 to death. I made up my mind that chief or 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:41.359 no chief, I wasn't going to see on a boat 0:38:41.400 --> 0:38:46.280 that wouldn't feed me. Um so real willing to poison 0:38:46.360 --> 0:38:50.520 his fellow sailors, which is I feel like this? It 0:38:50.600 --> 0:38:53.040 seems like maybe he had a real problem with this guy. 0:38:53.080 --> 0:38:56.360 I feel like most most most people would have found 0:38:56.360 --> 0:38:58.480 a way to do that that didn't involve poisoning a man. 0:38:58.640 --> 0:39:02.920 But I don't know. I mean, listen, desperate times, desperate 0:39:02.920 --> 0:39:06.200 test sometimes you got a poison a guy. Um. Anyway, 0:39:06.280 --> 0:39:08.480 the Navy was only ever supposed to be a stepping 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:11.000 stone on Bill's way to achieving a bizarre, and in 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:13.200 my opinion, pointless dream. He wanted to be the first 0:39:13.200 --> 0:39:15.480 member of his family to serve in all four branches 0:39:15.520 --> 0:39:19.240 of the armed forces, which is a weird dream, isn't 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:22.200 that like kind of a like that's just like what 0:39:22.239 --> 0:39:24.560 if I went to four high schools? Like what is 0:39:24.600 --> 0:39:29.000 the point that is in that? It's like the egot, 0:39:29.000 --> 0:39:33.080 but you've always are doing shitty jobs. Uh and it's 0:39:33.120 --> 0:39:35.800 not at all like the egot because they'll take anyone 0:39:35.840 --> 0:39:39.400 pretty much. Um okay, interesting irrational goal. But anyway, he 0:39:39.480 --> 0:39:41.120 never got to do this because by the time he 0:39:41.200 --> 0:39:43.360 was near the end of his four years in the Navy, 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:46.239 the Vietnam conflict had really started to heat up, and 0:39:46.360 --> 0:39:49.360 Bill requested deployment to a combat zone and the Department 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:52.040 of Defense was like, absolutely, we keep getting all these 0:39:52.040 --> 0:39:55.719 guys killed. So yeah, like you you, You're more than 0:39:55.800 --> 0:40:00.440 welcome to go to Vietnam Bill, Okay, cool? Um. So 0:40:00.480 --> 0:40:02.719 Bill was sent to a naval support unit in the 0:40:02.800 --> 0:40:06.320 Quaviat River Quang Tree Province, and this was a really 0:40:06.400 --> 0:40:09.960 dangerous posting. Bill's job was to captain a river boat. Um, 0:40:10.000 --> 0:40:14.480 motoring up and down the river. Sounds like he's been 0:40:14.520 --> 0:40:19.080 alive for a hundred years already. Yeah, he's in his twenties. Um. Yeah, 0:40:19.080 --> 0:40:22.160 and he's do If you watched Apocalypse now, yes, you 0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:23.960 know the you know, the like a huge chunk of 0:40:23.960 --> 0:40:25.920 it there on that boat with the machine guns that 0:40:25.960 --> 0:40:29.560 get shot at repeatedly. Yes, that's Bill's job, Like Bill 0:40:29.600 --> 0:40:33.040 does that for real, Um, And it's it's a really 0:40:33.160 --> 0:40:35.120 it's one of the most dangerous gigs you could have 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:38.160 in Vietnam, like because you're on these like fiberglass boats 0:40:38.160 --> 0:40:41.560 that are basically big moving targets that have no armor 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:44.360 on them. So it's it's it's a bad it's a 0:40:44.440 --> 0:40:50.040 dangerous gig vibe. Okay, yeah, yeah, whatever else you can 0:40:50.040 --> 0:40:52.160 say about him, and well we're gonna say mostly bad 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:55.440 things about him. Bill Cooper saw some ship. Um. His 0:40:55.560 --> 0:40:57.960 best friend during training was a guy named Bob Baron, 0:40:58.120 --> 0:41:00.279 and both men made a pact to drink at of 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:03.239 Scotch and the other man's memory if they died in battle. Uh. 0:41:03.320 --> 0:41:06.320 Bob shipped out first, and he was killed almost immediately 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:13.719 UM treat for Bill Um. Bill Cooper felt that now 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.799 Vietnam was quote a personal war. They had killed a 0:41:16.880 --> 0:41:19.560 part of me. UM. He claims that once he reached 0:41:19.600 --> 0:41:22.200 the river, his boat engaged the enemy more times than 0:41:22.239 --> 0:41:25.120 any other boat that ever patrolled that river. We kept 0:41:25.120 --> 0:41:27.640 the enemy off the river and I never lost another man. 0:41:27.960 --> 0:41:30.680 I can't tell you if that's true, he's almost certainly exaggerating. 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:33.359 But he won awards and stuff for gallantry under fire, 0:41:33.400 --> 0:41:36.240 He had a really he did some ship in Vietnam. Um, 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:39.640 And it's it's probably fair to say that Bill's service 0:41:39.680 --> 0:41:42.520 in Vietnam was the only time where his like imagination 0:41:42.680 --> 0:41:45.000 of who he was as a person came close to 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:48.880 being the real thing. Um. So, you know, Vietnam is 0:41:48.920 --> 0:41:52.000 in some ways a really positive experience for Bill, but 0:41:52.040 --> 0:41:55.640 he also walks away from it horribly, horribly traumatized. And 0:41:55.680 --> 0:41:58.360 obviously he's a man who grew up in the fifties 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:01.560 to a father who was incapable of having emotional conversations, 0:42:01.560 --> 0:42:04.759 and Bill grows into an adult with combat trauma and 0:42:04.800 --> 0:42:07.400 no no capacity to deal with it in any in 0:42:07.440 --> 0:42:11.520 any way. Um. But his service earned him a promotion 0:42:11.800 --> 0:42:14.680 to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Hawaii, where he 0:42:14.719 --> 0:42:17.760 worked on the briefing team for Admiral Bernard Clary, commander 0:42:17.760 --> 0:42:20.200 of the U. S. Specific Fleet UH. In order to 0:42:20.280 --> 0:42:23.520 do this job, bill security clearance was upgraded to top 0:42:23.560 --> 0:42:29.879 secret Q sensitive Compartmentalized information Q. Yeah Q I hear yeah, yeah, 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:31.640 that's where and that's where Q and on comes from 0:42:31.800 --> 0:42:35.080 is like Q was a level of military intelligence classification. 0:42:35.880 --> 0:42:39.879 I thought it was just a spicy continent. No, Bill 0:42:39.920 --> 0:42:44.160 Cooper is clearly cute. No he's not because spoilers, he 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:49.680 dies violently. But um yeah, so giving Bill Cooper any 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:51.880 kind of security clearance would prove to be one of 0:42:51.920 --> 0:42:54.760 the worst mistakes the US Navy ever made, a second 0:42:54.800 --> 0:42:57.520 only to its continued failure to finally destroy the city 0:42:57.520 --> 0:43:00.759 of Boston. Bill Cooper was a competency, but giving him 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:03.960 access to top secret information was a really bad decision, 0:43:03.960 --> 0:43:05.880 because not because Bill was a spy or because he 0:43:05.880 --> 0:43:09.440 would in any way reveal actual secret information, but because 0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:11.120 he was exactly the sort of guy who knew how 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:12.799 to dine out for the rest of his life on 0:43:12.840 --> 0:43:15.600 the lies that his position with Admiral Clary allowed him 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:18.960 to tell. He later trying to not act on the 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:22.280 fact that you said competent Seman, I'm sorry I stopped listening. 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:24.280 I thought you were going to defend the city of Boston, 0:43:24.280 --> 0:43:26.680 because I know you're from that whole eastern chunk of 0:43:26.680 --> 0:43:29.400 the country. Listen, there is no defending the city of Boston. 0:43:29.800 --> 0:43:32.319 Glad we agree on this, ja There's no I mean 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:36.400 by all means watch Patriots Day on Netflix. It's in 0:43:36.440 --> 0:43:40.000 the top ten right now. And um, I can't watch 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:45.640 it because it will give me PTSD PTSB. He will 0:43:45.719 --> 0:43:49.600 give me. It's just Mark Wahlberg. I'm kidding. Um, there's 0:43:49.600 --> 0:43:55.759 no defending the city of Oka full You know what? 0:43:56.800 --> 0:43:58.520 Do you want to get beat up by my uncle? 0:43:58.640 --> 0:44:02.760 So she I don't take what kind of my uncle 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.920 will will kick? And I'm kidding. My uncle is a grifter. 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:08.319 He's pretending to be on disability, but he's not. Well, 0:44:08.360 --> 0:44:11.680 what's that that's my rochette that I'm holding can take? 0:44:13.920 --> 0:44:16.959 I'm in a challenge. Are salutes at home? To figure 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:22.839 out who Jamie's uncle is? A report him to? I mean, 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:26.280 talk about it, guys. We're talking about good liars. Someone 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:32.480 talk to my uncle. He's it's not Jamie's uncle. Oh 0:44:32.600 --> 0:44:35.080 is it time for that already? Transition I've ever done? 0:44:35.080 --> 0:44:37.400 I'm so sorry, but also fun the Boston Salt. You 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:39.400 know you want to know who won't tell on you 0:44:39.480 --> 0:44:44.280 for committing disability fraud? The products and services that support 0:44:44.360 --> 0:44:47.320 this podcast? Oh thank god. My family really can't handle 0:44:47.360 --> 0:45:00.560 another situation like this. We're back. We're back, my family. 