Everybody settle down, settle down. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, that's Georgiade Stark, that's Karen Kilgariff. We're here to tell you a couple things. Yeah, for example, get out of your hair. Just get to jump in real quick.

And then then the two hour and 15 minute podcast real quick about a bunch of stuff that may or may not be accurate, but it comes from her hair. And then I'll just jump right back out of the house. Right.

We won't we're not here to bug you. How's your hair doing here in the month 14 of covid?

Well, actually, just use the product by one of our sponsors. And I'm not going to say which one, because it's going to sound like I'm fucking doing an ad.

But is it? Also good. This is terrible. We can't, we can't, we can't. Stephen, bleep all of this out. We just want to manipulate the vinegar one. No, it's like the conditioner conditioner. So it's doing better. But, yeah, it's the heat. I feel like I've been having the heat on in the house lately because I run fucking freezing. Turns out sure it's freezing here.

It's so cold here in L.A. when it drops down to seventy one, I cannot take it literally. People are shoveling eight feet of snow in their driveway, not on us.

I mean, I moved to L.A. everyone else. We did not cause this global warming that we might have added. We didn't we definitely didn't take away any global warming. Look, we can't say we didn't use a fuck ton of action at all throughout the late 80s, early 90s. Oh, I and I had the acne on my forehead, the little white heads on my forehead to prove it. Remember those hairspray. Bring your bangs up. But of course, you get your forehead at the same time.

Oh yeah. I actually I had to look senior year, which is eighty eight, not complimentary to my face or anything, but it was like I thought it was being modern or something. So it was, it was like I had like a long Bob and then I wore it up in a clip and, and I hair sprayed everything up and back. So it was like my bangs were going up and back. I did that. And I think in the late 90s that came back because I was like, do we have to let's find photos and put those on the Instagram?

Because, you know, people think, let's draw a little picture, let's take a stock photo of that kind of hairstyle so everyone knows what we're talking about and then put our faces over yours, do yours, and then someone could Photoshop it was there your hair, because it's I meant it. And that's what hurts me so bad. When I look back, I was like, God, I thought this was such a good idea. All of it.

I thought it was the height of fashion. You know, what I did is like the chunky belt on for no reason around. Like my like that. Like the white belt. In the early 2000s, I was just like a belt sitting on my waist or my hips. Sure, it wasn't holding anything up, in fact is probably tugging my skirt down a little bit.

We're left probably well in the mid eighties that look you would do over a cable knit sweater, which defied logic. And always it was like in the eighties we were bulking up in every possible way because just like shoulder pads, shoulder pads, huge cable knit sweaters that, like, went over your butt right above your knees, then you'd belt it with a gigantic, oversized belt. It was the strangest.

Like, yeah, I think we were all like like they were crop dusting. The government was crop dusting at the time and just kind of fucking with her brain putting these ideas into her head. Yeah. They're like, we're going to give you some really good throwback Thursday fodder. That was our whole point, is that they were like, this is spree is not a real company. We're just trying to humiliate you in the future. Chunky socks don't make your cowboys actually look good.

And three layers of different chunky socks, especially chunky socks over white stirrup pants. I ever did that. I mean, unless you were an equestrian stirrup pants didn't fucking look good on you. And they like high too. So they would have just would have just shaved right off if you tried to ride a horse with them. Yeah. They weren't it. You were just sitting in homeroom. There's no reason to be wearing stirrup pants at all. Is there ever any reason to be wearing stirrup pants unless you were on top of a horse, unless you read Sassy magazine so many times, you just felt compelled.

So unfair. What a horrible time, isn't it? Keep going. Is it going? I thought you were going to say what's cooking? So it's cooking. Good looking.

Yeah, I think I'm in the book like a little while ago I read on, you know, social media or whatever.

There's a bunch of people talking about I think I've hit a wall. And I was like, shut up. Truly, the last couple of days, I was just like, I don't know how much longer I can do it. There it is. Yeah. What season of quarantine are you in right now?

And you're the season of the Witch for sure. It's like I'm doing a lot of weird psychedelic dancing and staring at the ceiling. You got into the snow like crystals. And Pring is they're going to be a full moon. I don't know.

I talked about this on on our new the new addition to the Exactly Right media podcast Corral Lady to lady. I've become strangely obsessed with my horoscope in a way that is that I don't understand and I'm the one doing it. It's really weird. I get up in the middle of night and check it. It teaching you anything about yourself for like opening, opening. The good thing is there's so many good horoscope people. I'm not sure what the actual term is kind of like, I guess, account readers and accounts on Twitter.

Yeah, if you get into horoscope Twitter, there are some brilliant people really cool, like giving good advice, just good overall things where it's like, well, right now we're in this aquaria season. So it's everything's a little weird and you need don't worry, things you say.

Yeah, I really like the hilarious mean, hilariously mean ones that are like this and nobody likes you. You should see Scope's thing. Sarro Scope's on Twitter is hilarious. I'm I'm sure I'm not I'll never seek my horoscope out. But if I see a horoscope thing somewhere, I'll definitely read it. It's I think it's fun.

Just really quick. The funny thing to me is that the avatar for horoscopes is and the biologist says things are terrible. And the avatar is Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, spinning on but on the Mountain Love. So really funny. Jemini, we connected the stars in your chart and it looks remarkably like a middle finger. And mine is Taurus. The stars have swipe left on your left.

Oh, my God.

Very true. Sorrow's scope's, you fucking asshole. I love a map to come up with those daily. That's like impressive. Whoever's doing this. Bravo, they're enjoying it. I bet they're getting a lot of rage out. Yeah. Which I write. I did recently I, I was in the car alone for the first time in like a year and I started just yelling and I told my therapist, like, I got really angry and I had rage yesterday.

I'm like, I'm worried about it. And she's like, no, that's good, Georgia. It's good. And I was like, oh, shit. You're supposed to feel things like rage. I've been crying like crazy lately.

Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Get it out. It's I get it out. Effexor is great when you just need a block, you're just too emotional and you just need a break. And I got off of it and so now it's like, OK, I'm ready to, I'm doing therapy twice a week. I'm ready to deal with the emotions. Good. But I'm so used to being like, why should I get my meds? This isn't normal.

Like I feel too many things, feeling things like that. I'm kind of depressed. That's not good. And it's like, no, that can be unless you're in bed all day, you know, from your depression, this can be good.

Also, it's you can get into the practice. And this is I am absolutely saying this is a person who has to, first of all, go to therapy three times a week. And my therapist has to remind me of this every single time and has for 14 years. Yeah, but it's that we don't have to, quote unquote control our feelings. They're going to be there no matter what you do. There's no getting away from anything that you put pharmaceuticals over them.

They're still they're still there and they're festering, which is where they're accumulating. They're they're just going to wait in the backseat of the car full of trash. It's just going to fill up. So you might as well and you can get the practice of this. What's happening to me right now happens every single person and the practices let them come through, observe, allow and don't make any decisions about yourself or what you should be.

Don't know, no sudden moves as those feelings come and go, if possible. It's not always possible.

And then and and then later on decide what those feelings were.

A little indicator like where were you in that moment really like what it sounds like criticizing.

I feel so jealous. Well, then I must be jealous. And that means I must love that person and hate that person. Yeah, no, no. Jealousy is like it's just going like, oh, you must feel a lack of something. Right. On the merits of your life. Back on you really. Oh it's all mirror work. It's all my work. We're in a fucking funhouse of mirrors and stuck inside. Yeah. It's like I hate the feelings.

