This is exactly right. Know and welcome to my favorite murder, that star jihad star, that's Karen Kilgariff, and that's me, me and Mamie's on my lap because she's screaming right when we started screaming has something to say this week.

And I think we should just hear her out for once, if I can get her to talk, maybe aiming to show. Oh, yeah.

And there there she is, the cat lounge that she steamier the greatest puppies. So she's saying, oh, I got to send you the video of the puppy. Just trying to play with me. It's so cute.

And did she eviscerate him emotionally? Completely. I bet emotionally.

And a good old wallop on the nose. Oh, I know.

And I know.

Well, how's it going? Good. Good. You got a good librarian like sexy librarian look going today. Thank you.

I'm trying to seduce you.

I might as well say I didn't take a shower and I pulled my hair back in the tape. So I guess that's, you know, I mean, you know, that's my time. I know that's your favorite unwashed and unabashedly. Wow. I can't guarantee you.

That's me in a nutshell. I think it was one of those days. Just you know what it is? I keep cleaning out. I keep piece by piece cleaning out my garage, which I'm very. You've been doing this for a while. So your garage must be I basically took all the boxes that were moved from my other house, like I think we were. I want to say we were on the road, but that can't be true. But we were set my house was boxed up and moved to the new house.

And so isn't Stevens like, yes, I can I can confirm that happened to you. So, yes, that's what happened. And so basically my entire garage was just filled entirely filled with boxes. Yeah. So and I was fine with that, even though I was like, this is very symbolic. Don't just have a bunch of boxes of your old life downstairs that you're just letting sit there. Yeah. And also I let them sit there for like over nine months.

You clearly don't need anything that's down the road all day.

Yeah, but I did know there was a couple of things they had to go through the boxes because there would be a couple of things I'd like. Oh thank God I didn't throw this away, really. One of which was my clodagh ring, which was in my family. All the girls got it's the it's the Irish friendship ring where it's the two hands holding it.

That's what it's called. Yeah, it's called the clattering. And all the girls in my family got them when they turned 16 and we were doing it in the eighties before it got really trendy, whatever, but with mine and I liked it first mine. I had lost it and found it a couple of times. It broke. There's like a whole drama behind it and I finally found it again. So that was one of the I had to find that before I threw boxes away just entirely.

And I just throw boxes away. I mean, I wanted to because I was just like, it doesn't if I haven't missed it, then how important could it be? Marie Kondo style?

I wanted to be like that panic attack, but I am a hoarder, so that's what I mean.

But don't you think we all are in that way? Were you think I was sending you pictures of like I literally have folders from when I was a camp counselor. Like, I remember I sent you that thing where it said, look and listen. And I was like, look at that. Like there I have stuff like that where it's like, sure, it means a lot to me, but it isn't make or break. It isn't crucial. Maybe it's just clothes to me because the amount of clothes I have and the difficulty I have giving them away is soap.

And it's also I'm sure because as a kid I only on hand me downs and now I'm like and I'm going to collect all the clothes, fuck you, you know. Yeah. So it's like and I yeah. I have a thing about clothes.

Well and I think sometimes I would, there's some shirts I remember having and I would kill to have more. Now I actually more. I found my Pat Benatar concert shirt that I, we used to wear in the like late nineties. Yeah.

It was just in one of those boxes where I was like like I thought you were gone, you know, Vince got me.

Could you tell Vince you want something and he'll just casually go to his phone and you're like, I know you're getting it for me. So he got me. So it's a dream, but I know he got me. The acts of service and gifts are his love language. He got me the Jane's Addiction T-shirt I wore on my first day of high school with, like, my shorts and my ripped fishnets. Dog collar. Yes, I thought I was cool.

And I ditched the first day of high school to smoke. I was because I needed a cigarette. I was finding, you know. Yes, got the ritual la habitual Jane's Addiction and it's known soaked. Yeah.

Is that the one where it's kind of like a guy hanging up? It almost looks like crucifixion. No, it's a it's a lady very like beautiful, but like a flower in her hair. Yeah, it's. Yeah, exactly. I never I didn't Nessa's I mean, I loved the hits. I will say that. But Jane's Addiction was always the guys that I had a crush on, like Jane's Addiction. Like that was like yeah. Yeah.

Gator boys that had skater posters up. Yeah. Yeah. I just I think were so creepy to me and I knew that what their song Ted just admitted was about Ted Bundy. So I was like, you know, in the 90s as a 14 year old, it was very sexy and stuff. And now of course you're like, you fuck that shit, man.

But that's how it was back then, really, when I was kind of the like. If you wanted to be dangerous and graveyard's and take edgy photos and graveyard's and pretend you like John Wayne Gacy's art. Yeah, garbage. It's simply garbage. And now, you know, everybody else was painting it for him. That's one of my favorite deals on Turner. Feels like the other prisoners were painting it. And Johnny Depp's paying seventy thousand dollars for me.

So hilarious. Oh, wait. Before we go any further, have you heard and did you learn that the Litoff pairs the dilatant mystery has been solved? Yes. Allegedly solved.

Most most likely solved. Definitely solved. Probably, yeah.

I didn't read the article. I was just no matter what you said, I was going to devil's advocate in the other direction. Like, it's not it's not true. And I just did it for you. Did you read the thing is, it's an avalanche, right? Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah. The guy who basically solved it was showed that an avalanche was possible because there were all of these things of like, well, everything was still standing.

So it was like kind of a mini avalanche in a way or some light avalanche.

I don't know. And like the halo, it was a short avalanche, right? Short. The word doesn't make any sense to me.

I made it up. Oh, I think that was through. That is what they called it was a nice short like a small short avalanche. They're shallow, shallow something. One of these words.

Yeah. And then they all, you know, escape crawled away and died from various, you know, mostly hypothermia. It's just so sad. And it was like kind of obvious and still so tragic and like such a crazy mystery for so long. And that's it.

But does that explain is the, um, the parts where weren't there tongues missing and things like that? And was that because they were just left to the left to now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean it's kind of obvious. And I think when, when I covered it, I think that's the conclusion we came to. But it was, you know, it was a cool mystery to unravel. So I think that's just what happened. But I think it's a pretty basic straight story.

Think anything's possible. But at the same time, aliens, you know, I'm sure they're out there. I don't know if you watch ancient aliens, but my mom does. And she I sure do. Insists as ancient.

There are various theories suggest it's a lot of people have pointed this out to us, which I kind of knew anyway, because it's incredibly racist and ridiculous where they're basically showing ancient cultures and going, oh, there's no way they could have done that. Or it's like, why? It doesn't make sense because they people have been doing that kind of stuff for a hell of a long time. Have you? And then you just point over to Stonehenge.

Did you ever see Stonehenge controlled and then did you see the one the thing about like, you know, what's it called Island with the big stone, Easter Island, Easter Island. And they showed these just people today moving these huge blocks and how they would have done it with just rope and that's it. Yeah. You know, and manpower. And it's like it's not that hard. We don't actually need aliens. And at the same time, we're probably aliens to begin with.

So, yes, aliens did it.

But listen, nothing is real. It's all fucking fake. Here's what I like about the.

Yeah, 8:00 Easter Island story. Is that one of the theories because I've seen the rope thing and there's another one, which is that they cut down all the trees on the island and they made it almost like a roller system so they could get them down to the coastline or down to where they were. And basically the king or whoever was in charge. Sorry, I don't know it. King might not be the right term, but whoever it was that was like it's my it's my decision.

Yeah. They kept demanding more. More of these statues and they cut down every tree practically on the island so that they can have them and then basically made it so that the life was like uninhabitable. They didn't have good natured stuff going on on the island. They did it to themselves.

And this is why we need to have and we did join the Geneva Convention. Is that it?

This is why The Lorax is one of the more important books that Dr. Seuss ever wrote.

Reading StemCells.

I'm reading the Dow of Pooh. Winnie the Pooh. Yeah, this is supposed to be epic. Oh, can I do it? Correction's corner. Sure. I'm correct. You mean about about the conversation. We just absolutely edited all of that out. OK, it's a correction. More of like a clarification that I when I talked last week about emotional support dogs, I kind of overlapped it with service dogs, which I want to be clear that service dogs are trained to perform functions for an owner that has that needs the help and emotional support.

Animals are just, you know, companion of the owner and they're not allowed on flights anymore. Oh, really? Yeah. Like, they can't come on for free or whatever.

Like that. It has to it's not allowed.

But on Instagram, Riley Scott for one three made it clear saying great news, emotional support dogs are allowed inside Cracker Barrel and then said, when I was a waitress there, we had a guy who would put his dog in a chair across from him and order him chicken and dumplings.

Oh, I know the whose emotional support dogging you in that scenario. The chicken and dumplings. I do it for everybody. So that would be.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well yeah. That's a that's actually very good. That's discernment is important because service dogs are just like here. I will help you with your epilepsy. I will know when a seizure is coming on. I can guide you across the street if you're visually impaired or whatever.