0:45:00.600 --> 0:45:02.319 The last time my family went to court, we all 0:45:02.320 --> 0:45:04.640 had to testify that my grandma had thrown a TV 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:07.880 at my grandpa. So don't talk about the city of Boston. 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:15.279 A very Boston story. Watch your grandma throw roku at 0:45:15.280 --> 0:45:21.839 your grandpa. See how you like it, Oh, Jesus. So 0:45:22.320 --> 0:45:24.600 Bill gets this job working for the admiral, and he 0:45:24.600 --> 0:45:27.400 gets top secret security clearance about it, and he uses 0:45:27.440 --> 0:45:30.200 the fact that he had this gig for the rest 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:32.360 of his life to kind of make the lies that 0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:35.680 he will later tell about the US government, um to 0:45:35.760 --> 0:45:38.000 give them like an air of truth um. As he 0:45:38.080 --> 0:45:40.319 later wrote, quote, I began to see things at first 0:45:40.320 --> 0:45:42.319 that made no sense to me. President Nixon was on 0:45:42.360 --> 0:45:44.719 television giving a speech, an incredible speech, saying that we 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:47.920 were conducting no bombing raids in North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lao. 0:45:48.160 --> 0:45:50.560 Five minutes later, intelligence came into the office with k 0:45:50.600 --> 0:45:54.040 a figures of sorties over exactly the targets. Nixon said, 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:56.360 the Americans weren't bombing. I would shake my head and 0:45:56.360 --> 0:45:58.400 wonder what in the world was going on here? That 0:45:58.480 --> 0:46:00.680 wasn't right. I never said anything at time, most of 0:46:00.760 --> 0:46:02.879 us never did. I never imagined the people in charge 0:46:02.880 --> 0:46:04.560 of the country would light of the people like that. 0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:07.759 I was raised to think that this was impossible. Now 0:46:07.800 --> 0:46:09.360 that part may or may not have been true. The 0:46:09.400 --> 0:46:11.799 bombing raids he's talking about happened, but it was also 0:46:11.920 --> 0:46:14.360 common knowledge by the time he actually wrote about them. 0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:17.560 His biographer Mark Jacobson seems to believe in this part 0:46:17.600 --> 0:46:19.200 and think that it was kind of a turning moment 0:46:19.239 --> 0:46:22.080 for Bill where he starts to distrust the government in 0:46:22.120 --> 0:46:25.360 a real way. Um. But once his career is a 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:28.600 conspiracy theorist got going, Bill started focusing on other things 0:46:28.680 --> 0:46:32.360 he'd seen in the Admiral's file cabinet. First and foremost 0:46:32.400 --> 0:46:34.960 was evidence that President Kennedy had been assassinated by his 0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:39.479 own Secret Service agent, William Greer. This was a remarkable feat. Yeah, yeah, 0:46:39.480 --> 0:46:41.839 because number one it was Bernie Sanders and number two 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:45.280 Greer was driving JFK's Limo at the point the president 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:48.000 was shot. And Bill hand this like weird conspiracy theory 0:46:48.280 --> 0:46:50.600 of like a shellfish tox and pellet gun that was 0:46:50.600 --> 0:46:53.360 built into the body if I think an umbrella. Um. 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:55.000 But for the rest of his life, when Bill would 0:46:55.040 --> 0:46:57.920 be like talking about government conspiracies, he'd say like I 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:00.720 saw the evidence of it and the Admiral's fire in cabinet, 0:47:00.719 --> 0:47:03.280 and like he would say that about fucking everything sounds 0:47:03.280 --> 0:47:05.959 like a game of clue. So this job is very 0:47:06.080 --> 0:47:08.960 fortunate for Bill Cooper because he did have a security 0:47:08.960 --> 0:47:11.319 clearance at one point, and he basically it would allow 0:47:11.400 --> 0:47:13.080 him to lie for the rest of his life about 0:47:13.200 --> 0:47:16.719 having seen evidence of like evil government plots. That kind 0:47:16.719 --> 0:47:19.000 of reminds me of like when I guess, I guess 0:47:19.040 --> 0:47:22.040 in context to my life, when someone like works on 0:47:22.080 --> 0:47:24.600 a TV show that's good, but they do nothing but that, 0:47:24.640 --> 0:47:27.759 then they associate themselves with that TV show for the 0:47:27.800 --> 0:47:33.480 rest of their lives. Yeah. So yeah, Bill Cooper like 0:47:33.600 --> 0:47:36.239 kind of for for uh, sort of an example of 0:47:36.239 --> 0:47:39.120 the way Bill would later frame his relatively brief period 0:47:39.120 --> 0:47:42.440 of time working as basically the Admiral Secretary. Um, I'm 0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:44.759 gonna quote from a speech he gave at Hollywood High 0:47:44.800 --> 0:47:49.640 School in nineteen nine. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird that 0:47:49.640 --> 0:47:52.640 that got to happen. Huh every time it sounds like 0:47:52.680 --> 0:47:56.440 a fake place. Right away, I knew I was seeing 0:47:56.440 --> 0:47:59.080 what I was not supposed to see. Material never intended 0:47:59.080 --> 0:48:01.040 for my eyes. The grits were there what had been 0:48:01.080 --> 0:48:03.239 covered up the trees in this betrayal, I looked right 0:48:03.280 --> 0:48:05.319 into the heart of it. Everything about the war was 0:48:05.360 --> 0:48:07.239 in there, the story behind the alleged attack by the 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:09.760 Vietnamese navy, and the gulf of talking, the death counts, 0:48:09.760 --> 0:48:12.960 the Americans dealing with corrupt South Vietnamese government. That's what 0:48:13.000 --> 0:48:14.800 I learned in Vietnam. I thought I was fighting for 0:48:14.880 --> 0:48:16.680 my country, and I found it I was really fighting 0:48:16.680 --> 0:48:19.640 for big business, the coming one world government, Cooper told 0:48:19.640 --> 0:48:22.600 the audience. It was a devastating realization. This is from 0:48:22.600 --> 0:48:27.360 his biography Pale Horse Writer. So Bill continued to do 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:29.040 his job in the Navy, but when the time came 0:48:29.120 --> 0:48:31.640 up to either sign up for four more years or leave, 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:34.279 he opted to quit this time. Soon Bill was back 0:48:34.360 --> 0:48:36.560 in the mainland United States without a job for the 0:48:36.560 --> 0:48:38.319 first time in his adult life. And he'd kind of 0:48:38.360 --> 0:48:42.560 grown up obsessed with the idea of like living you know, 0:48:42.680 --> 0:48:45.879 like kind of a stereotypical Americana life, you know, living 0:48:45.920 --> 0:48:49.440 in like a small town with like a close knit community. Um, 0:48:49.520 --> 0:48:52.200 and that was when he gets back to the US. 0:48:52.280 --> 0:48:56.320 He winds up and like the California, like big cities 0:48:56.320 --> 0:48:59.040 in California, like the fucking Bay Area and stuff, and 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:01.680 he's like, this is so different than like what life 0:49:01.719 --> 0:49:04.000 is supposed to be like in America. Something must have 0:49:04.080 --> 0:49:06.440 gone horribly wrong. And people who knew Bill as a 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:09.640 kid will point out, like, Bill never knew the like 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:12.680 quote unquote like real America that he would spend the 0:49:12.719 --> 0:49:14.719 rest of his life obsessed with living he like lived 0:49:14.719 --> 0:49:18.360 on military basis. He never knew. It was just like 0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:22.560 a projection of like the media he was consuming, exactly exactly, 0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:25.560 like he grew up having this kind of miserable childhood 0:49:25.600 --> 0:49:28.600 and longing for, you know, the kind of America he 0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:34.359 saw on the television, which never really existed anywhere. Um yeah, 0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:38.040 so uh yeah. Bill winds up in the Bay Area. 0:49:38.080 --> 0:49:41.239 He gets a job as a diving instructor, He buys 0:49:41.239 --> 0:49:44.240 a motorcycle, and he attempts to lead a normal life. 0:49:44.440 --> 0:49:46.600 Um but, as Bill would later claim, his sense of 0:49:46.600 --> 0:49:49.000 guilt and outrage over the things he'd learned to overpower 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:52.120 would overpower him. So he like he later claims that 0:49:52.160 --> 0:49:55.279 basically he's he leaves the military with the knowledge of 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:58.279 all these horrible secrets, you know, these these evil programs 0:49:58.280 --> 0:50:02.000 that the government is instituting to a filing. Yeah, yeah, 0:50:02.120 --> 0:50:05.680 this evil filing cabinet full of secret government plans to 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:10.280 suborn the liberty of the American people and destroy freedom. Um. 0:50:10.320 --> 0:50:13.560 And so he decides to start like going after he claims, 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:17.400 um that he goes to a reporter and like starts 0:50:17.440 --> 0:50:20.160 giving him the information that he's gotten. Um. And he's 0:50:20.160 --> 0:50:23.319 trying to like basically do what Woodward and Bernstein you know, did, 0:50:23.400 --> 0:50:25.120 and be like a deep throat to them to like 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:28.560 reveal all these horrible government conspiracies. Um. And when he's 0:50:28.600 --> 0:50:31.760 midway through this process, he's tracked down and he's almost 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:34.800 murdered by government men. Now. Bill claims that this happened 0:50:34.800 --> 0:50:37.719 while he was on his motorcycle driving on Skyline Boulevard. 