Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
Speaker 1: story about Blink one eighty two, which means it's also
Speaker 1: a story about Dick jokes about running through the streets
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles naked, and about simple, infectious, juvenile pop punk.
Speaker 1: It's also a story about the truth about what the
Speaker 1: government does and does not want us to talk about
Speaker 1: or even to think about. It's about a plane crash,
Speaker 1: a cancer diagnosis, and about a snot nosed punk from
Speaker 1: southern California who was expelled from high school but would
Speaker 1: eventually find himself taking meetings with white house personnel, A
Speaker 1: snot knows punk who in his band Blink one eighty
Speaker 1: two made great music, unlike that music I played for
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show that wasn't great
Speaker 1: me music that was a preset loop for my melotron
Speaker 1: called Hooskerdoo's books about UFOs MK one. I played you
Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to Blinding
Speaker 1: Lights by the weekend. And why would I play you
Speaker 1: that specific slice of eighties time machine cheese? Could I
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in America.
Speaker 1: On April twenty seventh, twenty twenty, and that was the
Speaker 1: day that the Department of Defense did something it had
Speaker 1: never done before, disclosed information to the public regarding the
Speaker 1: likely existence of life from beyond this planet and or
Speaker 1: this dimension. On this episode, Dick jokes government lies. Aliens
Speaker 1: exist in Blink one eighty two. I'm Jake Brennan in
Speaker 1: this this disgraceland. Aliens exist. But don't take my word
Speaker 1: for it, or anybody's word for it for that matter,
Speaker 1: look at the evidence the federal government's actions. To be exact,
Speaker 1: look at the front page of the New York Times
Speaker 1: where it was reported in twenty twenty, the US intelligence
Speaker 1: agencies had established a program called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon
Speaker 1: Task Force to quote standardize collection and reporting sightings of
Speaker 1: unexplained aerial vehicles. On the Times website and across the Internet,
Speaker 1: you can find videos of these so called unexplained aerial
Speaker 1: vehicles captured by naval pilots, videos of aircraft moving in
Speaker 1: unearthly ways that defy physics, video footage the Times calls mystifying.
Speaker 1: If you dig an inch deeper, you'll quickly learn about
Speaker 1: the legitimacy of these videos. You'll find countless military personnel
Speaker 1: from the last seventy five years, many highly decorated, many
Speaker 1: who put their credibility on the line. Credibility they spent
Speaker 1: their entire careers building, detailing the very real experiences with
Speaker 1: similar logic, defying aircraft that will lead you to only
Speaker 1: one possible explanation. Aliens exist, They're real. You know what
Speaker 1: else is real? What the government does and does not
Speaker 1: want us to think. Up until about seven years ago,
Speaker 1: it was very evident that the government did not want
Speaker 1: us to think that aliens did indeed exist, or that
Speaker 1: they were real. No, that type of thinking was wrong.
Speaker 1: It was wrong think, very very bad. That thinking was
Speaker 1: for crackpots who spent a little too much time believing
Speaker 1: the headlines they read in the supermarket checkout line. And
Speaker 1: there was a time back in the twentieth century when
Speaker 1: the government didn't want us thinking or speaking about much
Speaker 1: more than God, country, and family. And this has all changed,
Speaker 1: of course, the government doesn't care too much these days
Speaker 1: about God, country, and family. But back in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: if you use the wrong type of language language, that
Speaker 1: of course encouraged subversive thinking. If you demonstrated wrong think
Speaker 1: by using the wrong language in public, you'd go to jail.
Speaker 1: Ask comedian Lenny Bruce, who was arrested for saying nine
Speaker 1: specific words ass balls, cocksucker, kunt, fuck, motherfucker, pisshit, and tits. Then,
Speaker 1: six years later, in nineteen seventy two, comedian George Carlin
Speaker 1: had this to say about it.
Speaker 2: Im poor taste, unseemly street talk, got her talk, locker
Speaker 2: room language, barracks talk, body, naughty, saucy, raunchy, rude, crude, lude, less, civious, indecent, profane, obscene,
Speaker 2: blue off cover, risque, suggestive, curson, cussin, swearing, And all
Speaker 2: I could think of was ship is, fuck, huntcok, sucker, motherfucker,
Speaker 2: and kits.