I can bring you a beer when you can't get up to open the fridge because of your arthritis or whatever. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I've seen that one. I've seen that video. Oh God. The dog that go goes and gets the beer out of the Drainer.

Epic. Here's a great story from the New York Post that the Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez dismisses. Two hundred and sixty two, and I'm quoting prostitution related warrants stemming from chart prostitution charges which his office no longer prosecutes. And I'm quoting from New York Post, obviously, we say sex workers and they stretch back to twenty twelve. However, Gonzales says that there are eight hundred and fifty additional warrants that were issued between the 1970s and 2011 arising from prostitution charges, which will be vacated in the near future.

Isn't that amazing? And they're saying that the Brooklyn D.A. does not pursue cases against people arrested for sex work, but instead refers them to services and they need to be offered assistance, not criminally prosecuted. And the state legislature is moving to expunge all twenty five thousand plus prostitution related convictions in Brooklyn that date back to nineteen seventy five, saying, like, we want to make sure that instead of criminal criminal penalties and jails, we're providing health care, mental health care services to get them into the better options.

And also, you know, for health care and and generations of young people's lives are being destroyed when we could be helping them, said Senator. That's an that's from Senator Liz Krueger, who's working on introducing the new legislation.

Incredible thing. Yeah, that's great. That's New York State. That's Brooke. That's the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez. So that's in Brooklyn, which amazing, epic and historic. And I step in the right motherfucking direction. Yeah, let's let's do that all over the country. Yeah.

For real imagined services. Let's get back to some services for human beings.

I mean, even if it's like you want to stay working in sex work, which is totally acceptable, at least have some, you know, means of help or, you know, and they say, of course, that a lot of sex workers who experience abuse won't report it because they know they're going to get prosecuted, which is such a huge issue.

Good news all around. A wonderful feel good story, right. A feel good story from The New York Post.

Who knew? Hey, I think it's possible now.

My favorite late night scrolls. They just have some really wacky articles. It's always fun. I finished Bridgton thanks to you. Would you think did you. I hate watched it for a couple seasons. Episodes, huh. Episodes. Episodes. That's right.

Time. Sequences. Oh, yeah, didn't I tell you, time isn't linear, so I hop forward disease and unbelieve. This is an ancient alien situation. I watched it because you said that there was going to be some hot, raunchy Victorian sex. So I stuck with it and you weren't wrong. And then I found myself enjoying it. So I kept watching it. And then I gasped out loud at that very ending and text you all excited about it.

So I definitely recommend it. It's like a good fun distraction watch, right? Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. But it's not a family watch. Absolutely not. Do not no children. No parents in the room with you? No, absolutely not. There is a plot line in this show that is to me an old prude from the 80s. Shocking that it's the plot line. Oh, see, I I must not be a brute to you, that's a spoiler alert, so you have to leave that out. Yeah, yeah. Please take that out, OK.

Yeah. Like the whole thing. But but in like a Jane Austen city, I was I kept going. It's got to be me. I'm, I think I'm hearing this wrong. Literally looked it up on my phone because I was like this can't actually be the plot. OK, but people who read the book already knew and that was in the book because the book is like a modern retelling of one of those kind of stories. I thought it was like I just thought it was some old that Shonda Rhimes was just bringing back some old story.

I never know. No. Just like ringing Grey's Anatomy love into the fucking past, man. Yeah, yeah. And ah, our lovely Claire from Dairy Girls. Oh she kills it. Just so happy to see her any time. A delight. Truly, Nicola. Colin, Colin, Nicola, Nicola Coplin, Nicola Coplin, yeah, she's great. All right, so I recommend that if you need an escape that was helpful in my sanity in keeping it recently, if you need if you need a private escape, I have one.

I have a recommendation that came. I made a I wrote a tweet the other night and in the tweet jokingly referenced the Whicher or Whicher might just be plain Whicher, but that's the Henry Cavill series. That's kind of like I don't know what's spooky d DeAnda whatever fantasy almost. But I watched it and do enjoy it. But my friend Alex Reid, who's my old friend from stand up comedy in San Francisco, but he's also a very accomplished TV writer himself.

And he wrote, If you like Whicher, you will love Britannia. And so I and I believe it's on Netflix. And I started watching it. And it is so good. It's basically Potasnik for Britannia Britannia.

It's its Brittanica. It's about it's just a shot of a bunch of encyclopaedias. It's very soothing. No Britannia. It's about the Romans invading Britannia and the Celts and the Druids live there and the Druids. And there's fascinating clan of people that used to live in England, in the English territories, whatever they were called. And they were kind of like Witchey. But it's real. But they were like they used to they were said to have had telekinesis.

They did magic. They a lot of their magic was based in oak trees. It's this whole I started reading about them because I was so fascinated because it's actually real. But basically the Romans came in and got rid of them all. And so they were kind of like, you know, the magic people. It's a really good series as like Lord of the Rings Vibe's. That's what I'm getting.

It's like Lord of the Rings for real, though, because it's it's historically based. All right. Not perhaps not exactly accurate, but based some liberties are taken.

It's good. All right. So what's it called? Britannia. Britannia on Netflix. I have something to tell you. I've been really excited to tell you about. You know, I told you about. Oh, shit. What Stephen what was the Instagram and. Cottage for cottage. So I told you about cottage for all the like I did, darling, twee stuff and beekeeping that I was super into last year, that I found out recently that, you know, there's cleaning, that it was a scam.

No, it was a tree is a pyramid scheme to really love it. And I put ten thousand dollars into it and I feel like I'm going to get my return. I just got all these these docs in cottage quarter and a miniature dollhouses and I'm really feeling good about it. All right, great. And if you want to join, you can be in my pyramid anyway. OK, there are cleaning influencers like I found out that there are people who like.

I have our specialty cleaners of like house cleaning, and there's this one called it's A.M., a roast cleaning, amorous cleaning, and she's like an influencer is like thousands and thousands of followers, like shows you her favorite, like scrub daddy.

And here's how to clean this. And here's the best way to vacuum this. And this is my favorite this and this is my favorite cleaning thing of that. And I am obsessed and it's addictive.

Well, you know, it's funny that it's funny you mention that, because when I at Christmas time, when I went to make a bake a turkey breast for the first time, I went and looked at my oven and it wasn't very clean. And I was like, I should clean this, but I don't know how. You know, a lot of times you can switch it on. Your oven is like self-cleaning. I'm like, I don't trust that.

And it takes like a full day or whatever. And so I looked up I basically looked up my kind of oven and how to clean it quickly and easily. And there was a woman who was just like, it's you need, you know, baking soda, white vinegar. You see this? Yeah. And she and it really worked. It was like it took me 20 minutes. Well, there are people like, you know, there's like there's like workout influencers.

What's it called when you were, you know, and. Yeah. And there's cleaning influencers. I love it.

Have you cleaned anything? Have you been influenced in any way by them? I have. I bought all the products she told me to get and I've been binging power washing videos too.

So that's like that is one of my favorite thing. Have you ever seen the ones in the buildings in New York City and they're doing it in Manhattan and it's just guys like what look like a window washing thing, but instead they're power washing in front of a building. So it's going from dark gray to beautiful, like marble white. Yes, the best I watched one of, like the tenant had lived in this apartment for 40 years and smoked three packs a day.

And they went in there with a power washer and the walls were fucking yellow.

Yeah. Like I they were yellow and they just power wash.

And it was like, oh, even the ceiling was just gross. I loved it so good. And they, they cleaned it all up like fucking power washed.

I mean really everybody loves a before and after but with something like that where you don't have to actually do the hard work of cleaning out. Yeah. But you still get the satisfaction of that of the before and after. Yes. There's nothing better. Nothing. It's so good because my hopefully my life will never get to the point where I'll have to have a satisfying power washing situation.

So I'll just watch other people's you don't know, don't know. Has indoor smoking is it can be pretty stressful. Can you imagine sitting in a New York apartment. So it's what is it cost. Four grand. Yeah. There's some shit like so tiny. So like it's your it's like a smoke box. Yes I used to do you know what I'm saying. Can you imagine. I did it when I, when I lived there like, you know, early 2010s.

Right. It was probably twenty ten or twenty eleven. I moved there for a job I knew for people. So on the weekends I would just pull this stool because it was this tiny kitchen. Yeah. I would put a pot of water on the stove and just keep it on a low boil. So there was just moisture in the air. And then I would and then the I had the window open and I worked total coat because it was. Yeah, yeah.

The window cracked probably like that's in that window cracked and then I would just smoke and blow it out the window and keep it so that if any smoke went in there the moisture would just bring it back so it wouldn't get anything dirty. I've never heard of that. Yeah, I don't. I just fuck it. I just trolled Facebook. I couldn't get off face. What did you say. It was just polite self roll. That's right. You know what you are.

You're a fucking cigarette influencer.