0:50:38.200 --> 0:50:40.960 A black Cadillac limousine pulled up behind him and ran 0:50:41.040 --> 0:50:43.759 him off the road. Bill would later write, quote, two 0:50:43.760 --> 0:50:45.719 men got out and climbed down to where I lay, 0:50:45.719 --> 0:50:47.719 covered in blood. One bent down and felt for my 0:50:47.760 --> 0:50:50.080 carotid pulse. The other asked if I was dead. The 0:50:50.120 --> 0:50:52.600 nearest man said no, but he will be. The other 0:50:52.640 --> 0:50:55.759 applied good. Then we don't have to do anything. Now. 0:50:56.280 --> 0:50:59.120 I felt that lie could have used a second draft. Yeah, 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:01.360 I think he to use an editor on that one. 0:51:01.719 --> 0:51:05.680 Um so. Bill claims he recovered, only to be run 0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:07.960 down a month later by the same Cadillac, and this 0:51:08.040 --> 0:51:11.600 time the assassination was closer to his success. They damaged 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:13.440 his right leg badly enough that it had to be 0:51:13.480 --> 0:51:18.120 amputated above the knee. Car yeah, same car, same limousine. 0:51:18.160 --> 0:51:21.640 Yeah yeah. And while he was in the hospital recuperating, 0:51:21.640 --> 0:51:24.200 Bill claims the same government men came to visit him again. 0:51:24.520 --> 0:51:26.120 They only wanted to know if I would shut up 0:51:26.200 --> 0:51:28.040 or if the next time should be final. I told 0:51:28.080 --> 0:51:29.879 them that I would be a very good little boy 0:51:29.880 --> 0:51:33.560 and that they needn't worry about me anymore. Obviously, these 0:51:33.560 --> 0:51:37.400 are all lies. Bill's motorcycle accident had a completely mundane explanation. 0:51:37.440 --> 0:51:40.120 He lost control of his bike and almost died horribly 0:51:40.160 --> 0:51:41.520 as a result of the fact that he was a 0:51:41.560 --> 0:51:45.360 bad motorcycle driver. Um yeah. And this is like what 0:51:45.480 --> 0:51:47.680 his family like. His dad when this got brought up 0:51:47.680 --> 0:51:49.080 to him, his dad was like, what the funk is 0:51:49.080 --> 0:51:50.880 he talking about? It wasn't the government, like he was. 0:51:50.960 --> 0:51:53.799 He fucked up and crashed his motorcycle, and like I 0:51:53.840 --> 0:51:56.479 had to pay for his medical bills because he would 0:51:56.480 --> 0:52:00.480 have been bankrupted otherwise. Um. And this was part of 0:52:00.480 --> 0:52:03.440 why Bill light about this was because his relationship with 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:05.880 his dad was strained and he couldn't like admit that 0:52:05.920 --> 0:52:08.720 he needed his family's money for a medical issue, especially 0:52:08.760 --> 0:52:14.359 when he'd caused himself. So it was the government. Yeah, um, yeah, 0:52:14.719 --> 0:52:17.240 I love I love his little soft core line about 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:20.920 I'm going to be a good little boy. What you do? Yeah, 0:52:20.960 --> 0:52:26.040 that is that is sexy, objectively sexy. Yeah, little Jackie 0:52:26.120 --> 0:52:34.440 in I'll be a good little boy. Jamie for blowing 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:38.640 your mind with my amazing ideas. I think you need 0:52:38.680 --> 0:52:42.960 to get off this skype call right now and start writing. Yes, 0:52:44.080 --> 0:52:46.000 I'm sorry, I have a final draft filed to take 0:52:46.880 --> 0:52:48.560 And that was That was the last time any of 0:52:48.640 --> 0:52:50.640 us ever talked to Jamie. She was too big a 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:56.560 star after making her Bill Cooper pornography video of brain 0:52:56.680 --> 0:53:03.839 failure four pages into I'll be uh So. The mid 0:53:03.920 --> 0:53:07.000 nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties were a real rough 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:10.360 period for Bill. Um. He had a fucking shipload of PTSD. 0:53:10.640 --> 0:53:13.239 He was missing most of a leg, like he's in 0:53:13.280 --> 0:53:16.160 a bad place. The seventies aren't a good time for Bill. 0:53:16.840 --> 0:53:21.440 Um and medical science didn't really formally recognize post traumatic 0:53:21.440 --> 0:53:23.319 stress disorder is the thing until it was added to 0:53:23.320 --> 0:53:25.640 the d s M in like nineteen eighty. Um So 0:53:25.680 --> 0:53:28.359 for most of the time that Bill was struggling with it, um, 0:53:28.440 --> 0:53:31.200 the term was used as post Vietnam syndrome when like 0:53:31.360 --> 0:53:34.480 doctors believed it was a problem at all. Um And 0:53:34.520 --> 0:53:36.880 in the US in the nineteen seventies, it wasn't like 0:53:36.880 --> 0:53:39.520 a very welcome place to admit you were struggling with 0:53:39.560 --> 0:53:43.239 mental health issues related to your military services. Like Bill 0:53:43.320 --> 0:53:46.759 wasn't didn't talk about this ship to anyone for quite 0:53:46.800 --> 0:53:49.759 a while. Um, he's just burying his trauma with the 0:53:50.160 --> 0:53:53.840 what's certainly even more PTSD from a horrible motorcycle accident. 0:53:54.120 --> 0:53:58.839 He he's he's a damaged boy. Um And I I'm 0:53:58.960 --> 0:54:01.359 saying that in the colledge that that should not at all, 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:05.279 um mitigate what comes next, because we're going to talk 0:54:05.320 --> 0:54:10.839 about his incredibly long history of profound spousal abuse. Uh. So, 0:54:11.280 --> 0:54:13.840 we don't know how many women that Bill Cooper married 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:17.440 in the seventies. Um. What, Yeah, we have no idea. 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:22.879 It's a lot. It's too many women. So how can 0:54:22.880 --> 0:54:26.279 that be true? How can you? Yeah, because he was 0:54:26.320 --> 0:54:32.600 a famous liar. Oh yeah, maybe making up what well? No, no, no, no, no, no, 0:54:32.719 --> 0:54:34.680 he we we know he had a number of them. 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:36.520 It's just that we don't know how many of them 0:54:36.560 --> 0:54:38.640 there were because he lied about to all of them 0:54:38.680 --> 0:54:41.520 about the others and wouldn't acknowledge them. And yeah, we'll 0:54:41.520 --> 0:54:43.200 talk about it'll this will make more sense than a 0:54:43.239 --> 0:54:46.799 little bit um, his biographer writes, quote and his voluminous 0:54:46.840 --> 0:54:49.640 FBI file. Cooper's father, Jack, is quoted as saying that 0:54:49.680 --> 0:54:52.760 his son had been married or engaged at least nine times. 0:54:53.040 --> 0:54:55.200 According to Jack, Bill was still in high school when 0:54:55.200 --> 0:54:57.680 he got engaged to a seventeen year old Japanese girl. 0:54:57.960 --> 0:55:00.239 The elder Cooper had to break it up. A year later, 0:55:00.280 --> 0:55:03.120 living on Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City, Cooper 0:55:03.160 --> 0:55:06.800 again got engaged to another young Asian woman. Now Bill's 0:55:06.840 --> 0:55:09.359 marriages weren't kept secret to protect his exes or whatever 0:55:09.440 --> 0:55:11.920 kind of super cool spy explanation he probably would have 0:55:11.960 --> 0:55:15.399 preferred people believe. The ugly reality is that, especially as 0:55:15.400 --> 0:55:19.080 an adult after his military service, Bill was wildly unstable 0:55:19.080 --> 0:55:21.520 and violent, and living with him was a waking nightmare 0:55:21.560 --> 0:55:23.719 for most of the women that he married. UM. He 0:55:24.000 --> 0:55:26.680 kept his prior relationships hidden because nobody would want to 0:55:26.719 --> 0:55:29.799 marry a guy with Bill's history. UM. In nineteen seventy six, 0:55:29.840 --> 0:55:32.399 he got hitched to Jenny's Pell Um, who told Bill's 0:55:32.440 --> 0:55:35.600 biographer later that I was number four. I think so again. 0:55:35.600 --> 0:55:37.840 Nobody has a real clear idea, even his wives, of 0:55:37.880 --> 0:55:41.880 like how many people he married. UM, but he gets 0:55:41.880 --> 0:55:44.960 married a shipload uh quote. I had no idea what 0:55:45.000 --> 0:55:47.040 I was getting into. One minute he'd be the sweetest, 0:55:47.040 --> 0:55:49.520 warmest guy. Then he'd changed start yelling at me for 0:55:49.560 --> 0:55:52.440 no reason. It was like living with Dr Jacklin Mr. Hyde. 0:55:52.520 --> 0:55:54.719 We were living in Union City, near Hayward. Bill was 0:55:54.760 --> 0:55:56.840 working in Oakland at the diving school. He'd get up 0:55:56.840 --> 0:55:58.799 at six to drive to work. I tried so hard 0:55:58.840 --> 0:56:00.640 to be a good wife. Every day. I had clean, 0:56:00.800 --> 0:56:02.760 make dinner for him. I said a nice table waiting 0:56:02.760 --> 0:56:04.799 for him to come home. In the beginning, he'd rush 0:56:04.800 --> 0:56:06.959 home and give me a kiss, bring flowers. It was great. 0:56:07.239 --> 0:56:08.880 Then he got home later and later it could be 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:11.520 after ten or midnight. Sometimes he didn't come home at all. 0:56:11.719 --> 0:56:13.759 I be beside myself, trying to figure out if he 0:56:13.760 --> 0:56:15.600 was all right. It was really awful. I'd sit there 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:17.440 at the dinner table, looking at the cold food and 0:56:17.440 --> 0:56:19.520 crying my eyes out. When he did come back, he'd 0:56:19.520 --> 0:56:21.160 say he was tired and go straight to bed. I 0:56:21.200 --> 0:56:23.279 didn't understand what was happening. I thought it was all 0:56:23.320 --> 0:56:26.160 my fault. And then there's a number of possibilities about 0:56:26.200 --> 0:56:27.799 like what Bill was doing at the time. He very 0:56:27.800 --> 0:56:30.000 well may have been cheating. Probably was cheating because he 0:56:30.040 --> 0:56:34.080 was constantly had a carousel of women kind of going um. 0:56:34.120 --> 0:56:37.080 He also had like a bunch of really unsuccessful business ventures. 