Speaker 1: That bit from Carlin's nineteen seventy two album Class Clown
Speaker 1: was played on WBAI radio in New York. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. A complaint was filed against the radio station
Speaker 1: and the Federal Communications Commission. That SCC issued a declaration
Speaker 1: backing the complaint, holding the radio station accountable. The complaint
Speaker 1: was filed in court, and it went all the way
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, where it was found that, yes,
Speaker 1: under no circumstance does the government want you to say
Speaker 1: the words ass balls, cocksucker, count, fuck, motherfucker, pits, shit
Speaker 1: and tits on its airwaves. Count the snotty Southern California
Speaker 1: pop punk band Blink one eighty two among the innumerable
Speaker 1: countercultures of versus who didn't get the Supreme Court's memos
Speaker 1: fuck count cook, sucker, motherfucker, tit Sparter's what separt count
Speaker 1: top sudden mother pucker ti spark turns t buncher bar.
Speaker 1: That's Blink one eighty two's live Staple Family Reunion, which
Speaker 1: is essentially George Carlin's seven Words You Can Never Say
Speaker 1: on television routine set to music. The Boys in Blank
Speaker 1: added fart, turd and twat for good measure, and that
Speaker 1: song was released as a promotional single in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Now there's no telling whether or not those lyrics were
Speaker 1: swimming through Blink one eighty two guitarist and co singer
Speaker 1: songwriter Tom Delong's head back in nineteen ninety five while
Speaker 1: he sat handcuffed in the back of a Jacksonville, Florida,
Speaker 1: police cruiser, busted for wandering the streets of Jacksonville drunk
Speaker 1: and carrying an open container while on the group's first
Speaker 1: real tour, Tom was in for a long night in jail,
Speaker 1: a night where Tom's imagination would see him through. It
Speaker 1: was always Tom's ability to dream that delivered him through
Speaker 1: the tough times, through the monotony of a board suburban
Speaker 1: teenage existence, through the bleakness of a grown up prescribed
Speaker 1: adult future in a cubicle or on a construction site,
Speaker 1: through his parents splitting up, through getting expelled from high school.
Speaker 1: They could tell him there was no future, but they
Speaker 1: couldn't make him believe it. The local library back in Powie, California,
Speaker 1: gave his dreams wings. Books about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 1: Punk rock gave him the audacity he needed to question authority.
Speaker 1: Chin have you seen him, Charlie, don't serve California Uberalis.
Speaker 1: All of the subversiveness that was at the core of
Speaker 1: the West Coast punk ethos that Tom DeLong raised himself
Speaker 1: on made it very easy for him to call bullshit
Speaker 1: on the official government narratives aimed at explaining away the
Speaker 1: topics he obsessed over in his local library. The US
Speaker 1: Air Force is Roswell report on the nineteen forty seven
Speaker 1: New Mexico UFO crash and the report from the trumped
Speaker 1: up warrant Commission on the assassination of John F. Kennedy Police.
Speaker 1: You ought to be a mindless automaton to accept these
Speaker 1: explanations as anything more than what they obviously were lies
Speaker 1: from a government hell bent on vending the public's perception
Speaker 1: of the truth to its will. On that first Blank
Speaker 1: tour back in nineteen ninety five, Tom's bandmates bassist and
Speaker 1: fellow singer songwriter Mark Hoppis and original drummer Scott Rayner,
Speaker 1: no doubt, had no idea what to think as they
Speaker 1: drove through Dallas's Daily Plaza, the site of President Kennedy's
Speaker 1: assassination thirty two years earlier, and listened to their bandmate
Speaker 1: Tom go on and on over his theory that Kennedy
Speaker 1: was shot because he had learned the truth about aliens,
Speaker 1: and that JFK was going to disclose to the American
Speaker 1: public evidence proving aliens exist. In nineteen ninety five, this
Speaker 1: type of thinking seemed hysterical, but Tom DeLong this type
Speaker 1: of thinking was essential after bouncing from that Jacksonville jail
Speaker 1: with a slap on the wrist after taking in a
Speaker 1: rocket launch in nearby Cape Canaveral, after wrapping a successful
Speaker 1: first tour in ninety five, after breaking through on the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six Warped Tour and capitalizing on a major
Speaker 1: label bidding war, after signing with MCA Records and releasing
Speaker 1: an album that went gold, after parting ways with their
Speaker 1: original drummer, replacing him with the percussive juggernaut that is
Speaker 1: Travis Barker, after casting Alissa Freakin Mulano in their music
Speaker 1: video and downgrading America's collective maturity level a couple notches
Speaker 1: with songs about shitting your pants and getting laid. This
Speaker 1: type of thinking, this hysterical wrong think, was absolutely driving
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong to write the lyrics for Blink one eighty
Speaker 1: two song Aliens Exist, a song that nearly everyone laughed
Speaker 1: off as just another example of Blink one eighty two
Speaker 1: staggering level of immaturity, a song with a sentiment that
Speaker 1: would one day compel the United States government to take
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong as nothing less than dead serious. The United
Speaker 1: States government lets you get away with a lot of things.