You're giving us tips and tricks. You're rolling your own and you're going to show us how and all the tools you love to use. Or just like if you can't roll them yourself, here's what you do. And like, here's the filter I like to use sometimes now there's no filter and then you got to crack your window this much, otherwise it doesn't. So, yeah, your cigarette influencer and then a true cigar cigarette influencer, because then you can take a picture, you can find a picture of my old teeth and I had to get them professionally replaced with fake teeth.

A lot of money became so yellow because smoking is disgusting and terrible for you and you shouldn't do it.

That's right. But man, it can be satisfying when you're all alone in the world. In New York City.

Oh, contemplated cigarette of like this is what I'm doing tonight. Fuck. Yeah. And that's actually I've told the story a thousand times, but that's when I got into pockets. I would listen to Dave Anthony and Greg Barrett's podcast Walking the Room, and it was like getting to hang out with my friends and not getting to talk. And I loved it.

I love it. Oh, I have one more correction. Coca Cola Escola. From a search party who I mentioned last week and adoring them, but I called them, he and and his pronouns, are they them? So I just want to make sure I got that clear update, Uptown's update, everybody. And I want to make sure I respect that and clear it up. Hey, if you don't know, it's not about respect because you didn't know.

Right.

But clearing and updating is an important sign of respect for absolutely, absolutely good and a good thing. Just I it's it's a I'm working on the habit of just trying to default today.

Yes. Yes. But it's again, I'm from the 80s. So it's it it's a slight adjustment. But yeah, it's usually the just your best but totally, totally. I was going to tell you about. Oh well a couple but we're still doing TV shows I just stumbled on. Remember when I told you about there was a British show called Not Safe for Work that I Loved. Yeah. And I think I made you watch at least one episode.

I'm not sure it's really good if you haven't seen it. Not safe for work is great. But then I also but I found this, this is basically like a deep cut because it's from I think it started in 2011 and it's called fresh meat and it's these young and it's it's where all these people are young.

It's an old show with young people, my two favorite things, and it's called Fresh Meat.

And they are all at uni and British aversely. Yeah. And they're all just roommates, you know, a ragtag group of roommates. And I was bingeing yesterday. And it's good stuff if anyone's looking for it. I'm doing those Deep Throat, the British show Deep Cuts. Did you I hate to ask this because I feel like I it's one of those things where, like your friend recommend something, you're like, can you leave me alone about it?

Did you watch the British Shameless? The original Shameless? Oh, yes.

Remember we were talking about you remember you asked me what maybe I would or what person I would be. Yeah. And I was the neighbor. Yes. The British shameless is amazing. I mean, we're still obsessed with it. It's like it's it's the fucking best show I've ever seen. It's like one of my favorites.

Now, did we discuss I want to know if that dad character is dying his hair. Definitely. Or if he. You think so in the beginning he looks like he has a wig, you were saying. Right. Which I mean but it doesn't matter. He must have been like had a role, had a different role for something else now to wear a wig.

I do think he does it, but maybe that's part of his character because his character is just a complete fuck. Yeah. Who is his character. Yeah. Is like kind of a young guy but then is living a hard life. So it makes sense that he would have like kind of scraggly beard, scraggly face and then young guy hair. Yeah.

He tried it like it's a good job. I love it. And the young actor who's so James is so hot.

James McAvoy. Yes. Thank you. Steve Friedman. He he's taken his place. His name is Steven INET. Is it. Yeah. But he you know, he ends up he and Fiona, the old spoiler, not a spoiler now in real life, got married and did the film on the set of Shameless and got married again and are now divorced.

That's OK. Spoiler. Oh I'm sorry.

Love, love, love, love stories. I'm loving it. Should we do it exactly. Right now it's. Well I have one more recommendation. Sorry. It's just. No it's just, it's a podcast. I was, I don't know what I was doing, but I was just kind of like going randomly through podcasts and it was like the ones that were related to the ones I'd already listen to. I like that. And I stumbled upon a podcast that's like a kind of self-help oh is very to me and I listen to it.

Yes, it's called Unstuck Your Brain, but it's not by the person who authored the book because I thought it would be and it's not. Yeah. And she and it seems like the book came out and this podcast came out the same year. So it might totally be things of thing that very much does happen in the world, which is just it's a coincidence. But this one is a is a series by or sorry, this is a podcast by the host is a woman named Cara Lo Antheil.

I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And it it started as a podcast, like an advice podcast for lawyers. Wow. Wow. She's doctor. She was. But then as it goes, she basically becomes like a life coach. And it's basically just kind of like good advice on a bevy of different things. If you're looking for it's real short, like it's I think each one is like a half an hour. Laughs Yeah. And it's a she is such a good writer.

Conceptual, yes. And here is how you sent me, the one of how to get confidence and I listen to it 30 minutes, I was so surprised it was like over already, but it was like such great simple advice on how to, like, start it. Yeah. You know, it's a long process and it seems daunting and overwhelming to fucking get confidence after a lifetime of not having it. But she makes it so straightforward and simple and explains your brain to you of why it's not working.

Yeah. And it's it's great. You're right. You're right. It was great.

It's really cool. And I really think it's generous because she is a she is a like life coach, a master life coach. And there's lots of life coaches that have podcasts that are basically giving it away for free as a way to say. And if you want more of this than you get, I'll coach you separately. So that's very cool. If you listen to it, then you have like next options. If you have, like, the money and the inclination.

But if not, there's she has like four years of podcast episodes where you can go through and find your topic. And it's just really I find her very smart, very so good at giving advice. I was blown away.

That's amazing. I love the podcast. Yeah, that is great. I think to your brain with Carlo Loewenthal. Yes, of course. Because I, I had a couple of those moments as I was listening when I was just like, oh, I could actually do this. Yeah. That's not it's not conceptual in that way of like you need to tell yourself you're great where it's just like. Right. I would fucking do that like it doesn't work.

Well the thing about us is that I feel like and people with low self-esteem is like I don't think I deserve to like myself and I don't think I deserve confidence from myself or other people. And so it's not going to fucking work on me and fuck you for trying like that works for other people and not for me. Fuck you.

But it's like, no, no, it's just your brain and your wires are kind of crossed. And the way you've been trying to get it from outside sources is just it doesn't work for anyone. Not because you're broken. Yeah.

You know, and that idea of these are these thoughts that pass through our head, they're just that they're just thoughts. And we can't just give our life over to these thoughts, ideas, feelings that just come through. We have to be more in charge and we have to be basically kind of like right there with the thoughts and then go, thank you for the warning. Thank you for the worry. Thank you for the, you know, stamping your feet.

We're not going to do that this year. And like, it's that idea.

I just, you know, and I mean, like that's also my therapist talking and a lot of other things, but yeah but car Loewenthal Loewenthal puts it into very simple listenable kind of like break it down. Thanks. I was just feeling and it's like it works for anyone.

It's not, you don't have to be special and like this we're so special but however special broken we're especially broken, we're especially special in our brokenness.

Don't we all love to be especially broken. That's the best. That's the best way truly. I mean I don't want to be boring, broken. That's like four fucking basics. And I'm not special and I don't exercise high level. I'm an animal in my broken eyeball.

Yeah.

You earn that leather jacket, you earn the cigarette when you add these knuckle tattoos, man, no, not everyone gets to have these.

You have to have a permit when you go to the charges. Knuckles say special broken. I don't know how she fits on. I got extra fingers because I'm specially broken. OK, all right, that was a great oh, I'm reading The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, that's kid. And she also wrote The Secret Life of Bees, which was an unbelievably great I love your bees love.

I do love me. I highly recommend the invention of wings.

Cool. Yeah. So check that out too. OK, now we do a little exactly.

Right now is there some. We have so many great and wonderful shows are just going to highlight a couple of them for you right now in case you haven't caught up to all your E.R. programming this week.

You can I walk you through it?

I think we should start with I saw what you did do it, which is our rad radical movie review podcast.

It's hosted by the two incredible women, Molly and Danielle. Molly is the program at the incredible Turner Classic Movies TKM, which is like one of the coolest channels. And whenever Vince is like, well, they have double feature of this, I'm like, that's Molly, that's Molly. Like, she has impeccable frickin taste and you know so much about movies. And she's hilarious and they're great friends. I saw what you did actually as a five star rating on iTunes, which is, if you ask us, is impossible, but apparently it's not.

Well, this is we're talking Criterion Collection level podcasting here.

Hey, that's what's happened this time. Yeah. And so they're doing a Black History Month special where they're focusing their discussions on black directors, actors and other artists in the film industry and examining the obviously year-round importance of celebrating and amplifying black voices in the film community. And to kick that off, they're discussing two films, Ganja and Haas from 1973 and losing ground from nineteen eighty two. So make sure you subscribe and listen to I saw what you did and follow them on.

I saw pod on Instagram and Twitter and they'll tell you what movies they're reviewing each week beforehand. So you can watch those movies before or after. You don't even need to fucking watch them. Honestly, just the last podcast because you'll get the discussion.

Also on Bananas are Weird News podcast. Kurt and Scotty are doing basically a live show this weekend. This is very exciting. You can buy tickets for it's February 6th. It's coming. I literally don't know what day it is, but it's in a couple of days. And it could be the 15th. It could be the second. I have no fucking clue.