0:56:37.080 --> 0:56:39.160 He had an art gallery that failed, So maybe his 0:56:39.760 --> 0:56:46.840 fucked up career was on his mind. Yeah, terrible, it's bad. 0:56:46.920 --> 0:56:49.120 And he was also he was also an alcoholic and 0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:53.359 increasingly like an increasingly like vicious drunk during this period 0:56:53.400 --> 0:56:55.040 of time. So he was up probably out drinking a 0:56:55.040 --> 0:56:57.279 lot of the time. And Janice described him as a 0:56:57.320 --> 0:57:00.200 monster when he was drinking. Quote, he'd get a use 0:57:00.239 --> 0:57:02.719 of mentally and after a while physically. I tried to 0:57:02.760 --> 0:57:05.480 make excuses for him. The war, his leg. He always 0:57:05.480 --> 0:57:07.080 told me the men in the car would come back 0:57:07.120 --> 0:57:09.359 to finish the job. One day he hit me gave 0:57:09.400 --> 0:57:11.880 me a bloody nose, knocked me out. I called the hotline. 0:57:11.920 --> 0:57:13.719 They told me to get out of there. Tony was 0:57:13.760 --> 0:57:15.600 just a little baby. Then the next day we drove 0:57:15.600 --> 0:57:17.720 built to work and just kept going. We moved in 0:57:17.760 --> 0:57:19.720 with my parents in Los Altos. I only saw him 0:57:19.760 --> 0:57:21.520 one more time after that, when he drove up to 0:57:21.560 --> 0:57:23.440 get his stuff. I thought he might stay a moment 0:57:23.440 --> 0:57:25.400 talk to his son, but he just got the things 0:57:25.440 --> 0:57:28.439 and left. And Bill we don't actually know many kids 0:57:28.440 --> 0:57:29.840 Bill had, either, but they all kind of have the 0:57:29.880 --> 0:57:32.640 same story as this one, where like he he'll have 0:57:32.640 --> 0:57:34.680 a couple of kids or a kid with one of 0:57:34.720 --> 0:57:39.040 these women and then he will be a violent monster 0:57:39.160 --> 0:57:41.360 and she will flee with the kid and Bill never 0:57:41.440 --> 0:57:47.360 tries to reach out again. Um. God, miserable. It's not good, 0:57:47.480 --> 0:57:49.200 it's not great. It's not a good way to be 0:57:49.240 --> 0:57:52.240 a person. Um. And it is like you look at 0:57:52.240 --> 0:57:55.800 Bill's history and again, not to mitigate the profound spousal abuse, 0:57:55.840 --> 0:57:57.919 but it's like, yeah, hard to imagine how this guy 0:57:57.920 --> 0:58:00.919 grows up good at being in a relation ship. Yeah, 0:58:00.920 --> 0:58:03.360 impossible for him to be good in relationships. I just, 0:58:03.520 --> 0:58:07.280 oh God, I hate that. I hate that there's so 0:58:07.280 --> 0:58:09.960 many victims of that cheese. Yeah, a ton of victims. 0:58:10.120 --> 0:58:13.440 Janice's story is probably very similar to a number of bills, 0:58:13.520 --> 0:58:16.200 unknown number of wives. Uh. It's important to note that 0:58:16.240 --> 0:58:18.520 the monster Bill could take quite a while to come out, 0:58:18.560 --> 0:58:21.120 and he was very good at charming women um in 0:58:21.160 --> 0:58:24.360 the meantime, As the story of his ex wife Sally illustrates. 0:58:25.200 --> 0:58:27.160 Bill and I started talking. I liked him, but he 0:58:27.200 --> 0:58:30.120 was smoking. I told him, smoke really bothered me. I'm allergic. 0:58:30.320 --> 0:58:32.200 He looked me right in the eyes, said all right, 0:58:32.240 --> 0:58:34.760 and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. He said he'd 0:58:34.800 --> 0:58:37.000 been smoking since he was fourteen, a couple of packs 0:58:37.000 --> 0:58:38.800 a day, But for me, he was going to quit. 0:58:39.000 --> 0:58:40.840 I asked him when he pointed to the cigarette in 0:58:40.880 --> 0:58:43.480 the tray and said, I already did. He never smoked 0:58:43.520 --> 0:58:46.360 another cigarette as long as I knew him. We started dancing. 0:58:46.360 --> 0:58:48.760 He had this kind of old world formality about him, 0:58:48.800 --> 0:58:51.920 that military thing. I suppose. He was a very graceful dancer, 0:58:52.040 --> 0:58:54.000 very light on his feet for a big guy. It 0:58:54.040 --> 0:58:56.640 wasn't until later that I realized he had an artificial leg. 0:58:56.760 --> 0:58:59.240 You would never have guessed it. Plus he made me laugh. 0:58:59.320 --> 0:59:02.240 He was Zany, always acting out these incredible stories. He 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:04.600 did these funny impressions. I love to hear him talk. 0:59:04.800 --> 0:59:06.800 It didn't make a difference what the topic was. He 0:59:06.880 --> 0:59:09.360 knew everything about it. He had this tone in his voice. 0:59:09.360 --> 0:59:11.240 It just draws you in. You can hear it on 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:14.200 the radio. He was perfect for that. We got married 0:59:14.200 --> 0:59:16.560 on Catalina on the steps of the Wriggly Mansion. The 0:59:16.560 --> 0:59:18.960 party was at l Galleon. Bill planned the whole thing, 0:59:19.040 --> 0:59:21.240 told the band what to play. It was great, but 0:59:21.240 --> 0:59:23.680 then he started drinking and picking fights. I guess that 0:59:23.680 --> 0:59:25.840 should have been a sign. My girlfriend said I was 0:59:25.880 --> 0:59:30.959 crazy to marry him, but I really loved him. So yeah, yeah, 0:59:30.960 --> 0:59:35.840 it's not great. It's not and it's I'm trying it 0:59:35.960 --> 0:59:38.480 just in kind of trying to classify Bill. I don't 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:40.880 know that. I don't know that he's what you'd call 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:43.400 a predator because I don't think I don't think he 0:59:43.440 --> 0:59:45.400 had a whole lot of control over what he was doing. 0:59:45.520 --> 0:59:47.720 I think he was a pretty broken person. But he 0:59:47.760 --> 0:59:50.240 also didn't go to like extreme measures to win back 0:59:50.280 --> 0:59:52.480 the women who left him, like when he when he 0:59:52.560 --> 0:59:55.240 violently chased them away. He would just kind of pretend 0:59:55.280 --> 0:59:57.480 they never existed, move on to the next person. I 0:59:57.520 --> 1:00:00.000 mean that's still like pretty clear. I mean it's hard 1:00:00.000 --> 1:00:02.360 a ball. Yeah, yeah, definitely an abuser. But I don't 1:00:02.480 --> 1:00:04.800 he's not like I don't think he's like seeking women 1:00:04.840 --> 1:00:07.480 out and like trying to psychologically fuck them out. Like, 1:00:07.520 --> 1:00:09.520 I don't think there's any kind of like planning in it. 1:00:09.560 --> 1:00:13.000 I think Bill is one of these people who has 1:00:13.040 --> 1:00:16.320 like violent mood swings and no control over them and 1:00:16.320 --> 1:00:22.600 no desire to really control them. Yes, deeply selfish, Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, 1:00:22.640 --> 1:00:25.840 and just yeah that's that's that's the feeling you get 1:00:25.880 --> 1:00:28.520 from him. His mood swings seemed to come more or 1:00:28.560 --> 1:00:32.520 less at random, um, and probably was a mix of 1:00:32.560 --> 1:00:35.560 a number of things. Um. He was also like working 1:00:35.560 --> 1:00:38.040 a pretty unsatisfying life at this time, a lot series 1:00:38.040 --> 1:00:41.520 of horrible dead end jobs, repeated failed business games, and 1:00:41.560 --> 1:00:43.160 you get the feeling he was taking that out on 1:00:43.200 --> 1:00:45.640 his family as well. Um, But he also took it 1:00:45.680 --> 1:00:47.720 out on everyone around him. And one of these dead 1:00:47.760 --> 1:00:49.960 end jobs, Bill got into an argument with his boss 1:00:49.960 --> 1:00:52.360 and punched through a plate glass window to try and 1:00:52.440 --> 1:00:57.080 strangle him. Um. So he is not a not a 1:00:57.320 --> 1:01:01.480 not a planner. That this point, he really is just 1:01:02.240 --> 1:01:04.720 by the seat of his pants at every turn. Yeah, 1:01:04.800 --> 1:01:07.680 punching through a plate glass window is not something you 1:01:07.760 --> 1:01:11.960 do if you're thinking a lot about your violence. So 1:01:12.000 --> 1:01:14.360 he was let go from that job. And obviously money 1:01:14.400 --> 1:01:18.120 was always tight because Bill repeatedly got fired from jobs 1:01:18.160 --> 1:01:21.720 for being a violent piece of shit. Um. Yeah. And 1:01:21.760 --> 1:01:24.160 also he couldn't stop from getting the women that he 1:01:24.200 --> 1:01:26.760 was with pregnant. So we got Sally pregnant, like, you know, 1:01:26.880 --> 1:01:30.400 pretty much as soon as they get married, their daughter, Yeah, 1:01:30.480 --> 1:01:34.800 competent salmon um their daughter Jessica again, like, we don't 1:01:34.800 --> 1:01:38.480 know how many kids he had um. Yeah. Sally later 1:01:38.480 --> 1:01:41.360 recalled quote, he was the most loving, attentive dad. He'd 1:01:41.400 --> 1:01:43.880 play with Jessica for hours. He seemed so happy, but 1:01:43.960 --> 1:01:46.320 then just like that, he'd go off start yelling. I 1:01:46.360 --> 1:01:48.120 blamed it on the drinking, but it was more than that. 1:01:48.280 --> 1:01:51.040 It was like he became possessed, not in control of himself. 1:01:51.280 --> 1:01:53.440 I tins up every time he came into the room. 1:01:53.480 --> 1:01:55.520 One night, when Jessica was little, we went to chuck 1:01:55.520 --> 1:01:58.320 e cheeses. Bill was drinking. He got abusive, calling me. 1:02:00.160 --> 1:02:02.120 I mean, that is something that happens at Chucky Cheese. 1:02:02.160 --> 1:02:04.600 I mean, no, no, what no one's going to be sober? 