Just keep coming. I hate emails. I hate a maze. A maze. I love being amazed.

But being in a maze, even a corn maze, they're corn corn maze. No that sounds like claustrophobia said to me I can't even go in fucking dressing rooms. So I feel like a corn maze.

You know, that dressing room made. Of course, if you made me change in that fucking corn maze, I would lose my shit. No, I wear, like, um, take off your dress really quick. I wear clothes so that I can go to, like, a weird corner of a store with the weird bear that no one's around. And just like I'm not flashing anyone, I'm just I just can't go in a fucking dressing room.

They stress me out. Huh. Too small. Is that the situation? I think I have a little claustrophobia. Uh. I'm special. You know, I love this, I have claustrophobia. Oh, that reminds me, speaking of not being special, but in a really good way, I listen to I know I mentioned this podcast a lot, but it's because it's like changed my life is the cure for chronic pain, which you don't have to have chronic pain, but it helps.

That's the that's the motto of chronic pain. But chronic at the point is, is a chronic pain is just you holding trauma and like how we say like but we're just talking about is healing instead of having rage. And if you don't let that rage out, if you don't let that sorrow out, if you don't let that trauma out, it's going to turn into back pain. It's going to I'm not explaining this well, but no, no, I think it's quite clear.

So the issue is in the tissues, as they say there was.

It's a thing that's for people with chronic like who have chronic pain is that you're keeping your issues in your body. You've got to make I think that's a bumper sticker. OK, this is this is episode 112 of the cure for Chronic Pain. And this is listener called in and was like wrote in and was like, here's my situation and and who's the woman who's the host who's now become my friend.

Nicole Sacks is it's an incredible episode of How How to Heal Trauma. And this woman had like fibromyalgia and she cured her pain and then suddenly was left with the actual emotions from her traumatic childhood. And essentially what it is, is like you're not special, you know, like you're not. And you feel alone in your trauma. You're not. And that's what like Alan on his for which I plan on going to and I don't know, it's just a really great episode.

One twelfth. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is very true. And it's also I think a lot of people really go way the fuck out of the way to not feel pain that they're afraid to feel. And that was I think we've talked about that before. My therapist was saying it already happened and actually already survived. You survived the hard part. It's your mind telling. You know, time has passed. You haven't grown.

You're not an adult. You can't handle it. You still date, you're still in danger. And you're and you're and you have to truly sit there with yourself, allow those feelings and go, is is my life being threatened? No. Am I can I take care of myself? Yes. Have I got myself here? Yes. Like I let it come on through. How long have you ever cried? Three days.

It's no big deal. It's just really great. I thought you were to say three minutes and I was like, yes, that's that's the longest time I've ever. You know, you do a long weekend of weeping.

It's almost though like and this is going to sound sappy, like Elvis has given me another gift and I've been crying over missing him and what he meant to me a lot. But it's like a healing cry, you know, and that's it. And then I get a hug, a puppy, a cookie puppy while it's happening. So it's just yeah. It's like as much as it hurts and it's hard, it's like another gift.

Well, also, that's just real life. Like you're in the game here when you're doing stuff like that and actually feeling it. It's like I remember you saying when I very first met you, if Elvis dies, I'm going to die. Yes. And then I was just like, shit, I already started this podcast with her. That was I did extreme. Really? Yeah, I know.

No, no, I'm making fun of you. But no, no, no. I knew. I knew. I knew. What you were trying to tell me was this is like because because it was when he was starting to go to the event all the time is thing that I know that you were like pre stressing. Yes. And that's what we do to ourselves. I do it too. We all do it where you you look at the thing and you go, I can't lose this.

I if I, if I lose this abcde any and F will happen to me. Yeah. Which is you telling yourself scary stories because you think it's going to help you control the world. Right.

And it doesn't. And I did you know, my old therapist who ended up actually taking her life. So that was like what she told me which I don't think she maybe under herself didn't understand was you've survived all these other things since then. Why? Because you have tenacity. And by and when you actually get there, you're you just deal with it and you're able to deal with it. And I think it was a thing of like, well, what I told Elvis is I need six years.

So back then at eleven years, I couldn't have handled it, you know, is too soon. Sixteen years is a gift for a cat's life or an animal's life. And so I got through it. Yeah.

You and you, he gave you enough time and then you kind of got to talk to my therapist about this morning is it's like when you have a thing that means a lot to you that you can tell you have to let go of you. You. An idea of a thing, an idea of a person that you kind of have to let go of, that it served you the idea of this person served you for a little while, but you realizing holding on to it as this thing, it actually isn't is not serving you.

Yeah. So I'm allowing the other thing to have its own to be its own being and to be what it is going to be. And you have no control. And that's big and scary. Well, my point is that basically on your side of things, letting go of that, you don't just let go of it and like, drop it and whatever I said, it's kind of like it feels to me like that thing in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where you have to replace the idol with the bag of sand.

You have to, like, basically ease off this thing slowly and then have something else better than a bag of sand to replace it with so that that, you know, so that little pedestal doesn't drop in to the ground and release the giant boulder. So you kind of like you maybe to go go easy on yourself because you needed that thing for a reason. You projected onto that thing for a reason, whatever your situation. Yeah. You have to give yourself kind of like the love to go, OK, you just need something that's fine.

Get figure something else out. Well, I think that's something for me now is just gratitude, which I think is a. Good place, I'm not good at it, but I'm striving to make the gratitude, you know, like very good constantly, that it's gratitude, that it's gratitude, it's like and there's a reason that you're going through the shit you're going. No, there's not. There's no reason. It's all fucking crazy. You know, this world is has no point and no meaning.

So the best thing you can do is like is take care of yourself. And gratitude is a really great way to do that. You know, and there's no meaning, you're focusing on gratitude. There's plenty of meaning because the meaning is what you give it. It doesn't have to be some kind of like God's over here handing you a bunch of like a cornucopia of fruit. Right. It's just random shit that you can give meaning to by going.

I appreciate that this random set of circumstances happened to me. Like, it's just a hard thing to get to.

And and there's a lot of grief to dig out. Dig yourself out. I'm not talking about myself with a cat, talking about people who lose children and people who go through monumental trauma and and don't see an end to it, you know? Well, sure, sure. That's but that I think that's like that's why I'm saying monumental trauma is it is like the price of admission. That's what we're here for. Never going to escape it. Yeah.

And it's and contextually, yes, there are people who have lost that we can't believe. That's what this podcast is about, telling stories of loss that you can't believe. But contextually, we experienced similar things in in smaller ways, but to us in similar ways. Yes. So it is the kind of thing where you can't you know, you can't get into a habit of comparing trauma. Right, because there's because the context means it's all big to the person it's happening to if there's nothing bigger happening.

Yeah. You know, you can't don't dismiss your experiences by going, oh, but this there's this other thing and it's way worse, right? It's like, hey, it's bad for everybody. It's bad for everybody. And lots of in ways it really seems clappy. It really is.

Hey, man, let me cap. That was something nice. I wish you would. OK, so here's something nice. Little little cap this off just for talking about gratitude, talking about whatever, because I think we don't get. I forget this part of things of what we're doing. So this was a this was a piece of mail that got dropped off along along with a bunch of other mail because we don't pick up our mail very an office anymore here in quarantine.

