215 - Three Small Hot Dogs | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.

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Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town

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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room

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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.

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This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts

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or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms.

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Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye. Hello! And welcome. Welcome. To my favorite murder.

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The quarantine episodes. The so far away and yet so close episode. Yeah, we're doing it.

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We're on Skype. I'm looking at Karen in your second bedroom. That's right. We're pointing at each other over Skype.

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Stephen is watching us silently from a distance. Stephen was helping me set this up earlier.

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And I tried to set it up on my phone. It's so hard. It's A, so hard. Props to Stephen.

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Four years running. Just the uncomplaining sound guy that's actually holding so much shit down.

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That we're only now beginning to understand, Stephen. We love you deeply. Thank you.

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Thank you for keeping us always between 18 and 12. We appreciate it. But Skype, for some reason, the way I was doing it, was taking pictures of my face at random times.

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And I'm not, you know, I'm not camera ready right now in any way. That's rude. That's just rude.

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My face is sliding off my skull and Skype wants me to know it. So anyway. How are you doing in this fucking global pandemic age of enlightenment?

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I guess I'm focusing on superficial things to distract myself. Like, so I've definitely been putting a lot of under eye cream on.

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Lots of phone calls, lots of joking around. But I did have to, on my sister's behalf today, text my dad and say, hey, dad, for real, stop going to Costco.

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Does he just keep going? He just keeps telling my sister, like, that's what he's going to do.

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Like, he just keeps telling my sister of errands he's going to run. And she's going insane.

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And I finally had, because she's, of course, he always hears it from her. So he doesn't pay attention to what she says, which I can relate to.

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But I finally just texted him and was like, listen, you're driving Laura crazy and you're scaring both of us.

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You don't need frozen chicken cutlets. Go home. Stop it. What are you doing? And then he didn't.

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What was funny is then the dots came up and then they went away and he didn't say anything else.

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I'm going to tell her what. You know what? I should save this for. Yeah. After my first bud.

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Yeah. I might call him tonight just to go, hey, you mad at me? Because that's what he does when I'm mad at him.

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is like you're not in my family are not allowed to be mad at each other because they'll just give

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you shit until you talk to them again so i might just do it back to him but it's the kind of thing

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we're like look this is we're in uncharted territory there's no leadership we all have

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to kind of do what doctors say and we have to do what the people on the front line say

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and there is no seriously yeah there's no reason not to be doing exactly what they say there's

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who is saying this i i'm sorry because i'm taking in so much content about this stuff

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But somebody was saying you're you're being asked to stay in your own house where there's food and everything you like.

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You're not being asked to move to some government facility. You're not being asked very much.

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So fucking do it. Fight a war or anything. No, this is not a sacrifice. You're being asked to stay inside where you usually are.

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Just fucking do it. And that's the best thing you can do for this. That's like the number one top priority is to stay.

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You know who you know who is a fucking who not surprisingly is being a leader at this time.

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Cardi B. Cardi B. Is that what you're supposed to say? Holy shit. Cardi fucking B.

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Of course she is. With the live Instagrams. Yeah. The weird, I love her. She's a survivor.

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Well, also. That's right. I retweeted a thing. There's an amazing guy who's an amazing piano player.

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There's a guy that plays the piano a lot. So when Cardi B does her speech about coronavirus, coronavirus.

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And it's almost like she's singing. She's kind of preaching. But there's a guy that yeah, I sent it to you. He plays the piano along with her perfectly as if it's

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She is singing if she's performing the libretto in an operetta It is the most amazing thing and then when it ends her the video of her disappears and he turns to camera And then it just says wash your hands It the most genius video Oh you know another thing too if there people who don believe you you got to send them Matthew McConaughey video from Instagram of him fucking just completely talking you through what you need to do

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Matthew McConaughey style. Oh, it's just it's golden. it's you know there are people that i think the the thing i keep trying to remind myself is this

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this is such a scary situation but some people when they get scared their reaction needs to be

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fuck you you can't tell me what to do it's it's like because you're you're basically

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pinning both their arms and saying you have to stay in and you can't know what's going to happen

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next and you can't there's nothing you can do so you can't just do what you want and and that

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triggers people and pushes their buttons and shit and makes them cray cray. And there's, yeah, there's a lot of people who can't deal.

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And so as infuriating as it is when we see people going to like in, you know, last week

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going to the beach in Florida or whatever. Well, there's already there's like a there's a handful of spring breakers who have who have

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it like it's it's this is there's nothing not real about this. Yeah, it's happening all around us.

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There's a child died in Los Angeles today. The youngest coronavirus victim so far in America died in Los Angeles.

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So it's like, I don't know what more. Yeah. If you're one of those kind of people that needs to say it's a hoax because you're so scared, you're freaking out.

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You know, then you need to look at it from the comfort to do it from the comfort of your own home.

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Yeah, for real. Do it behind some sneeze guard because what you're doing is just giving it to everybody else.

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whether you believe in it or not. People are going to die from it. The virus believes in itself. It doesn't need you to believe in it.

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It's those fucking 22-year-olds that are like, I'm not sick, and if I'm sick, I'll get over it.

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It's like, not about you, 22-year-old. Right, but it's also the 55-year-olds that have this very strange kind of like,

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I decide what reality is thing that is also a fantasy. I mean, there's lots of us that live in fantasy.

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Hey, look, listen, we all have to adjust. People are going to do it at different times.

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Speaking of adjusting, can I tell you what I've been watching? Sure. What Vince and I have been binge watching to keep ourselves occupied for your adjustment?

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We started. Yeah, we started True Detective season one again. Nice. I highly recommend.

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Just thinking of that. I forgot everything, apparently, that had happened. And apparently I was very high the first time I watched it.

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Isn't it so good? I don't remember any of it. It's so good. And then I'm watching Detroiters, which is a really funny show.

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Tim Robinson. Oh, my God. They're incredible. And Sam. Oh, it's Sam Richardson. Very close.

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Sam Richardson. Sam Richardson. The funniest. I love that show. It's hilarious. It's insane.

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It's so good. Have you seen Tiger King? Oh, Tiger King we have to talk about. Yeah.

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So we started watching it. we were a little like, oh, this guy kind of sucks and stopped. And now people can't stop talking

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about it. So I think we need to go back to it. I did the same thing only. The reason I turned it

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was probably four days ago. And people keep on tweeting me about it. Like you have to I must know.

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And I turned it on. And it was just like, it wasn't a good time where after the third person

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spoke to camera, I was like, I can't, I cannot spend time with these people. Like I can't do

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this right now. Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was. I like, I want to hear the story. But

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these people are really bumming me out about how horrible they are to tigers. It's just like,

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how am I supposed to hang out? All of it? Yeah, exactly. I need things that are a little less

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impactful at the moment. Yeah. So what have I been watching? It's I, of course, I'm just going

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deep into like acorn TV and Britbox or whatever, where it's like some truly like a British procedural

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from the 90s that I can barely understand what anyone's saying. That's the only thing that's really giving me any kind of peace of mind right now.

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Comforting. But you know, here's what I think is a beautiful, maybe not a coincidence.

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Brene Brown's podcast finally came out, Unlocking Us. Hell yeah. And I haven't listened to it yet because I'm in the middle of a book on tape, but I'm so

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excited because I feel like her voice, everything about the trailer for that podcast, she's such a

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presence. Yeah, calming, scientific, yet self-helpy kind of mind is like, I would probably

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not be wrong to highly recommend a podcast I've never listened to before just because

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it's our friend, Brene Brown. Are you doing phone therapy sessions? I just did one this morning.

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Oh! I did for the first time. How was that? It was fine. My obsession Now, first of all, I had to talk about being a workaholic, which really bothered me because I was like, I didn't really have anything else to talk about because I've just been in my house.

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Can I say this? My therapist that I've been having phone calls with said to me when I was like, I don't know what to talk about the first day. She was like, you know, in these times when there's like a singular focus instead of the day to day life to talk about, that's when you can actually get really deep into some shit because you're not being distracted by like, I'm mad at this person.

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and I have to do this work and I'm stressed, it's like you can now go deeper. Yes.

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That's basically what happened where I was kind of like, yeah, I mean, I guess it's okay.

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And, you know, I like chaos and all the shit that I normally say or whatever. And then it like kind of tumbled out of my mouth where I was just like, yeah, it's a problem because if I'm a workaholic,

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then I can't really add this. I can't do anything, nor can anyone else that uses work to distract themselves from the difficulty

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and big feelings of life And I was just like sorry I gonna have to hold on that one for a second and really sit in it back to me Or like the whole thing where like you use work as a way

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as a barometer to how good you are, what a good person you are, because you get work done. And

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because you're so busy, and like the busier you are, the more important you are. And that's the

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only way you can tell if you're important or not. Yeah, that shit. I'm not a workaholic. I don't

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know how you and I pair it up. We, we are, you know, where we paired up at the opposite party

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and that's how we do it. And that's where the magic happens. Back to back. That's right. We

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got back to back. We got back to back. I, you know, it's funny though. It's like,

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I almost said to my therapist, I, it's like that thing where I'm like, I don't know.

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Like I, it was great to talk to her and I'm going to do it again tomorrow, but there's this part of

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me that's kind of, it's almost like I get the feeling of like, don't go in there because I

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I think we are also, it's almost like we're waiting to find out what we're scared about or something.

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You know what I mean? We're waiting for the first big wave to hit or something like that.

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And I think the important thing in a time like this, because she said this to me, she said it before, but she reminded me this morning.

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It feels like we're in a free fall, but the key is remembering that there's no bottom to hit.

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We're never going to hit ground. So, yes, we're free falling. And the whole trick of life is to become comfortable with the free fall. Understanding it's always like that. You're never even when we have these kind of pretend things of like, well, if I get my work done here, then I'm good here and blah, blah, blah. Like, that's all fake, too. It's all fake.

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so well it's almost like i can understand though not wanting to like have an open wound when you're

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about to go through some fucking other traumatic shit that has nothing to do with that wound of

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course it's like that like i don't want to get yeah deep into my childhood and fucking sad and

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depressed over it when i can't then go have a drink with my girlfriend and fucking talk to her

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about it right right but i can still call her on the phone so yeah that's good well i had a really

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a long conversation the other day. We had a great, we had a great, you know, it's funny when we got off that call,

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I was like, we were laughing so fucking hard during that call. And I'm like, we never do that to each other.

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Cause that's what we do for a living. We never do that. Save it for the podcast.

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We always save it for the podcast. Then you texted me, Hey, want to chat? And I was like,

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I was scraping my mind. Like, what could she want to talk about? And then I'm like,

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I think she just wants to talk. Because all we've been having is like the stressful conversations about our

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entire fucking business. Yes. And it's really fucking stressful. Sure. Like before we have to record this podcast, let's have a nice conversation.

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Yes, exactly. Oh, a fire truck just went by. It reminds us why we're friends. Oh, so sorry.

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Is another house on fire? I don't know. I think they just went to check stuff. Oh, God.

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I just pointed at a fire truck like a child as it went by the front of my house.