Speaker 1: For instance, you can wake up one morning and walk
Speaker 1: into your recording studio and rant into the microphone about
Speaker 1: what a bunch of duplicitous controlling autocrats. The government is
Speaker 1: made up of, and depending on the size of your microphone,
Speaker 1: you can pretty much get away with it as I
Speaker 1: am right now. What you can't get away with is
Speaker 1: not forking over to the government. It's peace. It's take Hey.
Speaker 1: If you don't pay the government taxes demands, a massive
Speaker 1: percentage of which is exorbitant and unnecessary, the government will
Speaker 1: apply a vig to the principal amount you owe, which
Speaker 1: will in turn make your debt nearly impossible to pay off.
Speaker 1: Does this sound familiar to you. It sounds to me
Speaker 1: like the mafia. It's the same tax gangsters have used
Speaker 1: for years in their shylock businesses. Perry Farrell, of Jane's Addiction,
Speaker 1: once said, quote the gang and the government are no different,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't wrong, not in principle. The federal government is,
Speaker 1: of course, more evolved and more sophisticated than the mafia.
Speaker 1: If say you're a porn star and U ooh, I
Speaker 1: don't know three hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, now
Speaker 1: you know full well as we all do, that you
Speaker 1: should have paid those taxes. Making tax payments is not
Speaker 1: a new concept, but it's easy to see how entertainers, athletes,
Speaker 1: and those in the workforce who aren't accustomed to coming
Speaker 1: into massive cash windfalls fail to make payments. You get
Speaker 1: paid six hundred grand for a couple of skin flicks,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you have to fork over
Speaker 1: fifty percent to the Feds. Now for a porn star,
Speaker 1: that's hard to swallow. Sorry, I couldn't resist. This is,
Speaker 1: after all, still a Blank one eighty two episode, even
Speaker 1: though I'm talking about tax rates at the moment, But
Speaker 1: I promise this is going somewhere relevant. So anyway, you're
Speaker 1: a porn star who owes three hundred thousand dollars in taxes.
Speaker 1: Now the government is going to act like the mafia
Speaker 1: and blow up your place of business with a pipe bomb,
Speaker 1: but it is going to send agents to your house
Speaker 1: and those fancy windbreakers at an ungodly early morning hour,
Speaker 1: raid your place, take you away in handcuffs, and throw
Speaker 1: you in a federal prison. And that's what happened to
Speaker 1: Janine Linda Malder in two thousand and nine. And despite
Speaker 1: the fact that she'd start in a Blink one eighty
Speaker 1: two video ten years earlier, there was nothing she could
Speaker 1: do about it. Janine was going to jail, because, as
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong would soon find out, the federal government does
Speaker 1: not fuck around. But back in nineteen ninety nine, Janine
Speaker 1: had no way of knowing that she had other things
Speaker 1: on her mind, like the three skinny naked punk rock
Speaker 1: dudes oggling her on a Los Angeles street corner while
Speaker 1: the cameras rolled. This was a different camera crew than
Speaker 1: Janine was used to. This wasn't a valley production. This
Speaker 1: was more Hollywood. The boys in the band were nice
Speaker 1: enough and funny, despite being wickedly horny. Janine saw real
Speaker 1: quick that the boys in Blank were about to learn
Speaker 1: the hard truth about a skin flick production, and that's
Speaker 1: that being naked in front of scores of people and
Speaker 1: broad daylight. It might be funny or sexy when the
Speaker 1: finished ed it hits screens, but while you're making the thing,
Speaker 1: being naked on set sucks.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: You look all daring and cool running through the streets
Speaker 1: of Hollywood filming your new video for your incredibly catchy
Speaker 1: song What's My Age Again? But then once they call cut,
Speaker 1: you're just a schmuck and a skin colored speedo and
Speaker 1: nothing else on standing on the side of West Third
Speaker 1: in La while dudes in jeep Cherokees drive by and
Speaker 1: give you the finger and launch homophobic slurs at you.