We're all on our little weird islands. So I open this box and there was a card. There's beautiful things in it. And there's two of everything. So you've got some cool shit coming your way. I love it. I love presents. All right. And I open this card and it says Karen in Georgia, I want to thank you for literally changing my life after your shout out of this is actually happening in August. My audience quadrupled overnight after eight years producing this little show by myself, the miners with a microphone, a walk in closet and a vision.

You've allowed me to do the impossible. Quit my job. You come, I do it, become a wonder original and devote myself full time to my true passion. Fulfilling a decade long dream I never thought would come true at a time when everything was in flux. You can't imagine how much this has meant to me. Here is a very small token of my appreciation for your generous words and your pioneering talent with overwhelming gratitude. Thank you, Whit.

That's the most whistled I. Most of this is actually happening on the set of the podcast. Some very fancy drinking chocolates and fancy biscuit things. It's like a little or may box and then some real cute. This is actually happening. Sticker's love it, love. So I don't I hope you're not offended that I just read that out loud, but it really I opened it last night and then just laid on the bed staring at it because it made me so happy I that it was so, so nice.

Well his being offended about you reading it well then equal and cancel out our offense that it's not on exactly right.

And instead of wondering. But that's OK. But hey, one beer is a great place and we get it. Yes. Yes they are.

But it's a lovely I love. Right. It's so weird because since we're not touring I feel like that was I didn't realize that that was our access to the audience and to the listeners and not just the live shows, but afterwards at the meet and greet or we meet one hundred fucking incredible people that we get to have interactions with. And remember that we're talking to someone other than each other. Yeah. You know, and so I kind of miss out.

I think we miss out on that a lot. But but it's there and we have to you know, there has to be a point to all of this because it's very it's it's a lot there. So you man there and just a bit more.

It's more than just getting on the iTunes top twenty. It's got there's got to be something else or. Hey, listen, as we all know, that's completely manipulable, manipulable. It's it that's that's an algorithm you can fuck with if you so choose to and if you so choose to and want to review and subscribe to all your favorite. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh well if you do need something to take you out of your trauma and just like distract you.

Benson, I have been like going back to the terrible like early two thousand not politically correct anymore movies. Legally Blonde holds the fuck up does it really. I don't know if I've ever watched Karen either.

And I was like doing something else. First thing else, he's like, no, let's watch this. And then we started watching. We want to doesn't hold up. But, um, and then also MacGruber, which I had never seen. Oh yeah. Which is just it's so Leslie Nielsen style ridiculousness. I saw that.

Definitely saw it in the theater. I may have gone to and like a premiere part. Breg this is a bragging corner, red carpet.

Carol Heron on the role of my best friend MacGruber. It's really it's really stupid fun.

Funny, you know. Yes. And there's truly no better person, like no cooler man and no funnier person than Will Forte. I mean, he genuinely he's a good fucking he's the best. He's genuinely nice and genuinely cool. And the kind of person that. Yeah, he's just he's a he's a true he's a true gentleman and talent we love. He's funnier than that. What about the I think you should leave sketch where he's the old man on the airplane.

Did you see that.

No. Oh. Oh no, no, no. Have you watched Tim Robinson sketch show? I think you should leave another whole thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love Tim Robbins. I need to rub it off the mike right now. Tim Robinson from Detroiters, which is one of the best shows on the planet. Yeah. And yes, please. Can I watch that sketch like this, I want more done in the funniest sketches ever, OK?

Watch it. I have a little crush on Sam Richardson. Do you know that from Detroiters? Oh, yeah. He is a beautiful man. I saw him sorry, another brag, but I saw him in like twenty twelve I think. But wow. That second city. Wow. In a show or he was so fucking good like he was such a standout in this show and everyone in the group was really good and he 12. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Long ago Katie Rich was in it to who was it. A very talented writer and a cool lady. There's a bunch and apparently Tim Robinson was also in that group that but he just wasn't there that night. But yeah. Well here is he's a I saw him. We were at I was at a dance. It was the trilogy dance night of like the Cure. And like all these like that timey, you know, music. Yeah.

But like is it the current two years ago? That's because that's recent. Because the last year doesn't count at a dance night. And I was there with Emily and Kumail, who are Bragi, who are friends with him. And he walked up and I went and everyone was like, Oh, Sam's here.

And I went, Yeah, like we are friends.

And then I was like, Oh, fuck, he doesn't know who I am. Turned away. And I was so embarrassed, so embarrassed by his reaction, he must have laughed.

I don't even think he acknowledged me to be like you. We were like, oh, he's you know, you don't know him.

You don't know him. You don't know that should shut up. And it's I think it's cool to fan out on people right now. Yeah, that's pretty rare.

It is it. I feel it out of it. OK, I was going to tell you about I just started this podcast. It's called Evil By Design. It's yet another hit from the CBC. They don't give a fuck. They just keep making love it. And this was recommended to me by none other than Letterkenny. Jacob Tierney, who has very good taste and has become my very best quarantine friend. And I take his ideas and talk about them all the time on this podcast and never give credit.

And I know he listens. So I'm finally giving him credit. But any great show, Letterkenny, everyone's favorite show, it's season nine. I believe there is. Yeah, just there. They're legendary Canadian comedy people. But this podcast, Evil by Design, is about this designer named I believe it's Peter Nygaard. And this fucking guy is like the Canadian version of Jeffrey Epstein times a thousand. Oh, that's like way more victims.

It's super crazy. And I think I'm on episode two right now. It's a super mind blowing story and really awful. Murder by nine.

Evil by design. Evil by design. Yeah. All right. I'm into that because. Yeah, I mean, I'm not into it. It's horrible, but I've never heard of him. That sounds cool. Yeah. Did you. So there's euphoria is on a break. It seems like that incredible show on HBO, but they had to a two part special and one is just about RU and then the other is just about Jules and I think I haven't watched that one yet.

She's in therapy just one on one and then the one with RU with Zendaya. So it's her with her like a sponsor, Colman Domingo, who's this incredible actor and deserves a fucking Emmy for this. Both of them. It's one of the best hours of TV and it's so powerful. I had to stop because they're talking about addiction and depression and feeling worthless in that. And if you have those issues, I say you should watch it. If you have if you have those issues and family members who don't get it, which is such a normal thing, which perpetuates this cycle because you feel worthless.

So you might as well keep using. Yeah, it is so powerful and the and it's so incredible. And it touched me in such an incredible way before the special episode one. And I'm so excited. I mean, I needed a break before episode two. If it's if it's just as fucking powerful, which I'm sure it is, because Hunter is such an incredible performer. So like it's just it's just so it's so heavy. And then that whole I mean, they put together an ensemble that can't be totally I mean, it feels like it's supposed to be a teenager show, but it's fucking not.

It's I watched it because I just wanted to hang out with some teenagers and and here I am in the midst of very adult problems and situations. This ain't no fucking saved by the bell. I don't know what's the equivalent. These days, I think you nailed it. I do love the make up, though, I really like that kind of show that gives you an it's like, what do you want? An unbelievable, powerful and heart wrenching storyline.

OK, here, do you want really good visuals, like just everybody being a little bit perfectly beautiful in their own flawed way, but that also helps the narrative of the characters because you're like, oh, this is the kind of person you are against. Which makeup, which everyone knows makeup can do is very true.