1:02:04.640 --> 1:02:06.960 I would I would be more worried about No. Wait, 1:02:07.040 --> 1:02:11.720 I don't want to make that reference. Um, that's bad. Still, 1:02:11.760 --> 1:02:14.000 how's birthday carries at Chuck E Cheese? Is no one 1:02:14.080 --> 1:02:17.160 is sober and no one is getting along? Yeah? No, 1:02:17.160 --> 1:02:19.240 no one should get along. I don't know. I don't 1:02:19.280 --> 1:02:21.280 want to. This story goes in a bad place, so 1:02:21.280 --> 1:02:23.840 I don't want to make the drinking jokes about Chuck 1:02:23.880 --> 1:02:26.560 E Cheese. Is that normally? Like are a real positive 1:02:26.600 --> 1:02:28.680 part of my life. I loved I love talking about 1:02:28.680 --> 1:02:30.760 what a bad place Chuck E Cheeses is. But this, 1:02:31.120 --> 1:02:34.000 this story is real dark. This is one of the 1:02:34.040 --> 1:02:37.080 worst Chuck E Cheese stories I've ever heard. And that's 1:02:37.080 --> 1:02:41.000 saying something. Yeah, Bill was drinking. He got really abusive, 1:02:41.000 --> 1:02:43.040 calling me names. I told him I'd had enough to 1:02:43.080 --> 1:02:45.160 stop the car, let us out. I was holding Jess 1:02:45.160 --> 1:02:47.400 in my lap. We didn't deal with seatbelts like today. 1:02:47.440 --> 1:02:49.280 I opened the door to go when Bill turned and 1:02:49.320 --> 1:02:51.240 pushed me and Jess out of the car with his 1:02:51.320 --> 1:02:53.640 artificial leg. It was like getting hit by a four 1:02:53.680 --> 1:02:56.200 by four. We went flying. I was okay, but then 1:02:56.240 --> 1:02:58.520 I looked in Jess's tiny face was all cut up. 1:02:58.920 --> 1:03:01.640 So he keeps a wife and infant daughter out of 1:03:01.680 --> 1:03:04.400 a moving vehicle after getting drunk at Chuck E Cheese? 1:03:04.520 --> 1:03:08.360 Is um, Jesus Christ, why they have a to drink 1:03:08.520 --> 1:03:12.040 cap now? First of its Bill Cooper. That's the Bill 1:03:12.080 --> 1:03:15.040 Cooper rule of Chuck E Cheesus. That is so that 1:03:15.240 --> 1:03:19.880 is very upsetting and very It's not the first time 1:03:19.920 --> 1:03:22.080 that has happened at a Chuck E Cheese, not the 1:03:22.120 --> 1:03:24.400 fiftieth time that's happened at a Chuck E Cheese. No, 1:03:26.160 --> 1:03:28.600 for reasons that are probably too depressing to think about. 1:03:28.680 --> 1:03:30.880 Sally didn't leave for good after that. She set up 1:03:30.880 --> 1:03:33.320 a meeting between her Bill and their pastor to try 1:03:33.320 --> 1:03:35.800 to talk things out, and the subject of the conversation 1:03:35.920 --> 1:03:39.080 quickly turned to Vietnam and Bill. As soon as like, 1:03:39.160 --> 1:03:41.800 the pastor kind of started asking him questions about his service, 1:03:41.880 --> 1:03:45.320 Bill got violently angry. He started screaming and became so 1:03:45.360 --> 1:03:47.720 incensed that Sally's pastor had to call the v A 1:03:47.840 --> 1:03:50.360 to come and pick him up. Um, So the couple 1:03:50.400 --> 1:03:53.240 splits in like nineteen eighty two, and during this time 1:03:53.280 --> 1:03:55.360 Bill is going to Long Beach College and trying to 1:03:55.400 --> 1:03:57.640 make use of his g I bill, and he spends 1:03:57.680 --> 1:03:59.280 a lot of time. They're like, this is kind of 1:03:59.320 --> 1:04:01.760 the first time in the early eighties after his his 1:04:02.120 --> 1:04:05.760 this marriage X breaks apart where he starts to kind 1:04:05.800 --> 1:04:09.440 of deal with his PTSD UM by writing about it. 1:04:09.480 --> 1:04:13.840 So he does like essays and stuff about um what 1:04:14.040 --> 1:04:16.880 like he and other veterans are kind of experiencing one 1:04:16.920 --> 1:04:20.360 of his essays, and most people were doing at that time. 1:04:21.120 --> 1:04:23.520 He does to an extent try to process his trauma. 1:04:23.600 --> 1:04:27.000 He writes an essay titled Vietnam Are we still suffering Casualties? 1:04:27.040 --> 1:04:30.040 Ten years later? Um? And in it he wrote quote 1:04:30.040 --> 1:04:32.840 on the campus of Long Beach City College. Aspector reaps 1:04:32.840 --> 1:04:35.600 its harvest ghastly. It stalks the future of those who 1:04:35.640 --> 1:04:38.000 know it's past, any of us who have stood against 1:04:38.000 --> 1:04:41.040 it and survived. The demon strikes down dreams, educations, and 1:04:41.040 --> 1:04:43.920 even minds. It is insidious in nature and rides upon 1:04:43.920 --> 1:04:46.840 an undercurrent of memories, ignorance, and fear. It is not 1:04:46.960 --> 1:04:49.000 dead as many believe, nor is it a figment of 1:04:49.000 --> 1:04:51.520 the imagination. It is as real, as real as the 1:04:51.520 --> 1:04:55.320 earth we walk upon. He's writing about his PTSD, and 1:04:55.360 --> 1:04:59.440 he's writing pretty well about it actually, like Bill's not 1:04:59.520 --> 1:05:04.120 a bad writer, um and he uh no, and he 1:05:04.240 --> 1:05:06.600 One of the interesting things that happens during this time 1:05:06.680 --> 1:05:09.680 is he meets a young Vietnamese refugee at Long Beach 1:05:09.680 --> 1:05:12.240 College and gets to like interview her, and he has 1:05:12.280 --> 1:05:14.560 this realization that like when he was the way he 1:05:14.640 --> 1:05:17.320 later described as like he realized that if he'd encountered 1:05:17.320 --> 1:05:19.080 this woman when she was a young girl in Vietnam, 1:05:19.320 --> 1:05:22.520 he probably would have shot her. And this like really fucks, 1:05:22.640 --> 1:05:27.520 like Bills, you can't over exaggerate how much Vietnam fox 1:05:27.600 --> 1:05:31.440 this man up. Yeah, which is which is you know, 1:05:31.560 --> 1:05:34.680 like a story ful lot of people, Yeah, it's yeah, 1:05:34.680 --> 1:05:36.080 and you know, to be fair, a lot of people 1:05:36.120 --> 1:05:38.400 who don't kick their wife and infant child out of 1:05:38.400 --> 1:05:42.439 a moving car, so like certainty that you will then 1:05:42.520 --> 1:05:48.080 do that. Um yeah, but yeah, it's a rough like 1:05:48.160 --> 1:05:51.200 Bill is. And this will become really appropriate because of 1:05:51.200 --> 1:05:53.320 the man he grows into. Bill is like the fucking 1:05:53.360 --> 1:05:58.800 poster child for how badly American imperialism fox up young men, 1:05:59.480 --> 1:06:03.720 the young men who are two of like, how American 1:06:03.760 --> 1:06:07.000 imperialism sucks you up? How like PTSD fucks you up? 1:06:07.000 --> 1:06:10.680 How like the expectation based on like media and like 1:06:10.760 --> 1:06:15.800 expectations versus reality fuck you up. There's no there's no 1:06:15.920 --> 1:06:19.480 limit on ways that this guy's fucked up. Case study 1:06:19.520 --> 1:06:21.520 a lot of lessons in the story of Bill Cooper. 1:06:21.960 --> 1:06:24.160 So Bill gets married again in nineteen eighties six, and 1:06:24.160 --> 1:06:26.160 that worked out about as well as you'd expect. By 1:06:26.160 --> 1:06:28.840 the tail end of the Reagan years, he had nearly 1:06:28.880 --> 1:06:31.720 two basketball teams have failed marriages in their rear window, 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:34.520 a head full of bad memories and no real prospect 1:06:34.560 --> 1:06:40.440 for worked. The future looked bleak. Yeah, um, so the 1:06:40.480 --> 1:06:44.560 future looked bleak for Bill. But then in nineteen Jamie 1:06:44.680 --> 1:06:49.080 there came a single shaft of brilliant sunlight. Bill Cooper 1:06:49.480 --> 1:06:54.880 discovered the Internet. No, I know, I know, the worst 1:06:54.920 --> 1:07:00.600 thing that could have happened to this confirmation of the 1:07:01.800 --> 1:07:05.600 whole thought he's ever had in his life. Yeah, it's 1:07:05.680 --> 1:07:10.200 it's it's unfortunate that things about that way. Yeah he was. 1:07:10.280 --> 1:07:13.040 Bill Cooper was one of the very first people on 1:07:13.080 --> 1:07:16.680 the Internet. Yeah, like, one of the very first human 1:07:16.720 --> 1:07:19.120 beings to really get into it. Um, and the late 1:07:19.160 --> 1:07:21.320 nineteen eighties Internet was a real different beast than the 1:07:21.320 --> 1:07:23.960 modern one. There was nothing that really worked like social media, 1:07:24.080 --> 1:07:26.840 but there were b b s s, which were essentially forums. 1:07:26.840 --> 1:07:29.320 So if you remember what forums were, you can if 1:07:29.360 --> 1:07:32.560 you can think back to a time before Facebook. Bill's 1:07:32.760 --> 1:07:35.160 kind of into that sort of thing, um, and he 1:07:35.320 --> 1:07:39.720 quickly discovers parannet, which was dedicated to the paranormal, particularly 1:07:39.840 --> 1:07:45.040 UFOs And yeah, so Bill gets super fucking into UFOs 1:07:45.280 --> 1:07:48.400 um and into this community of like UFO nerds and 1:07:48.520 --> 1:07:52.920 like really the first online community of UFO nerds that exists. Yeah, 1:07:52.960 --> 1:07:56.320 this is such early Internet ship. It's like every annoying 1:07:56.400 --> 1:07:59.479 couple in their forties met on an Internet forum. Yeah, 1:07:59.640 --> 1:08:03.480 just exactly. Yeah, though legally as well, um, that's in 1:08:03.520 --> 1:08:07.320 the constitution. So Mark Jacobson suggests that flying saucers and 1:08:07.360 --> 1:08:10.200 sort of like belief in UFOs was quote the first 1:08:10.280 --> 1:08:13.360 populist truth or issue, the first time the authorities denied 1:08:13.480 --> 1:08:16.040 something that a large percentage of the population believed to 1:08:16.080 --> 1:08:19.120 be true. And this is probably accurate in a culture 1:08:19.160 --> 1:08:22.880 of conspiracy, scholar Michael Barkon notes, quote, within a few 1:08:22.880 --> 1:08:25.280 months of the first modern claim of a flying saucers 1:08:25.280 --> 1:08:28.439 siting in nineteen forty seven poles showed that of the 1:08:28.479 --> 1:08:31.280 population had heard of them. By nineteen sixty six, that 1:08:31.320 --> 1:08:34.120 figure had risen to ninety six percent, and more importantly, 1:08:34.320 --> 1:08:37.880 forty six percent of all Americans believed UFOs actually existed. 1:08:38.240 --> 1:08:40.920 More than a decade later, in nineteen seventy eight, thirty 1:08:40.960 --> 1:08:44.240 percent of college graduates believe they existed. At that time, 1:08:44.280 --> 1:08:46.920 the number of Americans who believed UFOs were real reached 1:08:46.920 --> 1:08:51.559 its highest level fifty seven percent. Now Wow, by nineteen 1:08:51.640 --> 1:08:54.479 ninety the number of UFO true believers had actually fallen 1:08:54.520 --> 1:08:56.640 to about forty seven percent, and it was still at 1:08:56.640 --> 1:08:59.040 around that level six years later. And this suggests that 1:08:59.080 --> 1:09:02.599 the Internet so much allow for the spread of a 1:09:02.600 --> 1:09:05.080 belief in UFOs, as it did help to make those 1:09:05.120 --> 1:09:07.920 beliefs kind of more durable by building communities for people 1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:11.360 like build to explore and expand on existing theories. And 1:09:11.439 --> 1:09:16.320 this allowed for very different kinds of conspiracy theories to merge. 