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Oh, fire truck. Oh, look, a fire truck. Sorry. Right as you were trying to say something nice about us being friends.

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Just to get her where we're friends. No, that's it. There you go. No, it was great, though.

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And it also was just funny because as opposite as we are, there's almost some things I don't have to talk to you about because I know we feel the exact same way about them.

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I think it's good for us to remind each other of how alike we are because we always just are noticing the differences because we have to do something about it.

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But the ways we are like are very comforting to me. Oh, that's so nice. It is like we're sisters at this point.

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It is. It's true. You know what I was thinking about, about like when this was all going down and who am I going to call and this and that?

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It's like, you know who the best friends like the best friends in your life are the one who you have in your phone, their sister's phone number or their mom's phone, like a just in case you can get a hold of their relative of theirs.

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Yeah. Those are like the best friends you have, I think. I could text your sister immediately or your dad and be like, get in your room.

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Oh, he would love it if you texted him or called him. Adult friendships where you have a connection like that.

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Let's do really quickly because everyone in Exactly Right is doing cool shit right now.

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Yes, they are. The panic that everyone's feeling. This network, well, people are using it and actually podcasting cool stuff.

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I'm so proud. So Murder Squad, Billy and Paul are discussing domestic abuse resources to support people who are in quarantine with their abusers right now, which is so fucking incredible.

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Yeah, that's amazing. That episode dropped yesterday. I'm sorry. That episode dropped Monday, the 23rd.

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So that's up now. So, yeah, go listen to that. And then they also cover how first responders might respond to a call when someone is in imminent danger, despite the fact there's a fucking pandemic going on.

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Because people are still going through some shit whether or not this is happening.

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So they cover that. And I just it's important. Yeah, there's those are. Yeah, they're thinking about elements of this that are not that are really important.

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And I think not that often discussed. And I think, yeah, it's very cool that those guys did that.

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It hit me really hard when I saw some meme that was like, you know, there's so many people and children who escape who use their day to day jobs and school to, you know, to get away from their abusers.

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that don't have that resource now. And so here's some phone numbers. And I felt so privileged and like, what's the word?

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Lucky, but also like, oh, I hadn't even considered that that was an issue for people.

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I'm so lucky that I don't have to. Almost like blissfully ignorant of stuff. Ignorant.

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Yeah. Very ignorant. Yeah. So I'm glad they're covering it. It's kind of good, too, because then it just it gives a kind of needed perspective.

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If you're really freaking out, like how bad things are for you. Yeah. When you hear about stuff like that or think about it or just look into what other people might need.

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I think it also helps that. It helps Yeah Call everyone You don know what people are going through right now Yeah This podcast will kill you These amazing women released a six part bonus series with updates on COVID

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They did a special six part fucking episode about this. They interview experts and cover topics from the origin of the virus to ways of maintaining your mental health during a self quarantine.

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So that's coming out starting Monday, March 23rd. Yeah. And I think they said all six Monday, all six episodes are available.

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I believe they release them all at once I don't know Stephen if you know if I'm right about that

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but I believe that's the case because it's basically so you can basically binge all of them and get all your info at one time

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that's correct yeah it's all so you can get your binge on and listen to all six Stephen please don't say get your binge on

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it's a pandemic there's no need to go to such a dark place erase one of those points we gave him on the whiteboard

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for everything he's done. Really? Just because you keep us between 18 and 12 all our lives doesn't mean

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you can say get your binge on. It's crazy. Speaking of which, the Perrcast, Sarah and Stephen

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this week, which dropped yesterday, they of course are recording from home talking about

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the pandemic, how the quarantine is affecting them and their cats and their relationships. It's a very

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special, a very special The Perrcast this week, right, Stephen? Yes. The Fall Line is still doing,

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is now doing part two of Carolina Girls. It concludes the story on the North Carolina

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Brittany Locklear, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1998. And it discusses the disappearance

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of another girl whose case at one point tied to Henry Lee Lucas, that fucking liar.

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So that's coming out on Wednesday, yesterday. So listen to that. Yeah, The Fall Line

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is such an amazing show. Those guys just, They're just the real deal. I'm so impressed by that.

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And I'm also impressed by Do You Need a Ride, these two young upstarts in comedy.

00:20:01

Me and Chris driver runs. Fresh faces. We're fresh faces for Aspen. We got the Aspen Fresh Faces Showcase.

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That's a comedy festival that hasn't existed in 22 years. We made timely. Timely.

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Right at the height of the true worry and fear weekend of the new pandemic, I made Steven get into the car with me and Chris and we drove around

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for I think three hours and just recorded two back to back Q&A episodes. And the funny thing

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was, so, you know, everyone knows it's, of course, you can't drive in Los Angeles ever.

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It's, it's so awful. The traffic is terrible. If you listen to Do You Need a Ride,

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I complain about it constantly as if it's interesting. We are sailing around the streets.

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There's no one out. We'd go anywhere we want. It's also very strange and there's not very many people out.

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And then we find this just, you know, spoiler alert. We find a drive-thru Starbucks that's open, which I think is a miracle.

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Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I want to listen to that. And it was pouring rain, too, that day, right?

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It was pouring rain. It's going to be great. Everyone was scared. It was, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

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And also this round of Q&A questions in the beginning, it was like, would you rather be

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one huge hot dog or three small hot dogs or whatever, where you're like, okay, I don't

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know the answer to this. That's an amazing question. No, I just made that up. Oh, I love it.

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But I mean, that's just a fun party version. But this time people got kind of into, they, they got, they, they asked some very interesting

00:21:41

questions. Sorry. That's all I'm trying to say. Existential. existential driving. And then, of course, the Exactly Right's newest podcast, I Said No Gifts,

00:21:52

with Bridger Weineger, is out now. We're so fucking excited about it. And the third episode

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comes out this week today, Thursday, March 26th. The guest this week is Andy Richter,

00:22:03

which is incredible. This is such a good podcast. If you guys have been following along,

00:22:07

thank you so much. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps the podcast out when you do that and when you comment and give them five stars.

00:22:17

Yeah. And review. It really helps on the charts, which is awesome. Yeah. And it really is such a delightful.

00:22:24

I think these days, I know personally, I'm definitely turning to podcasts more and more just puttering around the house as I'm getting really into cleaning, which is surprising to me.

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but it just really like listening to other people talk is such nice kind of pseudo

00:22:41

socializing I think it does all the same things to your brain that regular socializing

00:22:45

does so if you want a good hilarious chat show hosted by very intelligent and very

00:22:53

like fun to listen to people Bridger Weineger's I Said No Gifts is the podcast for you

00:22:59

and it's positive so if you're feeling down and you just need to like tune the fuck out

00:23:03

and listen to something positive. This is a really great way. It was all recorded before this happened, too,

00:23:08

so you're not even going to hear about it. Yeah, he was recording this months ago.

00:23:12

But it's about gifts. Who doesn't want to think about presents and why you give gifts and what you get

00:23:16

and what the worst and best have been? Come on. I love what you did for your housewarming party

00:23:21

where you just don't say gifts are unnecessary. You just don't even mention them on the invite

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and then people bring them. I did. Brilliant. I swear to you. You didn't do that?

00:23:33

Oh, you told me you did it on purpose. You didn't. I did not. No, no, no. I did not.

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I was joking to you because you were like, you didn't you didn't put no gifts. And then I was like, of course I didn't.

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But I actually did I not think about it. I didn't think about it. Well, you seem to be like delighted by it.

00:23:52

So it didn't seem like an insult. But I didn't think about it. And I wouldn't. I don't think I would bring someone a gift.

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I'd be like, no. If you just bought your own house, get your own goddamn gift. Like, go to hell.

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You can't afford your own fucking candle. You shouldn't have bought a fucking house.

00:24:07

Yeah. You should be saving for candle money. Don't invest in real estate. Not now.

00:24:14

Not now. Okay, so this is... I am kind of excited to talk about this because this is one of those things.

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So we get given gifts when we go on tour all the time. And people will hand us stuff in the in the line, in the meet and greet line.

00:24:30

And they'll say they'll tell us a little story, hand us something. We'll say, thank you.

00:24:34

We put it in a pile. We ship it back to the office. And then sometimes three months later, we go through the box and we're like, oh, remember

00:24:40

this and whatever. And so we have a bookshelf at the office that has all the books we've been given or, you

00:24:47

know, there's just different stuff all around. So this book ended up on my nightstand that I started reading, I would say, two weeks ago.

00:24:56

And it's called The Forest City Killer by Vanessa Brown. And it is about in London, Ontario, Canada.

00:25:07

Canada. In the 60s, there was a serial killer. And nobody put it together that there was a serial killer in this tiny town.

00:25:14

And this Vanessa Brown, the author, gave it to us herself. This this one is to me. I'm sure there's one to you. And I read the whole book. It's really fascinating. It's really heartbreaking. You know, of course, it's goes into like how the families deal with it. And it's, you know, the victims are teenage girls. And then the I read every page because it was that good. And I still, you know, by the end, it's not satisfying because it's very realistic. And, you know, it's just as much about her doing the research and trying to get this the truth out.

00:25:48

as anything else. And then at the very end, I'm just kind of scanning the acknowledgements page and at the

00:25:54

very bottom, yeah, it says it's listing people and then it says Karen in Georgia who have no idea

00:26:00

how important they are to the rest of us. We got it. We're right in the middle. We got it almost at the end.

00:26:06

I'm sweating. I hope it's not her parents. Oh my God. And then she says and the last thing says and to my partner

00:26:14

the only person who really matters, Jason Dixon and then it says SSDGM Amazing. I was like, the book is great.

00:26:22

Vanessa. Highly recommend. But then, what world do we live in? We're kind of in the book too.

00:26:28

I was, can I say I was just, I'm listening to a book right now and I put it on and everyone's

00:26:33

been listening to it and saying how great it is. It's called, hold on, let me make sure.

00:26:36

It's called The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James. And it's like, you know, this woman goes missing in the 70s and her, you know, her niece goes

00:26:45

to find out what happened. It's like one of those like true crime fiction books.

00:26:49

And in the beginning, it's like, you know, the thank yous. And I'm listening on Audible.

00:26:53

So it's that. And it says, and to all the murderinos. And I was just like, what the fuck is my life?

00:27:00

Yeah. This is insane. It's amazing. That's just like the same thing happened in Maureen Johnson's book.

00:27:06

Yeah. She dedicated it to all the murderinos. I know. It's very cool. Thanks for being here.

00:27:11

Read books. Thanks for being here. and books are now becoming a big part of what I do.

00:27:17

It's how I put myself to bed at night because I know I'll just fall asleep on the couch watching TV.

00:27:20

So I'm like... Mine is... Mine's White Castle. Oh, no, wait, sorry. Mine's White Claw.

00:27:26

Mine's White Claw. Both are good answers. Both are acceptable answers. What about...

00:27:32

White Castle. What about three White Castle burgers and then a whole... And then you slam a White Claw

00:27:37

and then you tell the truth. Oh, my God. And you tell everybody what you really think about their outfit.