Yeah. What what do you got? That's all I got. I'm listening to the audiobook for American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which I've listened to before. And I just it's such a nice traction. It's like a fairy tale. It's like a dark fairy tale almost. I highly recommend it. Yeah. I am actually reading a book that a friend of the show, Dave Anthony's wife Heather, gave me, and she's also a listener and friend of the show.

And there is a psychologist who is and she. Yes, she is. So that's how she's married to Dave Anthony. I'm totally joking. She gave me this beautiful set of books as a as a housewarming gift. That was I think you probably have seen them at my house there from the 50s. And it's murders from Los Angeles, murders from Chicago, murders. Remember that? Did you ever see them in there, like to type in a a book?

No, no, no. But it's almost like the 1952 version of that for almost like a true crime story. So they have the almost like the Ribe library plastic wrap on the outside. I love that plastic.

I kind of I didn't have a book around and I needed like an actual book to fall asleep with, like, I can't do audio books. Then I have a very strange dream. So I pulled this book off the shelf. I was like, why am I not actually reading these books using them as like decoration? I have a few hundred of those. Yeah. So I pulled down the Los Angeles one and it's so good. It's just true crime stories from I think it's like the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s in Los Angeles.

And it got I was three chapters in and now it's on.

Charles Desmond, the director shot by. I did that for a live show in L.A., right? Yes. And it's Norma Desmond was at his house. And I remember the whole thing was it was named Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, was named after these characters. So it's something, Desmond. Something.

Well, William Desmond Taylor. Yeah. Thank you. Shot Desmond Taylor is his professional name, but that's not his actual real name. Did you know any of this part?

Probably back then. But I forgot. Now what this he basically had a mysterious life before he became a director in Hollywood in the 20s that no one knew about. Why that came to light when this thing came. It was it's just the kind of thing where. So the person who put the story together, it's just basically all the news stories. So it's almost like any theory, any whatever people said, it's on like gossip. Here's a here's a thing that came out and people got into and then it just disappeared, blah, blah, blah, that his brother was actually his his dad butler.

So, you know, the stories are like his sister was actually a mom and and she got pregnant at a young age. And so she was staying secret. Yeah. This has I'm only like a little bit into it. But anyway, it's just kind of a real good and I don't think anyone can buy this book because it seems like a fucking great read. Yeah, it's one of the worst recommendations I've ever done. Thanks, Heather. Thank you for the lovely gift.

Oh, I love it. I love it.

I think that's all I. Oh, my new my new meditation is just videos of people up close painting their nails the most. And some are relaxing opihi on Instagram. The lovely nail polish company has really got to get free stuff. I fucking literally I'm trying to get free shit from opihi. They have these like close up nail polish polishing perfect in the lines. And it's just it's just so relaxing also. How do they do it?

Because every time I go to paint my own nail, you look like a fucking ten year old child for real. It's sad, except for like my only true I mean, everyone everybody. But my old trick when we would do live shows is I would just do silver because you can get away with silver everywhere. No one can really tell and it looks a little bit fancy. But like if you actually see up close, just like I'm just basically painting the tops of.

I think I actually I I hate to brag. I'm really good at it because it is one of my, like, anti stress things and then I peel it off and that's my other anti stress thing is peeling nail polish. It's like my zip popping video now. But doesn't that mess up your nails. And didn't do so much stress messes up my brain. And so it's a big one. OK, yes. Those are your only two choices that you have to admit that OK, and I have nothing else or solving problems for everybody on this show.

And then we'll get out of your hair and then we're going to get out of your hair. Speaking of hair and getting out of it, should we do exactly right now?

I thought you were going to do another plug. Yes, we should absolutely do. Guys, just here's the thing. If you want to know what's going on, the network, it's getting to the point now where you have so many podcasts that we would really love it if you'd go on to exactly right, Dotcom, because there is where you will find most of the information. I think it's right. Media, dotcoms, state media. Steve, Steven, have you ever gone on our website before?

Page, actually. Oh, is it pretty? It's beautiful. Rainbow colors. It's on its own page.

Stebenne. Yeah, exactly right. Media that exactly right. Media. Yes. And so we and then also like on iTunes there's like a you can click on on networks. And so if you go to exactly right. The network, it shows, you know, how to work things. You're you're probably in your twenties.

I the one that doesn't. But anyway, what we're saying is this part we want we want to make it fresh and funny, but also just basically it's like reading the TV guide. Let's write did it right. That's not the TV Guide. Well, on this podcast, We'll Kill You, the fucking hit podcast, Aaron and Aaron cover. I think this is fascinating. The ins and outs of organ transplantation, which as has a donor as a potential donor one day, do you have the donor?

Did you mark that? You mark that on your did take whatever you need. Why do I fucking care?

I think that's just a fascinating topic. How does it work?

And then when you hear the stories of people like did you see the photo of the mom and dad listening to the heart of the person who got their son's heart when he passed away, and they're crying and he just like, let them take a stethoscope and listen to their son's heart and his chest.

Sorry, did this just happen to you? It just touched me. I saw the video like or like a photo of it. We should put it on the Instagram. It's so beautiful. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. You you look you look well, I just don't. We're talking about this podcast, but you're just talking about a thing you remembered of that happening, huh?

OK. I thought basically you listen to the podcast and then on it they mention this thing. You know, it just I was confused. No, I was I was too clearly. But this podcast will kill you. Excellent podcast also because it's Black History Month million. Danielle and I saw what you did are covering black directors, actors, other artists in the film industry. So this week they're doing the films to sleep with anger from Nineteen Ninety and Penitentiary, which is from nineteen seventy nine.

I saw you did has a five star rating on like you guys really know how to subscribe pretty now and then in the merch store on my favorite murder, dotcom fucking dentin and the merch team turned this shit around from last week and made unwashed and unabashed presale merch.

So it's a really cool design. It's perfect for quarantine their t shirts, long sleeved shirts, hoodies, and they're available for presale.

So fucking let the world know. Ain't no there's no shame. Let the other people in your house know it's right. You're in quarantine. Yeah, baby. All right. Should we get into this thing? Absolutely. Let's do it. OK, so it was on February 1st, at the beginning of Black History Month, I was, of course, on Twitter and I stumbled on this thread that was actually really pretty fascinating. It was started by a woman whose Twitter handle is at teaspoon underscore spoon spooning with an I.V. and her name's Teyana Slash Crip Gossip Girl.

And she wrote, When you all and inevitably talk about Harriet Tubman this month, let's not leave out the fact that she was disabled and then goes on to explain how Harriet Tubman had epilepsy, possibly narcolepsy. So when she was moving people along the Underground Railroad, there were times where she would actually say, and if I like if I basically have one of my spells go on without me. Wow. And this was the thing she had to deal with basically all her life.

And so as I got into this into this thread and basically let me read the rest of these posts that this woman wrote, this is pretty fascinating. She wrote. And if anyone questions you about it, ask them what they think. Having regular seizures as a result of head trauma that caused you to lose consciousness for any amount of time with no warning is. And then she wrote and also, please don't do that weird inspiration thing y'all do with disabled people.

She was amazing because of her achievements, not because she achieved it, quote unquote, in spite being disabled. So basically, it's opens this discussion, which is really cool, because then it's a combination of people going, I had no idea how come we never get taught anything like this? What's wrong with the American school system? And then there's a bunch of other people who know about it and are adding to it. And so apparently from learning from this thread, which is pretty amazing, she was hit in the head with with it like a weight, some kind of a measuring weight by a slave owner who was trying to throw this weight at an escaping boy who who was being slave traded.