Speaker 1: Janine of course thought it was hysterical, so did the
Speaker 1: rest of America. The video that is not the homophobic cutdowns,
Speaker 1: What's My Age Again? Was a massive hit both as
Speaker 1: a video and a single, propelling Blink one eighty two's
Speaker 1: newest album at the time, Enema of the State, to
Speaker 1: sell fifteen million copies, probably more by now. Anema of
Speaker 1: the State also featured the song Aliens Exist, with the
Speaker 1: lyrics Hey Mom, there's something in the back room. Hope
Speaker 1: it's not the creature from above. You used to read
Speaker 1: me stories as if my dreams were boring. We all
Speaker 1: know conspiracies are dumb, and what if people knew that
Speaker 1: these were real? I'd leave my closet door open all night.
Speaker 1: I know what the CIA would say. What you hear
Speaker 1: is all hearsay. I wish someone would tell me what
Speaker 1: was right. Tom DeLong, who wrote those lyrics, though, was
Speaker 1: wrong about the CIA. Someone was in fact about to
Speaker 1: tell them what exactly was right. Enema of the State
Speaker 1: turned Blink one eighty two into a household name, their
Speaker 1: next album, featuring another trademark juvenile Blink title Take Off
Speaker 1: Your Pants and Jacket was also a hit. They followed
Speaker 1: that up with a self titled full length in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. After that effort, the band entered a
Speaker 1: phase that his treacherous ground for any group of self
Speaker 1: respecting rock stars. Adulthood. Life changed for Tom DeLong, Mark Hoppis,
Speaker 1: and Travis Barker. In two thousand and five, Tom quit
Speaker 1: the band to be with his family. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, Travis Barker was in a private plane crash
Speaker 1: in which six people died. He was severely injured, along
Speaker 1: with his friend, a musical collaborator in his group, Travis
Speaker 1: Djam Adam Goldstein aka DJAM, who was driven back into
Speaker 1: addiction after the crash from the trauma of it all.
Speaker 1: He overdosed and died in two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 1: the extremely traumatic event nearly drove Travis to suicide, but
Speaker 1: ultimately he recovered both physically and mentally from the horrible experience.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, Tom DeLong rejoined Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty two and the group embarked on another chapter, touring
Speaker 1: and releasing the full length album Neighborhoods. The album was
Speaker 1: well received critically. It was a progression from their more
Speaker 1: youthful efforts, but was that necessarily a good thing. In
Speaker 1: the end, the album failed to set the world on fire. Then,
Speaker 1: throughout the early odts, and after reuniting with Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty two, Tom DeLong recorded and toured with the side
Speaker 1: project known as Angels and Airwaves. And then in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong took a trip out to the desert area
Speaker 1: fifty one Death Valley. Tom awoke in his tent. The
Speaker 1: voices outside in the desert were too many to count,
Speaker 1: too many to comprehend, and they woke them up. They
Speaker 1: weren't human. His fellow campers, one of whom was a
Speaker 1: prominent Fallists, slept soundly in their tents. These sounds were unearthly,
Speaker 1: but still strangely familiar, murmuring, whispering. Tom could hardly understand them.
Speaker 1: He could scarcely hold on to his awareness of them
Speaker 1: over the sound of his steadily beating heart, which was
Speaker 1: now pounding. Those voices, whatever they were, wherever they came from,
Speaker 1: were there right there the edge of perception. But the
Speaker 1: words themselves were impossible to comprehend. And whatever message was
Speaker 1: meant to be translated fell short. Tom couldn't grasp it.
Speaker 1: It floated away that he was awake now, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't conscious, so he couldn't possibly understand the beings, whether
Speaker 1: they were extraterrestrials from worlds far away or ultraterrestrials from
Speaker 1: uncharted dimensions here in this world, whether they were angels
Speaker 1: or demons, or whatever they were. Tom was told they
Speaker 1: communicate through consciousness. They speak to us through high consciousness.
Speaker 1: They compel us in those moments when our minds disassociate
Speaker 1: from this world, when we unplug, when we simply are,
Speaker 1: when we dream, when we pray, perhaps when we ingest psychedelics.
Speaker 1: However we get there, it's that point when all of
Speaker 1: our thoughts, actions and emotions are objectifiable, when we separate
Speaker 1: from the subjective and become conscious. That's when they're whispers,
Speaker 1: their murmurs manifest into messages to permeate our own thoughts.
Speaker 1: Perhaps even their messages present to us as our own thoughts.