By the way, before you get fucking angry in their Instagram feed, they're doing a live Web show.

It's not they're not going to be it fucking the Troubadour, guys. It's a no, no, no.

It's streaming. It's completely it's completely virtual. They're going to wear masks even though they're going to be super distanced. So go to w w w bananas, live dotcom and go watch them do a live show.

They're both seasoned performers. It's going to be amazing. Yeah. No doubt it's going to be that damn show. So they're doing so good. They're so good. And we have a crossover this week of two of our Exactly Right podcast. So I'm Kara Klank from That's Messed Up. Our Sve You podcast is on.

I said no GIFs Bridgers podcast and so you should check both of those out. Yeah, that's going to be a delight. Yeah. It's a real mess isn't it. Is. I love those people. I love seeing them at parties which is obviously we talked about our main criteria for exactly right is do we like to hang out with the parties? How long can you stand with them in a party? That's over over ten minutes. They get a show on the right.

And just to just to slide this one in ten fold, more wicked is on their second season are on Kate Winckler. Dawsons on her second season talking about serial killers. Burkean hair is really fascinating. They have been at the top of apples. True crime charts this second season is going like gangbusters. And my sister told me the other day that my cousin Stevie, who is like my older brother, got off the phone with her the other day because he loves this podcast so much that he wanted to stop talking to her so he could continue listening.

Post how, you know, I and I said to my sister, I was like, that's like the opposite of him beating me up every day after school. I feel so good. We kind of had about after school instead of him just beating me up. I know that we're adults. He can listen to my podcasts. I love you, Steve.

And I want to I want to reiterate, speaking of her being on the top of the true crime charts, is that please, please, please rate review and subscribe. I know it's just this thing you hear on every podcast at the end of the episode, but it's the way that you get on the charts and it's also the way they get ad sales, which is how these free podcasts that you listen to are able to get ads. It's the way they make money.

It's important to us even that's the biz based. To be a part of the bid, if you love a podcast or review, unsubscribe, please, and support also if you love the podcast, my favorite murder, the one we're doing right now, we've got a piece of merch that has been sold out for so long and it is back it's the here's the thing mug. It says, here's the thing, it's still on the side. And then when you turn it up to sip out of it, it says, fuck everyone on the block.

Yeah. So any time you're in the Xoom meetings and you're just having the worst time ever, you just take a sip of your coffee and show them what you really think. It's subtle. And then we also have t shirts and the cruises are so cute. I love them. And they're all restocked at my favorite murder, dotcom in the store. And they're you go get your. Here's the thing, Mirch.

It is it is back for you, Trangie.

And yeah. Cool. I'm going this week. I'm going I'm telling you a story. I love to hear a story from you. Can I tell you a story, Garance, about your ex?

I'd like to hear some tea. Put your hair up. All right, so this is in the news recently, and I realized I hadn't considered ever doing it and I thought maybe now is a good time because of that. So this is the murder of Lana Clarkson by Phil Spector. Oh, yeah. Amazing, right?

Never done this. How we never done it. Yeah, OK. Hopefully we've never I mean, I'm just surprised, like even at an L.A. live show doing it, but it just never crossed my mind. OK, my sources are patcher prints for gold mine mag CNN Wire Dominick Dunne article for Vanity Fair. Stephen A. Diamond article for Psychology Today. Karina Longworth for L.A. Weekly. Bill Demesne for mental floss. Wikipedia, of course, and then other Vanity Fair articles as well.

Karina Longworth, that's a you must remember this totally. All right. Yeah, that's Karina getting her bills paid. Good for her. She also does a podcast. Right. You subscribe so she can get more. And please support Karina Longworth. You must remember this, right? All right. So let's some we're going to delve into Phil Spector and who he was and what his life was like, because it really just paints a picture of what ended up what he ended up doing.

So his hair I mean, I have no explaining. Actually, I do have an explanation for that. OK. OK, yeah. Harvey Philip Spector is born in nineteen thirty nine to a first generation immigrant Jewish family, and they live in the Bronx. The family first arrived from Ukraine in nineteen thirteen, and it's highly possible that his parents are first cousins because there's lineage lineage found of their grandfathers. They were found to be very similar on their naturalization papers.

So this little side note, in 1949, when Phil is just nine years old, his ironworker father, who has just tons of debt, takes his own life by carbon monoxide. Asphyxiation. Oh, no. And nine years old, I mean, it's tragic. On his tombstone is inscribed Ben Spector father, husband to know him was to love him.

Filles, allegedly domineering mother moves the family from New York to Los Angeles in 1953, where she works as a seamstress. All right. So Phil goes to Fairfax High School, where he was involved in a Jewish like boys club known as the Lochinvar Bars, which I have known about since I was a kid, because one such member is none other than Marty Howard Stark. Marty was a Lochinvar. Marty was a Lochinvar. I had no idea Phil Spector was choux until Phil Spector died last week.

And my dad forwarded this, like chain email from a bunch of like old members. My dad called it a gang, but it was just a bunch of Jewish boys. It was a club and they were all kind of talking about their memories of their friends. Phil Spector from high school. And my dad is still super close with those friends from his time. It's like they were very kind of supported each other and and partly because they grew up in a time when anti-Semitism was still rampant in L.A. in the nineteen fifties, the Fairfax was known as a, quote, Jewish high school.

And in fact, the principal even taught modern Hebrew class. And some parents started taking their kids out of Fairfax because the high Jewish population made them uncomfortable. So L-A, I mean, I've heard stories from my grandparents and parents was very anti-Semitic at the time.

I believe that it's just funny or like interesting now to think about that because of the way things are now. I like the idea of people taking their kids out of school because Jewish people want their total is just kind of like, wait, what? But that's it's that thing of like over the years that kind of racism exposes itself to just be the weirdest, most baseless, stupid thing. But then it's just the more current like that's I think I've told you the story of when I got in trouble because I repeated a slur against a Mexican student that I heard on the playground.

And my Aunt Jean, like, slammed on the brakes and was like, what? Why would you ever say that? And I was like, oh, I thought that's what somebody else said. I was like in second grade or something like that. And my mother gave me this fucking speech that night that was all about. Don't you know that the way you know anybody that says that about Mexicans. Now, that's exactly what people were saying about your grandparents.

You know, fifty years ago when they emigrated and we're living in San Francisco when there were signs up that said don't hire the Irish any like those.

Those people are your relatives.

You might as well think of it in the same way. And that that that's racist.

And that kind of like bias is that's who your people are. Like, you can't do it because your people were those people. Yeah. And it. Really eye opening and kind of thank fucking God I made that mistake to learn that lesson totally and it sucked. I mean, from second grade on, that's so just as a kid and I know not that many kids like second graders listen to this, but just don't repeat shit.

Other people say don't believe don't kids say they're all fucking making shit up as they go along or repeating stuff. Stupid people say, yeah, you got it. Yeah. Just don't. Just don't. Yeah. So I think that's why my my dad was so close with them and this little group, the Lochinvar, which I just. Well you're sitting here out again on the phone with my dad and be like, how do you pronounce that. Okay.

So the reason I thought of doing the story is because, as I said, the Phil Spector email went around and my dad forwarded to me and they were sharing old memories of their old club member, Phil Spector. And one of the guys whose name is Robert remembered Phil Spector this way. I thought he was so friendly. A bit different, perhaps, but so talented and nice to everyone. We became friends and his mom would ask me to play the piano whenever I came over, which was often he was head cheerleader and it wasn't hard to recognize he would be a musical success was.

Yeah.

He also lived down the street from my dad. Like where my grandma. It's just wow. I didn't know him. I was he was a couple of years ahead of my dad.

OK, yeah. I had cheerleaders, a little bit of a left turn. It is. I didn't see that one coming. It is. But I think it was yeah.

It was horrible back then for men to be cheerleaders wasn't it.

Maybe. Could have been. Yeah. But head cheerleader to beat out everybody is special. So Phil and he was like this short and small in stature guy so it probably didn't play a lot of sports I would say. So cheerleader. He hated his given name, Harvey, which was he was previously known by and he starts going by his middle name, Philip Phil. But she later has legally changed, legally changed you. So he becomes obsessed with listening to music on AM radio and it changes his life.

He starts hanging around the music room at Fairfax and he learns the guitar and he performs in school talent shows. And he starts a band with three of his friends from Fairfax, and they form a group called The Teddy Bears. So he starts hanging out at local recording studios trying to learn music production. And this guy, Stan Ross, who was an owner and producer of Gold Star Records and Hollywood, takes a shine to him and begins tutoring Phil Spector on music production.

And so from 18th no, from nineteen fifty to nineteen eighty four, Gold Star Studios is one of the most important studios in the world.

They have artists like The Beach Boys and Ritchie Valens and Jimmy Hendrix and putting out like, you know, world history, changing music. Yeah, The Who and so and just tons of recording artists perform there and record there. And I highly suggest the documentary The Wrecking Crew. Yeah. Which tells Gold Stars History. And it's by filmmaker Denny Tedesco. It's on Amazon. It's fucking awesome. The Wrecking Crew. Watch it. So Phil learns the business.