And she basically was trying to get in the middle so he could get away. And she got hit in the head with this weight. And then she basically it was like brain trauma. And so for the rest of her life, she had seizures or and or narcolepsy, but she would describe them as spells and she interpreted what she would see and the things that would happen while she was out unconscious as messages from God. Wow. So it actually there's no in spite of her disability, because it actually was, you know, the thing that kind of inspired her and guided her while she was doing all of this amazing work, then people start talking about all this other stuff that she did and how she was in general.

She's made a general and she won this battle like when the only women to win a battle. And it was just it's a really cool thread of a bunch of people who were the people who have the information are thrilled to share it. And then there's a bunch of other people going, how come Twitter is the one place I learned, you know, black history the most? I mean, whatever. So in the middle of this thread, someone whose Twitter handle is at Kapone, so c0 underscore Poni wrote and it was hashtag noka twenty twenty one they wrote, I learned about this guy today, epik beyond hero or injuries and still helped save France from the Nazis.

And then she posted this a picture and like this little thing that was basically a post from Instagram. And so I looked at it and it was someone I have never seen before and never heard the name of before. So I figured it would be a good time to tell you about a man named Eugene Boulard, the world's first black fighter pilot, Karen back killing it. It was I mean, look, some good things happen on social media. We have to remember.

And it still is. It's pretty mind blowing that to I'm a 50 year old woman and still learning about things like this. So it's kind of exciting. And I appreciate all those people that participated in this insane epic thread that goes on and on. I mean, there's there's a bunch of suggestions in here to of other people were just like, oh, all right, this one. And to love it. So here's some of the sources is a book called Al Blood Runs Red The Legendary Life of Eugene Ballade Boxer, Pilot Soldiers.

Bye bye, Phil Keith and Tom Clavon Clavon, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum website, which is a legit dot edu website called The Bitter Southerner. There was an article on that called The Vanishing Stories of the Blood Brothers by and a journalist named Jeremy Redman. The PBS series American Experience has an article on the PBS website called The Two Lies of Eugene Boulard and of course, the Wikipedia. And there is an article in the SAG Harbor Express.

Journalist named Annette Hinkel called me the amazing Eugene Boulard, great. All right. So what's interesting is that if you took one of the elevators at Rockefeller Center at any point between nineteen fifty four and nineteen fifty nine, there was a chance that you could be standing next to a great American hero. But it was a secret. Nobody knew about it until December of nineteen fifty nine when the producers at the Today Show that still had its original hosts learned that just two months prior on October 9th.

Nineteen fifty nine, a local man named Eugene Boulard had just been named a Chevalier de la Legend. The On Air, which is France's highest award for military service. So are you saying he was he was the elevator operator? Yes, I am. Wow. Yes, I am.

But so so the producers of the Today show realize that not only does this man live in New York, but he's the elevator operator in the very building where the Today Show is filmed. Sorry I spoiled that, but it's OK. That's all right. That's what everyone else is doing, too. So it's fine. So they go to Eugene Boulard and they ask him to be a guest on the Today Show. So on December twenty second nineteen fifty nine, Eugene Boulard takes the stage wearing his elevator operator uniform, which I'm going to send you.

I'm going to post this picture. Look, look at the picture because there's a beautiful black and white photo of him and the original host of the Today show. Let me look it up. So he so you see, he wears his uniform on stage and he brings his military medals and all his military awards that he's ever won in a display case. And he sits down and begins to tell the host all about his life. And America finally meets a hero that no one's ever heard of before, because it turns out that this man, not he not only fought in not one, but two world wars, but he is the world's first black fighter pilot.

And this is almost 20 years after World War Two ended. And so he's been. Oh, yeah. Under the radar this whole time entirely. And this piece of his life that's so incredible is truly a drop in the bucket to what I'm about to tell you. OK, so let me tell you all about the life of Eugene Boulard. So his father, William Ballade, is born into slavery in Columbus, Georgia, in 1863. But two years later, the abolition of slavery happens in 1865.

And so he becomes a free man, a free baby. And in 1882, at age 19, William marries Josephine Jokily Thomas, who's a 17 year old indigenous woman who is from the Creek tribe who lives nearby. Together, they have 10 children. And Eugene is the seventh child. He's the seventh son. So his father always thought that he was lucky, he was lucky and special. And this family is very poor. And the conditions at home make it hard to care for 10 kids.

Three of the children don't make it past infancy. But William is a very strong man. He's a very, very determined worker. He's six foot five, weighs about 250 pounds, takes any job that anyone will hire him for. And he starts working at the local docks and in the warehouses along the river. And he gets the nickname Big Ox for, of course, his stature, but also for his work ethic. Then the Niños William gets steady work under a white cotton broker named William S.

Bradley and Bradley actually treats William well by 1890 standards, which causes the rest of the white workers to be very angry and to and to resent William because he's favored and he makes the same wages that white workers make. And so that makes these white men nineteen ninety.

That's like progressive for those standards.

Yeah, it is. In 1981, young Eugene starts school at Columbus. Twenty Eighth Street School. Much like the rest of the community, this school suffers from a lack of money and supplies. Eugene spends five years there. He learns to read and write and do math. But he eventually he gets the equivalent of a second grade education. The year after he starts school in August of nineteen two, his mother dies suddenly at just thirty seven years old, right before Eugene's seventh birthday.

So the older ballade children have to take on the household chores. They have to watch the younger kids and they all have to get jobs so they can help support support the family. When he's young, Eugene describes himself as as trusting as a chickadee and friendly and he, quote, loved everybody and thought. Everybody loved me. He plays with kids of all races in his neighborhood, but as they grow up, get older, he starts to realize not everyone is actually a friend.

And soon the white kids stop playing with him and his father and his siblings have to teach him about the racial divides and injustices in this country. So because Eugene's father, Williams background, his people are actually from Martinique. So they have you know, they have a lot of exposure to French culture. And his father has a utopian view of France. Even though he's never visited the country, he gives his kids the impression that in France, all people are treated equally regardless of their race.

And Eugene, who craves equality and that that idea of that very fair and just utopia, he longs to travel to France. So around this time, there's a man at Eugene's father, William's work, named Billy Stevens, and he is the one that hates William the most. He gives them the worst and hardest tax tasks, hoping to break him. But William's spirit cannot be broken. He happily does his job. He carries a stock wisdom home to his kids.

He says, if I have to hit Stevens, I want you all to be good. Children always show respect to each and every one white and black and make them respect. You go to school as long as you can never look for a fight. I mean, never. But if you are attacked or your honor is attacked unjustly, you fight and you fight and you keep fighting even if you die for your rights because it will be a glorious death.

So Williams good attitude in the face of mistreatment just makes Billy Stevens even angrier. So on one day in 1984, Stevens approaches William, accusing him of basically tattling to the to the big boss about Stevens behavior. So William decides he's going to ignore Billy. Billy takes that as disrespect grabs an iron hook that it's used for carrying cotton bales. Any whacks, William, on the side of the head leaving a huge bloody gash. William Bullard stumbles to his feet.

He picks Stevens up over his head and throws them into a cellar. Oh, Stevens lands with such an intense the that the surrounding workers think he's dead, but he's not. He's hurt. And of course, he's very badly embarrassed. So William goes to the the big boss. Bradlee tells them what happens. Bradlee tells William to go home, lay low. He's going to take care of it. And Bradlee has a doctor check on Stevens to make sure he's OK.