Speaker 1: Perhaps our ideas are on some quantum level, not ideas
Speaker 1: at all, but rather the aliens themselves being born out
Speaker 1: of our own consciousness, pulling us into a higher strangeness
Speaker 1: and moving us closer toward a great later universal understanding.
Speaker 1: But alone, awake and afraid in the tent in the
Speaker 1: middle of the desert, consciousness is unattainable, and therefore so
Speaker 1: is extra or ultra terrestrial communication. So Tom was out,
Speaker 1: but Tom was also in. Whatever he did or did
Speaker 1: not understand out in the desert on that night in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen was enough to compel him to dedicate his
Speaker 1: life to learning more and demanding that the powers that
Speaker 1: be share with the American public what they did or
Speaker 1: did not know. And Tom DeLong knew enough to know
Speaker 1: that the US government knew a lot more about beings
Speaker 1: from other worlds and or other dimensions than they were
Speaker 1: letting on. In short order in twenty fifteen, Tom DeLong
Speaker 1: would quit Blink one eighty two, one of the planet's
Speaker 1: biggest rock and roll bands, to go chase UFOs. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back after this. We're we're where. Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty two's Tom DeLong describes alien encounter, says authority's tapped
Speaker 1: his phone. Tom DeLong just proved he's gone completely insane
Speaker 1: during alien ram. I'm not going to say Tom DeLong
Speaker 1: is batshit crazy, but Tom DeLong wants you to stop
Speaker 1: calling him crazy for researching aliens. And that's a smattering
Speaker 1: of what the media had to say about Tom Delong's
Speaker 1: efforts to investigate the legitimacy of alien existence after departing
Speaker 1: Blink one eighty two. The Rock and Roll Press was
Speaker 1: predictably the most snarky and also the most disingenuous. Consequence
Speaker 1: of Sound elaborated on their claims that Tom had gone crazy,
Speaker 1: adding this to their cheap hip piece on him. Quote
Speaker 1: former Blink one eighty two member implies he met with
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton to discuss the threat of UFOs unquote, when
Speaker 1: in fact Tom did not imply he was meeting with
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton. That was a presumption the so called journalist
Speaker 1: from Consequence cooked up entirely on his own to make
Speaker 1: Tom look crazy, based on a photo of a meeting
Speaker 1: Tom posted to Instagram and then deleted. So is now
Speaker 1: a good time to mention the fact that the CIA
Speaker 1: has had journalists planted in the media since the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties as part of their secret Operation Mockingbird to help
Speaker 1: shape various narratives to fit the government's view of what
Speaker 1: it wants the public to think. Perhaps, but perhaps that's
Speaker 1: a digression that'll derail this story. Hey, maybe you guys
Speaker 1: can go ahead and look that one up for yourself though,
Speaker 1: Operation Mockingbird. Back to Tom DeLong. Remember earlier when I
Speaker 1: said the government doesn't fuck around, Here's what I meant.
Speaker 1: The stakes for the meeting couldn't have been higher. Tom
Speaker 1: used the mix of his celebrity and astute politic he
Speaker 1: to set it up himself in a federal government aerospace.
Speaker 1: It is unconfirmed, but it is widely believed that the
Speaker 1: contractor was Lockheed Martin and their special division Skunk Works.
Speaker 1: The meeting was heavily secured, four layers of security, armed guards,
Speaker 1: and white noise pumping through speakers to scramble any listening
Speaker 1: devices inside the dark, windowless room. Tom was prepared. He
Speaker 1: had the audience he had been building toward for some
Speaker 1: time now. He had a message to deliver. He had
Speaker 1: a reaction to elicit. This was, in some really strange way,
Speaker 1: no different than being on stage. This was a performance
Speaker 1: like any other. Tom explained that the work done by
Speaker 1: the government, the military, and their contractors on UFO phenomena
Speaker 1: was worthy of disclosure, and that the proper way to
Speaker 1: disclose this information to the youth was through culture, through books,
Speaker 1: through comics, through records, through films. Tom wanted to combine
Speaker 1: his celebrity and authentic connection to the un with the
Speaker 1: vast knowledge of the UFO phenomena he had attained over
Speaker 1: the years. One of the contractors Scoffed essentially told Tom
Speaker 1: he was a conspiracy theorist wasting his time, and he
Speaker 1: abruptly left the room. The other contractors followed him, all
Speaker 1: but one, all but the lead contractor, who sat back
Speaker 1: and listened to more of Tom's pitch. The government and
Speaker 1: its contractors were doing great work in this area. Why
Speaker 1: did it all have to be so secret that there
Speaker 1: was so much evidence that it was obvious what the
Speaker 1: truth was. Eventually that truth was going to come out.