00:27:44

I haven't been outside in about three days. Vince and I need to go for a walk. Yeah.

00:27:51

I keep watching people walk by my house and I'm like, yeah, that looks like a great idea.

00:27:57

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at acorns.com slash mfm. Goodbye. If you spend all day waiting to take your bra off, it might be

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00:31:16

Who's first, Stephen? You are, Georgia. All right. Georgia's sitting. Guys, just so you know, I'm looking at Georgia on Skype, and she's sitting in her closet with

00:31:29

clothes around her shoulders like you have long hair of material. I'm surrounded by vintage.

00:31:36

I bet it's very comforting. It is. Actually, I've been this whole time been absolutely touching my late grandmother's bathrobe.

00:31:44

Oh. that like means so much to me. Oh, yeah. And it's nice. What's that material?

00:31:50

It's silk and it's like an old kind of old timey bathrobe. Yeah. Oh, nice. I just love it.

00:31:58

Just hold it to your cheek. Oh, sorry. Before you start, Nick Terry did an MFM animation of the cocaine hogs.

00:32:08

It's so great. It's on everywhere. But I didn't realize this. And I finally saw it in his link.

00:32:15

Nick Terry has a Patreon that we should all join. So go to patreon.com forward slash MFM underscore animated.

00:32:26

And you can join Nick Terry's Patreon and make it so that he can just do that for a living.

00:32:31

That'd be cool. And he makes he makes merch from that stuff, too. That's really cool.

00:32:35

I've definitely seen some rad T-shirts and stuff. Yes. My friend Patty Riley has his shirt with all the characters, all the Nick Terry characters across the front. And she told me she's been stopped a couple times by murderinos. We're like, oh, my God. It's such a good shirt.

00:32:51

Yeah, the new one is excellent. It's necessary watching for whomever. Okay, how am I going to do this?

00:32:58

I have. Can you see? No, yeah, I can see the lights. OK. OK. I just don't have enough hands.

00:33:05

So let's do it this way. Let's start with this one. Fuck it. It's the global pandemic.

00:33:11

I'm doing the mysterious death of Natalie Wood. Oh, shit, girl. I went there. You did.

00:33:19

I thought you were going to say like the Black Plague or something. Oh, no. Oh, this is a fucking one of us eventually has to do it story.

00:33:27

Yes, it's that's so true. Wow. Yeah, you're ready for that. Let me tip back in my chair.

00:33:32

Yeah. And the problem with this one is like you could do it six different way. Like there's six different ways to do it and options and thoughts and stories to read about it.

00:33:42

Yeah, it's complicated. So I'm doing kind of the, you know, not bare bones, but some basics.

00:33:47

Right. Because there's just a lot of theory, right? Because there's no no one really knows the truth.

00:33:53

Exactly. Yeah. All right. So I got a bunch of information from a Vanity Fair article by Sam

00:33:59

Kashner, another Vanity Fair article by Suzanne Finstad, and an all that's interesting article by

00:34:06

Marco Margaridoff, a biography article by Tim Ott, Wikipedia. There's a 48 hours episode about it

00:34:12

called Death in Dark Water. Did you watch that? No, but I will after this. And then there's a New

00:34:18

York Times article by Catherine Rossman. I mean, there is just a million articles you could read

00:34:23

about this and videos too. Natalie Wood is born on July 28th, 1938. Her real name was Natalia

00:34:30

Zacharynki. Did you know that? Natalia was her real name because she was born from Russian

00:34:35

immigrant parents. Oh, wow. And her mom pushes her into acting. Oh, they were born in San Francisco.

00:34:40

They're from San Francisco. Yeah. So her mom pushed. Yeah, girl. At the age of four, her mom

00:34:46

pushes her into acting and she appears in a couple of films. By the time she's seven,

00:34:51

studio executives at RKO Pictures, they changed her name to Natalie Wood because they wanted to

00:34:56

sound more American. At eight years old, she gets cast in the role of Susan Walker,

00:35:03

the girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus in everyone's favorite Christmas movie,

00:35:07

Miracle on 34th Street. She's the little girl. That's a huge fucking role. It's a huge role. And she is so great and watchable and charming and real. It's amazing.

00:35:20

Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. I really love that everyone right now is putting up Christmas trees and Christmas lights

00:35:26

and pretending it's Christmas. I think that's a brilliant idea. Oh, I forgot about that. I should get my white Christmas tree back out.

00:35:33

Yeah. It took me so long to take that thing apart, though. God damn it. I should have just left it up the whole time.

00:35:38

I know. After a series of smaller roles, Natalie ends up playing the teen ingenue opposite James Dean, of course, in Rebel Without a Cause.

00:35:48

We all remember that. We don't remember it, but we know about it. Hey, that's a great.

00:35:52

Let just bookmark some of these as a movie for your quarantine Rebel Without a Cause was so ahead of its time That movie is it not like a 50s movie

00:36:05

When you watch it, you will not believe. It's just incredible. It's so cool. It's like,

00:36:10

it's suddenly these teenagers and what's happening in reality, which is these baby boomers,

00:36:15

their children are all, wait, no, that's not right. All these parents from World War II

00:36:20

are having children who are rebelling and everyone wants something different now.

00:36:24

And it's just kind of shocking. It's a great movie. It's incredible. And it's a role that earns her Best Supporting Actress nomination at fucking 16 years old.

00:36:36

In her 20s, she's cast in the musical adaptation of West Side Story, another incredible movie, and the movie Gypsy.

00:36:44

And by the time she's 25, she's one of the youngest people to have been nominated for three Oscars.

00:36:49

She's one of the fucking biggest stars of her time. The public had watched her grow up through the movies.

00:36:55

So they're, of course, like, you know, emotionally attached to her and they're completely enamored by her.

00:37:00

She has these big, huge, soulful, dark brown eyes. And but also like this girl next door charm.

00:37:06

So she's just, you know, she's Americana. Yeah. And everyone loves her. Yeah. In 1956, on her 18th birthday, the studio heads from 20th Century Fox set her up with 26 year old Robert Wagner.

00:37:22

He's known to his friends as RJ. That's what everyone calls him. And the studio heads were thinking their relationship would get great publicity for Wagner's up-and-coming acting career.

00:37:33

They set people up all the time. Yeah. That was a thing. And just another, I'm going to bookmark this for the quarantine watch.

00:37:40

If you've never watched Heart to Heart and you ever wondered what the early 80s was like in Los Angeles, I'm telling you, the show Heart to Heart, H-A-R-T to H-A-R-T is some cheesy, amazing.

00:37:54

It's a rich husband and wife that solve crimes for reasons you cannot figure out.

00:37:59

Like they're constantly embroiled in crime and murder, even though they're rich and they live in like Beverly Hills or something.

00:38:07

And it's the background, the outfits, the hair. It's so good. It's it's on par with Columbo.

00:38:13

And I think it's easier to get a hold of. Yeah. And Robert Wagner is the main character.

00:38:17

We've been watching Columbo ever since you fucking reminded me. And it's it's just as good as you.

00:38:22

It's exactly what you said it is. It's so beautiful. It's unbelievable. So they fall fucking like madly in love with each other in a way that I think only happened in the 50s.

00:38:33

You know, and with beautiful actors. Like, of course, you fell madly in love with each other.

00:38:38

They get married a year later, 1957, and they become Hollywood's like royal couple.

00:38:43

Everyone's obsessed with them. The media scrutiny, of course, puts a strain on their marriage.

00:38:48

And five after five years of, you know, a rocky, I'm sure alcohol fueled relationship, they divorce after rumors of an alleged affair between Natalie Wood and her co-star at the time, Warren Beatty.

00:39:02

And they were in Splendor in the Grass together, which is another great movie to watch.

00:39:06

Yeah. Yeah. So there's rumors of that and everyone. And so they divorce. But it's rumored that the real reason they split is that Natalie Wood actually walked in on Robert Wagner having an intimate moment with another man.

00:39:21

Oh, that's the rumor. OK. And in a lawsuit she files against him at the time, she charges him with mental cruelties.

00:39:29

Oh. So Suzanne Finstead wrote a 2001 biography about Natalie Wood and she alleges that she was that Natalie and her sister confirmed Natalie Wood's sister Lana confirms this that she was raped by a powerful actor when she was just 16 years old at the Chateau Marmont.

00:39:45

she had gone in to like interview with an actor about a position and came out fucking just in tears

00:39:52

and you know having you know having just been sexually assaulted by and and there they say

00:39:58

who it is who the rumored person is i'm not going to fucking say it obviously but you can find it

00:40:03

online you know it just to say sidebar you but it is like the other day the news report came out

00:40:10

that harvey weinstein not only got sent actually got sent to jail which i think a lot of people in

00:40:14

Los Angeles kind of can't believe. But then on top of that, now he has coronavirus because he's in

00:40:20

jail. And he really is this symbol. And hopefully it's like the end of not just an era, but a

00:40:28

tradition in Hollywood, where people with power, they just break other people because they can and

00:40:35

no one does anything because no one else wants to get in their way. But Lana, you know, Wood,

00:40:41

the sister says that to a New York Times reporter that after the rape, their mother instructed Natalie to keep it a secret in order to protect her career, of course.

00:40:50

And so her mother was kind of the stage mom who was like anything for your career.

00:40:55

Suck it up kind of a person. Yeah. And also at 16 years old, while she was filming Rebel Without a Cause, she had an affair with the movie's 41 year old director, Nicholas Ray.

00:41:06

So that's fucking bananas on its own, right? You know? Yeah. Yes. So during her first marriage to Robert Wagner, Natalie Wood is insecure.

00:41:16

She's 18. She's suspicious of everyone. She has terrible insomnia and can't figure out why she's so unhappy.

00:41:24

She starts taking sleeping pills. And then she finally starts going to a psychiatrist and spends every lunch hour for the next eight years talking with the psychiatrist.

00:41:33

She turns down roles so she can be close to him and talk to him. It's pretty amazing.

00:41:39

Every lunch hour every day? Yeah, but you know, movie lunch hour. Oh, yeah, yeah. Probably 15 minutes and three every three

00:41:46

days. So after that, she has a brief relationship with Warren Beatty. He leaves her to date a

00:41:52

coat check girl is the rumor She and so Natalie attempts suicide by swallowing a bunch of pills She goes to Cedars and they save her in time Her biographer writes that Natalie was always on the precipice of a crisis and her greatest fear

00:42:08

And there's a video of her saying this to interviewers. Her greatest fear is dark water and that she would drown in dark water.

00:42:16

It's her biggest fear. After their divorce, both Natalie and RJ, Robert Wagner, marry other people.

00:42:23

They have children. They both move on with their lives for nine fucking years or like later days to each other.

00:42:30

But Natalie Wood ends up leaving her second husband in 1971, not long after the birth of her daughter, Natasha.

00:42:38

And within three months of her second divorce, RJ and Natalie are back together and even more in love than ever.

00:42:45

Apparently, her sister Lana does say when she was like, what the fuck to Natalie?