And in nineteen fifty eight, the teddy bear is signed to Ara's Door Records where they get a deal to record two to three of Phil's songs. One of them being to know him is to love him, inspired by the inscription on his father's tombstone. And it goes to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 lists and sells over a million copies and in nineteen fifty eight they perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, which was a huge accomplishment. Big deal.

Yeah. And meanwhile, this is just an interesting side note. Phil's mother, Bertha, had encouraged Phil to learn stenography. In the meantime, got to have a safety net.

That's exactly why. So he had something to fall back on in case the music thing didn't work out because, you know, Mom, what are you fucking doing? Can you at least just get a degree, please? No one's letting you just go be in the teddy bears like that's going to pay your mortgage because that ain't real.

You performed on American Bandstand once, so and so between 1957 and 1960, Phil Spector got a job as a part time court stenographer at the court in downtown Los Angeles, where, among other cases, he worked the Lana Turner Cheryl Crane murder case that I covered at one of our live shows in L.A. in which L.A. daughter Sheryl stabbed Lana's boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato to death. And she was a teenager and she got off. So he was in that trial.

She was this court stenographer for that trial. That's insane.

Isn't that random? And then he was offered the job of doing translation work as a UN interpreter for Fidel Castro.

This is you're starting to talk about the movie Zelig like it's like or Forrest Gump. He's like played by the piece of shit. Woody Allen. Like, it's they look alike in a weird way. And actually, Phil Spector met Castro twice in a hotel room, but ultimately turns down the most incredible job I've ever heard in my fucking life in order to continue his music career. So it was probably a big fuck you to his mom. The teddy bears breakup.

So sadly in nineteen fifty nine and after finding success producing a few records as well as sitting in on as a session musician Phil founds Phil is at record records, so his own record company with famed producer Lester Stills.

So this is when Phil Spector like really finds his niche and he develops his trademark wall of sound. It's a production formula where I'm going to put this simply because I don't if I can get it. A mixture of all sorts of instruments are playing at the same time in unison with other instruments joining and layers along with further layers of vocals. It's like this crescendo effect that I mean, it's beautiful, but the secret is the echo chamber where the microphones from the studio play and a basement speakers.

There's microphones, they bounce the sound back to the control room to be recorded on tape. And that's how the wall of sound works.

She shrugs, she explains. She explains unbelieving. I get it. I get it. Well, you know, the the Motown Records, they ran a microphone up into the attic to get that same type of sound. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's the only reason I kind of get what you're talking about that. Yeah. Yeah. Because when I record well, it's all about the echo in the attic.

I'd like to thank my Burns, my research writer, for understanding what the fuck that meant and writing it in layman's terms. So so Spector said in 1964, quote, I was looking for a sound a strong.

A sound so strong that if the material was not the greatest, the sound would carry the record, hey, it was a case of augmenting it all fit together like a jigsaw.

So you can hear that with the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson recorded a lot there as well. And film releases, legendary songs where you can hear this unique style, including Be My Baby by the Ronettes, which is a legend, legendary classic.

Then he Kissed Me by the Crystals, another beautiful song. Put your headphones on, you guys. Put your noise canceling headphones on and listen to these songs. They're moving and he signs The Righteous Brothers in nineteen sixty five. Really saying You've Lost That Lovin Feelin, Unchained Melody and you're my soul. An inspiration. So like hit after hit that defines the era. So this is why he's so famous. When you look at these insane pictures of him in the courtroom and you're like, who is this fucking good dude?

Like he just change his music. Yeah. So by now he's in his early twenties and he's one of the hottest and wealthiest record producers in the world.

Can't get fame that you can't get famous and rich that young or you're no, you cannot. No, you can't. You are fucked. You got to go through some shit before you can appreciate some shit, right.

You got to go through some shit before you can buy all the coke all the time because you and your wall of sound are going to get yourself into some trouble. That's right.

By the time you're 30 and you're washed up. Good luck. So in nineteen sixty six, Spector signs his final act at philes.

It's I l l yes. Phillies, Phillies, the Phillies, we're talking about the Philadelphia Phillies. No, it's his record company, his final his final act as Ike and Tina Turner, and he considers River Deep Mountain High the best thing he's ever produced. And the fact that the song was initially snubbed by the American audience, he takes it super personally and it kind of like changes something in him and made him resent the music industry completely. And he just is bitter.

And he retreats from the business and goes into a state of depression after one thing that didn't go his way right after 20, that did exactly cool. Cool, cool. Sounds like a great state of mind. Sounds like you got his shit together in his early 20s. He's doing probably doing a lot of meditating, a lot of chanting, just really grounded. Sounds like he's butis of the people. He's a Buddhist I think. Sure. He's reading The Diary of Winnie the Pooh for sure.

So after failing to sell his record company to A&M Records in 1967, he becomes a total recluse. He rarely makes public appearances for a couple of years except for playing a drug dealer in nineteen sixty nine. Easy Rider I didn't know and playing himself in a cameo of I Dream of Jeannie. I guess they were desperate for cameos at that point. But he does marry his dream girl, Veronica Bennett, who's Ronnie of the Ronettes who had discovered. So Phil had discovered her and the group and he helped make them famous with these hits.

And sensing the relationship was doomed due to Phil's erratic emotional behavior, Ronnie's mother turned to her daughter after signing the wedding certificate and said, quote, I just signed your death certificate. Oh, no. Yeah, that's not. Well, then why?

I don't know. That's not what you want to hear on your wedding day. Well, maybe it was like she felt like she had no choice and she was just like, you made me do that. Definitely.

Definitely. You know how you know how much daughters listen to their mother's advice. Also, that band was huge. Their songs were awesome. And I'm sure she was just like this guy made me like he's you know, that's what it's. So she wrote a memoir in 1990 called Be My Baby. And yeah, that's exactly it is. She felt she owed him this. She owed him her life, you know. Sure. And she actually he was really controlling.

And it turns out John Lennon and Fallick fell in love with her and offered for the Ronettes to go on tour with the Beatles. And she chose Phil Spector over that. So that's how devoted she was to him. Wow.

So in Be My Baby, her memoir, she details how Phil Spector psychologically tortures her and purposely ruins her career by not allowing her to perform again. He's the monster. He puts a barbed wire around their house and they live in this mansion in Alhambra, California, which is right outside Pasadena.

Right.

And he gets guard dogs for the yard. And it's all to keep Ronnie inside the castle. Basically, they call it, if she's given permission to leave, Ronnie has to drive with a life size inflatable dummy of Phil Spector in the passenger seat.

OK, are we going to talk about what drugs he was on? Because this is extreme. And later on, I will tell you about the poppers and what they do him, because, Jesus Christ, he was also just as emotionally manipulative, psychotic guy.

Like I don't even know if drugs were part of it. I mean, I'm sure they were, if you like, back then, drugs were everyone did speed, you know, they did.

And also when barbed wire comes into a place, you know, like your Alhambra mansion, right.

Where No one if you're like, here's what we need, parking guard dogs. But to keep you in, that's the best part is like not even to keep people out. Oh, yeah. That's so scary. Awful. Yeah. And there's more. It gets worse. It always does. It always fucking does. So inflatable dummy that did it.

If she's gone for more than twenty minutes he calls the guards to find her.

Well she says quote, I was never around people. He made sure of that and he kept her isolated in the studio where her best friend, who was her backup singer, was like the only person she was allowed to hang out with who was none other than Cher really was.

What's her backup singer time? Right. I know. Wow. So the couple adopts a child in nineteen sixty nine and then, OK, here's the fucking wackiest wacky thing you've ever heard.

As a Christmas gift in nineteen seventy one still surprises Ronnie by bringing home a set of five year old twins, was he adopted a set of five year old twins and was like, these are your kids purchased? Yeah, well, adopted. I don't know. OK, probably. Yeah. Let's see that paper. Yeah. I want I want to see that car. Right. Uh, Jesus.

I want to do that. Carfax. Yeah. Those I've got. I didn't gloss over that because of the excellent comment. But of course she feels like the gesture is to keep as just a bit to keep her captive in their marriage and that the children were used as like pawns to keep her there. Yeah. Ronnie goes so far as to purposely start abusing alcohol so she can leave to go to AA meetings. Oh, and there's not.

And she's like, there's nothing for me to do all day but drink. I have no I'm not allowed to leave the house. I have no freedom. I just start drinking and also. Oh my God, Phillip. It's a gold coffin with a see through glass top in their basement and promises that he will kill her and display her body there if she tries to leave him. So this man is an abusive fucking piece of shit. And very insecure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Problems, yeah, I'm insecure and I I've literally been none of those things to my knowledge. Don't don't don't ask me about that, though. I know it.

And then just like your zoom camera slips just slightly to the left, you're like, George, what is that mausoleum with Vince's name on it.