Speaker 1: And then what kind of effect would the shocking truth
Speaker 1: about alien existence here on earth have on the American public?
Speaker 1: Could anything be more disruptive to humanity, more life altering
Speaker 1: than the realization that we are not alone in the universe?
Speaker 1: What would this knowledge do to humanity? It would, no
Speaker 1: doubt have a life altering influence on our core beliefs
Speaker 1: as a species, on our thoughts about our place and
Speaker 1: point in this world, about God, about the devil about
Speaker 1: good and evil. It was knowledge, secret knowledge that had
Speaker 1: to be handled and disclosed very cautiously. When Tom finished,
Speaker 1: the government contractor, to Tom's amazement, agreed that slow disclosure
Speaker 1: of the UFO phenomenon via culture, rather than exclusively through
Speaker 1: traditional media, could responsibly bring the public around to the
Speaker 1: mind bending notion that yes, aliens exist. This is the
Speaker 1: part of the story where you call bullshit and I
Speaker 1: don't blame you. Why would a federal defense contractor or
Speaker 1: anyone connected with the federal government in trust a foul
Speaker 1: mouth punk rocker from a band with a nonsensical name
Speaker 1: like Blank one eighty two with disclosing humanity altering information
Speaker 1: to the public. Well, because this is what the government
Speaker 1: has always done. Used cutouts from culture, individuals from the
Speaker 1: world of arts and entertainment, actors, musicians, artists. The government
Speaker 1: has relied on these individuals of influence for the better
Speaker 1: part of a century to get its message to the
Speaker 1: American people. In nineteen fifty four, the CIA secretly funded
Speaker 1: the film adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm and its
Speaker 1: efforts to win hearts and minds during the Cold War
Speaker 1: against Communist Russia. To further its winning efforts in the
Speaker 1: Cold War, the CIA secretly bolstered the careers of abstract
Speaker 1: expressionist painters Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. These artists were
Speaker 1: unaware of the strings the CIA pulled on their behalf
Speaker 1: to promote them, but the government's message was sent, and
Speaker 1: it was this in America, our artists thrived. In the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, artists are thrown in prison. As recently as
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, the CIA demanded and received script approval for
Speaker 1: the television series The Americans. You know all that long
Speaker 1: expositional dialogue blathering on and on about un regulations in
Speaker 1: the movie Iron Man. Guests who had a production agreement
Speaker 1: in their dirty hands all over the script for that film.
Speaker 1: The CIA, so the federal contractor agreed to help Tom
Speaker 1: and connected him with an unnamed general who confirmed Tom's
Speaker 1: belief in UFO phenomena and agreed that the time was
Speaker 1: now for disclosure. Perhaps the general's thoughts around timing had
Speaker 1: something to do with the hundreds of unidentified aerial phenomena
Speaker 1: being captured on video by the US military personnel. At
Speaker 1: that exact point in time, the news was coming out
Speaker 1: UFOs were no longer relegated to the tabloids lining your
Speaker 1: supermarket checkout. They were being discussed and shown on the
Speaker 1: front page of the New York Times and on the
Speaker 1: nightly news. The dam was breaking. The General agreed to
Speaker 1: connect Tom with experts from the intelligence community, from aerospace,
Speaker 1: and even an expert from the White House, all to
Speaker 1: advise Tom DeLong from Blink Frickin' one eighty two on
Speaker 1: how to take the information he had gathered on his
Speaker 1: own thus far and disclosed the fact that aliens exist.
Speaker 1: With these new contacts, Tom then pulled together a formal
Speaker 1: group of advisors, heavy hitters EXCIA operators, NASA and DoD advisors,
Speaker 1: white House staff, and private sector AI contractors and gathered
Speaker 1: them into a new company he called to the Stars,
Speaker 1: its mission to create culture to help disclose the truth
Speaker 1: about UFOs. Predictably, the press pounced, bubbling down its ire
Speaker 1: on Tom for quitting a beloved punk rock band to
Speaker 1: waste time trying to validate quote unquote conspiracy theories. The
Speaker 1: media was particularly incensed with Tom's intimation that he was
Speaker 1: working with government operators connected to the White House. This
Speaker 1: seemed to be the height delusion. Tom was scorched across
Speaker 1: the Internet doubted, defamed, disgraced by everyone from faceless, cowardly
Speaker 1: Internet trolls to the likes of Vice magazine, which issued
Speaker 1: a factually incorrect expose on Tom's company's financial stability, which,
Speaker 1: coming from the bankrupt Vice is, as we now know,
Speaker 1: the height of irony. And then something remarkable happened. So
Speaker 1: what exactly was in that Wiki league stump of DNC emails?