00:42:49

She was like, you know, something like the devil, you know, is better than the devil you don't know or one of those along those lines.

00:42:56

Yeah. But it does seem like they were super fucking in love with each other and obsessed.

00:43:00

Yeah. So Natalie's fear of water, as I said, it's been famously documented as a child.

00:43:06

Natalie's mom takes her to a fortune teller and the fortune teller is like, she'll be a great beauty, but she should also beware of dark water.

00:43:14

No. So from then on. Really? I know, dude. Yeah. fortune teller. Can you not scare a four-year-old, please? Or whatever.

00:43:21

But also, what fortune teller? Because she knew what she was talking about. So there's all these examples of her filming movies where she has to get in the water and

00:43:30

she's freaked out and she's terrified of it. Okay. Will you believe me, for fuck's sake?

00:43:35

Everyone. You all believe me. I don't have to give you details. Okay. Despite her fear of water,

00:43:42

Natalie Wood enjoys boating and sailing frequently. I think Catalina at the time, you know, that little island 22 miles away from us in L.A.

00:43:50

here is like where the fucking rich and famous go to like, you know, yacht and hang out with

00:43:56

a yacht and boat. Yeah. And like, you know, hang out without being without the plebs bugging them.

00:44:03

She even remarries RJ on a yacht and they go on a cruise to Catalina for their second

00:44:09

honeymoon. in 1975 a couple years later they buy their own yacht it's called the Challenger but they

00:44:16

rename it Splendor even though it's considered bad luck to rename a boat which I didn't know

00:44:21

I didn't either foreshadowing all the rich people that listen are like I knew yeah

00:44:28

because of your yachty yacht because you're in your yacht bullshit you and your yacht with a helicopter pad

00:44:34

on it and shit fuck off they So they hire this dude to help them bring the boat from where they bought it, Florida, to California.

00:44:45

And they end up hiring him to be their captain. He's this lean, kind of hot dude, but there's no, you know, he's just a friend of theirs.

00:44:52

And he becomes a really good friend of theirs. And they like having him on board.

00:44:58

And they kind of, it's almost like, you know, their friend on board with them. So that's good.

00:45:03

And his name is Dennis Davern. So by 1981, now 43-year-old Natalie Wood, her career is waning.

00:45:12

Her parts are, of course, going to younger actresses. And meanwhile, you know, RJ is becoming that hot, grizzled, detective, cigarette-smoking-looking guy.

00:45:21

And he is getting a bunch of television shows and becomes a television star with his hit Heart to Heart.

00:45:28

Karen loves. Which I genuinely do love. But I have to say again, that's that thing where Natalie Wood is easily one of the most beautiful Hollywood actresses there has ever been.

00:45:39

And her expiration date was, what are you saying? She's in her early, late 30s? Yeah, 43.

00:45:47

She's 43. Early 40. So young. Yeah. I mean, 43 is an old. And then meanwhile, it's just like dudes get older and somehow the rules are, yeah, that's great.

00:45:57

The more grizzled you are, the better it is. It's so fun. Yeah, exactly. So everything is fair and nothing is wrong.

00:46:05

Yeah. Breaking news. Hollywood sucks. It's unfair. You won't believe it. It's really superficial.

00:46:11

Anyway, and their marriage gets a little rocky and Natalie's worried that RJ is drinking too much.

00:46:16

You know, he's getting famous and there's flirtations on set with the lead actress from Heart to Heart, whose name you probably know.

00:46:24

Thank you. Thank you. I knew you'd know that. I knew the answer. I knew the answer.

00:46:29

Karen, good girl. Where are your dogs and why aren't they barking? Oh, they're locked way the fuck out of here because they would be barking any if a person walked by it would be all dogs.

00:46:40

So I fed them and then gave them both bully sticks and shut through about three doors so they can't come in.

00:46:47

But I'll let him in at the end. Yes, of course. So her career is waning, but she does get a movie opposite Oscar winner Christopher Walken, who God damn it, he was a snack when he was young.

00:47:00

Have you seen him? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. And a dancer. A dancer and a snack and a half.

00:47:07

Yeah, and just a cool guy, always. Yeah, cool guy. And her last picture is with him called Brainstorm.

00:47:14

He had just filmed. He had got an Oscar for Deer Hunter, which is another movie to put on your list.

00:47:21

Oh, I would put that down near the bottom, though. Deer Hunter. Okay. Not a good time.

00:47:25

I actually haven't seen it. I was like, I bet it's good. it's so heavy well i mean it's about it's about vietnam veterans so it's as about as heavy as a

00:47:36

movie can be okay take it off your list right now we'll wait or just like wait yeah wait till

00:47:43

things stabilize a little bit more definitely i really want to watch 12 monkeys and vince is like

00:47:48

why would you want to do that right now because it's a great fucking movie i was thinking of this

00:47:54

Sorry, while you were kind of going through her movies, there's one that I've seen and it's not as well known.

00:48:00

But I went through a very strong Steve McQueen phase. And there's a movie called Love with the Proper Stranger.

00:48:06

Love with a proper stranger. Love with the proper stranger. It's from 1963. I said yes so confidently.

00:48:14

For sure. But if you, I would flip Dear Hunter and Love with a Proper Stranger. Because the vibe of that movie is so lovely.

00:48:22

And it's like two people that are like not, trying not to fall in love. And then they have a one night stand.

00:48:28

It's really good. And they're such good actors that it's believable and shit. It almost seems like, I feel like if you're an actor and you're having a love scene with someone else, you kind of have to have those vibes with them or it's going to be a terrible scene.

00:48:45

Right. I think that's why actors are the way they are, where they're kind of fake, but they actually kind of mean it because they're just like, yeah, life, experience it all.

00:48:57

and then it's all kind of like rock and roll. And yeah, that's... I'm like, sit in your fucking closet

00:49:03

and hide from everything with a white claw. That's my acting skills in a nutshell.

00:49:10

I'm like, fall in love with Steve McQueen. That'll solve it. That'll do it. Definitely.

00:49:16

Okay. So RJ visits the set of Brainstorm and notices the chemistry between Natalie and Walken

00:49:23

and is like... He writes in his memoir, that at the least they were having an emotional affair.

00:49:30

Like there was a fucking connection between the two of them. Yeah. At least emotional.

00:49:35

But on Thanksgiving weekend, 1981, Natalie invites Christopher Walken to join her and RJ on the Splendor to go to Catalina.

00:49:45

Which is like, that sounds like the most awkward fucking trip I've ever heard. Yeah.

00:49:50

I wonder what that was about. Yeah. Christopher Walken should have said he had like hemorrhoids or something and like not gone.

00:49:56

Yeah. He was like, oh, my old tap bunions are getting me. I have to tap dance too much.

00:50:03

I need to put my feet up. Yeah, sorry. So the yacht's captain, Davern, the dude that they're friends with,

00:50:09

immediately doesn't like Walken as soon as he gets on the boat because Natalie Wood and him and Christopher Walken

00:50:16

are openly flirting on the boat already. So the group of four of them, Natalie Wood, Christopher Walken,

00:50:22

Wagner and the Captain Davern. They leave around noon on Friday and Davern says that he could tell Wagner was jealous of all

00:50:32

the attention Wood was giving Walken and it's a gray, cold day. The sea is rough. This is foreshadowing.

00:50:43

I'm really good at it. So Christopher Walken gets seasick on the way over there.

00:50:48

He's in his stateroom. He probably just was uncomfortable, if I'm guessing correctly.

00:50:52

and the yacht gets to the harbor in Catalina and there's no moorings available, which I'm guessing is just like the dock on the beach where you can moor your boat.

00:51:05

Is that right? I think it means like a parking space in the harbor. That's my guess.

00:51:11

Also, knowing nothing about yachts or boats. I think we're right. I think that means you just like jump on and off when you want to go into town.

00:51:17

But so there isn't one of those. So they have to like put their anchor down a little out of the dock, which means they have to take a dinghy if they want to go to land.

00:51:27

So embarrassing. Right? Yeah. I mean, do they know who these people are? De classe.

00:51:33

That's what they're screaming in the dinghy as they have to row across. Do you know who I am?

00:51:38

Do you know who we are? It's me from heart to heart. So it's a quarter of a mile off of Avalon, which is the main small town in Catalina.

00:51:46

and around 5 p.m. that evening, they all go into town. Davern stays behind to make dinner.

00:51:53

They have beers at the restaurant and then they go back on board. And essentially, RJ and Natalie start fighting on board that Friday night

00:52:02

because RJ wants to move the boat because of the rough sea conditions because they're so far out in the water.

00:52:10

Natalie wants to spend the night. She wants to go on shore and stay at a fucking hotel because she's terrified of water.

00:52:16

And it's all choppy and shit. And he refuses, but he lets her leave with the Captain Dennis.

00:52:23

And they go spend the night at a hotel together, but nothing happens. It's like, it's very innocent.

00:52:29

But she confides in this guy, Dennis, a lot. And one of the things she says that night is that she's thinking of divorcing him.

00:52:36

Oh. Yeah. And so, but the next morning, she was like planning on taking a helicopter back or a boat back to town, like to Los Angeles.

00:52:46

But the next morning, she reconsiders and goes back to the boat and they smooth things over.

00:52:51

So it's Saturday now. OK. So in the afternoon that Saturday, they all go to Ismus Cove, which is an isolated spot on the northern end of the island.

00:53:02

It's a really small community that caters to yachtsmen, which means rich people.

00:53:08

Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken go alone on the little dinghy to a restaurant.

00:53:13

And they're sitting there having drinks and everyone saying they're laughing and having the best time when Robert Wagner shows up and he gets pissed that they're having so much fun.

00:53:23

He's really jealous of the two of them, allegedly. And they go to the only restaurant on the Cove to have dinner.

00:53:30

And some of the restaurant staff and other diners there said that everyone was drinking.

00:53:35

They were drinking very heavily and there was volatile behavior on Natalie Wood's part.

00:53:40

it seems like she got really drunk and mad at Robert Wagner. Supposedly she throws a glass at the wall at some point,

00:53:49

and then he has to hide her behind his coat, walking her out because she's stumbling so much.

00:53:54

And of course everyone knows who they are They fucking royalty Sure yeah And when they leave the restaurant the restaurant manager calls up the harbormaster And he like EO keep a fucking eye on these drunkies please

00:54:08

Because that's how bad it is. You know, it's like there's something going on here.

00:54:12

So they go back to the Splendor at about 10 p.m. And they open another bottle of wine.

00:54:18

And this is according to Dennis. and Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken, they're all hanging out in the stateroom

00:54:25

and they're openly flirting and acting like no one else is in the room. And so RJ grabs a bottle of wine

00:54:33

and smashes it on the table in front of them and says to Christopher Walken, Jesus Christ, what are you trying to do?

00:54:39

Fuck my wife? That's a fucking quote from Dennis. Wow. That he says that. Okay. So after that, Christopher Walken,

00:54:47

that's so crazy, retreats to his room. And then Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner start fighting in their room.