But and he tells Stevens that if he doesn't keep quiet about the situation, he'll lose his job. But there were too many witnesses. Word travels fast and soon. An angry, drunken lynch mob gathers at a nearby saloon and heads for the Bullard's home. So, of course, Williams anticipating this mob because this is standard fare in the Jim Crow South. He directs all the kids to hide under their bed while he keeps post behind the front door with a loaded shotgun in his hand.

And this drunken mob surrounds the house. They're screaming, they're banging on the doors. And of course, Eugene is scared to death. Eventually, the family, the lights are off, the family silent. So the mob eventually figures that the bloods have run off and they leave. And this has this moment and this fear and witnessing such a hideous thing, of course, Mark Sujin forever. So he's hell bent now on finding a place where white people treated colored people like human beings.

So he makes several attempts to run away, but his dad catches them every almost every time. But in 1986, at age eleven, he sells his goat and cart for a dollar fifty packs, up some food and a few belongings and hikes his way along the train tracks headed east to this. But before his dad can catch up with him, Eugene meets a kind family. They give him a dollar and that enables him to buy a train ticket to Atlanta.

Eleven, eleven years old, and he finally makes his getaway. So in Atlanta, he finds a number of odd jobs, basically making himself some cash. So he. He he gets a job, he starts hanging around some stables because there's a lot of horse racing in Atlanta and he works there long enough, and then he basically gets moved up to being a jockey because he's little and he can ride a horse. So he becomes a jockey. She's that young, is not awesome, and he's good at it.

He also helps out in a barbershop. He's very charming and smart young man who so strangers like him and they're very kind to him. So basically, on his father's advice, he makes people respect him with his friendly demeanor and his hard work, and that helps him survive. One day in his early teens, he has a chance meeting with a band of English travelers who are outcast wanderers themselves. So they welcomed him into their band with open arms.

And he's hopeful that these Englishmen will take him with them when they go back to England, which would bring them one step closer to getting to France. But then when they tell Eugene that they're planning to stay in America for another couple years, he's disappointed. He parts ways with them, wanders around George a little while longer, working odd jobs. Then a friend tells him if he can get to Virginia, he can get on to a big ship that is that'll be traveling overseas.

So in 1912, he's now 16 years old and he goes away one night in the undercarriage of a dining car on the seaboard, lined passenger and freight train heading to Virginia. So he holds on to the underneath of the dining car, gets himself looking and saying, oh, my God, he's got a vision. That's what's cool. Yeah. So so he gets to Virginia. He finds there's a black family by the name of Hughes, who he meets, who gives him a few bucks, tells them that he can find a ship in the city of Newport News.

So he hops another train, rides underneath the car again, makes his way to Newport News, Virginia. When he gets to the docks, he finds a crew loading goods onto a large ship. And one of the crewmen mistake Eugene for being a worker. So Eugene uses that opportunity, pretends to be a worker, sneaks on board his hides between two bales of cotton for two hours until the ship departs. But three hours later, the ship docks again in another Virginia port.

So he's like, God thinks he's going to get there and then he doesn't. He ends up telling one of the crewmen about that's what he's trying to do and the crewman decides to help him. So he points to Gene in the direction of a ship called the Martyr Russ. And he says that ship's crew is German, but they'll be making other stops on their way and they can use help on board. And sure enough, the crew on the Margiris welcome Eugene's help.

And on March 4th, 1912, Eugene finally set sail for Europe. So. By law, the shipping crew has to drop stowaways off at the next port they reach, which in the murder, Russ's case is Aberdeen, Scotland. But in true Yujin fashion, he spends the two week voyage winning the hearts of the German crew. He's a hard worker and he's a quick learner. And he ends up picking up the German language from his crew mates.

All right. Yeah. So by the time they reach Scotland, members of the cruise ship end send him off with close supplies and the captain pays him twenty five dollars in wages.

Wow. Which is huge. And today's money, a couple of hundred. I didn't look at it. So the Scots receive him. Well, of course they speak English, but their accent is very difficult for you and everyone else on the planet to understand that, especially back then, a bit like the conversion rate of the Scottish accent was just incomprehensible. There was no outside world to kind of expose them to the rules, the light, because most Scottish people had never met a black person before.

They all called him Jack Johnson after the famous. Yeah, yeah. Eugene takes it as a compliment and continues to charm his way from Aberdeen to Glasgow. And there he finds himself a cheap room and he befriends some con men who are running a three card monte game outside on the street, and he gets a job as their lookout. So he whistles whenever the cops come around. And basically he's just making friends. So in August of 1912, after five months of saving up cash, he gets himself to Liverpool because he heard he can make more money there.

He eventually he tries to get some jobs. He eventually gets work unloading large slabs of frozen mutton off of incoming ships, which is really brutal work and really exhausting. But he ends up being able to join the stevedore union, which is stevedores and longshoremen are similar, but one involves a crane.

I think I looked it up and I was just like, sorry, what, what? And that's a disgrace because my grandfather was a longshoreman. So I apologize to longshoreman everywhere. But he was one of the two. I don't know if a crane was involved, but he is for this job. He is in a union, which means he's making good money and also he's just getting stronger and stronger because it's backbreaking labour. During the holiday season of twenty of nineteen twelve, Eugene goes to Birkenhead, where Liverpool's main amusement park is, and he spots a game where players throw a ball at someone who pops their head through different holes in the canvas.

So it's basically human whack a mole facing the people throwing the ball and if the person gets hit three times, the player wins. So Eugene gets an idea knowing how white people are and he basically tells the guy running the game they'll get more business if the person popping their head through the sheet is black. So it's an upsetting suggestion. But of course, it's right. And many more people play the game. It brings in a lot more business for the attraction and Eugene makes bank.

So he basically is taking advantage of the racism and ignorance and making money off of it. He's actually able to quit his job on the on the docks and he makes triple at this game what he made just by working weekends at the amusement park. Wow. So he uses his new free time to explore Liverpool. And his favourite place to go is Baldwin's boxing gym. And he's taken in by the atmosphere, captivated by the boxers who are training for their fights.

He convinces the gym owner, Chris Baldwin, to let him work there during the week and telling him there's no task too small for him to do. He'll do whatever the guy needs him to do by February of nineteen thirteen. Baldwin is so impressed with Eugene's work ethic that he invites him to start training and sparring with the boxers. So Eugene Trains is a lightweight under the name The Sparrow, because even though he's light, he tells Baldwin he can fly like a bird.

So Eugene wins his first 10 round fight and then he catches the eye of an actual pro boxer who's at the at the fight, Aaron Lyster Brown, who's called Dixie Kid. So the Dixie Kid takes Eugene under his wing and has him join his touring company of boxers. So Eugene agrees. And with Baldwin's blessing and also because Baldwin is Eugene's technical manager, which means he gets a cut of Eugene's wages. That means that Eugene gets to the sparrow, gets to follow his team.

To London, he moves into the Holborn neighborhood of London, where many other black expatriates live and work in all facets of the art arts, Eugene's winning personality and ability to perform earns him a spot in Bill Daviss Friedman's Pickaninnies, which is a popular traveling slapstick troupe of black performers. And this, along with the boxing, pays him well and the job enables him to travel all over the globe. Basically, he goes from St. Petersburg to Moscow to Berlin, and finally he gets to go to Paris.