Did you get a fucking Doberman Pinscher? Jesus, George. Well, this wallpaper is so nice.

Why is there so much barbed wire around the top of it?

Like it's crazy, even though this is like we're making jokes? Yes. This is a nightmare. Like where this is a this is a nightmare castle of nightmares.

This is an and she's inside of a relationship that is we all know is impossible, feels impossible to escape from because it's I mean, literally, literally.

And she deserves to be drink as much as she possibly can. Jesus Christ. Seriously.

And according to Ronnie, Phil said, before I let you go, you'll be dead, too. Terrifying.

So he also takes away all of her shoes so she can't it makes it harder for her to run away. And everyone knows in Alhambra, it's just like that's far from anything fucking any of this is just so extreme, like off it's insane.

So when she finally does escape with the help of her mother in 1972, she has to do so barefoot. And also by sneaking out through the service entrance like her in her mom's study, the service entrance to see when it was possible to run away, she recalls, quote, My whole survival is through my mom's strength. I tell other women, if you're in a bad relationship, you have to find one person to help you. Filles abuse was mental, not physical, telling me I'll never be successful without him.

And she says that it made me say, I want to bet. Can I just say this, too?

Meanwhile, Ronnie Spector is one of the most beautiful women. Her voice is so unique and gorgeous, like the, you know, the Ronettes lead singer, My Baby, like legendary and the. And then, you know, I won't I won't spoil your thing. But then later, when she, like, is in a hit later on, it's like she looks like she's twenty five, she's back entirely. But that idea he really did rob her of a career because she could have had anything.

She has her perfectly made for show business.

She was and she was incredibly talented. And actually during their divorce in nineteen seventy four, Ronnie gives up all of the future earnings from her recordings because Phil threatens to have her killed by a hit man if she does it.

So that's got hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars that she has to walk away from, you know, which is I think a familiar not that much, but a familiar story for for abused women. Ronnie walks away with a used car, twenty five thousand dollars and alimony of twenty five hundred dollars a month for the duration of five years, all for that fucking torture. And she has to give up custody of the children because he would regularly pull a gun on her and threaten to murder her if she took them away.

It has to be heartbreaking. And sadly, the children are also abused.

Among other things, Phil keeps them locked in their room as soon as they get home from school every day and they just are stuck there.

So Ronnie is finally able to relaunch her career, but finds difficulty finding chart success until she appears on Eddie Money is nineteen eighty six iconic hit Take Me Home Tonight in which which goes on to number four. And despite Phil's objections, Ronnie and the run that are included into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty seven, among other continuing successes. So she made it. Yes, she did.

Big time. I mean she was like a huge part of that video too. I mean, that was I was sixteen when that song came out. Yeah.

So ironically, during all this chaos, Phil Spector is mounting a major comeback. Spector was working with George Harrison. And when Lennon wanted George in the studio for his record Instant Karma, he asked Phil Spector to come into the recording session. They recorded it in one day. Phil Spector mixed it on the spot with his wall of sound style, and the single was put out in the same week. Phil Spector would go on to produce further solo albums by both George Harrison and John Lennon, and they liked his work so much that they brought him to England to fix the Beatles abandoned recordings for their Let It Be album, which was previously assumed to be a complete wash.

So this is an historical shit, you know, but he is slowly beginning to act more erratic and more eccentric. In nineteen seventy three, he's hired by John Lennon to produce his new album of covers. And Phil starts appearing at the studio wearing wild costumes like, quote, surján or karate guy, and he always has a gun in a holster on him.

He's also frequently high on the inhalant ammonium nitrate, amyl nitrate, otherwise known as Poppers Pelago. OK, here's an interesting fact. I didn't know poppers are officially used as an angina heart medication or to treat cyanide poisoning, but they become popular in the 70s and 80s drug culture. OK, ready for why as it causes the throat and anus to relax and gives you a short high.

Yeah. So all things that we've always wanted in our life. Yes, yes. And jokingly quote, One night Spector pulls out his gun and surprises John Lennon by firing it off in the studio by Lennon's ear, John Lennon screams at Phil.. Phil, if you're going to kill me, kill me. But don't fuck with my ears. I need them.

But in a British accent, he would chase John Lennon around the studio with a gun threatening to shoot him while he was drunk or on drugs. And of course, John Lennon later dies of a gunshot wound. So that's just kind of fucked up.

Throughout the 70s.

And following his divorce from Ronnie, Phil becomes more crazed and reclusive, especially following a car crash in 1974 where he was thrown from the window of his car. And I guess it's he looked dead but a. A cop found a faint pulse and after several hours of surgeries at UCLA Medical Center for his massive head injuries, resulting in three hundred face stitches and four hundred stitches to the back of his head, still survives. But he's presumably super scarred up, which is why he starts wearing his notoriously outrageous wigs.

Can I ask sorry, what year was that car accident again? Seventy four. Oh, wow. Wow. No, I just. I wasn't sure. I just wasn't sure of like where in the timeline we were. But that's OK.

It's crazy. Yeah. So he's already going a little fucking psychotic. But then this kind of massive head injury, we all know what that did. Not great. Not great. Not good. No. So we'll go on to work with other notable musicians like Leonard Cohen, and they get shitfaced on booze, write 12 songs. But the and again, he's drunk on Manesh Shavitz, which I which I find stereotypical. And I resent that as a Jew, he's being a real he's been a real.

Yeah. As a as a Jewish man. And we just get a bottle of like Josh or can we get a bottle of you know. What's that Stella. I don't know. So he pulls a gun on him during an argument and you know, it doesn't kill him, obviously. But the album's a massive failure. And Cohen remembers from the studio recordings that they were that that they were, quote, armed to the teeth. You were slipping over bullets and biting into revolvers in your hamburger.

So, like, you don't need to be that armed and studio friend.

I mean, it is very indicative of what the 70s, what was going on in the 70s, which was in, I would guess, and from the little that I know about, like the music industry in the 70s, it was like whatever the fuck anyone wants to do, they get to do plus three, three lines of cocaine. Right a minute. As long as you're successful, you will not be punished for anything, any behavior. Yeah.

You get you get the hit going. No one gives a shit how you got it there. So you shoot John Lennon in the ear. Well then whatever.

Right. Which I believe is similar to today in the fucking entertainment industry. Yeah. Oh it reminds me of Boogie Nights kind of. It's just that like psychotic. What is everyone doing. And nobody knows because they're all high on drugs.

Yeah. And also I think poppers like as a inhalant drug like that, I mean it makes me think of it's just like I think that does also affect your brain.

Like nitrous, like taking it. I agree. I don't think it's good to your brain cells. You can hear them while you're high. But like little I'm like one of those candies that pop in your mouth.

Pop rocks. Pop rocks. Yes.

Or zatz to talk about what side of the country you're from around this time. Debbie Harry, of course, of Blondie is invited by Phil to his mansion, discuss working together. Shortly after arriving, she says he pulled a gun on her and says, quote, That notorious thing he does, he stuck it in my boot and went, bang. I thought, get me out of here. Why would anyone be carrying a forty five automatic in their own house?

Yeah. So even shoot like fucking later and could tell that he was psychotic. But he has a pattern of pulling guns on people is what this is all illustrating. They normalized the gun pulling. That's right. That's just how he is. They say if you want the wall of sound right. It's what you have to put up with. They say, that's right little lady.

So then in nineteen seventy nine, the Ramones hire Phil Spector and realize that there are what they say are two Phil's. There's nice and evil. Phil sometimes he dressed in casual clothes. He's easygoing and funny and sometimes he wears a cape sunglasses and is derogatory, mean, abusive and only wants things done his way. One story that Dee Dee Ramone tells is that he was trying to leave the studio after a long session and Phil pulls out a revolver and says, You're not going anywhere.

Phil Spector was later asked by Vanity Fair, what's your greatest fear? And he answered, quote, that God won't let me into heaven because I'm too evil and the devil won't let me into hell because I'm afraid he's afraid I'll take over just like I did.

You're not that great, dude. Dial it back.

Let's go to self-help podcast, right? Yeah.

Really go to a meeting like it's a very grandiose, very grandiose.

So he made the Ramones end of the century which what didn't do well at the time. But everyone know it's like a classic. Aside from a small handful of other things like being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Tina Turner in nineteen eighty nine, Phil basically disappears from between 1981 until 2003, where he reenters the public eye for the worst possible reasons after meeting the beautiful actress and model Lana Clarkson. So let me talk to you, Karen, about Lana Clarkson.

OK, so she's born in 1962. She's raised in the hills of Sonoma County, California, pointing at you after her father's death in 1978. She moved to Southern California and pursues a career as an actress and model. And I cannot overstate how fucking beautiful she was. I mean, like Heather Locklear style, Charlie's Angels. Beautiful.

Yes. She looked like like a Vogue model. Yeah, like not just like not just kind of like TV actress.