00:54:54

And Dennis Deverne says that he stayed on the bridge and he can hear them fighting.

00:54:58

And it's like one of the worst fights he's ever heard between them. He says that stuff was getting thrown around and everyone on the boat could hear it.

00:55:07

And then he says the next thing he hears is the ropes being the ropes from the dinghy being tugged on and the dinghy being untied.

00:55:15

And then it's silence. And then it's about 1130 p.m. And everyone's shit faced at this point, you know, they drink so much alcohol.

00:55:25

And then he's at 1130, a sweatied and tousled Robert Wagner comes back up to the bridge and tells Dennis that Natalie is missing and the dinghy is gone.

00:55:38

But acts casual about it and is like, she must have we got in a fight. She must have wanted to go back to the land and took off on her own in this dinghy.

00:55:45

But it's this woman who's afraid of water and didn't even know how to operate the dinghy.

00:55:49

Yeah. So Dennis, of course, is like, why don't we turn the searchlight on and try to look for her?

00:55:53

But RJ insists that they not worry about her at the moment. They open a bottle of scotch.

00:55:59

He refuses to call for help. And then more than an hour passes. And it's 1.30 a.m. when they finally call for help after two hours of her being missing.

00:56:10

and RJ asked the people to look around town first because he apparently thought she had gone back to

00:56:16

land and the Coast Guard is called at 3.30 a.m. and the search goes into high gear. So around 8 a.m.

00:56:22

that morning on November 26th, someone spots something bobbing on top of the water about a

00:56:28

mile off of Blue Cavern Point, which is a couple miles from Ithmus Cove, so close by where the boat

00:56:36

was it's Natalie Wood's body floating face down. The only thing she was wearing when she left the boat was a cotton nightgown, a red down

00:56:47

jacket and blue wool socks. So no matter how she got on or, you know, in or out of the water, she's not wearing

00:56:55

shoes, but she's wearing her jacket and socks. It doesn't seem like something someone would put on to just get in a dinghy and leave.

00:57:02

Well, not a sober person, but right. You know, who knows? Who knows? Yeah. And so but they find the the dinghy and its ignition key is switched off.

00:57:14

The gear shift is in neutral and the oars are up in a locked position, which I feel like that to me is the most telling thing, because if someone were dry, we're trying to get shore and they were drunk and shit, they wouldn't leave it in that position.

00:57:28

And like in a you know, they wouldn't lock the oars and dive into the fucking water.

00:57:32

that just wouldn't happen. I mean, if she didn't know how to work it anyway, because first of all, I thought

00:57:39

a dinghy, I didn't realize a dinghy had a motor. I thought it was just the boat with the oars.

00:57:43

So maybe, like, I don't know. I think it's a rich person's dinghy. Okay. That makes sense.

00:57:52

So it's like... Rich person's dinghy is the name of this episode. But it's that thing of when you're super drunk

00:57:57

and you're in a fight with someone where you're like, I will storm off this boat.

00:58:00

where if they're drunk enough to be fighting in public in a restaurant on Catalina Island,

00:58:06

which is the smallest place on the planet, then clearly all of them were out of their normal thinking mode.

00:58:15

So then it is like, fuck you, I am going to leave and go back or whatever. And he's like, fuck you, do it.

00:58:22

And don't worry about her. Yeah, and let's not call the police because she's just drunk

00:58:26

and maybe she'll just end up somewhere and learn her lesson. I mean, because I have to say, I've always heard this story. And it's basically the story, or the way people have always talked about it is like, you know, Robert Wagner killed Natalie Wood, and everyone knows it. And it's like, but I really, I look for that. And maybe it's because I love heart to heart. But I'm looking for that. What is the through line where you could be seeing it in a different way where it's like, actually just people making terrible decisions in a boat, which is it's easy to go wrong.

00:58:59

I think that makes sense. And I feel like if he had killed her, the dinghy wouldn't be involved at all.

00:59:06

He would have just thrown her fucking overboard. You know what I mean? Like, how does the dinghy come into play?

00:59:11

Yeah. Did he put her on it and be like, fuck you, you need to chill out? Not thinking she would die.

00:59:16

But let me read you more because there's other little clues that are weird. OK. So the news of Natalie Wood's death spreads across the globe.

00:59:24

People fucking like this is, you know, one of the biggest starts. It's like an Angelina Jolie type of thing that she died in this manner with Brad Pitt on board.

00:59:33

Like, that's the equivalent of it. It's just insane. Right. And Dennis Davern, the captain, later says that Wagner immediately comes up with a story of the night's events and tells him and Christopher Walkins to stick to this story.

00:59:48

He says he regrets going along with it at a time. But at the time, he and for a while longer, this is the story he sticks to.

00:59:54

they all tell the detective that they thought Natalie took the dinghy to shore even though Dennis Davern knew that Natalie was deathly afraid of water and didn know how to pilot the small rubber boat herself

01:00:07

There's no mention of the fight. The men say that the shattered wine bottle is from the waves.

01:00:14

And soon after the discovery of the body, RJ and Christopher Walken leave the island in a helicopter and leave Davern to identify the body on Catalina.

01:00:24

Oh, no. Yeah. I know, right? But I wonder if some kind of lawyer didn't step in and start telling everybody what to do behind the scenes.

01:00:32

Totally. Or someone was like, you don't want to see her the way she is. It does make sense to have someone, you know, a step outside of her immediate loved ones identify a body.

01:00:45

also this is basically circling back to like the casting couch thing and the the thing i was

01:00:50

talking about earlier where this is the kind of thing and i think it surprises people but it's

01:00:56

like you know these are two these are three major stars so the financial impact on the studios that

01:01:03

they work for or the tv shows or whatever there are people it's just like michael clayton the

01:01:08

fixer you know what i mean there are people who yeah when you're rich enough come in and take care

01:01:14

things for you in a way that high powered that no one gets in right in real life and no one would

01:01:21

ever get that kind of help no one would ever and it is it's it's like borderline it's like the

01:01:27

mafia you know what i mean where it's just like they're protecting their investment they're

01:01:30

protecting this these parts of the studio it's just like oh yeah i can i can absolutely imagine

01:01:36

there's somebody that no one's ever known the name of that that you know sailed out on a boat

01:01:41

and was like, you do this, you go here, you shut your mouth. And it's easy to say it was Robert Wagner because he's, you know, he's the husband.

01:01:48

It's the husband always did it. Right. But actually, I would, I would, it's easy to imagine for me to imagine some kind of like

01:01:56

studio head that was like sending a guy out and basically getting a fixer. To deal with it.

01:02:02

And Robert Wagner has been an actor since he was young. He's used to being told what to do by these higher power.

01:02:07

Oh, yeah. So the autopsy shows that Wood actually has multiple bruises on her arms and an abrasion on her left cheek.

01:02:15

And the coroner explains her bruises as, quote, superficial and, quote, probably sustained at the time of drowning.

01:02:22

And the coroner concludes that Natalie had fallen into the water while trying to board the dinghy.

01:02:27

But there are also fingernail scratches found on the dinghy's side as if she was trying to hoist herself up from the water.

01:02:35

so maybe she was trying to be like fuck you i'm out of here and the dinghy got you know

01:02:41

untied and she floated along who know i mean it's just sounds kind of far-fetched but

01:02:46

oh i mean except for if they're if they're oh now a cop car just went by wait what a cop car just went by in front of my house yeah really george has a knife and she's in

01:03:00

a street um no i was just thinking like being so drunk being as drunk as they were um as you told

01:03:09

me they were yeah um yeah and then you're like i'm leaving this yacht and getting on this dinghy

01:03:14

like can you imagine just right now getting onto a dinghy how scary that would be oh and weird my

01:03:19

god and if you're all drunk and enraged i i don't know a boating accident i don't know it's easy to

01:03:25

picture if you're shit-faced. It's not far-fetched. No. It's not a far-fetched thing for someone who is drunk and also, by

01:03:33

the way, on motion sickness medication and painkillers found in her system. She had a...

01:03:41

Her... What's it called? BMI was 0.14, which is twice the legal limit. And I'm sure she's a tiny...

01:03:49

Sorry. BMI is body mass index. Thank you. You know what I meant? Yes. You know what I meant was her alcohol level was 0.14.

01:04:02

So she's probably a teeny tiny person. Yes. Right. And like she's got all of this in her in her system.

01:04:10

She's almost twice the legal limit. Yeah. I feel like I feel like not hearing a splash is a like no.

01:04:17

And I know everyone on the boat lied initially, but like people on different boats nearby would have heard a splash.

01:04:23

I don't know. Who knows? I mean, yeah, I don't know either. Yeah. Yeah. So after a two-week investigation, the police rule her death an accident.

01:04:36

And eventually, Dennis DeVern leaves California for the East Coast. And in the 90s, he starts drunk dialing Lana Wood, Natalie Wood's younger sister, being like, dude, I got to tell you the fucking truth.

01:04:49

Uh-oh. Like what I told. He made me tell that story. And there's all this crazy shit about like, you know, after the fact he lived with Robert Wagner and like Robert Wagner got in parts on TV and, you know, kind of seems like he was grooming him in a way.

01:05:03

And then Lana starts to believe it and believes, you know, he tells her about the explosive fight they had.

01:05:10

And Lana becomes one of RJ's harshest critics. And he she accuses him of pushing Natalie into the water.

01:05:19

So and she's a she's an actress as well. And people accuse her of exploiting Natalie's death for attention.

01:05:25

But she says she just wants the truth. And then for years, Robert Wagner tells people he thinks Natalie was trying to retie the dinghy when she slipped and hit her head and fell in the water.

01:05:35

That's like in his biography. That's his or his autobiography. That's his theory is that she was tightening the ropes and fell in.

01:05:45

Christopher Walken hasn't publicly spoken much on the events. He fucking won't talk about it.

01:05:50

but he does appear to believe that it was an accident. And in November 2011 Dennis Davern he had finally come forward at that point and publicly announces that he lied to detectives during the original investigation And he his confession gives the LAPD a reason to open the case

01:06:10

So this is when this all comes out, his whole story about what happened that night.

01:06:13

And sorry, everyone here. What year was it? Then when he finally came forward. Yeah.

01:06:18

2011. Oh, shoot. OK. Yeah. So everyone's like, you're trying to get money for, you know, for your to write a book about it.

01:06:26

And from the paparazzi, you're just trying to get money, blah, blah, blah. But either way, the case is reopened.

01:06:31

And during a six year investigation, the new detectives on the case review the autopsy and find that Natalie has head wounds that are troubling and may indicate that she was in a violent fight and was pushed or tossed into the water while unconscious.

01:06:45

and according to one detective she quote looks like the victim of an assault and they do the whole thing

01:06:52

they talk about the way the wounds were you know delivered is up and not down and so she didn't fall this way

01:07:00

she fell that way or whatever the fuck and they discover a key witness a woman named Marilyn

01:07:05

who was in a boat 80 feet away that night and she says that she and her boyfriend

01:07:09

heard a woman screaming for help around 11 p.m. they tried to call the harbormaster

01:07:15

It goes unanswered, but there's a party on a boat nearby. So they're like, oh, it just must be partying.