1:09:16.840 --> 1:09:20.040 For example, there's always been stories about an alien crash 1:09:20.160 --> 1:09:23.240 landing in Roswell since like nineteen seven UM, and there'd 1:09:23.240 --> 1:09:26.599 also been conspiracy theories theorists who believe that JFK had 1:09:26.600 --> 1:09:29.680 been murdered by someone besides the widely accepted culprit, who is, 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:35.960 of course Bernard Sanders accomplished me yeah. Um. And then 1:09:36.120 --> 1:09:38.960 starting in the mid nineteen eighties, there was Majestic twelve, 1:09:39.040 --> 1:09:42.479 and in brief, Majestic twelve conspiracy theory purported to be 1:09:42.520 --> 1:09:45.920 a set of briefing documents for the incoming newly elected 1:09:45.960 --> 1:09:48.320 president and forming him of the existence of a secret 1:09:48.439 --> 1:09:52.200 organization of the world's dozen most powerful people. M J 1:09:52.400 --> 1:09:57.519 twelve is like the first hidden global government conspiracy theory um, 1:09:57.560 --> 1:09:59.280 and it was formed in the wake of the Roswell 1:09:59.360 --> 1:10:02.400 land Like this, this hidden global government was supposedly had 1:10:02.439 --> 1:10:04.200 been formed in the wake of the Roswell landings to 1:10:04.240 --> 1:10:07.519 deal with the newfound existence of aliens. Now, the initial 1:10:07.560 --> 1:10:10.439 claims of the m J twelve conspiracy theory were rather basic, 1:10:10.520 --> 1:10:12.439 because this document actually was only like, I think, a 1:10:12.479 --> 1:10:15.599 dozen pages or something. But once m J twelve hit 1:10:15.640 --> 1:10:18.040 the Internet in the late nineteen eighties, a funny thing 1:10:18.160 --> 1:10:22.520 started to happen. Conspiracy theorists began grafting their pet conspiracy 1:10:22.600 --> 1:10:26.560 theories onto m J twelve. Writing in the jfk assassination 1:10:26.560 --> 1:10:28.640 and the Tonk and Gulf incident, which you know was 1:10:28.680 --> 1:10:30.720 the spark behind the Vietnam War and a bunch of 1:10:30.720 --> 1:10:34.639 other shady stuff into the machinations of the Majestic Twelve. Now. 1:10:35.280 --> 1:10:38.160 The most successful of these conspiracy fan fiction authors was 1:10:38.200 --> 1:10:40.479 a fellow named John Lear, the son of a guy 1:10:40.520 --> 1:10:43.360 of the guy who created the Leir Jet. Lear's theory 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:45.160 was that the leaders of the US had made a 1:10:45.200 --> 1:10:47.880 devil's bargain with aliens back in the nineteen sixties to 1:10:47.960 --> 1:10:51.480 hand over American citizens and cattle to them for mutilation 1:10:51.520 --> 1:10:56.360 and experimentation in exchange for technology. But the aliens, yeah, yeah, 1:10:56.600 --> 1:10:59.280 this is this is the X files, right, like this 1:10:59.320 --> 1:11:02.320 is actually like is literally what the like John Lear, 1:11:02.360 --> 1:11:04.760 And then the work that Bill Cooper does with Lear 1:11:04.960 --> 1:11:08.560 is the inspiration for all of the X Files. Clearwater 1:11:08.640 --> 1:11:11.120 Revival playing in the background of this Devil's deal with 1:11:11.200 --> 1:11:14.480 the Aliens is good. I feel like I'm there. Yeah yeah, 1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:18.920 so you know, Lear, Lear in Cooper, once they got together, 1:11:18.920 --> 1:11:22.759 would kind of argue that actually, the Majestic twelve um 1:11:23.040 --> 1:11:26.919 were had we're kind of getting like grifted by the aliens, 1:11:26.960 --> 1:11:29.160 that like the technology they were getting wasn't very good 1:11:29.160 --> 1:11:31.719 and the aliens were way more brutal with their abductions 1:11:31.760 --> 1:11:34.760 than they were supposed to be um, and so like 1:11:35.000 --> 1:11:38.280 the conspiracy evolves under Lear into like claiming that the 1:11:38.360 --> 1:11:42.479 Allies in the military had balked at this this like 1:11:43.200 --> 1:11:45.400 agreement with the Aliens, and that was what led to 1:11:45.400 --> 1:11:48.400 the creation of the Strategic Defension Initiative Reagan's Star Wars 1:11:48.439 --> 1:11:55.200 Missile program. Is. What's happening is the Internet is making 1:11:55.400 --> 1:11:58.559 conspiracy theories had largely been sort of spread by kind 1:11:58.560 --> 1:12:00.920 of you know, there'd be some underground newsletters and stuff, 1:12:00.960 --> 1:12:03.400 but also people just kind of spread these these fake 1:12:03.520 --> 1:12:05.960 documents that we're purporting to be like the and this 1:12:06.000 --> 1:12:08.280 is like throughout the eighties, these documents that were claimed 1:12:08.320 --> 1:12:11.519 to be like, you know, evidence of one conspiracy or another. 1:12:11.720 --> 1:12:13.519 And the Internet brings all starts to bring all this 1:12:13.560 --> 1:12:16.479 ship together, so like we can take your take your 1:12:16.520 --> 1:12:18.639 cork and take it from your corkboard and really start 1:12:18.680 --> 1:12:22.240 to compare some ideas. Yeah, yeah, um, I'm gonna quote 1:12:22.240 --> 1:12:24.599 from the book A Culture of Conspiracy on sort of 1:12:24.600 --> 1:12:28.559 what happened like the impact of of John Lear's uh, 1:12:28.600 --> 1:12:31.759 what's called the Leer statement, which is like his personal 1:12:31.840 --> 1:12:34.960 theory about MJ twelve. The Leer Statement is brief, only 1:12:35.000 --> 1:12:37.839 seven printed pages, but dizzying in its claims. It elevates 1:12:37.920 --> 1:12:40.800 m J twelve to a conspiratorial position nowhere hinted at 1:12:40.800 --> 1:12:43.519 in the original papers themselves, and implies a web of 1:12:43.560 --> 1:12:47.120 subsidiary conspiracies to silence the news media with that in 1:12:47.160 --> 1:12:49.879 the academic community, and to must lead the UFL community 1:12:49.920 --> 1:12:53.320 as well. According to leer upologist William Moore, the figure 1:12:53.360 --> 1:12:56.919 most identified with the MJL twelve papers was probably himself 1:12:56.960 --> 1:13:00.439 a disinformation agent in the higher of MJ twelve. So 1:13:01.640 --> 1:13:06.280 you also start to see like what's essentially like this 1:13:06.320 --> 1:13:10.040 big over conspiracy that's being created. Like it's not just 1:13:10.160 --> 1:13:12.280 it's not just aliens exist, It's not just there's a 1:13:12.320 --> 1:13:15.720 secret world government. It's not just JFK was killed, you know, 1:13:16.040 --> 1:13:18.479 um by the CIA or whoever. It's like all of 1:13:18.520 --> 1:13:23.400 these things are part of this massive, branching, impossibly influential conspiracy. 1:13:23.479 --> 1:13:25.800 What you're seeing is the precursor for the kind of 1:13:25.840 --> 1:13:28.800 conspiracy that qan On is right, Like this is when 1:13:28.800 --> 1:13:31.760 that first starts happening, and Bill Cooper is one of 1:13:31.800 --> 1:13:33.920 the guys on the ground making it happen. He's one 1:13:33.920 --> 1:13:38.840 of the most influential people in this early little online community. UM. 1:13:38.880 --> 1:13:41.360 And you know, Bill had kind of just started by 1:13:41.520 --> 1:13:45.960 sharing tales of of aliens and stuff in paranet um, 1:13:46.000 --> 1:13:49.160 but he very quickly graduated into like writing about Lear's 1:13:49.160 --> 1:13:52.679 work and adding conspiracies to it. And Lear and Cooper 1:13:52.760 --> 1:13:55.639 soon like become friends and start talking and start working 1:13:55.720 --> 1:14:00.160 together on like expanding kind of people's idea of what 1:14:00.280 --> 1:14:05.519 a conspiracy could be. UM. And here's how it'll be 1:14:05.640 --> 1:14:08.639 less so in just a second. Cooper's biographer actually interviewed 1:14:08.720 --> 1:14:11.479 Lear um pretty recently. Uh, and Lear was very old 1:14:11.520 --> 1:14:13.680 at the time. But here's how Leir described the two 1:14:13.720 --> 1:14:16.680 men's early friendship. I heard there was this guy on 1:14:16.760 --> 1:14:19.120 parannet who was supporting what I said, Bill Cooper. He 1:14:19.200 --> 1:14:21.200 was writing into the bulletin board saying he'd worked in 1:14:21.200 --> 1:14:23.840 the Office of Naval Intelligence and see this incredible amount 1:14:23.880 --> 1:14:26.439 of top secret material. And he could vouch for word 1:14:26.479 --> 1:14:29.160 for word fifty percent of what I said. Lear and 1:14:29.160 --> 1:14:31.640 Cooper spent a lot of time together through nineteen and 1:14:31.720 --> 1:14:34.360 nineteen ninety. I liked him from the beginning. Lear recalled 1:14:34.439 --> 1:14:35.960 he was smart, and he had a good sense of 1:14:36.040 --> 1:14:38.599 humor and amazing memory. He also could drink me under 1:14:38.600 --> 1:14:40.559 the table, which wasn't so easy to do back then. 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:42.439 When I saw him put away a fifth of Scotch 1:14:42.479 --> 1:14:45.000 before lunchtime, I knew he was my kind of guy. 1:14:45.360 --> 1:14:47.599 Then he'd be off on something else, that was Bill. 1:14:47.840 --> 1:14:50.040 One minute, he'd be wrapping himself in the flag, standing 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:52.679 up and reciting parts of the Constitution verbatim. Then he'd 1:14:52.720 --> 1:14:55.000 be like a beat nick at a jazz club. Hey daddy, oh, 1:14:55.000 --> 1:14:57.040 hey daddy Oh. He might have pulled a gun on 1:14:57.080 --> 1:14:59.040 me three or four times. Then again I pulled a 1:14:59.040 --> 1:15:04.920 gun on him too. Okay, So just to summarize, he's like, 1:15:05.280 --> 1:15:06.720 I knew this guy. We were going to be friends 1:15:06.720 --> 1:15:09.120 when I found out he was very sick in his head, 1:15:10.080 --> 1:15:12.479 that there was a little hope that he was going 1:15:12.560 --> 1:15:15.320 to seek out help or get any support from someone 1:15:15.400 --> 1:15:17.240 in his life. I was all about this, and I 1:15:17.280 --> 1:15:19.919 thought it was really cool because I shared these same issues, 1:15:20.080 --> 1:15:23.559 because I have the same problem. We both had violent 1:15:23.560 --> 1:15:26.679 mood swings and pulled firearms on each other regularly. That's 1:15:26.640 --> 1:15:30.320 what we have interested in addressing this. No, therefore, were 1:15:30.320 --> 1:15:33.720 going to be good friends soon. Bill Cooper developed his 1:15:33.720 --> 1:15:36.879 own hypothesis based off of Lear's theory about global elites 1:15:36.920 --> 1:15:40.840 trading human souls for alien technology and excited online rants. 