So as he imagined, he instantly falls in love with the city. It's late 1913, and the Dixie Kid arranges a boxing match for Eugene in Paris that enables him to officially move there. He continues boxing in Paris. He moved up a couple of weight classes and he also picks up a side gig working at a local musical. So between the good wages, good friends, fewer run ins with racists, Eugene finds himself living the life he's always dreamed of.

So when one World War One begins in August of 1914, Eugene feels compelled to serve the country that's given him the life he dreamed of living. So on October 19th, 1914, at the age of 19 years old, Eugene enlists in the French Foreign Legion, which is a branch of the French military that non-citizens are permitted to join. He's assigned to the 3rd Marching Regiment and serves as a machine gunner. This regiment is named the Swallows of Death, and this is where he picks up his nickname, The Black Swallow of Death, in 1915.

He fights in some of the worst and bloodiest battles in World War One. He's at the front. At some, he's at our Artois and he's in the second battle of champagne. And there's there's a couple places like that list out. I was I was reading this, but it was so much information. But some of these fights, there was like an 80 percent death rate, like the death rates were really high.

He survived these horrible battles kind of against the odds. It's crazy how many fights with such honor and such vigor that he's transferred from the Foreign Legion to one of the standard French army units, the 17th Infantry Regiment, so that he can fight at the Battle of Verdun in 1916.

So in in the Battle of Verdun, he is horribly wounded. Some of the doctors think he might never be able to walk again. He's removed from ground combat permanently, but his courage in battle earned him his first military decoration, which is the prodigal together. So he sent to Leo to recover from his injuries. Then he takes his leave in Paris and when he's on leave, he's drinking with his friend. And his friend is saying, you can never fight, you can never be a foot soldier again.

And he's like, I'm going to fight again. So his friend bets him two thousand dollars that he can that he can't get into the French flying service. Oh, my God, that's so much money.

Two thousand dollars has that even especially during war.

I know well that it was basically like he was saying, it doesn't matter. Eugene was like, if I can't fight, you know, the footsoldier that I'm in, then I'm going to be a pilot. And the guy's like, no, you're not going to. That'll never happen. And he's like, yes, it will. I bet you two thousand dollars it won't. And then he thinks that's a good bet. But in actuality, yes, he's a fucking idiot because he's talking to Eugene Boulard.

Know, even though no black soldier had ever been admitted before a November in November of 1916, Eugene Bellard wins the bet and joins the aeronautic militaire. He starts his training the same year and earns his wings on May 5th. Nineteen seventeen. He spends that night celebrating with his friends later saying that, quote, But by midnight, every American in Paris knew that an American Negro by the name of Eugene Boulard, born in Georgia, had obtained a military pilot's license.

Eugene Bullard is now the world's first black combat pilot. Back in America. No one has a clue about this achievement. So in April of nineteen seventeen, when America enters the war, Eugene applies to join the American Expeditionary Forces so he can serve as a pilot alongside his fellow Americans. But the they basically tell him they're not accepting any more applications. But this is a blatant lie. He's denied admittance because he's black. But Eugene keeps his head high.

He states that he still takes. Quote, Some comfort knowing that I was to go on fighting on the same front and in the same cause as other citizens of the United States. So instead he sticks with the French divisions. And on June twenty eighth, nineteen seventeen, he's promoted to corporal. And in August of the same year, he's assigned to the French Escadrille Spaull ninety three, then to a different Escadrille Spaull eighty five. On September 13, 1917, on the site of his plane, he paints an insignia of a heart with a dagger through it and below it he writes, All blood runs red.

So during his piloting career, he flies somewhere between twenty five to twenty seven missions. He takes down two German planes. But in the battle against the second plane, he actually chases this German plane into territory and no one else sees him shoot the plane down. So he doesn't get credit for that for that kill. And in that, as he goes down to chase, his plane gets shot and he crashes, miraculously, he survives and afterwards his fellow soldiers come and they count the bullet holes in his plane that are seventy eight bullet holes in his plane while he's taken to a hospital.

He makes a full recovery after his recovery serves a little bit longer. And then he's he's discharged in October. Twenty fourth, nineteen nineteen. So then here's where it gets pretty interesting. So that wasn't enough for you. After World War One, Eugene is awarded the French that is awarded French citizenship for his service. So he goes back to Paris, he goes back to boxing, but his war injuries make it kind of hard. So he did.

He's not in as any matches. So what does he do? You guessed it. He learns to play the drums and he gets himself work as a jazz drummer in a nightclub called Zella's, which is located in Marjah district. Yep. With the help of his lawyer friend Robair, only Yujin scores a license for the nightclub to stay open past midnight, which is a privilege awarded to no other clubs in Paris at the time. So keeping these late hours, he makes Zella's a hot spot and his popularity at Zella's gives him the opportunity to travel with a jazz band to Alexandria, Egypt, where he not only performs at the nightclub there, but he also boxes in to price.

When he returns to Paris, he makes money hiring musicians for the social elites who have private parties. He also works as a masseuse and athletic trainer, and he opens his own gym called Bullard's Athletic Club, where he trains boxers, boxers, Panama, Al Brown and young Perras. I'm know your fans of both. In nineteen twenty three, he marries in some in some articles. She was described as a socialite, but in one article I read that she was a countess.

And so that's what I'm going with because it's a better story. Her name was Marcel Stralman. They had two daughters, Jacqueline and Lolita, and those young daughters were often babysat by Eugene's good friend, the great Josephine Baker. No. Yes, that's his world. Those are the people around. It's the most stories I've ever heard in. OK, so when Eugene and Marcel broke up in nineteen thirty five, he ends up keeping custody of his daughters.

So after four years, Eugene leaves Lee's nightclub in nineteen twenty three to become the manager, the drummer and the maitre d at another nightclub called Luska Drill, which is that's the word for squadron. I was saying it earlier pretty badly, but that's that's when it met. So this at this club, there's a cast of stars, a young Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young Langston Hughes who Eugene actually hires as a dishwasher for a little while, Langston Hughes as a dishwasher.

OK, yeah. Ernest Hemingway likes to hang out there. Sure. He becomes so close to Eugene that Eugene also becomes the inspiration for a jazz drummer character in the in the novel The Sun Also Rises. Eugene doesn't just attract stars. He also makes them. One of his close singers and drummers is a man named Dooley Wilson, who ends up winning the role of Sam, the piano player in the movie Cusamano. Oh, play it again, Sam.

Yeah, this is like as I was reading this, I was like, this is this is like a real life actually cool for a scalp like these. She is the source. He's the beginning of everything.

It's like living this and constantly reinventing himself and adding, oh my God, and just being like open and talented and clearly brilliant. I mean, clearly, if you just go like I think now and to be a jazz drummer, that's a big deal. That's not easy. OK, so now it's the mid to late nineteen thirties oh, sorry, all of Eugene's hard work, good business sense, magnetism, friendship, connections pays off and by nineteen twenty eight he's able to buy Escadrille for his own.

So now he's the owner of this club. So now it's the like mid to late 30s and Germans start to frequent a nazis' start to frequent this club. So a friend of Eugene's who is a French policeman, knows that Eugene can speak German from his days on the ship. And so he asked them to help the French Resistance to spy on the Germans who come to the club. So, of course, a lifelong patriot of France, Eugene Load's the German patrons up with champagne and of course, pretends he can't understand a word they're saying, listens in on their drunken conversations and reports everything back to the French Resistance.