Beautiful, but yeah, she like she would have been in the car, a car's video, you know, the the back of the car is not a video for the Toyota Corolla or so the OK in the early 80s, she gets bit parts in film and television. Then in nineteen eighty two she makes her movie debut as a minor character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and which she plays the unicast like. The joke is that she's unexpectedly super hot, wife of the nerdy science teacher, Mr.

Vargas, played by Vincent Schiavelli, who's fucking incredible actor.

So you remember that part at the dance, he introduces his wife to the kids and.

Oh, I didn't realize that was her. I know. That's that's so good. So she goes on to perform in the laundry list of small television and film roles and projects like Scarface, Three's Company, Nightrider and numerous major commercials.

But her nesh is the main role she has in several 1980's sci fi movies for producer Roger Corman, who's known as the Pope of Pop Cinema. And he started a lot of famous people's careers and it made her a cult hero. And she becomes a favorite at comic book conventions, where she makes promotional appearances and signs autographs for her fans. And she's also personally incredibly kind person. In the eighties, Lana spends time every week at the HIV AIDS charity project Angel Food, which delivers food to people who can't provide for themselves, whether physically or because they've been shunned by others because of their diagnosis.

So she does that weekly what coming into her 30s, Clarkson's career stalls and she can't get enough work to live on anymore. Classic story. She makes a little money selling autographed copies of her movies and chatting in with fans behind early paywall message boards.

So this is like the late 90s. I know. I forgot that was a thing. And her acting career she made a living by playing these bombshells is like hot ladies.

But her desire was to be cast in comedic roles or perform as a comedian. And she even began work as a stand up on a standup set. Oh, and she also developed, wrote, produced and directed a showcase reel called Lorna and Leashed. But by January 2003, at 40 years old, she needed to make ends meet. So she took a part time job at the House of Blues in West Hollywood.

Oh, on the Sunset Strip. It's closed now, huh? Yeah, I think they knocked the whole thing right. Yeah. And that's where in the early hours of February 3rd, 2003, she meets Phil Spector.

Oh, wow. OK, I know. And I can't I can't find a real explanation of why she agreed to go back to his house with him. But I bet he was persuasive. I bet he was promising her he could help with her career, it sounds like, because when she they took they went Phil's driver drove them in their limo to his house.

And she says to him, while she's exiting, she says to the driver, I'm only staying for one drink. So it seems like she was like, all right. You know, he was persuasive.

I go how we can talk and have one drink, but probably could tell that this was not someone she you know, this is the story of so many people in Los Angeles because it's a it's a town filled with people who have gotten, you know, for good jobs. And then, you know, some time has passed and now they're just like, what the hell am I going to do now? And pivoting and parlaying things into other things. And this is and it is just a feeding ground for powerful men who just want to go around and pick people predators.

And that's it. It's how it is. And I think, you know, they were joking about it. But I'm sure that, like they were saying, like I think Dee Ramone said, it's like there was a good side to him. I'm sure that's how he continued to work. He's charming. He's persuasive. He's. Amicable, he's he must have made it easy for people to believe he was going to be OK with that totally, because it would come out like, you know, shooting off guns.

Everyone's going to go, that guy's fucking crazy. So he must have been good enough for enough at the time total that people were like, he's still this legend. Yeah. So they can and she's sorry. But she if she's working at the House of Blues, which is a musical venue, he is a living legend from the music business.

I mean, something like there was like a fawning over him and he should go home and talk about her career.

Yeah, no, you're totally right. Yeah.

So they go in the house, the driver stays in the in the driveway, and an hour later, the driver hears a gunshot from inside the house. And then Phil Spector comes out of the rear of the house carrying a thirty eight call cobra revolver and tells the driver, quote, I think I just shot her. Oh, the driver called nine one one. And police arrive to find a single gunshot to Lana's mouth and she's dead. Spector is eventually charged with murder.

Here's he remains free on a million dollar bond and is allowed to stay in his beautiful Alhambra mansion until his trial starts in March of 2007. So for fucking years.

Yeah, yeah. That's how it is for rich people. For bonds, you don't have to stay in prison. That's right.

To two justice systems. Yeah.

The trial is shown live on television from the Los Angeles Superior Court. It's allowed by Judge Larry Paul Fiedler and it becomes a circus. Did you watch any of it back then? I remember. I just read it, but I didn't. Yeah, I just remember it. His hair, his daily hair. Check in. Yeah. Basically. Well, and it sucks because his like, he was upstaging the importance and the seriousness of what was happening.

Yeah. So suddenly he's walking in with this, you know, it looked like he had basically ratted his hair out like that. Yeah. If you know, two feet out from his head and then that's what everyone's laughing and talking about and he's there for fuckin murder.

It's like it was it was so similar in down to Dominick Dunne covering it. That's the O.J. Simpson trial. And like, yeah, I think everyone was at the time like, oh, shit, is he going to get acquitted, too? Like, you know, is this a beautiful woman who was killed by this jealous, crazy man? You know, it was fucked up. So so it quickly becomes a circus and it's only partially a circus because of Phil Spector's crazy wigs and these flamboyant suits he had on.

But the whole trial itself was a spectacle. The prosecution points out that Phil Spector has a history of pulling firearms on women he is romantically or wants to be romantically involved with.

So she was in the foyer probably trying to leave at the time when she was shot. And that's his his M.O. This usually occurs after he's rejected in some capacity. That's when he pulls out his gun and each time he points a gun at the woman attempting to leave his presence and he have it, he also frequents with artists in the studio.

So they point this all out. There's a fucking pattern. At his trial, numerous former female acquaintances testified that he had pulled a gun on them when they attempted to leave him. And his ex-wife, Ronnie, also testifies against him.

Nice. Meanwhile, these pieces of shit, despite their public vows not to do so. The defense attempts to completely trash Lanas name and an attempt to convince the jury hears their argument that Lana, being devastated that her career was over, shot herself in the foyer herself on purpose. That's dirty fucking business.

So dirty. How do you sleep at night? I think I actually remember that. I remember this these kind of stages of things happening and when and when that became the defense. Yeah, people were very upset about it.

Yeah. And meanwhile, they didn't even bring that up until then, despite and the fact that he had said, I think I just shot her quote, it was just ludicrous. I think nobody nobody believed it. Right. So they called her best friends, quote unquote. They're called to testify against her character. So they're the the her quote unquote, best friends who are just trying to get book deals probably are being called to fucking testify against her character.

Dominick Dunne in Vanity Fair says, quote, After their declarations of friendship and love, they took their poor dead friend apart with anecdote after anecdote, making it appear that Lana was in such a state of abject despair over the failure of her life. By the way, she's 40 like it's not 40 gorgeous, smart enough to continually, like, parlay her past things into something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, abject despair over the failure of her life, that shooting herself in the mouth in a stranger's house was a totally logical step for her to take.

Ludicrus and her mom and sister are like in the courtroom every day having to hear this bullshit dirty.

Yeah. So expert witnesses are called, including the distinguished forensic scientist, Dr. Michael Baden, who's paid one hundred and ten thousand dollars for his testimony for the defense, giving scientific, quote, proof that Launa killed herself. So, of course, both sides have expert witnesses. They're fucking paid to argue whatever their side wants. And in fact, in 2007, a judge ruled that renowned forensic expert for the defense, Henry Lee, who we're all familiar with.

He also worked as an expert in trials for JonBenet Ramsey, O.J. Simpson and Laci Peterson. He's famous that he hid or destroyed an object from the scene, either an acrylic fingernail or a towel that had blood on it to make it seem like she had taken her own life.

And he denies such allegations. But a judge ruled that he did do it. Wow. So so they were both testifying for the defense, OK, that Lana killed herself. I mean, again, that's a thing of like they he has more money than God so they can hire anyone they want and the people will be more and more legit. Seeming to get that story is God that's dirty. It's estimated that he spent between eight and 10 million dollars on legal fees.

Oh, my God. I know. Well, here's a side note. And what an asshole to demonstrate what an asshole Phil Spector is, a case we didn't already know in the midst of all this. In 2007, Phil Spector goes to known a woman beater Ike Turner's funeral, and he gives a eulogy.

And during the whole thing, he takes a shot at Tina, take shots at Tina Turner's autobiography saying that it was, quote, a badly written book and that it demonized and vilified Ike, which is like known that he ike being demonized and vilified. Ike Yeah, he did it. I did that. He said Phil said, quote, Ike made Tina the jewel she was. When I went to see Ike play at the Synagro in the nineties, there were at least five Tina Turner's on the stage performing that night.

Any one of them could have been could have been Tina Turner. You're kidding yourself.

Funeral eulogizing while you're on trial for murder. Can you imagine being in that fucking audience?

But also, it's that that's one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever heard. It's like Tina Turner, Tina Turner, the legendary Tina. There's no one like her in the world or we would have known about them. So he's up there eulogising by lying his fucking I mean, that's psychotic psychotic.