01:07:21

Oh, wow. I know. And in 2012, the autopsy report is amended to no longer classify Natalie Wood's death as an accident.

01:07:29

And her death certificate is changed to drowning and other undetermined factors.

01:07:35

So her death certificate is now not accidental drowning anymore. and in 2018 Robert Wagner is officially named a person of interest

01:07:44

in the case. They can't name him a suspect but he's a person of interest. Is that crazy?

01:07:49

Yeah. I mean of course he's a person of interest there's four people on the boat

01:07:54

but they're not naming Christopher Walken as a person of interest just Robert Wagner?

01:08:00

They changed I think the fact that they changed her death from accidental drowning

01:08:06

which means no one is a person of interest to drowning in other undetermined factors, meaning there has to be, you know, there should

01:08:15

be a person of interest if this is an accident. Right. And it's Christopher Walken isn't involved.

01:08:22

Yeah. I can't imagine. Yeah. Also, what a terrible situation for him. Like, what if he, I mean, he really did, like, was in love with her, had a huge crush on

01:08:35

her, was like, he was there because he was in love with her and thought, maybe I'm going

01:08:38

to win her over from her husband or whatever idea. And then he's there. Well, he was married at the time, too. But it's also like, maybe they were just friends

01:08:50

and he definitely heard them fighting that night. But what he wants is to be a huge fucking

01:08:54

actor. He wants to be an actor so he can never speak of this again. Right. You know, this will tarnish his entire reputation.

01:09:03

Right. Natalie Wood's death remains one of Hollywood's biggest mysteries. No one knows how she got

01:09:08

into the water. Police say they're not going to close the case and that the case is now

01:09:13

undeniably a, quote, suspicious death. Wow. And then her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner,

01:09:21

who we've talked about on the podcast before, and she was partially raised by her stepfather,

01:09:26

who was RJ. She believes solely that her mother's drowning was an accident. And she says the little

01:09:31

details don't really matter to her, quote, the result is the same. She died and she left when I

01:09:37

was 11 and my sister was 7 and we needed her. Oh no. And she said she was hilarious. She was always so funny. She would walk into our house and

01:09:49

everything would be better. If she walked into a room and it was sepia, it suddenly became bright colors.

01:09:56

And Natalie would be 82 years old and a grandmother if she were still alive today.

01:10:02

And that is a mysterious death of Natalie Wood. Heartbreaking. It's so sad. This woman, this poor woman who just wanted some kind of normalcy in her life, which there's a podcast called Fatal Voyage.

01:10:17

And the first season is about the mysterious death of Natalie Wood. And so her sister talks in it.

01:10:22

It goes really deep. And there's a lot of information there. So check that out if you want to know more.

01:10:28

That's very cool. Yeah, because I would love to know the detail. I mean, to really hear about what the details of the autopsy were and like the because there's it is so fascinating when coroners can go over stuff and and basically be like the way this wound, the direction of this indicates this.

01:10:48

Like when that kind of stuff gets like sussed out and in by coroners, I always find that to be the most fascinating because it is.

01:10:57

Yeah, it really does tell so much more. And yeah, who knows? I mean, what if Robert Wagner's, you know, theory is true that he was saying that the dinghy kept banging against the side of the boat.

01:11:10

And so a couple, you know, a couple of times in the past, he's had to go out and tighten it because she couldn't sleep with the banging noise.

01:11:16

Yeah. So what if that night after they got in a fight and he went back up to drink with Dennis, she went down to try and tighten it, which makes sense that she had no shoes on and just her coat and she fell in.

01:11:28

Yeah. And she was like in a bad mood because of all the fighting and all the drinking and she's still a little drunk and she was like, fuck everybody.

01:11:34

And I'm just going to go fix this. I mean, that's actually incredibly tragic. There's so many elements of tragedy to this.

01:11:42

But the idea that this whole time everybody thinks he killed her when actually it was just a terrible accident.

01:11:47

And it makes me think as well of like those times, so many parties I've been to where people get my friends get so drunk and then they're like, I drive home and you fight with them for hours to get the keys.

01:12:00

with their hand. And there's so many times we just go, fine, drive yourself home, you asshole.

01:12:05

Like I used to have my friend used to get who I loved, but he gets so drunk. And finally,

01:12:12

my ex would go out and just D he would just basically make it so his car wouldn't run.

01:12:18

So he's like, here, take the keys. And he would like, go take off the whatever caps or the,

01:12:23

you know what I mean? Unplug the battery or whatever, some kind of thing that he knew how

01:12:26

to do because he knows cars and then he just like he would just go pass out in his car but it's like

01:12:30

there is that point when people are drunk and you're in a fight and everything is bad you know

01:12:36

what i mean where you just go fine like get away from me oh yeah i've gotten in a fight with a

01:12:40

boyfriend at a bar i've been like i'm walking home and then like walked home in the middle of

01:12:44

fucking the lower hate in san francisco and like and then i've gone into dive bars like fuck him

01:12:51

I'm going to have a drink by myself in this diet. You know, it's just unsafe fucking things because you're not thinking clearly.

01:12:58

Yeah. And as the person that's like, it's like, he was just as drunk. Sounds like,

01:13:03

you know, from all those stories, it's like, he's, you know, it's tragic or he's third in the fucking water,

01:13:09

but who knows? I mean, it's interesting since we've all heard that theory. It's very interesting to hear kind of the details.

01:13:17

I mean, I never knew any of that other stuff. It's amazing. Yeah. Wow. Great job.

01:13:22

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01:14:42

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01:15:41

okay well it's my turn and so this week i'm going to do one i don't know if you've heard of this

01:15:48

the boxcar killer no no give it to me this is a hobo based true crime story okay yeah and uh

01:15:57

is this the one that you read the book about where he was going from city to city

01:16:01

that's the man on the train the best story and that yes if you haven't read the man on a train

01:16:08

and you're looking for quarantine entertainment, I know I've recommended it a hundred times,

01:16:13

but it is a beautifully written book. You haven't? I swear you'll love it. No, I'm going to do it.

01:16:19

I'm smelling my clothes. It's written by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James, who I believe listens to this show.

01:16:27

Yeah, because I recommended it and she said thank you, but maybe someone just told her.

01:16:32

Anyway. Amazing. I'm going to tell myself that she listens anyway. Yeah, that book's amazing.

01:16:36

No, this is a little bit different. Okay. It's really crazy. Okay. So it was suggested by Kim B.

01:16:43

She wrote into our Gmail. So thank you, Kim B., for suggesting this story. Our sources are the Spokane Spokesman Review, the East Bay Times, the Guardian, and always my one true love, Murderpedia.

01:16:56

Okay. And we're just going to talk about this really quick because this came up once before long ago.

01:17:01

The term hobo is not a problematic term. Right. The term hobo is not a reason for you to get upset. The term hobo comes from a time after the Civil War, when a lot of men who are out of work and looking for basically migrant farming jobs, looking to go anywhere.

01:17:20

So they would jump on the railroad and they would travel all around the country to get farming jobs anywhere that there were farming jobs based on what was growing and being farmed. And they would bring their own hoes with them.

01:17:32

So the nickname used to be Hoboy, H-O-E. And then as time passed, it got shortened down to hobo.

01:17:40

And that's what hobos call each other. So if you think it's problematic, you can call your local hobo and bring it up with them.

01:17:50

But there's also a modern term for hobo, which is train riders. So we can also use that terminology as well But we need to take the stigma off hobo because there not a problem with it As far as hobos are concerned So it starts in 1995

01:18:06

In December of 1995, 39-year-old train rider, we'll call him William Pettit Jr.,

01:18:12

he finds himself a spot to sleep in the boxcar on the train that he is riding illegally, of course.

01:18:19

That's how all of all of all of this is hobos and train riders, people that jump on to moving trains and hitch rides.

01:18:27

It's illegal. There are security guards that they're actually called by hobos and train riders.

01:18:31

They're called bulls. And security guards often look for them to kick them off. They're not supposed to be doing it.

01:18:37

It's very unsafe to do anyway. And then on top of that, there's a lot of danger with the other people that that are on the train.

01:18:46

So William Pettit Jr. found a boxcar. He found a spot to sleep. The train was passing through Northwest Oregon.

01:18:53

He's in a sleeping bag. He covers his head with an old baseball hat and he snuggles in.

01:18:58

It's really cold. He falls asleep. And sometime during the night, another train rider sneaks into that car and beats Pettit Jr. to death with a blunt object.

01:19:08

Oh, my God. The murderer then takes all of Pettit's belongings, including the clothes he's wearing, and leaves behind his nude body in the bloodied sleeping bag.

01:19:19

Oh, my God. Yeah. So when the train gets to the station in Millersburg, Oregon, one of the railroad security guards, the bull, who's working the train yard that night, he does the routine check of all the boxcars on the train.

01:19:32

And he finds William Pettit Jr.'s body and calls the police. So when the autopsy is conducted, it's deduced that Pettit was killed as the train passed through Salem, Oregon, which is roughly 20 miles north of where the train stopped.

01:19:47

And so Salem was where the authorities were contacted. So Diana Moffat is the prosecutor at the time in Salem, Oregon.

01:19:55

And the case, she gets the case. She knows the odds of solving a murder that had took place on a moving train and the murder of a transient.

01:20:04

the odds of being able to track that down and solve that case are very low. And so she didn't have a lot of hope.

01:20:12

But then just two days later, she learns that the body of train rider Michael Kleitz

01:20:17

has been found bludgeoned to death in a boxcar in a Portland rail yard. And the scene is very similar to William Pettit Jr.'s murder.

01:20:27

He'd been bludgeoned violently about the head and all his stuff had been stolen.

01:20:32

So Diana Moffitt calls Portland because obviously Portland's the big city in Oregon and she wants someone that's actually going to investigate this case and someone who knows what they're doing.

01:20:42

So she calls Detective Mike Quackenbush to help with the investigation. I'm going to have to say his name a bunch of times.

01:20:51

It's one of those things. It's an unfortunate name. It's goofy. But so is Kilgariff.

01:20:57

We respect you. We respect the job. So as Detective Mike Quackenbush begins to dig into these murders, he discovers that these two murders are not isolated incidents.

01:21:09

In fact, there are hundreds of transient murders on trains. And it's assumed that they just somehow got into violent fights with each other and wound up dead.

01:21:20

But all of these cases are neglected by the police because of the victims' quote-unquote high-risk transient lifestyle.

01:21:32

And the detective sees in these cases that he starts to find this secret police code written on many of them, NHI, which stands for No Humans Involved,

01:21:43

which is what they found the LAPD wrote on a lot of the grim sleepers victims. When the police decide that if you have a high-risk lifestyle, if you're a sex worker,

01:21:56

especially if you're a person of color or you're a transient, that's the nickname.

01:22:00

And it's disgusting. That's awful. Hey, everybody. How about you protect and serve?