Any info they can get on what the Nazis are doing? According to the authors Phil Keith and Tom Klavern, who wrote Eugene's biography All Blood Runs Red, one of many. By the way, there's probably about five out there. Eugene was the first person to tip French authorities off about Germans, Germany's plan to invade Poland. But the higher ups ignored the tall guys. OK, so in May of 1940, the Nazis invade France. Yujin answers the call of duty once again joining the 1st Infantry Regiment.

The man is forty five years ago and he Enys like if you if it were me, I'd be like, Hey, guess what? I already fucked, sir. I saw the worst. I saw some terrible shit. Thanks anyway. He's going back. He fights in or or leans in June on June 15th. Nineteen forty. But he's wounded. He finds himself in the precarious position of being a black business owner in German occupied France. He's forced to flee to neutral Spain with his daughters, and from there he's put onto a steamship back to America with his war injuries to basically recover in in back in America after nearly three decades of being abroad.

Wow. He winds up in a New York hospital where he finishes recuperating from his war injuries. But after all of these accomplishments, all these sacrifices, all all of this bravery, no one in America knows about it. No one has any idea. No one cares. He maintains his friendships with big stars like Louis Armstrong. But he's it's he's just hanging out. I think they said for a little while he was a translator, a translator for somebody.

But for the most part, he would just take jobs. He sold perfume. He just took jobs as he could. Yeah, because it's still the late forties in America. He worked security by the end of World War Two. He tries he tries to find out if he can go back to his nightclub only to find that it's been completely destroyed in the war. But the French government pays him a settlement. So he uses that money to buy himself and his daughters an apartment in Harlem.

So then in nineteen forty nine, the singer performer Paul Robeson throws a concert to fundraise for the Civil Rights Congress in Peekskill, New York. A lover of both music and, of course, a fighter for racial justice, Eugene goes on August twenty seventh nineteen forty nine. But when he gets there, a mob of white supremacists, many of whom are veterans who fought on the same side of the war as Eugene did, and many others who are police officers surround the concert goers and start beating them with baseball bats and throwing stones.

Eugene's caught up in the chaos and beaten by these criminals so badly that he loses vision in his left eye. Go. All in all, 13 people are seriously injured. None of the attackers are prosecuted. OK, so by the nineteen fifties, Eugene's daughters have both married and so he lives alone in his apartment, surrounded by framed photos of his famous friends as well as his fourteen military medals. So in nineteen fifty four, Eugene Ballade is invited back to Paris by the French government as one of three military heroes asked to relight the everlasting flame at France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

God. Hmm. And that same year, he takes the job as the elevator operator at 30 Rock. One of these things is not like the other. Four years later, in October of nineteen fifty nine, when he's he is given the honor of Chevalier, which is a night the Legion of Honor at the French Consulate. Charles de Gaulle himself is there to bestow the honor and he calls Eugene Boulard. A true French hero. So two months later, on December, twenty second nineteen fifty nine, Eugene Boulard goes is a guest on the Today Show with the original host, Dave Garroway.

And at last, Eugene Blurbed has his moment. He wins the hearts of his fellow Americans as he chats with Garraway in in his elevator operators uniform with his case of military medals and tells his stories of a life fully and beautifully lived. After that appearance, hundreds and hundreds of letters pour into the Today show from viewers who are impressed, touched and moved by Mr. Ballade story. And finally, Eugene Ballade is showered with just a fraction of the accolades he so richly deserves from his fellow Americans.

The next day, Mr. Bullard returns to his post in the elevator at 30 Rock, and he works there until the pains in his stomach that he's been hiding for him to see a doctor. And he's diagnosed with stomach cancer. Eugene Bullard passes away from this illness on October 12, 1961, just three days after his sixty sixth birthday.

Oh, my God. It's so quick. Mm hmm. This is an excerpt from the 1972 biography, The Black Swallow of Death. The Incredible Story of Eugene Jack Boulard, the world's first black fighter pilot by PJ Caracalla and James Ryan. And it's about the day that Mr. Ballard died. So his friend, who's an author and activist named Louise Fox Canal, went to see him or Connel sorry, went to see him in the following quote. She's just referred to as the woman who had been helping him with his memoirs, but her name is Louise Fox Connel.

So the quote is this quote, The woman who had been helping him with his memoirs visited him on the day he died. She was crying at the bedside where he lay seemingly lost to the world. He was leaving, hearing her sobs, his consciousness returned from wherever it had been, and he pulled the tube out of his mouth. He had something to say to her. The old horseman boxers, soldier pilots by club owner, musician and father turned to his friend and smiled.

Don't fret, honey, it's easy. In 1989, Eugene Ballard is posthumously, posthumously inducted into the inaugural class of the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame on October twenty third nineteen ninety four. Eugene is posthumously commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force nineteen ninety four. Wow. And on October 9th, twenty nineteen, the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, Georgia, erects a statue in Eugene Bullard's honor 100 hundred years after World War One ends.

He finally gets. Yeah, a little crud. Yeah.

So this is from PBS American Experience. That article about him. It says, quote, The story of how Eugene Boulard became the first black combat pilot and why his achievement stayed in the shadows for so long is a tale of alternate realities, of what happens when opportunity is offered or denied and ultimately seized regardless. So this is a beautiful, inspiring story. But it's also a true disgrace that Eugene Ballade is not a famous historical figure in America. But the good news is that one of Eugene's descendants, a man named Terrence Chester, has made it his mission to change that.

He's been telling Eugene Bullard's life story and winning awards for it since he was in middle school. Oh, my God. So there's this really amazing article on a website called The Bitter Southerner that I found. And it's written about Terrence by this journalist named Jeremy Redmon. And in this article and I really, really recommend you read it, because it's really it's a really good, very informative, fascinating article. But in it, the two men discussed the contrasting story of Eugene Boulard and then Eugene Bullard's oldest brother, Hector.

OK, so this is an excerpt from that article entitled The Vanishing Stories of the Ballade Brothers. When Eugene ran away, his older brother Hector was studying business administration at Morris Brown College, a historically black college in Atlanta. Hector was preparing to run a peach farm in Fort Valley, one of the biggest in the region. He inherited it from his mother, who inherited it from her mother. A white family had cultivated the farm for years, serving as overseers.

The overseers would send Hector's family money every year, but without any accounting of how the farm was performing overall. And Eugene wrote in his memoirs, The family who ran it when Hector inherited it could not understand why he should not run the orchard to suit himself the way his father and grandfather had. But Hector was determined to manage his own property and was studying to do it right. Years later, his attempt to win control of it got him lynched.

Shorten direct just last sentence lands like one of Eugene's left jabs with it, Yujin punches his older brother's fate into history. And leave some clues about what happened to Hector, to Terrence, that passage reminds him of the painful stories his grandmother told him about white landowners taking advantage of his sharecropping ancestors and their. Is the story of the world's first black combat pilot, an American hero, Eugene Boulard, and his older brother, Hector Boulard. It's Black History Month.

Black Lives Matter. Black excellence should be recognized and celebrated every day of the year. Great job. Thank you. Great. Pretty amazing. Pretty fucking amazing that we don't know that story. I, I am not shocked, sadly, but great calling. Great telling of it. Thank you. Cool. Let's fucking cool. Cool. Look at these stories. They're out there waiting for us. We have to figure them out ourselves because when we can it's not that hard.

Yeah. And and people should and you know well and good. Hey stay sexy. Hey. And don't get murdered by Elvis.

Do you want a cookie I.