Speaker 1: Besides proof that the Democratic Party attempted to subvert the
Speaker 1: campaign of one of its candidates, Bernie Sanders and coronate
Speaker 1: the party's chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton, there were numerous emails
Speaker 1: between Tom DeLong and John Podesta, official counselor to the
Speaker 1: President of the United States Barack Obama and the presidential
Speaker 1: campaign manager at the time to the former Secretary of
Speaker 1: State Hillary Clinton and one time deputy chief of staff
Speaker 1: to President Bill Clinton. The emails detailed Tom's disclosure plan
Speaker 1: with Podesta, who became a public advocate for UFO disclosure
Speaker 1: upon leaving the White House, and the emails also detailed
Speaker 1: an in person meeting between Tom and Podesta and other
Speaker 1: high level government and military operatives. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the Dick Joe cracking UFO chasing guitar player from Blink
Speaker 1: one eighty two didn't look so crazy, and Tom doubled down.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, one of his official to the Stars advisors,
Speaker 1: lou Elizondo, who previously ran the Pentagon's secret government program
Speaker 1: formed to study UFO phenomena, leaked three videos captured by
Speaker 1: military pilots showing unidentified aerial phenomena flying off the east
Speaker 1: coast of the United States. Let me say all that again,
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong, the Blank one eighty two guy hired away
Speaker 1: the Pentagon official who ran the government's secret program to
Speaker 1: study UFOs. The government once adamantly denied the existence of
Speaker 1: but reverse course on it admitted that yes, the program
Speaker 1: did exist, and that millions of dollars were secretly funneled
Speaker 1: to this program to study alien and aerial phenomena, and
Speaker 1: that guy helped Tom leak the video showing that aerial phenomena,
Speaker 1: and that then, and this is the point, the government
Speaker 1: itself officially declassified that video in twenty twenty, in effect
Speaker 1: confirming that the video Tom DeLong leaked back in twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen was real, and also in the process effectively emitting
Speaker 1: the existence of aliens as reported in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, the government admitted that it had
Speaker 1: no explanation for the aerial objects and stopped just short
Speaker 1: of ruling out aliens. Again, the government stopped short of
Speaker 1: ruling out aliens. Tom DeLong, the guitarists from Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty two, did that this guy? What would you guys
Speaker 1: do if this happened to me? What would you do
Speaker 1: if you were like sleeping and you feel like a
Speaker 1: slight tapping on your body and you ain't up to
Speaker 1: be like what? And you look down and your brother
Speaker 1: is going, mister, you do what to do and walks
Speaker 1: up your legs. He's like walking up your.
Speaker 3: Leggs and he goes and zips down your zipper and
Speaker 3: grabs that did go old?
Speaker 1: It happened to me three times last night. I thought
Speaker 1: your back. Mark Hoppis of Blink one eighty two was sick,
Speaker 1: really sick. It was twenty twenty one and there was
Speaker 1: no Blink one eighty two. Actually, so I should say
Speaker 1: that Mark Hoppis, formerly of Blink one eighty two, was sick.
Speaker 1: He didn't mean to post the Foe photo of him
Speaker 1: receiving his first round of chemotherapy to his million plus
Speaker 1: followers on Instagram. He had a witty caption for the
Speaker 1: photo of him sitting there in his La Dodgers hat,
Speaker 1: thick black framed glasses, and comfy Birkenstock sandals over blue socks,
Speaker 1: and the caption read yes, Hello, one cancer treatment please.
Speaker 1: Mark meant for the image to be shared only with
Speaker 1: his close friends on Instagram, but he messed up his
Speaker 1: settings and the image went wide for all of his followers.