01:22:06

And know that absolutely there's humans involved if it's a murder case anyway. So Mike Quackenbush sees this and he's like, you can't just kill people just because they're transients. This is unacceptable. And he's like digging in. So he learns all he can about hobos and train rider life. He checks out all the switching yards and he interviews the bulls, the railway workers and the writers themselves to get a feel for the culture and who the big players are in the community.

01:22:37

But among the most important pieces of information that he discovers is that there's a well-known gang that rides the rails and they're called the FTRA.

01:22:46

So the FTRA stands for Freight Train Riders of America, although there are those who would argue it originally stood for Fuck the Reagan Administration.

01:22:57

Amen, sister. And so my mom is a posthumously belongs to that train riders association.

01:23:07

Pat Kogar, Vice President. Love it. The FTRA was founded in the early 80s by a bunch of Vietnam veterans who'd come back from the war, found they couldn't fit back into quote unquote normal society.

01:23:19

And they wanted to live their own way by riding the rails, fending for themselves and traveling all across America.

01:23:27

And I watched this documentary and it was called Mugshot. It was it was like a docuseries that I'd never heard of before.

01:23:34

it might have been Canadian because it's like just familiar enough to be like, what's this?

01:23:40

I would have known this. But right. It was really good. And they had so much footage of people just

01:23:45

standing on train cars as it as they go through like this most beautiful scenery. Like I could

01:23:52

really see the appeal of doing this I mean I fascinated by transient lifestyle and how you cope and how you not cope but like how you thrive and how you survive and how you how that you know yeah why that life

01:24:08

is so appealing to certain people. It's fascinating. It really is. And like what it actually takes,

01:24:14

you know, there's all kinds of rules. You can't just get on any old train car. Yeah. You know,

01:24:20

there's it's obviously very territorial. There's lots of things to look out for.

01:24:24

Like it's, it's fascinating. You know, there was a, yeah. Now I can't remember if it was,

01:24:28

I think it was season two. Yeah. It was season two of baskets. And yes. Oh my God.

01:24:33

I was, I was just thinking about that and I couldn't remember what it was from, but it's from fucking baskets.

01:24:39

Chip baskets start season two by hopping the rails and trying to become a train rider,

01:24:44

a hobo. And oh my God, essentially ends up in jail. It's yeah. It was my favorite.

01:24:49

That's a great season, great show. Watch Basket. Hey, you can binge Basket. There's four seasons.

01:24:56

I find it to be very quality writing. It's a gorgeous show. Okay, so. Aaron Gilgarith.

01:25:04

So according to a longtime hobo named Jerry the Frog Fortin, and there's so many amazing, amazing names of these hobos who speak in this, in the mugshot,

01:25:17

and they speak, they play songs, you know, it's a whole culture. It's, it's fascinating.

01:25:22

Yeah. It almost reminds me a little like prison culture where it's like, here's what you have to do to get by. Yes, totally. Everyone knows what to do,

01:25:30

you know. And the driving force in this culture is like the freedom. It's like, it's like, you don't need to, like, you can do without having money. How can you get by? And

01:25:40

how can you all stick together and help each other? How do you live off the grid?

01:25:45

Yeah, exactly. So Jerry the Frog Fortin, who was named 1997 National Hobo Association's King of the Hobos. I mean, he's this guy's legit.

01:25:57

High up. He's high up. He's up there. He says that the vets who formed the FTRA were just, quote, a bunch of guys who wanted to ride together.

01:26:05

Now other people say And obviously Jerry clearly Is an expert and knows But there are other people who

01:26:12

Say that it was always a violent gang And some say it was always a violent gang Of white supremacists

01:26:19

Who banded together to steal from other hobos Either way It's now a network of criminals

01:26:25

Known for assaulting and even murdering Their fellow drifters So in many cases They will attack someone

01:26:33

Kill them, assume their identity and then commit, you know, fraud, like welfare fraud, stealing, you know, getting food stamps under other people's names, other forms of theft.

01:26:42

And the thing is, because they're living a transient lifestyle, they can just commit a crime, board a train, they're out of town, there's no record of the travel, there's no actual identification, it's very difficult to track.

01:26:55

Okay, so as Detective Quackenbush questions the trainwriters, he starts hearing about a very dangerous hobo who goes by the name of Sidetrack.

01:27:05

And he meets a hobo. He's actually able to meet a hobo who's able to describe what Sidetrack looks like.

01:27:14

And that hobo's name, if you will believe me, is Chooch Johnson. Amen! Chooch! Chooch!

01:27:22

Chooch Johnson! Chooch! Okay, so Quackenbush, basically, so the way he gets into this investigation is he finds out the train that Michael Kleit's body was found on, and then he follows the route of that train.

01:27:38

And he just visits every train, every rail yard that that train stopped at and all the encampments that surround those trail yards.

01:27:47

And basically, he traveled all across the Pacific Northwest showing these victims photos to anybody who would talk to them, would talk to him and who might know them.

01:27:57

So finally, on his way back, he's in Eugene, Oregon. He finds a rail rider who says he saw Clytes wander off in search for meth with another man who went by the name Sidetrack.

01:28:07

track. So while he's investigating this and on this kind of scavenger hunt all across the Pacific

01:28:15

Northwest following these train tracks, he gets calls from three different police officers, one

01:28:20

in Utah, one in Kansas, another one in Montana. They're all working on their own transient murder

01:28:25

cases, which took place in the past eight months involving the victim being bludgeoned to death.

01:28:32

Holy shit. So we have like a transient serial killer. exactly and in a way that if it wasn't you know like they're one-offs in these other cities right

01:28:43

but just by chance in oregon there were two in a row so they were like oh this isn't just

01:28:47

there's this isn't just like train rider justice or whatever it's like something's actually an

01:28:52

argument that you know yeah it can't be rationalized so quackenbush asks those policemen

01:28:58

have they heard of a man named sidetrack they have not but they have all heard of someone named

01:29:02

Robert Silvera. So now Quackenbush believes he's possibly looking for two people,

01:29:07

Sidetrack, and then this guy, Robert Silvera. So he chases both of them for another year

01:29:12

before he finally gets this really crucial break. It's an afternoon of Saturday, March 2nd, 1996.

01:29:22

And he gets a phone call from a security guard, a train yard security guard, a bull in Roseville,

01:29:28

California. That bull tells the detective he was running a routine check in the Roseville train yard

01:29:34

and came across a man with an outstanding warrant for a probation violation. And this man is 37-year-old

01:29:41

Robert Silvera. So Quackenbush travels down to the Placer City Jail in Roseville to meet Silvera

01:29:47

face-to-face. But he's nothing like the violent, intimidating gang member that Quackenbush has,

01:29:54

that people have been describing to him Instead this man calm polite soft But when Quackenbush asks Silvera if he goes by any other names when he rides the rails Silvera says yeah

01:30:05

they call me Sidetrack. So now he knows the two are actually one man. And then Silvera

01:30:12

starts spilling it. Okay, so he openly admits that he is a member of the FTRA and that he's

01:30:18

a heroin addict who stole from other hobos to get drug money, basically. But then he immediately confesses to the murders of William Pettit Jr. and Michael Kleitz.

01:30:30

And yeah, just immediately says it. And as he does, he seems relieved. And he tells Quackenbush that he just wants to get it all off his chest and that he's

01:30:39

quote, glad he got caught because he would have continued to kill. And then he immediately confesses to six more killings.

01:30:48

I wonder if he like wanted to be in prison, like one of those guys who just like, like wants to be in prison.

01:30:54

I mean, it seems to me because he clearly was a very bad heroin addict. And I bet you he was so strung out and like the way he was living was so crazy.

01:31:05

I mean, you know, it sounds like it sounds like he wasn't a psychopath or a sociopath.

01:31:10

Like he was doing he in his mind, he was justifying what he's doing to like get by.

01:31:15

But it really was affecting him. And the drugs weren't like making all that hideous, you know, guilt go away.

01:31:23

That's all. That's completely editorializing on my part. Conjecture, Your Honor.

01:31:28

Allegedly. So as Silvera spills his guts, he mentions to the police that he killed someone in Albany, California, which is in the East Bay.

01:31:37

This prompts the police to contact another officer who's named William Palmini, who's in Albany.

01:31:44

And he'd been investigating the murder of a homeless Vietnam that 15-year-old James McLean.

01:31:51

And that had taken place near train tracks in Albany in 1995. So the timeline that Silvera gives Palmini when Palmini interviews him matches up to this murder of James McLean.

01:32:05

And as Palmini continues to talk to Silvera and get stuff out of him, The soft-spoken man admits that in the last 14 years, he's killed dozens of people across 28 states.

01:32:20

Oh, my God. Yeah. So Robert Silvera is indicted for the murders of William Pettit Jr. and Michael Kleitz in March 1996 in Salem, Oregon.

01:32:30

And in January of 1998, he pleads guilty to both murders, avoiding trial and the potential for receiving the death penalty.

01:32:38

he's given two life sentences without the possibility of parole. And then in February

01:32:43

of 1998, Silvera is extradited to Kansas, where he pleads guilty to a third murder,

01:32:48

that of rail rider Charles Randall Boyd. And in Kansas, he gets a 25 year sentence.

01:32:54

And then in May of 1998, he's extradited to Florida, where he pleads guilty to the murder

01:33:00

of rail rider Willie Clark. Silvera continues to serve his life sentences in Oregon, where he will

01:33:05

remain for the rest of his life. Yeah. And so basically they've gotten him on the murders that they

01:33:13

investigated and that there were cops that were paying attention to and that were chasing down.

01:33:19

Amazing. But there's tons more that just no one would have ever known about if he didn't say it himself.

01:33:27

And that detective, Detective William Palmini from Albany, he actually partnered up with a writer

01:33:33

named Tanya Chalupa and they wrote a book called Murder on the Rails. And it's all about the details about the FTRA

01:33:43

and the other crimes that Silvera committed during all of his years riding the rails as a hobo

01:33:49

all across America. And that is the story of the boxcar killer. Fuck, dude. Yeah.

01:33:57

Isn't that nuts? That's such a world that you can't even fathom from your home. You know, you're sitting in your home and that this is what life is and it's just unfathomable.

01:34:09

And then someone going around on top of all of it, fucking killing people. And they wouldn't have known if he hadn't confessed, you know.

01:34:16

Right. It would have all been unsolved if he hadn't confessed. Right. Well, and, you know, I think that it's the idea of like, when you think about like hobos, it's so positive and up and like, oh, they like to do that.

01:34:30

They're happy to be where they are, which is what is a part of it, I think, is like it's the choice to be away from normal society and being like, I'm I'm going away from that and doing this.

01:34:41

But yeah, that's this is the this is the dark side of that. This is the, you know, when you when you go off the grid, you you don't it's not the you know, you don't belong to this fraternity of other, you know.

01:34:55

There's a whole faction of people off the grid who are doing so, who don't want to follow any of society's rules that are put in place to keep you safe.

01:35:04

And being strung out on drugs makes you do things you ordinarily would never do.

01:35:08

And this is almost like the most extreme version of that, where it's like you just have to get that next fix.