Frazey, it shows you what a fucking misogynist he was and that he obviously just hated women. And, you know, it's just he's fucking busy. So, yeah. So he spent eight to 10 million on legal fees. But ultimately, the jury is fucking deadlocked with two jurors holding out against a guilty verdict. A judge, the judge declares a mistrial and a retrial of the now sixty eight year old Phil Spector begins on October 20th, 2008. So we're going to go through it all over again.

Fortunately, this time, TV cameras aren't allowed in the courtroom, but the case doesn't go to jury until March twenty six, twenty nine and only takes like less than a month for the jury to find Phil Spector guilty.

Yeah, and actually, I want. Go ahead. I was just going to theorize that maybe there are some jury jurors maybe got bribed perhaps.

Well, there was like one juror who lived down the street from him in Alhambra and like Star fucked him kind of and was like, I saw him at the grocery store one. So, like, clearly had like a thing for him. And then there was another one who just seemed like another misogynist, you know, they didn't seem like they were judging based on the facts.

Right. Right. So when he so when they're in trial reading the verdict, they they thought that they definitely thought Phil Spector was going to be a suicide risk and maybe had brought in a capsule of cyanide with him. So they put, like the security on him that if he when the verdict was read, that if he moved towards his pocket, they were to tackle him. No, no, I'm I'm laughing about the idea they would they would tackle tiny that tiny, permed haired lunatic.

Right.

But it didn't help. So he sentenced to 19 years to life in state prison. On February and February 2012, Donna Clarkson, Lana's mother, settled a civil suit against his insurance company for an undisclosed amount, which we all hope is millions and millions. Yes, God, please. Numerous loophole appeals of all sorts continue and I'm sure fucking devastate Lana's family for years and years until they're all denied and 20, 15.

Phil Spector, his health was already deteriorating.

I mean, you could tell just by looking at him due to various things, including how his having lost the ability to speak from laryngeal papillote, my ptosis man dies in the prison California health care facility in Stockton, California, of covid-19 complications. Oh, shit. On January twenty first, like a week and a half ago, twenty twenty one at the age of eighty one.

I did not know it was covid related. That's I wouldn't even notice this.

It was a passing thing until my dad sent me that email and I was like, what the fuck. I will say that in the email a lot of the guys acknowledged what he did. They weren't all like good memories of Phil Spector.

It was like, yeah, he became a monster. So I don't want. Right, right. I don't want to sully the lock and Veer's. So it wasn't the he wasn't that person.

He wasn't he developed into that monster. Exactly. And I don't even know if they all kept in touch with him. So let's end on a positive note. Ronnie Spector in twenty eighteen while Phil Spector was in prison, said, quote, What I went through made me great. I was determined nobody would ever keep me down again. I won Phil's where he is and I'm going all over the world. Yeah.

And that is the murder of Lana Clarkson by the monster Phil Spector. Oh, that's amazing. Great job. You know, someone recently because I was reading an article about this murderer and someone made the very valid and very sad point that because you I remember like when you heard about this story and this happens a lot, I think, with just our very strange media bias that we all have where it's like, oh, this really beautiful woman and she's in this old rich guy's house.

We all know what that means. Right? Which I like. There's all this assumed stuff. And someone was like, this woman was murdered by a man she knew for one day. Right. Like, that's it's it's the nightmare. It is the nightmare. And it's someone that she thought, oh, he just wants. Oh, this happens to me. This. Yeah. Interesting. I bet you he was like, I'm going to show you my X, Y or Z.

Interesting guy thing. Totally. And but just that idea that she was just there of like, you know, like we'll see and she gets murdered is it's such a tragedy.

He pulls who would he pull a fucking gun out like that. Yeah. And also he's like rich and professional and well known.

No one would think that they would also, you know, you just don't it's it's a fucked up world, you bunch. It really is. But it just fucking matches my tragedy pieces of shit.

So, yeah, it's an absolute tragedy wishing her family love and happiness.

Oh, so. Wow, that's a big one. Yeah. It's good. I like being there, you know, like updates like a recent a recent one like this just happened. I guess what covid did to you want to do a couple of fucking hurry. Yes. Let's do it. All right. I go first. Want me to go first in the first. OK, this is from Brianna. Anyway, I waited so long for this, but I finally have a fucking hurry.

As of Friday, I will have finally completed my sixteen hundred hours of cosmetology school.

Hey little party emoji with a you know, which allows me to take my state board exam for my license. After a couple of failed attempts to attend college, moving back home and being completely lost in life, I'm finally doing what makes me happy. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't felt this motivated to finish something in so long and it's such an amazing feeling.

And almost twenty four after remind myself I still have time in life and I know twenty four year like I'm running out of time.

I know. But you know what I know I'm not laughing at because that is the the age where you're comparing yourself to people that you went to high school or college with and certain people have ah on a thing. A trajectory ever sir. And we're not laughing at you. No, no. We're laughing at how so insanely much time you have. You're very young. Yes. I'm almost twenty four. I have to remind myself I still have time in life and need to slow down to make myself happy.

Thank you for giving me a distraction during such a crazy year and also getting me through Kosma school SDM. Brianna could be so jealous.

I'm so jealous of cosmetology school quit after three months. Six months I quit cosmetology school. It's fucking hard. It's hard right. Good luck on your exams. Get real good at it. You make that good money fucking. All right. Congratulations. OK mine is from the name is Caroline Grant. It says my fucking her is for my amazing sister Lauren Lairy.

And she not only introduced me to your podcast a few years ago, which has gotten me, which had gotten me to so much to or through. Probably through. If we help people travel to places we actually oh, I gave this girl a ride. No, no, I'm sorry, but she is also a Mănescu nurse at a public hospital. She is such a hero to those babies and is also my hero. And I will be going to the law school in her same city next year.

Can't wait to be close to her again, says DGM and fucking her four sisters. Yes. Yes. Thank you, man.

You guys are heroes. Yeah. All health care workers. Thank you. Truly. Thank you. The light at the end of the tunnel is coming.

I hope so, yeah. This is from authentic underscore and underscore. Imperfect, authentic and imperfect. Onitsuka, I just want to say that I listen to this episode while I was sitting super nervously at a breast imaging center waiting for a mammogram and an ultrasound after finding a lump a few months back.

My hearing, Stephen, get so excited about saying a no man.

We snort, laugh out loud and get lots of confused looks. Stephen, thank you for that, especially at a time when I needed it. And hashtag fucking hurray for the lump being basically nothing and a prayer hands and a lady dancing emoji. Yay! Congratulations. Congratulations. Get your boobies checked. Yep. It's important. OK, this one is from P, K, L, Z, RCL Pickles DeMarco. If I had to guess I would say Pickle's DeMarco.

That's my new fucking baby's name. Sure.

This is a tiny hashtag. Fucking Habré today is that my six year old niece has a classmate named Janet. A kindergartner named Janet is so precious and funny to me.

Oh my God, baby Janet a little baby. Janet in kindergarten by one of my best friends is pregnant and I offered her a hundred dollars to name her baby Deborah. She turned me down. Yeah. Nice one, guys.

Isn't this this week's good.

You're fucking her is. I think that we all need them right now and I feel like every win these days is like bigger that it feels bigger than before because they're so hard to come by. Ah they were so hard to come by the last four years. We're all getting better. Sigh of relief and are able to sell it to celebrate our wins. So you know, we, I was actually just talking to my therapist about this, that sometimes it's like there's this sigh of relief, but then it's almost like as the shock wears off, you can actually start feeling your wounds again.

So there might be give yourself time because there might be like in your relief, there's a relief feeling that also then it's like, oh, why isn't my life perfect again? Or Why isn't everything feel great? And and you have to just be just remember to be kind with to yourself and stay present because, you know, it is people more and more people are getting that vaccine more and more. Yeah. You know, we're looking to we're looking toward an ending of this instead of being stuck in the middle of it with, like, no ride home, which is such a stressful feeling for so long like that.

We can tell ourselves the truth, which is that that's not the case anymore.

And I even though we're way at the beginning of the end, it's still the beginning of the end, which is nice.

My therapist knows I love analogies. It's like how my brain works. So she told me that, like, for example, like not drinking and suddenly being able to feel feelings and how much I fucking hate that. But she was like, imagine the back seat of your collar is filled with trash that you've just been throwing back there and throwing back there and not dealing with and not dealing with, you know, look at it at all. But when you suddenly stop your car at a stop sign out of nowhere, all that trash is going to come piling forward into the front seat and burying you.

And you're going to feel like it's forever. But you just have to sift through that trash and take it out of your car and clean out your car and it slowly goes away. So, yeah, I thought that was a really great analogy in that that's a great analogy. And you remember, actually, the reality of it is their feelings and thoughts. So they're not real. It's not even actually trash. It's just stuff that your brain serves up to defend you and keep you safe.

Yeah, but that actually you you are in charge of and you can choose, you know, how dire you make it, how big you make it.

All of it is your choice.

That's very true. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Gosh. Thanks you guys. You were so lucky to be able to talk to you every week and you can talk back at us and we appreciate that. It's nice. It's a nice it's a nice hang. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you know, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Go by. Elvis, do you want a cookie? I.