1:15:40.840 --> 1:15:43.160 Bill would claim to have access to top secret information 1:15:43.200 --> 1:15:46.080 that at least sixteen alien craft had crashed and been 1:15:46.080 --> 1:15:50.679 found by the US government UH aliens had been recovered dead, 1:15:50.720 --> 1:15:52.960 and one had been recovered alive, but was always very 1:15:53.000 --> 1:15:56.559 specific in these kind of posts. According to Mark Jacobson quote, 1:15:57.040 --> 1:16:00.200 Cooper's rewrite of Lear's hypothesis added new items like a 1:16:00.280 --> 1:16:03.799 particle beam weapon and machinery for cloning and synthetic genetic 1:16:03.920 --> 1:16:06.200 duplication of humans to the shopping list of Lear's and 1:16:06.320 --> 1:16:09.479 holy tech for flesh deal. He also tweaked the timeline 1:16:09.520 --> 1:16:12.360 of government alien interaction. Now there were three separate meetings, 1:16:12.400 --> 1:16:14.799 the most significant being the signing of the formal agreement, 1:16:14.800 --> 1:16:17.800 which took place on February tenth, nineteen fifty four, and 1:16:17.920 --> 1:16:21.720 Murrock now Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster, California. The 1:16:21.760 --> 1:16:24.280 historic event had been planned in advance and the details 1:16:24.320 --> 1:16:26.439 of the treaty had been agreed upon Cooper rights in 1:16:26.479 --> 1:16:30.639 the secret government. President Eisenhower had been vacationing nearby Palm 1:16:30.680 --> 1:16:32.640 Springs when he was spirited away to the base on 1:16:32.680 --> 1:16:34.639 the pretext that he had an appointment with his dentist 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:37.360 who happened to be Dr tim tote Leary, father of 1:16:37.400 --> 1:16:40.160 the LSD guru Timothy Leary, which of course would make 1:16:40.200 --> 1:16:45.759 it into later conspiracy theories, but is true. Uh yeah, yeah. 1:16:46.080 --> 1:16:48.960 So it's not hard to see why Bill's alternate version 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:51.960 of history played well with very online people. It's fun, 1:16:52.160 --> 1:16:55.000 um yeah. And and Bill wasn't content with just being 1:16:55.000 --> 1:16:57.919 a giant among the very first and the very saddest 1:16:57.920 --> 1:17:02.040 conspiracy nerds and the internet kind of fun. Everything is 1:17:02.080 --> 1:17:05.559 connected vibe to it that people a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:17:05.600 --> 1:17:07.400 and he get he starts to get kind of famous 1:17:07.439 --> 1:17:09.400 within this community for that, and he's soon he's speaking 1:17:09.439 --> 1:17:12.519 at like conventions and stuff, UFO conventions all around, like 1:17:12.560 --> 1:17:17.719 he's kind of in demand by later angel Fire fan sites. Yeah. 1:17:17.920 --> 1:17:20.639 And in ninety nine, Bill decides he's going to take 1:17:20.680 --> 1:17:22.280 things a step further because he doesn't want to just 1:17:22.360 --> 1:17:24.680 be limited to the Internet. So he prints out five 1:17:25.160 --> 1:17:28.640 thirty five copies of all of his findings on extraterrestrials, 1:17:28.880 --> 1:17:30.840 and he sends out copies to every member of the 1:17:30.920 --> 1:17:33.640 U S House and Senate. UM. And he'd written so 1:17:33.760 --> 1:17:36.720 much like these documents he was sending everyone in Congress 1:17:37.080 --> 1:17:39.960 um were so extensive that the whole endeavor costs twenty 1:17:40.000 --> 1:17:50.160 seven thousand dollars. Yeah yeah, what yeah, he in like 1:17:50.320 --> 1:17:59.680 nineteen eight nine money. Yeah, okay, Yeah, Bill's dedicated. His 1:18:00.120 --> 1:18:03.559 guides for Congress included a helpful taxonomic guide to all 1:18:03.560 --> 1:18:06.400 the different aliens species out in the galaxy, including two 1:18:06.400 --> 1:18:11.840 different kinds of gray aliens and the draco Moffman. Um. Yeah, 1:18:16.600 --> 1:18:21.679 let's not let's not make fun of mothman here, okay, Okay. Now, 1:18:21.800 --> 1:18:25.080 Bill obviously hadn't seen anything like these creatures in person um, 1:18:25.160 --> 1:18:28.040 and but he was, you know, at this point claiming openly, 1:18:28.320 --> 1:18:30.160 you know, he'd been claiming for years to his friends 1:18:30.200 --> 1:18:32.839 of all the secret seed seen in that admiral's cabinet. 1:18:33.040 --> 1:18:35.360 And now he starts like justifying, like, this is how 1:18:35.400 --> 1:18:38.759 I learned about all these aliens from the cabinet. Um. 1:18:38.840 --> 1:18:41.719 This is a very wise cabinet. Yeah, that that admiral 1:18:41.760 --> 1:18:44.639 really kept a lot of different ship just under his desk, 1:18:45.000 --> 1:18:47.679 And apparently Bill had a ton of time to really 1:18:47.720 --> 1:18:49.880 read it and take it in, and you know, well, 1:18:49.920 --> 1:18:52.320 you know, you know a lot of three Martini lunches 1:18:52.360 --> 1:18:56.960 happened happening in the Admiralty back then, you know. So 1:18:57.920 --> 1:19:03.240 uh yeah, So Bill sends all this off to Congress, 1:19:03.320 --> 1:19:06.519 along with an offer to undergo hypnotic regression to convince 1:19:06.560 --> 1:19:09.040 Congress he was the real deal. Um. No one took 1:19:09.080 --> 1:19:12.559 him up on the author but could yeah, just let 1:19:12.600 --> 1:19:14.599 me hypnotize you. I can come into you. My ideas 1:19:14.640 --> 1:19:17.120 are good. No, you just have to. You have to 1:19:17.200 --> 1:19:20.320 hypnotize me and take me back to the past. Oh 1:19:20.360 --> 1:19:22.439 and then I will give you the Oh, I see 1:19:22.439 --> 1:19:25.880 what he's doing. Okay, watch like thirty different episodes of 1:19:25.920 --> 1:19:29.600 the X Files for more information on hypnotic regression. I 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:35.360 guess so. Yeah, and nobody at Congress ever gets back 1:19:35.360 --> 1:19:37.320 to Bill, but he later will write that at least 1:19:37.439 --> 1:19:39.679 sending all of this nonsense out to them had quote 1:19:39.720 --> 1:19:42.360 prevented the government from arresting or harming me, and he 1:19:42.439 --> 1:19:44.960 moved by them would be interpreted as total confirmation of 1:19:45.000 --> 1:19:48.599 everything that I had revealed. Um. A lot of faith 1:19:48.640 --> 1:19:52.880 to have in this evil government. So luckily for Bill, 1:19:52.960 --> 1:19:56.040 the late nineteen eighties saw the meteoric rise in popularity 1:19:56.040 --> 1:19:58.280 of the UFO movement, and Bill became one of its 1:19:58.280 --> 1:20:01.320 first celebrities. He started to make money selling his different 1:20:01.320 --> 1:20:03.920 writings on extraterrestrials, and he was invited to speak at 1:20:03.920 --> 1:20:09.760 the Mutual uf Phone Network Moufon Symposium in nine now. 1:20:09.840 --> 1:20:14.080 The mouf On Symposium started with disaster when on Saturday evening, 1:20:14.280 --> 1:20:17.439 an m J twelve expert named William Moore admitted that 1:20:17.479 --> 1:20:19.799 he had colluded with an Air Force Office of Special 1:20:19.800 --> 1:20:23.880 Investigations employee to spread false information to UFO researchers, which 1:20:23.920 --> 1:20:26.880 is exactly what like Lear and Bill Cooper had been 1:20:26.920 --> 1:20:31.120 claiming UM. But unfortunately, More admitted to that some of 1:20:31.120 --> 1:20:34.439 the disinformation he had spread UM was like one of 1:20:34.479 --> 1:20:37.560 the pieces of fake, you know, leaked government documents that 1:20:37.600 --> 1:20:39.719 Bill had used as a major source in his own 1:20:39.760 --> 1:20:43.519 work UM. Mark Jacobson writes quote. This was particularly troubling 1:20:43.560 --> 1:20:45.920 for the Lear Cooper contingent, since Lear had included a 1:20:45.920 --> 1:20:48.439 fair amount of this work in his hypothesis. It brought 1:20:48.439 --> 1:20:51.040 the galling possibility that much of the MJ twelve story 1:20:51.080 --> 1:20:54.040 that revealed Washington malfeasance was itself part of a government 1:20:54.080 --> 1:20:57.519 directed disinformation program. Following more speech, Cooper ended up at 1:20:57.600 --> 1:21:00.280 Lear's home in a rage. He was roaring drunks, dreaming 1:21:00.280 --> 1:21:01.720 that he had been set up and demanding to know 1:21:01.760 --> 1:21:04.280 who I was really working for. Leir recalled, that was 1:21:04.320 --> 1:21:06.000 one of those times I thought he might kill me. 1:21:06.320 --> 1:21:08.639 By the next day, Cooper had calmed down. Who cared 1:21:08.640 --> 1:21:11.160 what Millia William Moore said anyway, the man was a liar, 1:21:11.200 --> 1:21:13.400 a fake, less than upon in the larger game the 1:21:13.439 --> 1:21:16.040 original m J twelve papers, where Bogus Cooper said a 1:21:16.040 --> 1:21:18.040 pile of craft designed to lead you right through the 1:21:18.120 --> 1:21:20.320 rose Garden. The truth, the real truth, the one he 1:21:20.439 --> 1:21:23.439 learned while looking through Admiral Clary's cabinet, was still out there, 1:21:23.479 --> 1:21:27.120 ready to be told. So after this all happens at 1:21:27.120 --> 1:21:29.719 his first really big speech at move Ons, Bill gets 1:21:29.760 --> 1:21:32.839 on stage and he delivers a captivating lecture that relied 1:21:32.920 --> 1:21:35.759 very heavily on his own experiences stumbling upon top secret 1:21:35.800 --> 1:21:38.120 information while working for the Navy. I'm gonna play you 1:21:38.160 --> 1:21:41.200 a little segment of that right now, Jamie. That's what 1:21:41.280 --> 1:21:43.599 I sent you, Jamie over text. Yeah, and this