01:35:14

So you'll just steal whatever from whoever and you kind of rationalize it. Awful.

01:35:19

Crazy. Good job. Thank you. Oh, thanks. let's do some fucking hurrays. I think we all need them right now, right?

01:35:28

Yeah. Send us your fucking hurrays of people or you doing positive things in the world.

01:35:34

It's really helpful. All right. You want to start? Sure. Let's see. First one here is from 2am talker. And they said,

01:35:43

my fucking hurray is that I just got my first ever article accepted by a national newspaper

01:35:48

here in New Zealand. I'm a supermarket worker. And I wrote the article about the effect of

01:35:53

of bulk and panic buying as seen through the eyes of a checkout operator. Oh my gosh.

01:36:00

amazing. That is the cool. That's so amazing. You know what? That's a really important point.

01:36:05

Like this is a very stressful time and this is a very crazy time, but it's also something that

01:36:09

no one's ever gone through before. If you even have the slightest interest in writing,

01:36:14

you should absolutely be keeping a journal, be keeping a diary, write every single day,

01:36:19

write all your feelings, write what happens, what you see. It's you should absolutely be doing it.

01:36:25

I feel like there's so many people that I say to them, I want to fucking hear you. I want to read

01:36:28

memoir. It's those kinds of people where you're like, tell me everything. What is your fucking

01:36:33

life like? Yes. That's incredible. But especially people who are working in grocery stores,

01:36:37

they are really... My friend Jason, hi Jason, who listens to everything we do. Hi Jason.

01:36:43

He is on the front lines. He works in a grocery store in Portland. And he is... Incredible.

01:36:48

He is... He's just like, I've never... He's like, I just wanted to work in a grocery store. I never

01:36:53

thought I was going to be like an emergency personnel. And he's like, but it's actually

01:36:58

fine because people are, he's like, first of all, if you are old or know people who are

01:37:04

old, almost every grocery store has Instacart. And you should get old people to learn how to use

01:37:10

Instacart and have their groceries delivered. Almost every grocery store has that.

01:37:15

Jim and Marty. Jim, goddammit. Stay home and let them deliver it to you. Goddammit.

01:37:20

Yeah. That's amazing. I have a similar one. This is from AllieMac30 from Instagram. My

01:37:26

fucking hooray is my dad. He's not in healthcare, but works in a grocery store and to be honest,

01:37:32

is no spring chicken. But he's been taking every opportunity he has to work and restock shelves as

01:37:37

fast as possible for those that need supplies during the shutdowns. Our healthcare workers

01:37:42

definitely deserve a ton of appreciation and applause, but so do those who are working in

01:37:45

essential areas to keep people cared for during the pandemic. That's exactly right. I walked into

01:37:51

the grocery store this morning. I hadn't been for two weeks and I needed to get some stuff.

01:37:56

And right as I walked in, somebody got on the loudspeaker and was like, we just like to thank all of our hardworking employees.

01:38:03

And like the manager or whatever made a little speech. And then everybody stopped and clapped in the store.

01:38:09

And I went, I went, just because I got into it. And the lady behind the deli counter started laughing so hard.

01:38:17

I was just like, this is all this is what people need. People need to understand that other people get what they're sacrificing.

01:38:23

we need to I need to cheer for the people on the front lines the health care the fucking doctors

01:38:30

the nurses the you know administration and we need we need to celebrate them right now because

01:38:35

it's so terrifying hi uh hey y'all today day 10 of self-isolation quarantine I got a phone call

01:38:41

that I was accepted into medical school I was literally laying in bed when I got it and it's

01:38:47

the best call I've ever received in my life sorry family this was my second round applying

01:38:52

the fourth school I'd interviewed at, initially my fourth wait list, and finally my first acceptance.

01:38:59

I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 12 years old and it's finally happening for me.

01:39:03

Hope y'all are having a good day, Dorothy. Congratulations, Dorothy. Hurry up. Dorothy congratulations That incredible This is from Nikki does stuff My fucking hooray I work in an animal shelter and pre and during if we being honest we were placing animals into foster homes

01:39:24

We now officially have to close our doors to the public for now, but we managed to get over 325 out of our shelter this past week.

01:39:33

Most of those having been in the past three days. days ssdgm and rescue animals okay wow and it's true you guys they're closing shelters but these

01:39:44

animals are still coming in this isn't stopping if you've ever thought about adopting a cat a

01:39:50

kitten or dogs or whatever the fuck now is an amazing time to do it even if she's in a foster

01:39:55

during the quarantine it's badly needed right now yes for sure um oh this is good uh this starts

01:40:04

Huge fucking hooray. I'm a FedEx driver, and with businesses closing, we are running out of places to wash our hands and use the toilet.

01:40:12

Residents in my area have been renting portable toilets for us drivers because they know our predicament and how insanely busy we are currently.

01:40:22

P.S. I've only peed my pants once in the last three years. And that's from Alex.

01:40:27

That's incredible. People are getting together to rent porta potties for drivers.

01:40:32

we have a chance right now to be humanitarian yes that's right are we going to take it or are we going to be

01:40:41

selfish pieces of shit who buy all the bread and Purell and like you can decide which way you want to be

01:40:48

watch your life like it's a movie and figure out what you want this part to look like

01:40:55

because you absolutely are in charge of it and I tell you what you get out there and you give of yourself

01:41:01

and you'd give for other people an amazing thing that comes back to you. Wait, I'm not drunk, am I?

01:41:07

There's also a lesson to be learned about being kind to yourself right now and also caretaking and you don't, you know, I'm in the mood of like,

01:41:16

what do I have to accomplish something during this or else I'm a loser. And it's like, you don't have to just take care of yourself.

01:41:22

And this one is about that. Is it my turn? Yep. Okay. This is from Merganini. This is from Merganini.

01:41:31

My fucking ray is that I'm super lactose intolerant and typically avoid dairy altogether.

01:41:37

But now that I'm not going anywhere and won't be around people for the next few weeks, I'm living my best lactose filled life.

01:41:44

God, I miss cheese. So take care of yourself, too. You can't help other people if you're a fucking mess.

01:41:52

You know what I mean? Yes. That's you can help people when you've got your shit together.

01:41:56

Right. you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. And for me, for me today, you know,

01:42:03

that what that involved cracking open one of those tubes of grand's biscuits and baking up biscuits.

01:42:10

And then I just ate a biscuit with some jelly on it and drank tea. And I was like,

01:42:16

and do you know, I got the idea because April Richardson came to visit. And when she lives in London now,

01:42:22

she lives in England now And when she went to fly back she flew back with like 12 tubes of biscuits because they don have them over there And I texted her I texted her a picture of the

01:42:33

baked biscuits. I'm like, this is your fault. And I'm like, why am I eating this? And she's

01:42:37

like, every day is Thanksgiving during a pandemic. It's true. It's true. All bets are off. All

01:42:44

bets are off. It's fucking I mean, put a put a drink a shake every now and then a green

01:42:50

shake. But otherwise, yeah, take your vitamins, take your vitamins, especially vitamin D.

01:42:57

Oh, yeah. I was thinking about how I'm going to come out of this pandemic with incredible skin

01:43:02

because I'm not going in the sun, but I'm going to be severely depressed because I'm not getting

01:43:06

enough sun. Yeah, you got to get that vitamin D. You can take it in pill form. Yeah, totally.

01:43:12

Echinacea, take all your things that build up immunity, please. Vitamin B, take some turmeric. And you know, it's all important.

01:43:20

How about some fish oil? Okay. Fish oil. What if we just start naming vitamins back and forth for the next full hour?

01:43:26

Why don't you like our podcast? What's the problem with it? Let's start a podcast where we just name vitamins.

01:43:32

Okay. Well, I'll go ahead and say vitamin A. Hello, pets and friends. As many of you know, there's a serious mask shortage in healthcare right now.

01:43:41

In fact, I am allowed one mask per day that I wear the entire shift. I'm getting bruises and scarves from wear from wearing wear masking that I don't that don't fit and just spending 16 hours in them.

01:43:53

So that's I don't know if you've seen that, but there's pictures of Italian doctors and they have really bad bruising and scars in a mask shape and the goggle shape because they don't fit, but they just have to put them on their face anyway.

01:44:05

OK, so this is my job and I'm happy to do it. And I love caring for people. Most of the people I'm caring for aren't even here for Corona, just sick.

01:44:12

Just as I was getting desperate enough to think about buying a pack on eBay of the properly fitting masks, my parents' church ended up finding 16,000 masks on pallets like off a truck from a grocery store that they were buying trying to get non-perishables to people without jobs.

01:44:32

But they found 16,000 masks and selected my hospital to be one of the receivers, so it might not be the biggest fucking hooray.

01:44:39

But you know what? Fucking hooray. Healthcare workers need light, encouragement, and community.

01:44:45

And this made me sob uncontrollably. We found and donated 16,000 masks. Thanks for all you do.

01:44:51

Stay sexy and wash your hands. Monica. Oh, my God. Yeah. People are being fucking heroic right now.

01:45:01

They're doing lots of good. Lots of good. Yeah. I'm so impressed and moved and touched.

01:45:08

And this is incredible. It's beautiful. This is unprecedented. The time we're at. Can I close it up now?

01:45:14

Yeah. This is unprecedented. It's an unprecedented time. It's a time we're going to tell our grandchildren about if they'll listen to us.

01:45:24

And yeah. Yeah. What do you think? It great I mean it yeah we just under just stay in reality stay in the here and now and know that everybody is scared We all together in distress and fear and unknowing That the thing that going to get us through it is that we all together

01:45:48

And there's people out there buying porta-potties for truck drivers because they understand and care.

01:45:54

There's people who really care, and there's more people who care than people who need to hoard shit

01:46:00

because they're not working their stuff out correctly. So remember that. And this isn't a time to ignore your depression or to ignore your issues.

01:46:13

Continue to talk on the phone with your therapist. You can still find one right now if you need to.

01:46:17

There's therapists. This isn't a time to pause that. No, not at all. I'm sure a lot of people who have eating disorders are going through some shit right now, too.

01:46:26

It's not a time to ignore that. So, you know, keep working on that. Be kind to yourself.

01:46:33

That's the whole idea. It's like, look, this is the one thing it's also helping with is perspective because all the things that we thought used to matter, they really don't.

01:46:42

What matters now is staying alive, staying healthy and listening to doctors and experts, people who know what they're talking about and treated treating this thing like the scary thing that it is and not pretending that it's not going to help anybody.

01:46:58

Keep other people healthy by staying home. A hundred percent. And we'll be here for you every every week.

01:47:04

All right. Well, then stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

01:47:11

Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill? Because this is our life backstage on the road.

01:47:18

It's loud, messy, real. And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving.

01:47:25

Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it.

01:47:32

That's why it holds up. Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. Power.

01:47:38

Yeah, you can tell. 2026 Nissan Rogue built for what really happens. For J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards.

01:47:50

Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms.

01:47:56

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Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye. Bye. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn.

01:48:28

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

215 - Three Small Hot Dogs

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