Speaker 1: And there's no telling if Mark's ex bandmate Tom DeLong
Speaker 1: was included in Mark's close friends setting on Instagram or
Speaker 1: if he was part of Mark's wider set of impersonal
Speaker 1: account followers, but regardless, when Tom learned of Mark's diagnosis,
Speaker 1: he knew he was going to do something he thought
Speaker 1: he would never do again, play music with Blink one
Speaker 1: eight two. Tom has since been quoted as saying, when
Speaker 1: he told me he was sick, that was like the
Speaker 1: gnarliest nothing matters, really, DeLong continued. It wasn't about fame
Speaker 1: or money or how big Blink was or anything. It
Speaker 1: was like, you're gonna get through this shit and we're
Speaker 1: gonna go dominate. You need a purpose in life, especially
Speaker 1: when you're sick and fighting for your life. Tom DeLong
Speaker 1: knew all about needing purpose. He'd been purpose driven for
Speaker 1: the better part of the last decade. Unfortunately, that purpose,
Speaker 1: Tom's mission to disclose the truth about aliens often ran
Speaker 1: up against Tom's earlier passion playing music with Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty two. But that was all about to change. Blink
Speaker 1: one eighty two reunited and Mark Hoppus beat cancer, Tom,
Speaker 1: Mark and Travis are back on stage, stadium stages. There
Speaker 1: are less Dick jokes, but they're still there. And now
Speaker 1: there's another element of Blink sets That moment when Mark
Speaker 1: leans into the mic and says Tom was right, freaks
Speaker 1: out because they know what's coming. Blink's nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: banger from Enema of the State Aliens exist. The vindication
Speaker 1: is palpable, if not juvenile, but that's what it should be.
Speaker 1: This is, still, after all, rock and roll, and even
Speaker 1: though the boys in Blink one eighty two are all
Speaker 1: either in or about to be in their fifties, rock
Speaker 1: and roll is still the province of youth. It's juvenile
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a weird sort
Speaker 1: of wisdom that only kids process they're wise enough to dream,
Speaker 1: to question authority unequivocally and without shame. Rock and roll,
Speaker 1: punk rock, whatever you want to call it, is a
Speaker 1: rebellion against growing up, against accepting adult mandates that stifle creativity,
Speaker 1: your imagination, and your ability to dream. Blink one eighty
Speaker 1: two and Tom DeLong knew this when they were young
Speaker 1: punks playing shows in southern California, and they never lost
Speaker 1: sight of it. Tom DeLong never accepted the grown up
Speaker 1: notion that dreams and big ideas and thinking outside of
Speaker 1: the prefabricated suburban box where the type of childish thoughts
Speaker 1: that adults need to put aside because well, grown ups suck,
Speaker 1: and the federal government and the media are filled with grownups,
Speaker 1: the majority of whom lack imagination and the courage needed
Speaker 1: to make Like those old punk rockers in question authority,
Speaker 1: Tom DeLong did something no other civilian has ever done,
Speaker 1: compelled the federal government to disclose previously unacknowledged truths about
Speaker 1: alien existence here on Earth. The question now isn't whether
Speaker 1: or not aliens exist, as Blink one eight two saying
Speaker 1: about in nineteen ninety nine. The question is why the government,
Speaker 1: or at least some part of the government now wants
Speaker 1: us to know this truth. Why have they reached some
Speaker 1: sort of unofficial partnership with Tom DeLong? My theory is
Speaker 1: that there's more coming. Much more advanced radar systems are
Speaker 1: what made it possible for those naval pilots back in
Speaker 1: the late oughts to capture that UAP footage. What technology
Speaker 1: are we developing currently that will similarly unveil deeper truths
Speaker 1: about extra and ultra terrestrials? Will the AI revolution irrefutably
Speaker 1: prove alien existence in a way that the automaton bureaucrats
Speaker 1: and the disinterested public won't be able to ignore. Does
Speaker 1: this coming onslaught of technological truth worry the government enough
Speaker 1: to compel it toward more disclosure. Perhaps it's just a theory.
Speaker 1: It's just me dreaming, just like Tom DeLong from Blank
Speaker 1: one two, whose mission is anything but a disgrace. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, thanks for
Speaker 1: checking out this episode.
Speaker 3: This week's question of.
Speaker 1: The week is do you believe in non human intelligence?
Speaker 1: Do aliens exist? And have you ever had an experience
Speaker 1: with a UFO, a UAP or something unexplainable or anomaloust
Speaker 1: Let me know and we will discuss your experiences in
Speaker 1: our next after party bonus episode.
Speaker 3: Call me with your answers six one seven nine oh
Speaker 3: six six six three eight, lead me a voicemail, send
Speaker 3: me a text, dm me at disgracelampod, email me at
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Speaker 1: Alrighty, then here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by
Speaker 1: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
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