will 1:21:43.600 --> 1:21:45.519 give you an idea of kind of where Bill is 1:21:45.600 --> 1:21:48.360 in terms of a pitch man, how he isn't delivering 1:21:48.800 --> 1:21:51.040 his information at kind of the start of his career 1:21:51.280 --> 1:21:54.599 because he's not really on the radio yet. Okay, so 1:21:54.640 --> 1:21:57.280 he's still he's still finding his voice. He's still finding 1:21:57.280 --> 1:22:00.120 his voice. And fine, hey, you know we've all in 1:22:00.160 --> 1:22:04.280 there or accounts that there were four. I saw pictures 1:22:04.479 --> 1:22:08.000 of three of those dead alien bodies in a report 1:22:08.240 --> 1:22:12.479 called Project Grudge, which also included material from a report 1:22:12.560 --> 1:22:18.400 called Blue Book Report Humber thirteen. So I'm not sure 1:22:18.439 --> 1:22:21.240 whether there were three or four. I saw photographs of 1:22:21.360 --> 1:22:26.280 three of those bodies for sure. Really, it doesn't make 1:22:26.320 --> 1:22:30.240 any difference if there was one or fifty. The important 1:22:30.280 --> 1:22:34.120 thing is that it occurred and that there were dead 1:22:34.280 --> 1:22:39.840 alien bodies that were not of this world. Okay, um, yeah, 1:22:40.439 --> 1:22:42.920 you know he does kind of have the energy of 1:22:42.960 --> 1:22:45.680 a Reddit user who is who is on stage for 1:22:45.720 --> 1:22:48.519 the first time. But it sounds like Key course corrects 1:22:48.520 --> 1:22:52.320 this later in his life. He sure does. But we'll 1:22:52.360 --> 1:22:54.760 hear a lot of thing thrown out. There's ideas being 1:22:54.800 --> 1:22:57.920 thrown out in a decent shirt. Yeah, in a decent shirt. 1:22:58.080 --> 1:23:00.960 So yeah, one are shown that from that is that 1:23:01.000 --> 1:23:03.439 like what Bill saying is obviously absurd, but he's smart 1:23:03.560 --> 1:23:05.320 enough not to dwell on any like one piece of 1:23:05.400 --> 1:23:08.360 data for long a very matter of fact the way 1:23:08.360 --> 1:23:11.040 it's delivered. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that 1:23:11.080 --> 1:23:14.000 Bill really starts to do so like UFO conspiracy theories 1:23:14.040 --> 1:23:15.840 had for most of the time that existed just kind 1:23:15.880 --> 1:23:18.200 of been this theory that like there's aliens out there 1:23:18.200 --> 1:23:20.760 and the government doesn't want you to know about them. 1:23:20.760 --> 1:23:25.400 Bill finds a way to really connect UFO conspiracy theories 1:23:25.400 --> 1:23:27.639 to people in a much more kind of emotional level, 1:23:27.640 --> 1:23:30.679 because you know, by this point the late nineteen eighties, 1:23:31.160 --> 1:23:34.000 everyone's pretty aware that things have started to go wrong 1:23:34.040 --> 1:23:36.600 since World War Two, Like most Americans are like, this 1:23:36.680 --> 1:23:38.800 doesn't seem like the path we were supposed to be 1:23:38.880 --> 1:23:43.880 on um And Bill kind of is the first guy 1:23:43.920 --> 1:23:45.479 to be like, what if we just blame it all 1:23:45.479 --> 1:23:49.000 on aliens? Like what if that's the reason things went wrong? 1:23:49.160 --> 1:23:51.800 A shortcut? So I had to come up with a 1:23:51.840 --> 1:23:54.360 great one. It is interesting too, just even like listening 1:23:54.400 --> 1:23:57.040 to how he talks of how he seems to be 1:23:57.120 --> 1:24:01.400 kind of using this like military way of carrying himself 1:24:01.439 --> 1:24:03.639 to like have a level of authority. It's not really 1:24:03.680 --> 1:24:08.400 the same kind of conspiracy theorist carrying oneself that you 1:24:08.439 --> 1:24:11.720 see now. It's very it's not like a media personality. 1:24:11.800 --> 1:24:15.559 It's like a He sounds like a military person saying 1:24:15.640 --> 1:24:19.240 that weirdest should I've ever heard. Yeah, uh and and 1:24:19.280 --> 1:24:22.439 he yeah. Another quote from that speech where he kind 1:24:22.439 --> 1:24:26.519 of goes into detail about how the aliens said fucked 1:24:26.560 --> 1:24:28.840 things up for America, I think is salient to end 1:24:28.880 --> 1:24:31.719 on for this episode. Quote Without the aliens, you can't 1:24:31.720 --> 1:24:33.680 make sense of anything that's happened in this country for 1:24:33.680 --> 1:24:35.960 the past forty four years. But the aliens in the middle, 1:24:36.000 --> 1:24:38.080 and you've got all the answers. Your own government is 1:24:38.080 --> 1:24:40.240 selling your children drugs and you don't seem to care. 1:24:40.320 --> 1:24:42.519 Your own government has given away the power of the people, 1:24:42.520 --> 1:24:44.759 and you don't seem to care. There is an apathy 1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:46.960 that is running rampant in this country that is deadly. 1:24:47.160 --> 1:24:49.360 Whether or not there are aliens, where now truly a 1:24:49.439 --> 1:24:52.120 nation of sheep and ladies and gentlemen. I assure you 1:24:52.479 --> 1:24:55.240 sheep are always led to the slaughter. It's here I 1:24:55.280 --> 1:24:57.360 should note that Bill Cooper is probably the man who 1:24:57.439 --> 1:25:01.599 invented the words sheeple wow. Yeah. He's the sheep oh 1:25:01.640 --> 1:25:06.360 guy yeah, popularized. If you saw about any of what 1:25:06.400 --> 1:25:11.639 he said with a absurd devotion to capitalism. I agree 1:25:11.680 --> 1:25:15.880 with it. Well, it's just about aliens. With devotion to capitalism, 1:25:16.320 --> 1:25:18.240 you're onto something. Because one of the things that I 1:25:18.240 --> 1:25:20.840 think separates Bill from guys like Alex Jones is I 1:25:20.880 --> 1:25:23.679 don't think Bill was primarily a grifter. I think Bill 1:25:23.800 --> 1:25:26.240 was a guy who, for all of his many, many 1:25:26.240 --> 1:25:31.760 horrific flaws, um like, recognized that things were really fucked up. 1:25:32.280 --> 1:25:35.720 And he created this because he was a liar and 1:25:35.840 --> 1:25:39.200 a fabulous um he had, he created this, and because 1:25:39.240 --> 1:25:42.599 he was kind of like fundamentally mentally incapable of really 1:25:43.439 --> 1:25:47.640 admitting what had gone wrong. He creates this whole schema 1:25:48.200 --> 1:25:52.719 to justify or to to explain to people who don't 1:25:52.720 --> 1:25:56.120 want to admit what the actual problem is why things 1:25:56.160 --> 1:25:59.480 are fucked up in America. And that's really like the genesis. 1:25:59.680 --> 1:26:03.360 That's why conspiracy is so fucking popular today in large 1:26:03.360 --> 1:26:06.240 parts because things are fucked up. Everybody knows it, and 1:26:06.280 --> 1:26:08.400 a lot of us are desperate to not stare the 1:26:08.439 --> 1:26:10.400 real problem in the face. And Bill Cooper was the 1:26:10.439 --> 1:26:13.680 first guy to really get good at providing people with 1:26:13.760 --> 1:26:15.960 something that would let them not stare the real problem 1:26:15.960 --> 1:26:18.799 in the face. Um And I don't know the extent 1:26:18.840 --> 1:26:21.759 to which we'll get into this a little tomorrow or 1:26:22.240 --> 1:26:24.200 in part two. I don't know the extent to which 1:26:24.600 --> 1:26:29.160 Bill knew what he was doing. Um, I don't know 1:26:29.200 --> 1:26:31.120 the extent. There's definitely a part of him that was 1:26:31.160 --> 1:26:33.720 a pitchman and a con artist, and there's a part 1:26:33.760 --> 1:26:36.800 of him that I think was like a patriot who 1:26:36.840 --> 1:26:40.040 was legitimately traumatized by how fucked up he watched his 1:26:40.040 --> 1:26:42.679 country become. I don't really know, um, but it seems 1:26:42.720 --> 1:26:45.120 like both things are kind of going on. He truly 1:26:45.240 --> 1:26:50.000 is like suffering of a lot of definitely suffering. Yeah, 1:26:50.080 --> 1:26:53.639 he's definitely suffering. He's definitely has some mental illness issues, 1:26:53.840 --> 1:26:59.400 and um, I can't wait to hear what he does next. Well, Jamie, first, 1:26:59.439 --> 1:27:01.400 you're gonna have to tell us where they can find 1:27:01.479 --> 1:27:06.960 you next so that you can Okay, well sure you can. 1:27:07.080 --> 1:27:14.400 Well you can follow me and Twitter. This never feels right, Uh, 1:27:14.760 --> 1:27:17.040 you can follow me on Twitter. You can listen to 1:27:17.080 --> 1:27:20.800 my podcast My Year in Mensa, which there will be 1:27:20.920 --> 1:27:23.080 I think there will be another episode of and some 1:27:23.200 --> 1:27:26.920 developments in in the near future. And you can listen 1:27:27.200 --> 1:27:36.240 to the Bechdel Cast every Thursday Feminist Movie podcast and yeah, 1:27:36.800 --> 1:27:40.400 all right, and you can find me somewhere. No one, 1:27:40.640 --> 1:27:44.000 no one's, no one's ever learned how though? Um So 1:27:45.200 --> 1:27:47.639 you can follow him at I right, okay on Twitter. 1:27:47.840 --> 1:27:51.559 He doesn't believe in Instagram. I don't believe in Instagram 1:27:51.560 --> 1:27:55.599 now um or or the TikTok's what the kids are doing? 1:27:55.920 --> 1:27:58.679 All right? I think you would be really good at TikTok, Robbert, 1:27:59.240 --> 1:28:03.400 you would fucking love TikTok. It's a bunch of angry teenagers. 1:28:03.439 --> 1:28:06.599 You would say fuck the patriarchy. It's you would love it, 1:28:06.720 --> 1:28:09.840 and you would be good at it. I don't recommend it. 1:28:09.920 --> 1:28:13.880 I don't know, absolutely not unless it makes me years 1:28:13.920 --> 1:28:19.679 old lawless skin TikTok. If you're looking for a teenager 1:28:19.720 --> 1:28:24.280 to tell you that your parents are racist, TikTok, that's 1:28:24.320 --> 1:28:28.200 my looking for Kelly and Conway's daughter. Yes, being on 1:28:28.240 --> 1:28:32.960 the right side of history, tiktok' looking for. If you're 1:28:33.160 --> 1:28:35.320 for teenagers that are trying to make it so that 1:28:36.000 --> 1:28:42.439 there's empty seats at Trump rallies, also, tiktoktok are your sponsor. No, 1:28:42.520 --> 1:28:49.280 I'm kidding, I'm I'm so tired even thinking about TikTok um. 1:28:49.320 --> 1:28:53.920 I'm so tired thinking about young people in general. Um, alright, 1:28:53.920 --> 1:28:57.519 old alright, old guy. The podcast over, yep.